The Autobiography of Miss B
L. Penseur
April 1, 2002
My goddaughter, the original Bubbaloo ("Bubba" for short) was explaining to me the other day that she was planning on writing her autobiography.
"Good grief," I said to her, "you're only seven."
She gave me an impatient look. "I was Dorothy at Halloween," she said.
Those who don't spend time around children are often disconcerted by what they see as abrupt shifts in children's conversation. But the truth is that they are not "shifts," not, at least, from the point of view of those who make them. They are ways of approaching the same subject from another angle, of hyperlinking to a different spot in the same chain of reasoning. Some parents might want you to believe that their child's speech closely follows the style of rabbinical preaching, slowly shifting around a subject rather than approaching it directly, checking it out from all angles, toying around with it.
But I digress.
"You mean," I ask innocently, "Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz?"
Bubba gives me a look of scorn so fiery that a few millimeters of skin between my eyes is burnt to a crisp.
"Of course, Uncle L.," she says. "I had a pair of ruby slippers." The last two words are said in a shout, with a very free and full gesture.
"Good for you," I say weakly, rubbing at my forehead.
Bubba is sitting on my knees while I lie on the couch in the living room of her parents' home in Washington, D.C. She is sitting in what might be described as a lotus position, and now she cradles her chin in her hands and broods a bit. It is halftime in a Sunday football game, and we are taking a break from Bubba's exhorting her home team to "run fast," "hit them hard," and "get the ball!" As you can see, she grasps the game's essentials. The Redskins might try her out as offensive coordinator.
She ...
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