So meet my cousin Taylor. My first cousin, Shelli, is like my sister. Her daughter is Taylor who is like my niece. She is hysterical. She is six. Very smart. She is beautiful and has had a pretty traumatic childhood. Birth complications. Was on heart monitor for the first 8 months of her life. Has to wear hearing aides. It is a long, involved story. But basically a doctor and hospital that was negligent and literally told my cousin "your contractions aren't close enough. We have no rooms available. So go home and relax and come back later."
Anyway, I had a conversation with Taylor the other day... long and involved on two subjects. Both of them blew my mind. The first was something like this:
She was like, "okay, so... if someone (a stranger) tries to get me I'm just going to take off running." I tried to explain to her that, and she's very literal, "yes, do that. Unless you are with Mommy, Daddy, Jen-Jen..." And I had to list everyone in our family that if she is with, she doesn't run from, she runs with. "Unless you are with, for example, Jen-Jen and I tell you to run." "So I'm just gonna run to my home. I'll want to be in my home. And I'll play with Shiloh" (her beagle). I say "And call 911". To which she replies flippantly, "well yeah. Call 911. I know that. But what will they do - when they get here? How will I know it's them? They're strangers, do I let them in?" And we kept going from there. I was fumbling all over my words and taking long pauses. Trying to think of a way to explain this is pretty difficult. And somewhat sad b/c I was literally watching the loss of innocence, be it in a small dose, be chipped away.
The second subject was about what I do. I usually spend the night with them about once a week or two. We eat ice-cream and fried zuccini, definitely not at the same time. We stay up late and make a 'pallot' on the floor. ***Note: A pallot is what my grand parents called a bunch of blankets on the floor. My grand parents had this huge house. Huge. We had a play room with arcade games, pool table, go carts, etc. Anyway, my cousin and I loved to sleep on a 'pallot' in the floor in my grand parents room, although we had five other bedrooms from which to choose. On to the Taylor conversation. We wanted to keep that tradition with her. She wanted me to stay another night. And I said "I can't. I have show. I have to work." She asks "What do you do?" "I'm an actor and improviser." "
What does that mean?" Which brought on another long back and forth exchange trying to explain it all. I finally settled on saying "I sing and dance". Which, yes, I can and sometimes do. That was the way to get her to understand "performing". She still doesn't doesn't understand singing and dancing to be work. But, nevertheless, she settled on it. Her response was, "like Kanye". She lover her some Kanye West. "That makes sense Jen-Jen. I think you look like Britney Spears. But prettier".
Gotta love some kid speak.
