Little Girl, Big Chair

Big Chair Originally uploaded by peachicken.

Did I ever tell you about (Baby Girl's) first writing experience? We lived in Dickinson, North Dakota (not the end of the world but you can see it from there!) We had painted the exterior of our house to a vibrant blue. The children called the house "Blueberry". We had painted the house ourselves and it took us quite a long time. Shortly after painting the house we came home and found that someone had written" SUZ "in mud on the side of the house. Needless to say Mr. Wonderful was not happy to see mud on his freshly painted house so he called all three of our children together for true confession time.

Our children were quite young at the time. Grrrlmeetsworld was 6 and in the first grade. Baby Girl was in kindergarten and Boy Wonder was 3. Did I mention Baby Girl's name is SUZY? So it really wasn't hard to figure out who the guilty party was. But rather than confront her directly Mr. Wonderful called a "family meeting" in the living room. After explaining what he had found and this was not acceptable, he asked each of the children starting with the oldest if they had written on the house.

Grrrlmeetsworld looked at her daddy with her huge brown soulful eyes and said, "It wasn't me Daddy." Baby Girl with sparkling spitfire eyes answered just as calmly, "It wasn't me Daddy". Boy Wonder scribbling on paper and eating the crayons shook his head vigorously, " Not me " he said, without a care in the world.

Mr. Wonderful calmly scooped up Suzy and sat her on his knee. He told her, "If you didn't write your name on the house, who do you think did it?" Without batting an eye she responded, "It was brother!" "Really?" says Mr. Wonderful picking up Boy Wonder and taking the crayons out of his mouth.

"Mother, did you realize our son is a genius? Just barely three and he can write and spell!" I think this calls for a celebration. Son, would you like some ice cream?"

With those words, Boy Wonder is excited and happy and being celebrated as the world's smartest child. Grrrlmeetsworld is credited for teaching her baby brother and therefore the world's best big sister and also deserving of ice cream.

Baby Girl is left out of the celebration altogether. ( Never one to let the attention get away from her) Suzy remembers that she was the brilliant one who wrote most of her name on the side of the house.

The celebration continued in the house for the two "honest" children while Dad took Suzy outside with some hot sudsy water, a scrub brush, and some huge yellow rubber gloves. After some instruction and lots of elbow grease, her first public writing piece is now a part of our family history. I'm sure dear ole dad supervised the project and probably gave her some sage advice on always telling the truth.

There was ice cream waiting on both of them when the project was complete. 

Do you remember your first public recognition of something you had written?