Bonding with Pippi

Faith is in love. I discovered this a few nights ago on my late night rounds. The light in the girls' room was blazing. It was nearly midnight so I reached in and snapped the switch off.

"Don't turn it off, Mama! I'm reading."

Seeing the position she was in ...

...I made a wild guess. (Well, it wasn't an incredibly wild guess because I am a connoisseur of fine children's literature.) "Are you reading Pippi Longstocking, perchance?

"Yes. And I need the light to see."

Look at her. How could I turn the light off?

I'm so excited. It's the first chapter book that she's picked up all by herself and is reading cover to cover. Pippi is the first character she has bonded with all on her own. It's my book. Finally, a child who likes to read what I liked to read in days gone by.

In spite of the late night, she greeted me early the next morning with bits of grass clinging to her hair and back. "Pippi starts her day with forty-three somersaults. I did forty-five." The somersault turning left her with a rash but, fortunately she did avoid our many doggy "landmines." I count this as a miracle.

"Now we're going to make a pancake,
Now there's going to be a pankee,
Now we're going to fry a pankye."

And the day after that, when she wasn't so grassy, Faith made us pancakes. Start to finish. Yes, she sang the song while she worked. She purposely dusted a little flour on herself, "So I look more Pippi-ish." But the flour on her face? (You'll have to supersize this to see it.) That was accidental.

And because Faith and Pippi really do have a great deal in common...

...she showed her undying love for her new favorite book by sprinkling it with flower petals and leaving it to soak up the sun in the backyard. Unfortunately, Gustav, who has been hanging out just south of us for days and days, timed his appearance perfectly with Faith's moment of forgetfulness. He swooped in and pressed wrinkles and watermarks into my childhood treasure. It's alright though. They go pretty well with my own childish smudges and scribblings.