Four-year-old Bella and I had a recent conversation following her weekly AWANA (church) meeting that went like this:
Wes: Bell, what happened on Good Friday?
Bella: Jesus died. But he only stayed dead for three days.
Me: Then what happened?
Bella: He came alive again.
Me: Where’d he go?
Bella: Heaven.
Me: Wow! You were a really good listener during the story.
Bella: Yep, I was. (pause) Then I choked a boy.
Me: Bella! Why’d you do that?
Bella: (brief contemplation) I felt like it. But he wanted me to. He said “Thank you for strangling me; it’s a dream come true.”
Her mischievous grin belied the truth. I called her on her fib and she admitted she was kidding. She did halfheartedly attempt to choke a boy, but he didn’t exactly enjoy it. In her defense, she wasn’t serious about cutting off his oxygen supply. Sometimes Bella equates bodily assault with affection. We’re working on that.
Bella goes through life at full throttle from the moment she awakens until she finally allows sleep to overtake her. Sometimes this happens shortly after we put her to bed. More often, she succumbs only after getting out of bed and inspecting every object on her dresser, getting out again to host a party of sorts on the floor with her stuffed animals, again to go to the bathroom, one final time to find that long-lost toy she’s suddenly remembered. Bella mistakenly thinks we don’t know anything about these nightly excursions. We just don’t see the point in trying to stop her because a), Bella’s unstoppable, and b), she’s so quiet she doesn’t even waken Tavia, whose bed is a foot from Bella’s.
In a family of only one or two children, it’s easier to keep an eye on the activities of the kids. But as the ratio of children to parents increases, so does the likelihood that the kids are sometimes involved in, shall we say, “situations” that go unnoticed. This isn’t a matter of parents not paying attention to their children. It’s a matter of being outnumbered and admittedly outwitted. In my case, it’s a matter of me being 40 and Bella being 4. I’m the oldest in our family; she’s the baby. I’m exhausted, she’s exhilarated. And to be honest, Bella is more like her aunt in terms of personality than she is like her mother. She seems to spend a great deal of time brainstorming ways to overthrow the Establishment, and she’s become quite good at it.
The ideas that pop into Bella’s head simply never occurred to me as a child or now, as an adult, so I can’t stay one step ahead of her in the way I like to believe (quite possibly, falsely) I can with the other three. For instance, it’s never entered my mind to ask the other kids, upon coming home from a play date or other activity, if they choked anyone. I’ve never had to ask a teacher if they’ve been disruptive in class or if they’ve used inappropriate language. I know those kids keep their clothes on in public.
Don’t get me wrong; I love Isabella so intensely it hurts sometimes. And I’m not alone in my adoration of her. Wes finds her a constant source of amusement and prides himself on the fact that she shares his sense of humor at all things disgusting. Max, Tuck, and Tavi all live vicariously through their impish sister in that when she’s engaged in activity they know is either borderline illegal or just downright unacceptable, they’ll encourage her with laughter and get as much satisfaction from it as she does. When consequences are doled out, they empathize with her and let her know they agree we parents are cruel.
Life with Bella is like being a bit character in a movie that contains the uncertainty of a suspense film, the sweaty-palm foreboding of a horror flick, and the constant fits of giggles brought on by a well-timed comedy. I fear my youngest child in ways I never thought possible, and yet I love her for those very same reasons.
I wish everyone had an Isabella. The world would be a happier, albeit more deranged, place.