My littlest one is a redhead. Which means very high intelligence, spectacular physical abilities, and a total lack of synchronization between the two. We deeply appreciate her redheadedness, and no doubt these traits will serve her well when she becomes a Black Hawk pilot, but right now she is simply driving us out of our minds.
In the past month she has managed to eat dishwasher tablets, attempt a head-first dive off a ladder, stick a knife into an electrical socket, shove her hands into dogs five times her size, and shamelessly boss around all four of her older siblings. She is a year and a half old, the little imp.
We had no way to prepare for this. Her siblings are all Canaanite types with touches of Europe and Turkey.
But in my heart I always knew. I had an inner feeling that one of my forefathers was an unhinged redheaded Viking, drunk and fond of sailing on icebergs. A few years ago the edges of my beard started going ginger. And like Braxton Hicks, like the ripples before the tsunami, I felt it coming.
They say redheads are proof of divine intervention in the world. After all, from a purely evolutionary standpoint they have no chance of surviving. They stand out far too much in the jungle. But God wanted to keep things interesting, so He actively intervenes and keeps them here with us so they can stick dynamite in our tuches and launch us forward.
She is here to make the most of every second. Last to fall asleep and first to wake up. She wakes in the morning like a missile. Zero to a hundred. Opens her eyes in a single tick, rolls out of Mom and Dad’s bed and runs off to hunt cockroaches and pull cats’ tails. She is very verbal, the little one, but only in shouts and commands. We ourselves have given up trying to educate her, and at this stage we are just trying to keep her, the house, and our mental health in reasonable condition.
Meanwhile we are waiting for a ruddy knight on an orange horse to finally come play with her, so the two of them can drive each other ginger-crazy in blissful happiness, and we can at last stop this race and sit down together over a nice glass of Kinley.
