Who Is This Child?

On our way to the zoo in my parents' hometown this weekend, my daughter suddenly announced, "When I get big, I'm gonna get a Hummer."

My mother and I looked at each other and I said, "A Hummer?" My daughter is not quite three years old and sometimes she is hard to understand. Usually, if I say multiple words that are wrong, she gets upset until I say the word she was trying to say. I thought I had certainly misunderstood her. But I hadn't.

"Yeah . . . a Hummer."

"Like a really big car . . . that kind of Hummer?"

"Yep . . . when I get big." Duh, mama.

For the record, I don't drive a Hummer. I drive a nice little four door sedan. No one I know drives a Hummer. I doubt she has ever been in a Hummer. But she was absolutely certain she was going to get a Hummer when she gets big. Alrighty then . . . .

The next day, she informed me she wanted a "cleaner" toy for her next potty-chart-reward-toy. A vacuum-cleaner toy. Keep in mind - the child has never seen me use a vacuum cleaner. She knows we have one because it fell out of the front hall closet once when I was searching for a missing mitten. I have no idea how she knows how to use one, but when she saw a cute little pink one at the children's consignment store, she was all over it, vacuuming away. So, I bought her a used pink toy vacuum cleaner. And she's used it more than I have ever used my real one.

So, this week, I am asking, "Who is this child?" Some non-environmentally friendly, super-sized SUV-driving suburban soccer-mom/Stepford wife in the making?

Jeez . . . next she's going to tell me she's voting for John McCain.