Ellie came home from school excited to show me how to spell by using sign language. This sounded interesting. Who knew my brain would explode and ooze out of my ears long before I would ever be able to figure out what she was spelling.
She said things like, “Watch me Mom. It’s easy.”
And so began a series of motions, facial expressions that didn’t have anything to do with the letters or words she was attempting to spell, just crazy eyebrow raises and giant exaggerated grins I learned were added to her routine simply to throw me off.
I will do my best to describe to you the events that followed. Keeping in mind, I’m not totally clear myself if what I was seeing was actually happening or if I was the subject of a FunHouse experiment (a thought that crosses my mind dozens of times daily) and the child in front of me wasn’t actually Ellie but rather a small clown dressed as my daughter with a camera hidden somewhere behind a barrette.
“Ready Mom? First letter!”
Imagine someone standing three feet in front of you, smiling and mimicking the first motion of the chicken dance. The part where your hands are up somewhere between shoulder and ear height and clacking like, well, the first part of the chicken dance.
Me: The Chicken Dance?
Ellie: No Mom! You’re supposed to guess a letter, then the word!
Me: “T” for “The?” (followed by Chicken Dance?)
Ellie: No!
She repeated the chicken dance motion for several minutes, never once dropping the grin but started bulging her eyeballs out wondering what was wrong with my understanding of this exercise.
Me: Ellie, is this the Chicken Dance song?
Ellie: No. Keep watching.
I watched for several minutes but her motions remained constant. She hasn’t yet learned that the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing but expecting a different result. I was going to continue to ask if she was dancing to the Chicken Dance and she was going to deny it (even though she was) until we collapsed and died on the floor.
She became frustrated, as one might and said, “Okay, next part.”
I didn’t know if the next part required a trapeze, curtain rods, a live iguana. I tried to stay tuned and remain calm but I really wanted to get started on some dinner.
Ellie then started to use her fingers to walk up her arm.
When I asked her if she was tickling, itching, a spider she just kept crawling up and down her arm, faster and faster.
Me: Are you a spider?
Ellie: No.
Me: Are you itching your arm?
Ellie: I’m a letter Mom!!!!
Me: Are you a letter?
Ellie: NO!!! Guess a letter!
Me: A?
Ellie: Good.
What the F%$# are we doing?
Okay, next part.
Oh God, there’s a next part.
Me: How many parts are there sweetie? (my voice cracking)
Ellie: One more.
The last part was fantastic. She looked to the left, then to the right, then to the left and back again, shaking her head. She would pause to look at me with a giant question mark wondering why I wasn’t shouting out, “What is I will not go with you to the grocery store, Alex?”
The fun had been sucked out of this game and we were both exhausted. I laughed as compassionately as I knew how but was somewhat delirious as you might expect and fatigue was beginning to set in.
Ellie had had enough. “IT’S CAT!!! C-A-T, CAT!!!” (insert “Duh!” here)
Mommy, these (chicken dance hands) are castanets, c-c-c, C!”
“This is an ant on my arm, A!”
“This is a tennis match.” (shaking her head again) “The ball is bouncing back and forth and sounds like “t-t-t-t-t-“
“CAT!”
Meow.
