Good Gravy–she’s her father all over again.

My youngest dd is nine. Nine is that delightful age where you’re old enough to start thinking of mutiny, but still young enough to erase most adult suspicions with an impromptu hug. She’s a wonderful kid who scares the crap out of me.

Her latest endeavors involve finding out how things work. Not simple things, like an adjustable pipe wrench, mind you–but somewhat more complicated items like home electronics. “Hon, where’s the VCR?” I holler to no one in particular upon seeing a VCR shaped blank space in the dust by the TV.  A small voice answers from behind a closed door, “I’m borrowing it.” 

To a keen mom’s ear, the owner of said small voice is taken into account. Older dd? She wanted to watch an old VHS movie in her bedroom, which is unequipped with it’s own ancient VCR.  Younger child?  CRAP! Run very, very fast!  It’s not just that she takes things apart, it’s that she tries to put them back together as something else.  Often, ’something else’ carries an electrical current and could burn the place down.

“But Mama,” she says, sitting cross legged on the floor amid a sea of tools and VCR guts, “you don’t ever use it.” (Nice to know that tool set she got for Christmas was money well spent.) “I left the DVD player alone, cuz I know that’s ’spensive.” At least she was thinking.

Her father is no help–he couldn’t be prouder. I blame him totally for this mess. He encourages creativity and believes she’s brilliant for wanting to know how things work. As a young boy, this man once took apart his family’s furnace in the dead of winter. His Mother had to hire someone to undo her little boy’s ‘improvements.’ Somewhere, right now, my MIL is laughing and high five-ing a furnace repairman. I’m sure of it.