It’s amazing how your kids will just randomly give you new and completely amazing reasons to love them. And new and amazing examples what unique individuals they are. The girl received the movie Dumbo for Christmas and has watched it several times since. But when she asks to watch it, she doesn’t ask to watch Dumbo. She says, “Can I watch Jumbo Junior.” Because if you remember the movie, “Jumbo Junior” is what the elephant’s mom originally names him. It’s only after everyone sees his giant ears that they start calling him “Dumbo.” It’s meant as a derogatory nickname. And yet even his best friend, Timothy Mouse calls him that. That’s like making friends with that fat pie eating kid from Stand By Me and still referring to him as “Lard Ass.” Okay so you made friends with him, but you’re still killing him a little every time you don’t call him by his real name. Apparently this never struck anyone in the Dumbo audience as weird.
Well it struck the girl that way. She understands that even an elephant has feelings and recognizes how blatantly wrong it was to keep referring to Dumbo as Dumbo. So she has decided to do the right thing and call him by his real name. And not only that, if one of us forgets and says, “the D word” she will actually correct us. “Jumbo Junior, dad.”
I seriously love that kid. She’s only four, but she gets it. Sometimes I forget how much.