So, the other day our daughter was having one of "those" days...you know the one. The one where you are not liking her much...nor she you. The one where she's pushing her brother, crying on the cat, venting to the neighbors and crying to the sky all about how unfair her life is. Ha! Unfair is having to listen to all that and not being able to mock her relentlessly. Harsh? Possibly. But sheesh. I tried the "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I'll eat some worms" song while dancing goofily around her and all that got me was "It's not funny!" in a super-sonic screech that would make the Furies proud.
I tried another tact and offered to give her brother a wedgie (which would usually totally work), but she was dug in and just cried harder.
I offered to cuddle her but my first two mistakes backfired and everything went horribly, horribly wrong.
After a time out and chocolate for both of us, we sat down to chat. I asked her why she was so upset that day...what about that day was so bad.
"It's not today, Mom. I'm just like this naturally."
Really? I reminded her that for her actually these days were really few and far between
"Mom, I'm a wo-child," she told me, shaking her head like I was insufferably dense.
"A Wo-Child? What exactly is that?"
Giant sigh on her part. "You know, the poem that tells all the kids what type of kid they are."
Egads, I knew exactly what she was talking about. You see both my daughter and I were born on Wednesdays (I hadn't realized that until this conversation) and someone somewhere at her school they told her that this meant she was 'full of woe' and defined it for her as "mad and sad". Personally, I like to tell them what I thought they were full of, but that's another day.
I regrouped and told her that I was born on a Wednesday as well and see, I wasn't full of 'woe'. Another one of her glances had me re-grouping yet again.
"You are what you want to be...just because a poem says you are 'full of woe' doesn't meant you are or that you have to be. And," as I pulled out my iPhone and did some quick research, "your Dad and brother are both Thursdays child (who have far to go)...do you think they are exactly alike?
That got us into a conversation about all of the ways they were NOT alike, which led to laughter and cuddling. Of course, with our daughter, that's never the end of it. That night, another bedtime conversation, she asked why she had to be 'full of woe' and not someone else.
Trusty iPhone and Wikipedia research to the rescue and we learned that this poem, first recorded in A. E. Bray's Traditions of Devonshire in 1838, came from a long custom of fortune telling by days of birth. Quite the thing during that time in our culture. We also learned that for a poem that isn't that popular, it has become quite the source for the artistic and literary set, found in everything from Beatles music to Star Trek episodes and more.
Importantly to my daughter and I, we learned, that at some point in time Thursday and Saturday and exchanged fortunes, and Sunday had actually been Christmas Day and, drum roll please, Wednesday and Friday had also changed fortunes so, I read to her, "...we had a pretty good chance of being "loving and giving".
"Jeesh", she said. "they didn't get that right either." Ouch! So I asked which we were supposed to be. According to her, she is Thursday, her brother is Wednesday (duh), her dad is Friday and I'm Saturday.
Well, what can I say...I was at least hoping for Tuesday! Wednesday's Child
Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
No comments:
Post a Comment