SMART LITTLE GIRL

Dear Spike:

We went to the teacher's supply store this morning to pick up a box of magnetic letters for the refrigerator door. (Many of the letters we had mysteriously began disappearing as you began using them to spell. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?) After we found a tub of 108 letters — "that's more than four alphabets," I told you — we wandered around the store a bit to see if there was anything else we couldn't live without.

In one corner, there was a rack of small flags from all over the world, and I picked you out a tiny Chinese banner for your room. And so long as we were at it, we asked one of the store attendants if she had a map of China.

"I'm pretty sure we do," she said, leading us to the back of the room, where hundreds of tightly-scrolled maps were waiting in plastic bins. "May I ask why you're interested in China?"

"I'm going to live in China when I grow up," you told her confidently.

The lady took a step back to size you up. "Well, you're going to need a map then," she finally said, handing you the 18-inch roll of paper in a plastic bag.

"Thank you," you said.

"In Chinese," I corrected.

"Xie xie," you said.

"You're teaching her Chinese?" the lady asked.

"Nah, she's teaching us," I replied, explaining about how we'd come to decide to have you learn a language that your mother and I don't know ourselves.

"What else does she know?" the woman asked.

We went over a few of the basics. You told her what colors she was wearing and shared the names of some of your favorite animals.

As we headed up to the front counter, the lady called over some of her co-workers. "Can you tell us some more?" she said.

You obliged.

"She's a pretty smart little girl," another woman, who was ringing us up at the cash register said.

She picked up the box of alphabet letters and read the label. "108 foam letters," she said.

"That's more than four alphabets," you told her.

The woman looked around the room as though she were trying to spot the hidden camera.

"How does she know that?" she asked.

I just kept my mouth shut and shrugged. If people want to think my daughter is the smartest two-year-old in the world, who am I to argue?

Because, for all I know, they could be right.

Love,
dad