Words with Meg

I have some stories to record, some stories of Meg's adventures in vocabulary. Two are already rather old, dating back to last year, and one is fairly recent. One involves the complete misuse of a word, and two show Meg using words correctly but with that extreme dramatic flair of hers. All three are hilarious, at least to us, and I don't ever want to forget them.

1. Last summer after our trip to Illinois and Michigan, our friend Joseph came over one night with his two girls. I went upstairs for something, and when I came back down, Meg was excitedly recounting our vacation highights. I was just in time to hear her say, "And we had a family seduction at a water park!" There was a pause, then Joseph turned to me and cocked his head. "I'm thinking she meant 'reunion,'" he said. Yes. Yes, indeed, she did. Praise the Lord.

2. When a hurricane blew through sometime in the early fall[?], we came outside the next morning to find our favorite tree partially destroyed by the winds. It was the kids' climbing tree, the tree from which we hung our swing and the tree whose lowest branch we tossed a sheet over to make a quick tent for reading and hiding. So the loss of the overhanging limbs we loved and used so well was a blow to all of us. Still, I stifled a giggle when Meg heaved a sigh from her innermost depths and said, "Now sorrow has come to us."

3. A couple of weeks ago, Meg dragged herself inside after some time spent playing with the neighbor girls. She curled up in my lap and told me the story of her first social rejection, how the girls had been playing with her but suddenly decided they didn't want to include her any more. As I stroked her hair, she reached for the words that could capture her emotional state. "I feel... I feel so... I feel so forlorn."

And I... I feel a deep affection for this girl, with her love of fine words. The apple has indeed fallen close to its tree.