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PARTY OF TWO: They make no sense

Kennebec Journal Staff

"Is yours weird too?"

That's what my friend asked me the other day as her 3-year-old son was rolling across the floor in the produce section at the local supermarket.

And then she went about her business of picking out a good cantaloupe.

Cool as a cucumber.

Hmm, is mine weird? Let me see. She thinks killer whales would make great pets, she has a pink stuffed frog that she named Fly On The Wall, and everything she wears must be some shade of blue.

So yes. Yes, she is.

I have always said it -- kids are strange. They defy logic, seemingly from the moment they are born. They make no sense when they are fussy, sleepless infants and they make even less sense as they get older.

Just last weekend I caught Angie, who is about to turn 4, singing "Poker Face" in the bathtub and later, feeding her peanut butter and jelly sandwich to the DVD player.

Umm, yeah. Weird.

Add it to the list of things that leave me shrugging my shoulders.

I mean, why do children slumber until 7:30 on a weekday morning, making you late for work, but spring up out of bed at 6 a.m. on your weekend off?

Because they make no sense.

Why is it that you bust your heinie picking out a toy you are certain they will love, only to have them turn up their noses when you get the toy home?

Because they make no sense.

Why is it they push aside their macaroni and cheese after days and days of pleading for macaroni and cheese for dinner?

Or beg for a pair of Toy Story sandals only to discard them after you've forked over the $14.99 and thrown away the receipt?

Or insist on watching cartoons -- on the Spanish channel?

Because . . . yes, now you see where I'm going with this.

They are strange little people who do unpredictable things, but I guess that's part of what makes them so fun to be around.

Sometimes I have wondered what it would be like to have a daughter who asks questions that are easier to answer, who wears pink dresses, who plays with dolls and likes flowers.

But my child hates flowers. She despises butterflies. She thinks skeletons are funny and sharks are cute. She passes over dolls, prefering instead to play with a whisk and a tablespoon from the kitchen drawer.

She interrogates me with questions that I, a former newspaper reporter and current Google junkie, have never even considered asking.

And if I even attempted to put a pink dress on her she would claw my eyes out.

Like most kids her age, Angie is fickle, impulsive and particular. She changes her mind on a dime and always keeps me guessing. Sometimes that is frustrating as hell. And sometimes it is absolutely adorable.

But to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I love my daughter's, ahem, uniqueness. I love all the weird things that make her Angie. I love her strange little ways, even though they are incomprehensible to me.

I don't bother resisiting her quirks anymore. I go with them -- cool as a cucumber.

I don't know about you, but I have plenty of people in my life who do things that don't make sense. I have tried to figure out why they do what they do (or don't do what they don't do, as the case may be) but I don't bother anymore.

Some things are not for me to understand.

I can accept their mannerisms and eccentricities, or not. I can waste my time, waiting for them to change, or I can get on with my life.

Simple as that.

So when I hear Angie singing Lady Gaga in the bathtub, I just sing along. When she dunks her spaghetti into her applesauce at the dinner table, I pretend not to notice. And when she insists on wearing orange-striped Halloween socks to the beach, I just smile to myself.

So tell me, is yours weird too?

Wendy Fontaine's "Party of Two" column appears the first and third Sundays of the month. Her e-mail address is: party2fontaine@gmail.com. You can also follow Party of Two on Facebook.