Sybil

When Alex was little she loved to pretend she was someone else.  Usually she fantasized that she was a story book princess, and much to her delight her MiMi would make her princess dresses to whirl and twirl around in.  I will never forget the summer that she wore her Snow White dress 7 days straight before she decided to morph into someone else.

The hardest part about that week?  The fact that she was a natural born blonde and I am brunette and while people say we look so much alike now we didn't then.  It was quite a treat exiting the Blockbuster Movie's trailing behind a  three foot tall princess with a freshly rented movie clutched in her fist barking; "Come on Wicked Stepmother!"  I should have known then her teenage years were gonna be a complete bust.

I miss those days even though they were a trip to Vegas whenever I (or anyone else for that matter) was trying to get Alex's attention.  You see, if you didn't call her by her "correct" name she wouldn't respond. At all.

One day I yelled for her repeatedly without a peep coming from her direction.  I go to where she is playing in her room to see why she is ignoring me, and I am politely informed that she is NOT Alex, she is Christopher Robin.  Well, there ya go!

 She has since outgrown the need for multiple personalities and I have to say I kinda miss them.  Hopefully one of her children will do her the favor of tromping around in a super hero cape and mask for weeks on end living the dream.

Abby on the other hand, never really got into the whole make believe princess thing.  She is my live in the moment chick.  While she never really played make believe when she was little, she did love to dress up.  She loved her ballerina outfit complete with matching slippers and loved whirling and twirling in it much like her sister would, except she did this while playing with her Hot Wheels and Alex did it while playing with her Barbies.

Alex to this day loves the magic and romance of plays such as The Nutcracker and Beauty and The Beast, Abby loves the dark hilarity of movies like Harold and Maude.  Alex loves to shop for clothes and Abby loves to go work alongside her daddy in the shop.  Alex wants to be a fictional character, and Abby wants to be herself, except with a British accent.

A month or so ago, Abby was supposed to clean up the kitchen.  As we all know, "clean" to a mom and "clean" to a kid are two totally different things.  While standing next to her at the stove I drew her attention to a smear of some dried on something or other on the counter and asked her why she didn't wipe the counters off.  She assured me that she did, she just couldn't get that particular smudge off.

I took my fingernail and flaked up the smear in a couple of seconds.  I looked at her and said; don't play stupid with me, you could have gotten that up.   Her eyes got wide and then with a big grin she switched over to an outraged French accent and replied; "Stupida!  Who are you calling stupida?!   Do you speaka the Fraaanch?  I think NO!  Now who's a stupida?!!"   I couldn't help but crack up.

On the other hand, perhaps her inner defense to my total disregard to her self esteem by daring to use the word stupid in association with her has created a rather rude and obnoxious french woman to reside in her head.  That would be my luck.

Last weekend as I was carrying a load of clean towels to my bathroom to put away, Abby came up to me, stuck out her hand and said in a husky voice; "Hello, I'm Romando.  I'm 42 years old and black as midnight."  My response?  "Hello Romando.  I have to believe from the timbre of your voice you're a man."

Abby just smiled and moved on with whatever she was doing.  Well, that's two. How many personalities did Sybil end up having? Thirteen?