Volcanoes

My daughter loves volcanoes.  I think I could even say she is obsessed.  Tessie’s favorite movie is a National Geographic volcano documentary, and she sometimes will spend the better part of an hour just looking at pictures of volcanoes online.  When we talk about going to visit Hawaii, where I am from, the thing she is most excited about doing is going to the volcano museum.  The museum.  She is three and a half.  The other day Tes watched a youtube video about making a volcano at home, and I have never seen her eyes get so big. 

Tonight she somehow convinced her brother to watch the volcano documentary with her.  She was talking about volcanoes, where they are, how dangerous they are, and mostly how cool they are.  She started telling Christian that there were a lot of volcanoes around when the dinosaurs, another favorite topic, were alive.  Christian wasn’t even pretending to listen, but that didn’t bother Tessie in the slightest.  She then turned to Nick and asked if all the humans die when the volcano erupts.  Talk about catching us off guard.  Nick did an excellent job explaining that scientists can tell when a volcano will erupt, and they warn people to get out of the way.  He said the only people who stick around are there to study the volcano because that is their job.  Well put Daddy.

That launched Tessie into another narrative about jobs.  She told us that when you grow up, you can be whatever you want.  “Isn’t that cool?” she asked rhetorically.  We nodded.  When I asked what she wanted to be when she grew up Tes took on a very serious, pondering expression.  But it wasn’t long before she said, clear as a bell, “A Volcanologist.”  We hadn’t even finished saying how cool that was when she said, “Or a real live princess.  That would be cool, don’t you think so.” 

We couldn’t hold in the laughter after that.  But it got better.  Tes asked her brother what he wanted to be and listed his options as, a doctor, a prince, a volcanologist, or an alien.  She later added a fairy or a princess to his list.  “Because a boy can be a princess too, right mommy?”  “Of course Tes, a boy can be whatever he wants.”  Already fighting for equal rights for her brother, and aliens everywhere. 

Nick and I can usually hold back our giggles when Tessie is telling us something that she obviously takes very seriously, but tonight there was no stopping us.  She didn’t mind at all.  I think maybe she could tell we weren’t laughing because we thought she was silly, but because we were so unbelievably happy that we have such a beautiful girl in our lives.