my hero

Dollhouse notwithstanding, Dean and I are trying to raise Sage in a sort of gender-neutral fashion. We tell her that she's strong and tough as well as smart and pretty; and we encourage her to be fairly rough-and-tumble when it's appropriate, and to just pick herself up when she falls or gets hurt. I didn't realize how well this was working until one evening when we were watching the Justice League cartoon together. She was running around pretending to fly as the opening credits were playing, so I pointed at the TV screen and asked her, "Sagey, are you being Wonder Woman?" She looked at me with this sort of quizzical frown, and said patiently, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "No, Mommy. I Superman!"


every inch an Alfar
Unlike her heathen parents, Sage goes to church every week, attending Sunday school at the fellowship just behind our building. They do projects and activities which are supposed to teach them about God and Christian living, but of course, a room populated by children is bound to get a little rowdy from time to time. Last week, the class was so noisy that the moderator was straining to make herself heard. So Miss Sage, apparently empathizing with her teacher, got to her feet, turned to face her classmates, and authoritatively commanded them: "QUIET!"

At just a little over two years old, she's one of the youngest of the group, but clearly not the most timid. Yesterday, they were asked to turn in drawings labeled with their names. Sage's nanny had written her name down for her, but Sage managed to scribble over her first name in the course of drawing. So when the moderator was handing the submitted pages back, she couldn't read Sagey's first name and had to ask, "Who is Alfar?" To which our little girl promptly replied, "That mine!" (which is an incredible connection for a toddler to make, by the way), and went over to retrieve her paper with an air of self-assured aplomb.