"When I was Uncle Wally's daughter..."

I do not know how many times a day I hear this from Avery. It is usually when she is trying to keep up with her brother. He comes home from school and tells us what has happened there during the day and the next thing you know Avery is talking about another life... when she was Uncle Wally's daughter.

We drove by a field of teenage girls playing Soccer today. I pointed it out to the kids. Avery wanted to know whether she could play soccer when she got bigger. I assured her that she could. My son, the one that sees the glass half empty, began by telling Avery that she would be there all alone without mommy if she played soccer. Now this is a big deal for Cullen. He hates when I leave him in the car alone while I put the cart back at the grocery store parking lot. But Avery doesn't care. She then was compelled to ask.. "Mommy will you watch me while I play?" I assured her I would but know she will never NEED me to be there. This is my redheaded feisty daughter who escorts me to the door at preschool.

As we talked a bit more about soccer Cullen would interject things like he had played before and just knew soccer was the wrong choice for him as a sport. I told him that playing a sport is about team work and working together. No one had to feel any pressure because it was the team, working together that made playing fun. No need to be anxious about something that was suppose to be fun.

Enter Avery... "Mommy, when I was Uncle Wally's daughter I use to play soccer. I ran really fast and jumped in the air. And I kicked the ball. I kicked the ball hard. I was a really good soccer player."

The "When I was Uncle Wally's daughter" has morphed from just stories about her uncle. "My uncle took me to the zoo and we saw giraffes..." I would ask her what uncle? who? But now we have to hear imaginary stories about Uncle Wally. The stories are imaginary not Uncle Wally.

Uncle Wally is actually a friend of The Doc. (I have decided to call Edward, The Doc, because I needed a good nickname for the husband. All really good bloggers have nicknames for their husbands.) They grew up together in the town we live in now and have been friends since grade school, I guess. Uncle Wally is Cullen's godfather. He has known all the children since their birth. He was probably around the day after they were conceived. Just to say he has been a staple in our lives for a long time.

Avery's life with Uncle Wally was full... they have eaten pomegranates together, ridden a winged unicorn (also from a Barbie movie, heh), and wished on the first star in the sky. She had 12 sisters in her family with Uncle Wally... strangely similar to 12 Dancing Princesses but I am so jaded, what do I know. The stories can go on and on and sometimes they make no sense at all.

What purpose do her stories of life with Uncle Wally serve? I have been thinking about this. I think that she is trying to get attention paid to her. She uses the topic that Cullen is speaking about because it is getting HIM attention. She usually is trying to one-up him with her story. Like when she was Uncle Wally's daughter she rode the bus to school. Cullen is afraid to ride the bus. He has seen kids being mean to each other on the bus while watching TV. He is afraid someone is going to push him while he is on the bus. Well when Avery road the bus, when she was Uncle Wally's daughter, she was not afraid. The bus picked her up and took her to school and then it took her back home again. End of story. Its kinda interesting. They both make up stories in their minds... Cullen mostly pessimistic and Avery's optimistic.

Avery is the middle child. She is not the baby doing things for the first time like Connor. Nor is she the eldest doing things for the first time like Cullen. So Uncle Wally stories serve to give her the limelight. She gets to do things that Cullen wouldn't do and I guess being Uncle Wally's daughter gives her some autonomy. How do we know what she did when she was Uncle Wally's daughter? I mean really.

I have told Avery before, jokingly so as to not hurt her feelings, that she was never Uncle Wally's daughters. But she only says, "Yes I was." and continues on with her story. I think of it sometimes as her reincarnation stories... or "other dimension" stories because, really, she sounds so convincing and she will not allow you to poo-poo her. It passes through my mind that maybe I am wrong and she really was Uncle Wally's daughter in another life.