I always tell people if you want to be entertained, follow The Caterpillar around our house with a tape recorder when she doesn't think you are paying attention to her. This is my super-imaginative child, who is constantly reenacting scenes from shows she's seen and delivering a diatribe of commentary, soliloquies and arias.  This morning she tried to tell me about a dream she had; the whole process took forty-five minutes, she said the word "and" at least three hundred times and the gist of the story was that she went to the grocery store and bought a peach. It doesn't really matter what the event in our house, there is always a running diatribe about it, whether anyone's listening or not.  And let's not forget the songs... the songs... they go on for HOURS.

I believe the inspiration for the little act we heard coming from the kitchen last night comes from an animated show called Avatar: The Last Airbender or something like that.  I can't be sure because they watched the series last year and whenever something with Japanese style animation comes over my television, my brain switches into coma-mode and tries to occupy itself with more interesting and engaging things like: I wonder if I could count the number of strands of thread in the carpet, yes, I think I can, let's try, one, two, three....

Anyhoo... The Caterpillar was by herself in the kitchen delivering dialog the other night while three adults in the living room tried desperately to hear it all, yet not stop talking enough to make it obvious that they were listening to her... because all knew the show would end immediately if she got even whiff of the idea that we were paying attention.  I grabbed a pad of paper and started taking dictation like a court stenographer at a Perry Mason trial.

"The five... no... SIX... ELEMENTS!

FIRE... *sfx: crackle crackle*

WATER... *sfx: woosh, woosh*

EARTH... *sfx: craaaash*

and...

...

...

GLITTER! *sfx: yaaaay!*"


I believe that last one is missing from the Tom Lehrer song.