Day 15

Word count: 25, 415! Over the half-way mark, 410 words ahead of schedule...

In honor of this occasion I have been awarded a new button, which I shall wear at all times during the next two weeks (well, maybe not in the shower or on my pajamas). It reads:

GODDESS WITH AN ATTITUDE

Thanks Véronique!

Sonia was putting me through the regular bedtime paces this evening, and finally she lay on my lap with her head in the crook of my arm, waving around a small stuffed ostrich. Madelin offered to tell her a story. I said that was fine, but with the lights out - she would have to tell her a story she knew. She offered Little Red Riding Hood. Sonia replied, "No, ostrich!"
"O.k. Little Red Red Riding Hood with Ostrich." agreed Maddy. Sonia said "Good." and she plugged her little thumb into her mouth and listened to the following story*.

"Once upon a time, there was a little girl and her grandmother gave her a little red riding hood and her mother asked her if she wanted to bring her grandmother a basket of food, and she said okay. So she and her ostrich...mama how do you say ostrich in Dutch? (I couldn't think of the word struisvogel just then so we settled on reiger, which is Dutch for 'heron') Okay, so Little Red Riding Hood and her heron went into the woods and they met a... mama what kind of animals like to eat ostriches, uh I mean herons? (I told her a wolf would probably eat a heron if he were hungry enough). Okay, so the wolf said to Little Red Riding hood "I'm hungry. I want to eat your heron!" and Little Red Riding Hood said "No way! Have you gone completely crazy?!" and she ran with the heron all the way to her grandmother's house. When she got there her grandmother looked strange,... she had a beak and she said quack quack, so little Red Riding Hood and the heron went home."

And then she said, "Mom, I was afraid it was going to go all wrong, and then it turned out good!" Thanks to Maddy's quick thinking, Sonia won't have any nightmares involving wolves and ostriches (or even herons).

May the second half of my NaNoWriMo novel reflect even a fraction of Maddy's flexibility, creativity, and bold decision-making. And may I remember that even if I am afraid it will all go wrong, it might just turn out "good" in the end. No matter how the novel turns out, I am so very lucky to have found my way home.

*retold as accurately as possible