Actually I think Momma’s gonna be naming this one

As a mom you have the most enlightening conversations with your children while driving in the car.

My twin girls and I were discussing the new baby alpaca that had been born that day as we were heading home from softball practice. At our house everyone always wants to be the one to name the newest cria. The girls were rattling off names like Chocolate Chunk and Sprinkles for the brown little boy. Names were floating through the air like Gingerbread, Brownie, Fluffy, and Darren(?). One of the twins became insistent on the name Marcus. (I vaguely recognized this as the name of one of the boys in her class at school.)

I tried to explain to them that before we gave this little guy a name, I wanted to determine if he was going to be pet alpaca and needed a cute pet name, or if he was going to be a serious stud alpaca and needed a big deal name.

“…so we have to see if he’s not that great a male,” I finished. What I meant was that if he did not turn out to be a herdsire quality male, the girls would probably get the chance to name him Brownie IV or whatever they wanted. If he turned out to be fabulous, well, Mom was going to name him something fabulous and they could just call him whatever they wanted anyway…

“Oh, Marcus is not that good of a male.” my daughter said, obviously referring to her classmate that had given her the name inspiration.

I almost coughed up a lung. “What?” I sputtered.

“No, he’s really not, Mom,” she went on to regale me with stories of Marcus pushing her off the monkey bars, causing her to fall down and scrape her knee. According to her, Marcus was always interrupting her, and once he even cussed out the teacher and got suspended. That Marcus also had the audacity to tell people that he liked her. She went on and on about the trials and tribulations of going to school with Marcus.

At first I was ready to fuss at her for saying something so mean about a classmate. “Not that good of a male.” But once I heard he had bloodied her and cussed out a teacher, I wasn’t so sure…

So I just listened. And learned a lot.

But to hear my own words come back at me like that, “He’s really not that good of a male,” in her still baby-sounding voice, I have to admit I had two reactions:

1. It was hysterical! Knee-slapping funny.
2. And it also made me think, “Uh-oh. What have I done?”

Well, I guess what we’ve done is evaluate “males” as keepers or non-keepers in the genetic pool. And really, that’s probably not the worst thing when I think about it. There are a whole lot of men out there that my girls should probably think of as “non-breeders”. It’s just not usually politically correct to talk about it that way. But let’s face it. She’s starting to weed out the “bad” ones already. so good for her. it’s better than the alternative.

right?

Oh, let’s face it. She’s in elementary school. I’ve got a long way to go…

My little darling with my fiance Jim at Disney World this New Years. She knows her momma thinks this male is a keeper!