So last night, I asked the kids if they wanted to watch a movie, and they picked Brave, which at least Kavi saw when she was little, but didn’t remember. She would’ve been about 5 when it came out, and I did get her dolls of Merida and her mother the queen, and Kavi remembers that she used to pretend that the queen was evil, which I feel is something of an injustice to mothers everywhere, but anyway…
We were watching the movie, and there’s a bit where Merida gets a bow for a birthday present, and Kavi said, mock-indignantly, “How come you never got me a bow for a birthday present?” and I got to say, “Yes I did, but you weren’t interested; it’s in the basement. What kind of mother do you think I am, that I wouldn’t provide a bow for my only daughter?”
She didn’t quite believe me, but after the movie ended (and we’d assembled some Christmas decorations, and Anand had gone to sleep), I told her where to look in the basement, and Kavi came back upstairs, astonished, with bow and arrows in hand. Two bows, in fact. And we went out into the front yard and shot arrows in the dark at the redbud tree and it was splendid.
I eventually confessed to her that I didn’t actually get her the bow — it was a 2018 Christmas present from my sister Sharms, for Anand, actually, but it came the same year we’d gotten him a smaller, cheaper toy bow, so we put it away, figuring eventually he’d outgrow the toy, which he did. And I did keep meaning to pull this one out, but it was buried in the basement, and as it turned out, it was delightful getting to pull it out at that moment.
“Oh yes, of course we keep extra weapons for the children in the basement, where else would you keep them?”
