Modeling

My eight year old daughter Marie is a marvel to observe. Ever since she could hold a crayon she has been very imaginative in what she does. I’ve seen her build entire cities out of boxes that are delivered to the house. Complete with paper cut outs for people, details on the hand drawn windows include shades and a flower holder on the sill with lots of flowers. She is very creative and there is not a day that goes by that I haven’t in some small way marveled at her abilities.

Then there was this past weekend where she really pulled a fast one. You see, Theresa and I were on a mission to get Theresa a new pair of shoes. She had just been given new orthotics for her feet and her existing shoes were so worn that they offset the benefits the orthotics would provide. So on Saturday morning after our one hour adoration we set out to our second place of worship…the mall. Marie was in tow ‘cause we were going to buy her a couple of fish for her aquarium. As we bounced from shoe store to shoe store, Marie and I were playing goofy games while Theresa tried on some shoes. At our last stop Marie and I waited outside on a bench playing patty-cake. (Did you know there were tons of versions of patty-cake! Yikes!)

Anyway, after seeing that Theresa was having some success, I stopped patty-cake #1,460 to see how much longer she would need. That’s when Marie followed me in to the store and asked what I thought was an odd question. “Mom?” she said, “Is it ok if I model?” Theresa said that it would be ok. To my surprise Marie walked into the stores window display, grabbed a couple of shoes samples, held them in the palm of her hand and stood there modeling the shoes, slowly turning her head from one to another with a nice smile on her face.

I gotta tell you that this really says a lot about the girl. With her cleft lip and slightly deformed nose she stands there as if she is the most beautiful person in the whole wide world! What a gift to us parents!

To watch the people passing by was equally enjoyable. Some didn’t notice her. Others looked, smiled and continued. The really appreciative ones would pause for a moment and point her out to others. All the while Marie was un-phased by the attention or lack of it. Not one bit of insecurity in this girl I’ll tell you. I turned to Theresa and said, “Look at this girl!” Theresa’s response…”Oh, she does that all the time. She really enjoys it.”