No, Really...

Here's the thing: My kids are awesome. They are brilliant and beautiful and preternaturally funny. They are kind and sweet and well-mannered. (Except when they are not.) They are 90% angel and 10% brilliant beaming light from above. In other words, I am every parent you've ever met.

And I talk about my kids a lot. I have seven years of experience at talking about my kids. You know, because they are exceptional.

And here's the thing: people have no trouble believing that Brynna is reading on a fifth grade level, or that she regularly gives me (good) fashion advice. I've never been met with disbelief when I am waxing rhapsodic about her acclaimed and phenomenal artistic talent.

People nod emphatically when I regale with tales of Maren's impressive intelligence and early mastery of sarcasm. They may look taken aback, but never disbelieving when I demonstrate her abnormal vocabulary. And they never bat an eye at her predilection for all things scary.

So, why? Why, oh why, cruel world, do you not believe me when I tell you that my three year old fixes cars. I will readily admit that she does it with help and that she's not out there dropping transmissions on her own. But the fact is that she is really helping and in a much bigger way than the tool handing that I occasionally did for my grandpa when he tried to beat engines into submission, because he was truly as lost as I was.

She knows if your car has a carborator. I dont' even know the purpose of a carborator. You could tell me in the comments, but it's not like I've never been told. It's just not the sort of information my brain retains. (Ask me about which Manson victims were killed with which weapons or the order in which 90's grunge icons died, though. I retain stuff. Just totally and completely useless stuff.)

She got mad at me for putting coolant in my car without her assistance. She helped put new brakes on my car and she occasionally (with her Papaw's help) rescues stranded motorists. She is, completely of her own volition, obviously,**) saving money for a motorcycle.

I do not make these things up. If I were going to assign her a skill set and tell completely fictional stories about her aptitude, it would be about something which I know more than - oh hey, car, yo.

So trust me, I am not making this up. Gushing, yes. Telling the same stories ninety times, of course. Hoping that one day she'll get my stupid triad of doom to go away and my van to run properly, absolutely. But not making this up.