Beyond Good Girl or Bad Girl

So I'm sprawled out in Nika's bedroom on her sleeping spot of choice -- the floor -- and I say with awe and meaning,"Nika, you're an amazing person Do you know that?"

She looks at me equally meaningfully, with penetrating eyes like similar to a cat, an owl or a Buddhist monk, and says quite seriously,"Mom, you're very very very Very very VERY very very very Vvvery very very very Girly.

Girly. Of all the things.

Such a surprising crescendo reminded me strangely of my first group therapy meeting, one week ago today, when a woman whom I couldn't stand (and this feeling was quite mutual,) chanted in a voice reminiscent of a crossbreed between bitter divorcee' berating her husband on a talk show and an angry parrot, "You know what you are? You know what you are? I'll tell you what you are...no, I'm not even gonna say what I think of you. You're a, you're a....YOU'RE A Goodie Toe Shoes."

I told my husband and he got this goofy, adorable look and said, "oooooh." Now perhaps some people would be horrified to be called a Goodie Toe Shoes, but I thought it was funny. People perceive largely as either a trouble maker or a goodie toe shoes; either one or the other, and the truth is I am both, although somewhere beyond little personality check boxes The Wicked Witch of the West has melted and Dorothy has traded in her red shoes bare feet, occasionally dressed up in Fair Trade heels the color of living sand. Beyond Good Girl or Bad Girl, I'm free.

Someday will I let them see?