(So that it’s clear, the picture above is not Athena. We’re not allowed to post pictures of her online and, given that I’m changing her name for her privacy it would be shortsighted of me to post a picture of her even if it were allowed.)

As those of you who have read my previous posts as a foster father, I don’t give my childrens’ names on the blog as both a matter of protecting them (their story as much as their physical safety) and compliance with the requirements of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. So, my latest child, we’ll call “Athena.” I chose this name because, according to legend, Athena sprang to life as a fully-formed adult and my Athena, well, speaks so well that I forget I’m arguing with a three-year-old who has little sense of reason and an overblown sense of whimsy (may she never lose it!).

Athena fits right in with K and I. She’s extremely intelligent, very creative, and stubborn as all get out. She’s maybe a little weird sometimes, but definitely our kind of weird, so I see that as evidence she’s found the right parents and we’ve found the right daughter. She has no issues with confidence, cannot help but comport herself with a mixture of “main character energy” and pure sass.

In this short post, I wanted to share a few anecdotes about her to help you all get to know her.

Athena loves to pretend things are cell phones. She’ll do it with Duplo, with building blocks, with just about anything vaguely the right size. She’ll hold it up to her ear and tell us she’s calling us and we have to answer. Typically, she’ll then stand in silence for a few moments before making the motion of tapping the button to end the call without ever saying anything. If we ask questions, she might answer, but these answers are as likely to be non-sequiturs as anything else. She finds non-sequiturs hilarious.

In furtherance of this fascination, and something I’m sure we’ll never grow to regret, we got her a toy cell phone for her first Christmas with us. Not long after one evening, K and Athena are sitting at the dinner table. Athena is playing on with her cell phone toy and K tells her, “Athena, put down your phone. You don’t need your phone at the dinner table.” Athena looks up, sees K with her phone in her left hand, and says, “Mommy, do you need your phone at the dinner table?” She keeps us on our toes.

For some reason, Athena did not like, at least at first, the initial caseworker she had with DFPS. Athena is already queen of the side-eye, and there was no shortage of it when the caseworker came to visit. If the caseworker asked for a hug, Athena would turn her back on her. The caseworker would took take it in stride and reinforce her bodily autonomy and choice about whether she wants to give hugs or not. But it didn’t end at this. Once, while the caseworker is sitting on one of our living room couches talking with K and I, Athena brings her her shoes, places them in her lap, and then gently grabs her hand as if to lead her to the door. None too subtle, this one. Of course, we told her is wasn’t yet time for the caseworker to leave, so Athena returned to giving her the side-eye. When she did finally leave, Athena wanted to be the one to shut the door behind her. “Good riddance!” she seemed to say. Fortunately, Athena did finally warm up to her, but not long before a new caseworker was assigned.

Our child may be an “old soul.” For a while, she’d talk about her “grandson” in a way just clever enough to make us doubt that she was simply confused about the difference between grandsons and grandfathers. On several occasions, she talked about having done things we are almost certain she has never done–like the sensation of riding a motorcycle–and events we’re sure have not happened to her.

She may also be a wizard; I’m not sure what Hogwart’s tuition looks like these days. Once evening, again at the dinner table, she starts engaging in what can only be called glossolalia in a cadence somewhere between chanting and mumbling. After about thirty seconds of this, she pauses to throw her hands up in the air in a “V” of supplication while intoning the sort of “awwww” sound one typically associates with the appearance of the divine in comedic film. Continuing this for about ten seconds, she then returned to the glossolalia. K and I stared at each other in wonderment; one of us might have mouthed “WTF?” to the other.

K has a crooked index finger, which we call her “witch finger.” She likes to point it at me in the manner of hexing me when she’s playfully cross. Athena picked this up very quickly.

This past November, the church K and I grew up in had a pumpkin patch as a fundraiser. Someone brought an mid-twentieth-century tractor as a set piece to sit in the middle of the patch. Stairs were erected for visitors to easily climb to the seat for pictures. For whatever reason, Athena is fascinated by tractors. She spent most of the time we were there (on multiple occasions), sitting in the tractor seat and attempting to hotwire it. If I’d known the tractor was fully functional, which I only found out after the fact, I’d have been more concerned. As it was, I was mostly amused.

Athena has a good heart. She often apologizes when she bumps into inanimate objects. For a three-year-old, she learns the words to songs quickly, keeps melody well, and makes up her own songs. Best of all, she has good taste in music. Early in her stay with us, I played a Leo Moracchioli cover while in the car. If you’re not familiar with Leo, go look him up on Spotify or–better yet–on YouTube, where you can see his videos. He’s the owner of a recording studio in Norway called Frog Leap Studios, and he makes heavy metal covers of all kinds of songs. My first exposure was his version (with Mary Spender) of Dire Strait’s “Sultans of Swing,” one my all-time favorites. Leo has a deep grasp of the “tropes” of metal-style guitarwork and a gift for arrangements that introduce those tropes while preserving the core “feel” of a song. It was probably his version of “Sultans” that I’d decided to play, mostly for a lark. As the distortion kicks in, I hear a squeal from the back seat and turn to see her rocking out as much as she can while in the confines of a child-safety seat. I’m hoping I’ll have a drummer to drown me out while I poorly play guitar; she does seem to have a penchant for percussion.

Just yesterday, on the way home from picking her up from school, she asks for music. The quickest thing I can safely pull up at a stoplight is an EDM playlist on Spotify called “Cyberpunk Night Club.” We’re sitting at the next light, listening to one of the songs (me nodding along to the song), and she says, “This is my favorite song! I love this song.” She’d never heard it before, so, I’m thinking, “okay, kid,” but at least she likes the genre!

Athena names her stuffies, like most children do, but her names are always in flux. Ask once what a stuffed animal’s name is, and she’ll give you one answer. Ask twenty minutes later, you get a different one. Some of these names are complete gibberish, sometimes they’re the names of children she goes to school with, sometimes, the name is “Taxi.” Why, “taxi?” I have no idea. The only constant name she consistently returns to is “Ellie.” Sometimes, all of her animals are named “Ellie” at the same time.

There are two things other people constantly tell us about Athena. The first is how beautiful she is. People literally stop us in the middle of the grocery store to tell us she’s beautiful, and forget the administrative staff and nurses when she goes to the doctor or the dentist. She knows how beautiful she is, and she’s already learning how to be cute to be manipulative. With her high intelligence (she had to go in for a state-required testing to see if she needed any developmental supports and the psychiatrist doing the review told us she was the smartest little girl she’d met) and good looks, she’s going to be dangerous indeed.

The second thing we’re told is how intelligent she is. Often, it’s suprise at just how articulate and eloquently she can speak. Since she really started talking at two, it’s been complete sentences with a large vocabulary. I thoroughly approve. She makes up stories. Simple ones, but they have basic structure and resolution. She learns things very quickly. We’ve been in the habit of saying the same prayer at dinner time before we eat. When it became clear that Athena was getting bored with the one we’d been doing, K suggested we start singing the Wesley Table Grace; she learned it and sang along on the third night after we started.

If it’s not obvious, I’m smitten. Unfortunately she knows it. In the parental chain, as much as K an I try to maintain solidarity and a unified front, Daddy’s the sucker and it’s no secret. I probably should have expected as much.