Hippies

    

My 7 year old is a hippie hater. I'm not exactly sure how she knows about hippies or why she dis-likes them, it's just her thing. She talks about hippies at least multiple times a week. When she is mad at us, she will scream, "You are all a bunch of hippies!" and stomp off. When we ask her to do something she thinks is strange, that is the response. She can't find matching socks so I just hand her 2 random socks and she'll say, "What do you think I am, a hippie?" Just this past weekend, we were at the mall, killing time before we went to the movies and we walked by Hot Topic and they had all kinds of cool comic book tee shirts, so we went in for a minute and she tugged me on my arm and whispered in my ear, "Mom, we gotta get out of here. This place is full of hippies." She's too funny.

Anyway, the other day we are sitting in the living room after dinner. The girls were watching Netflix and I was going through the kid's book bags and my husband was on his phone and he turned to me a few minutes later and held his phone up. "I am a Greek Philosopher." He took one of those stupid quizzes that are going around the internets right now, it was "what kind of person from the past are you?" quiz. I grabbed his phone and said, "I'm doing it." I got Egyptian Royalty. Now- that's more like it. Our little one became interested and when I was done she said, "Can I take it?" I handed the phone and she carefully read each question and picked the answers. Then she hit submit. It took a minute to load and then the picture flashed on the screen:
                       
You are a Hippie was emblazoned across the top. A howl escaped from her like none other. She shrieked as if someone cut off one of her limbs. She threw down the phone and threw herself on the love seat and sobbed for AT LEAST ten minutes straight. The rest of us were laughing hysterically. It was ironic. She screamed at us, "IT'S NOT FUNNY, I AM NOT A HIPPIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" This caused more laughter to erupt. Finally she calmed down and walked over and said, "Can I see the phone?" She was taking the test again. I could see her read the questions and try to pick different answers. By the time she hit submit, you could tell she was feeling confident. It paused for a moment and then a picture flashed on the screen:
                          
She got hippie again. It was almost too much for her to take. She threw down the phone defeated, "THIS IS CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!" She said crap and then she weeped. She was so upset. Really beside herself. I rubbed her back. "Oh honey, it's just a stupid quiz. It doesn't mean that you are really a hippie. She spoke in between sobs. "Mama, I don't want to be a hippie, they are so weird."

I always thought that she was destined to be a hippie. She was born peacefully into a pool of water. She is named after a tree. She is a kind and giving spirit. She runs around outside in bare feet and picks flowers. I've always kind of thought of both of my kids as being little hippie children. But they don't have to be. "Sweet girl, you don't have to be a hippie. You can be whatever you want to be. That quiz is stupid." She looked up at me, and wiped her tears. "Okay, because I really am not a hippie." LOVE HER.