My apologies for taking such a long writing hiatus. And I’m not really back, either. This is a scene that took place five years ago but I love revisiting it, and so does my daughter. 

My just –turned- five- year- old comes home from school , flops down at the kitchen table, puts her chin in her hands and says dramatically, “I’m starving and bored.” I hand her a bowl of purple grapes. A few minutes later, I am slicing scallions and I see her out of the corner of my eye lining up a bunch of grapes and separating two of them.

“My name is Ally, and this is my sister. Where do you guys live?” She is playing house with fruit. She bunches up a whole pile of individual grapes and announces, “We are going to teach you a lesson on how to play nicely with everyone. ‘This group of grapes’, she says to me, ‘is older than this bunch ‘cuz these are two years old, and these are three already.’” She is talking non-stop for the grapes now, giving them personalities, attitudes, and character traits she struggles with. A box of cookies and a calculator become a park structure, and the grapes start plotting their game.

“Let’s make something our parents don’t know about. There’s an opening on the other side! Don’t worry, we’ll block that off. You don’t have to worry about a thing.” The phone, a permanent marker, and a bag of barley are recruited to strengthen the fort. Imagination and creativity are running rampant on the kitchen table and all my clutter is finally put to good use. The game goes on for fifteen minutes, long enough for me to stop slicing, run down and get my computer, and catch the grand finale.

“We need to go in this monster’s mouth and then Hashem will make magic that we will fly to Mashiach. I know because the father of the grapes said so.”

I am rewarded for my gift of grapes with an introduction to the grape family, followed by, “This is how much friends there are, and I am going to eat all of them.” The only sounds in the kitchen now are the tapping of the keys on my laptop, and my monster daughter, Devorah, crunching purple grapes. Down they go, one at a time, the fruit, the snack, the game.

I can see in the occasional squint of her eyes and tilt of her head that she is already planning the next move. She’s brimming with thoughts and ideas, but she has been taught not to talk with purple grape people in her mouth, so she waits. Finally, the last grape goes down and she flops down in a chair and says, “Mommy what can I do now? I ate, and now I’m bored. “