Why the Amazing Turnip Girl is Amazing

The Amazing Turnip Girl this evening

My children frequently take me by surprise by how very centered and good they are. The eldest is 22 and still very involved with us, and always has time to shovel his grandpa's walkway.

My youngest, the 17 year old is a mix, at times she seems to be so much older in her quiet maturity. Then she's young and playing. She told me when she was 11 and saw girls her own age wearing make up that she thought it was dumb. "I have 18 years to be a kid and the rest of my life to be a grown up. Coloring on paper is more fun."  It floored me, that she had thought it through that way. But she does that frequently, thinking things through to a finish that comes as a surprise even to the people who know her best.

The other day after a heavy snowfall, she shoveled the driveway before her Dad got home from work completely unasked. Then the next day, she started building a snow TARDIS.

She worked on the base for hours, using a box as a mold for bricks. Then came in when it started getting close to sundown. The next evening she was back out again and got it probably 3/4s of the way done. Her brick mold had fallen apart and she was packing snow into a careful rectangle using gloved hands.

Then after she came in, she decided to tape up one of my Amazon A3 shipping boxes (I use Amazon boxes to mulch if I don't recycle them)- she coated it inside and out with duct tape to use as a sturdier, more water resistant brick mold.

This afternoon, some kids kicked over the TARDIS that was 3/4s of the way done. Her dad was furious.

Now, this is why the Amazing Turnip Girl is amazing- she wasn't mad, she wasn't sad. She had a brand new brick mold and whole new plan anyway. She started building on what was left of the base she had built.

Snow TARDIS

So I asked her "Are you mad about your TARDIS being kicked down?"

She said "Not really. I learned that the snow that is more like snow cone snow sticks better together, and this mold works a lot better."

Snow brick mold

That's why she's my hero. Because I tend to fret when things go wrong, and to dwell on it when they go wrong and it's not my fault. I get angry, resentful and have to make a conscious effort sometimes to let it go and move on. Not all the time, but often enough. She just didn't, she got back to work and had it all built a lot quicker because of what she learned from the first one.

Then she came in and made hot chocolate.