W is for Weneki

"A daughter is a day brightener and a heart warmer. "
Author Unknown

When I was a kid the only early morning TV programming available to watch while I ate my Cheerios was Captain Kangaroo. Bob Keeshan, who over the years grew into his white haired, big pocketed persona, introduced me to some of my favorite books (Stone Soup, The Story of Ping, Mulligan and His Steam Shovel) as well as Mr. Moose and Mr. Greenjeans. It was a simpler, cornier time.

Fast forward to the 1970's. When my kids were young, the Children's Television Network was still a novelty, not the staple on which children were raised. Like a lot of kids who grew up with muppet friends named Oscar, Bert and Ernie, they looked forward to life on Sesame Street. They danced with Elmo, recited numbers with the Count and memorized letters of the alphabet with Big Bird. It's no surprise that one of the letters that made a big impression in our house was W. W was for W-w-w-Willamina. "Willamina likes to whistle and wiggle as she wades in the water."

During their early reading years, our collection of Sweet Pickle books was the reading material du jour. In the make believe town of Sweet Pickles, anthropomorphic animals, one for each letter of the alphabet, got themselves into "pickles" illustrating to young readers universally owned personality traits. "J"ackal was jealous, "M"oose was moody, and "W"alrus was worried about almost everything. I believe we read the books enough times to be able to say for certain that we were on a first name basis with most of the animals.
For me, however, "W" will always and forever stand for my wonderfully wise and wacky Wendy, who once went wading in a mountain stream and wailed when she lost one of her new gel shoes.

I've already written a lot about this daughter of mine. Whatever else I might say could possibly be viewed as wearisome. However, since I'm the author of this blog I think I'll indulge my poetic liscence. I'm wondering if I can give you more of a hint into her personality and redouble my efforts to pay homage to the letter theme. Remember I'm her mother so a bit prejudiced. But ask anyone who knows her and I think they'll agree that Wendy is:

amazingly awesome, articulate and artistic; beet eating, beautiful, and brave; creatively clutterish; a delightfully, dutiful daughter; an energetic and enthusiastic egg hanger; fun, funner, funnest; generous and grateful; a happy, healthy hiker; impressivly imaginative; jovial, judicious, and jammin'; kind and a little bit kooky; loyal, learned and lithesome; a magazine-loving, music-listening, movie-goer; nice to strangers who fall off their bike; optimistic and opinionated; a private pooting photo bug; quizzically quixotic; reliably responsible; smart, sincere and sassy; technical, trustworthy, and true-blue; utterly vivacious, wonderfully xuberant, and youthfully zany.

Wendy is just about the best thing a mother could ask for in a daughter.


"W"acky girls "w"aiting for Santa











"W"orking "W"endy "w"earing safety glasses









"w"ondrous moment












4 "w"omen that make me smile



I am blessed,
Merry ME
P.S. W is also for womenforwomen.org. If you want to read some sad but inspiring stories check out this site.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yay for the letter "W"! Downright kind and thoughtful of you -- thanks for indulging me and making your way to W even though it looked like you would have been perfectly fine stopping at 'N is for Nothing.' I welcome these words!

Love you, Merry Me.
~w

By the by, I'm not sure I need my private pooting habits outed again in a blog, so hopefully two is the charm on that topic. ;)
May 1, 2008 at 11:59 AM
Anonymous said…
of course W is for Weneki! Those of us who know her know that W is always for Weneki. :>

I've been enjoying your blog Mary. pvz
May 19, 2008 at 10:24 AM
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