Harriet the Spy, Ramona the Pest, Eleanor the Obedient

I'm currently on a quest to introduce Cameron to some of my childhood heroines -- we've finished "Harriet the Spy" and have moved on to Beverly Cleary's Ramona series. As we listen to the stories on CD, I feel transported back to my childhood. I think the reason I loved these little girls so much was because they are everything I was not. Unlike Harriet and Ramona, I was a shy, quiet rule-follower. I never got in trouble . . . well, there was that one time in second grade when Mrs. Seivert gave the WHOLE class a red dot for talking in line. That was SO unfair. . . but I digress. Harriet and Ramona are clever and adventurous and daring. I think Harriet and Ramona may have been the subconscious inspiration for a heroine of my own creation, Eleanor, but I've been unable to keep Eleanor away from the straight and narrow.

Eleanor arrived on the scene while we were a "waiting family" hoping to adopt. We spent countless hour talking to Cameron about adoption, reading children's books about adoption, imagining with him what it would be like to be a big brother. As Cameron is our biological child, we wanted to make sure he understood adoption and that he viewed it as a wonderful way to become a family. I realized we had been too successful, however, when at age 3 he crawled up into my lap and said, "Tell me about when I was adopted." When I reminded him that he had grown in my belly, he burst into tears and sobbed, "But I wanted to be adopted!" Without much planning, I created the character of Eleanor, who happened to be a little girl the same age as Cameron. As luck would have it, Eleanor was ALSO a biological child whose parents were trying to adopt. Cameron LOVED Eleanor and it became a nightly routine for me to tell an Eleanor story. Even after Matthew's arrival, Eleanor came in handy as she adjusted to having a crying, pooping, parent-hogging little sister.

Listening to "Ramona the Pest" today, though, I realized that times have changed since Cleary was writing. Ramona arrives late for kindergarten. Why? Because her mother had left her home alone with instructions to walk to school (ALONE!) at a quarter past eight. Unable to tell time, Ramona did not leave the house until 8:25 am. There is NO chance I'm leaving Eleanor home alone in kindergarten! Not to mention that the adoptive sibling of course means that Eleanor's family is visited by a social worker, who would probably be less than impressed by Eleanor's parents if they were to leave her unattended. It looks like Cameron will have to get his fill of adventure from Ramona and Harriet. Eleanor will never be given the opportunity to be anything but a goody two-shoes like her creator!