I can't remember now if Stella was 4 or 5 when we checked out the Pony Scouts books from our local library. Two of the ponies were named Inky and Smoky. When we read the books she decided that we would no longer have cars. Instead they would be "wheel ponies," both girls. Our silver van was Smoky, and the dark green Focus was Inky. Any time someone new rode in our cars she would explain: they look like cars, but they're actually wheel ponies. Girl wheel ponies. The names caught on. We stopped saying "Did you leave your backpack in the Focus?" and said "Inky or Smoky?" instead.
Smoky died in September, and then Inky went to the Big Ranch in the Sky in December. (Probably it is not a very big ranch in the sky if it is inhabited by wheel ponies. I haven't observed many wheel ponies in the wild.) We bought a gray van in October and christened her Cloudy. We bought a gray Fusion in December-- Stormy.
I am thinking about the ways Stella has grown up since she was entranced by the Pony Scouts. She's still enough of a little girl to give pony names to cars, but she doesn't need to explain to all comers that they're not actually cars. Maybe the most endearing part of the car-naming for me is the way that all the boys were on board with it. Of course we'll give pony names to the new vehicles, they seemed to think. Doesn't every vehicle need a pony name? I hope these vehicles will last at least another five years, at which point she'll be a teenager, and probably too grown up for pony names.
So I am just recording a 2017 snapshot here, thinking about the girl who once was 4 or 5, and then was 8, and who will be 13 before I know it. And I am thinking about her cooperative brothers, who are all willing to be a little silly for their sister's sake.
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