The Bandicoot

Annabelle found a little stuffed creature on a shelf at the airport. It has big eyes and a long tail. She begged me to buy it for her, and since I find it very hard to refuse her every wish, she was soon cuddling it in her little arms, cooing at it and making it a bed out of her pink satin baseball cap. She showed it to George and he said, “Oh, it’s a bandicoot.”
She nodded. “Yes, a bandicoot.” She took the little creature with her everywhere in the airport–turning the luggage scale into a stage, she, Henry, and the bandicoot danced up a storm. They were swinging around a pole during boarding when a kindly old lady said, “Oh, what do you have there? An Owl?” 
“No, it’s a bandicoot!” Annabelle replied, jumping up and down, her little charge in her arms. She was asked at least six times by various people on the plane about her owl. Each time she corrected them and told them it was a bandicoot.
“Where does a bandicoot come from?” asked one curious little boy sitting behind us. Annabelle repeated the question to George while climbing all over her seat like a monkey.
“Australia,” he replied. “Australia!” she repeated to the little boy, one leg draped over his side of the seat. “My feet stink,” she then told him, waving her tiny pink foot in front of his face.
“Well, don’t touch me with it!” he shouted. She giggled and pulled her toes to her nose.
“Annabelle,” I said, finally getting involved in the conversation, “sit back in your seat like a lady.”
These are words I never thought I’d hear out of my mouth. I used to hate it when my mother said it to me. It seemed ladies never got to do anything fun. I never wanted to be a lady. Annabelle already has a reply at three-years-old. “I’m not a lady, I’m a little girl.”
And a bandicoot wrangler to boot. She’s curled up in bed with the bandicoot nestled safely against her cheek.