I have the attention of a three-year-old.

She sits down close and in older-than-toddler, but not-quite-kindergarten speech she asks me

“Whatcha wanna talk about?”

I leave it up to her. And I smile.

“Butterflies!” she answers with a mouth full of strawberry granola bar.

“Sure,” I say. “Do you like them?”

But then she is distracted by the book at her feet and the Disney characters on her bowl and gets up and walks away. She forgets to answer and we never do have that discussion about butterflies. I try to ask her again if she wants to talk, but she’s gone to the other room now.

And I’m sitting here alone thinking about butterflies from a three-year-old, 40 inch perspective. She’s given me her full attention and then just as quickly, it’s gone again. It seems like I’m learning to fit around the edges of her. I ebb where she flows and constantly readjust to the changes in her mood and sentiment.

I can’t help but wonder if that is what our near and far future will be like. Her: excited about life and the newness of it all, not sure where she ends and the world begins. Me: in patient flux responding to the changes of a young woman.

So maybe I can learn now to rush up like the sea when she pulls back, and then retreat when she needs room to expand.

I’ll be free to talk about butterflies or boys or broken hearts when she needs me, and when she thinks she doesn’t, I’ll delicately dance around the edges of her ready to be needed again.

According to my three-year-old, bats and butterflies cannot occupy the same space in a human heart.

Boys like bats.
Girls like butterflies.

Simple as that.

I’m not sure if it has something to do with sugar and spice and puppy dogs tails or something, but she associates girls with the fluttery beauty of a butterfly, and boys with the flapping, scary, webbed wings of a bat.

I’ll be honest. I don’t like bats. And she doesn’t like bats (apparently). Maybe she’s on to something.

Or maybe its something else. The only real “boys” in her life (aside from her male preschool playmates at church) are her father and her two Papas. Each one of them is a strong man, both in physique and in personality, definitely strong enough to overpower a bat.

Maybe she’s just cluing in early to the differences between men and women. That its alright to like feminine things. That its alright to allow a boy to be strong and be a “man”. That there are distinctions between the genders.

Boys and girls are different. And I think its alright to allow her this, to explain this, to help her understand how a husband should treat a wife, how a wife should love her husband. My daughters won’t have to fight the battles of equal rights for women. Those have already been won. The battle they will fight is that to keep their femininity sacred and separate and beautiful. They will have to fight to just be girls.

I’m sticking with butterflies and I’ll let her daddy take care of the bats.