A Big Obsession for a Little Girl

I accidentally, indirectly created a monster. Most people's children beg to watch cartoons - or some version of kid shows. Dora, Yo Gabba Gabba, Thomas, Backyardigans, you know *kid* shows. (I have only had exposure to one of those shows, by the way. As you're about to see, my kid's a bit of a freak.) Not my kid. No. She comes downstairs on a Saturday morning and when I say, "Hi! Do you want to watch cartoons?" She responds, "No. I want to watch Doctor Who."

No, I'm not kidding.

She walks around the house as a Dalek, repeating, "Exterminate. Exterminate." Or as a Cyberman (which she has her own name for that of course I can't remember right now) saying, "Delete. Delete." She gets so excited any time Mickey is in an episode and she knows the seasons by which companion it is - Rose Tyler ("with the yellow hair" or "the purple jacket" depending on the day), Martha, or Donna. Or, as she's been asking for lately, "the one with all of them, with everybody." She follows the stories, she knows the bad guys. She doesn't like the Ood, they freak her out (truth be told, they kinda freak me out too). She knows which episodes are kind of boring and the ones that are exciting and full of adventure. She knows how to ask for specific episodes by what happens in them and who the bad guys are. She gets very concerned for the Doctor every time he ends up losing a companion and being on his own for a bit. It breaks her heart that "he's all alone, he doesn't have a best friend." (She has this thing about best friends. She has to have one. When she is mad at you, she is no longer yours. It devastates her when someone isn't hers. So she is very empathetic with the best friend thing. So when she gets sad that The Doctor doesn't have one, it really is kind of sad.)

Oddly enough, it's not Doctor specific either. I thought she would just stick with the Doctor she knows (the David Tennant one - and who could blame her if that was the case??? He's the best, of course!). No, she'll watch the first one with Christopher Eccleston or the new one with Matt Smith. She doesn't care. It seems she actually does enjoy the stories of it. No, they're not the most kid-friendly stories but somehow they feed her imagination like the kid shows apparently don't.

I could tell these stories all day but the best one, by far, happened last night. The three-year old put a sheet on her head - like a veil - and said, "You be Doctor Who. I'll be Donna in a wedding dress." She turned her back to me and then turned her head and said, "You say, 'What?!?'" So I played the part of her Doctor and said, "What?!? What?!?" And she, channeling Catherine Tate, with the same expression and tone of Donna, turned to me and said, "What in the hell is this place??!" (It's a scene in the second season finale and third season premiere.)

No, I'm not kidding.

First - I have no idea where that came from. She hasn't seen that scene in ages. Second - she obviously pays attention for real as opposed to just watching images on a screen. Third - the good mom would have stopped her right there and explained that we don't talk like that, that's a bad word and we don't use it ever ever ever. Is that what I did? Oh hell no. I busted out laughing and told her how freaking adorable she is. Maybe not the best parenting move. But she had no idea. I felt there was no reason to correct or punish her. (After a while, so she didn't think she was in trouble for doing it, I did talk to her about it like a good mom would have done in the first place.) It was one of those unexpected times that there was no way to know or to plan for it but that you wish you would have had a video camera somewhere.

So, in a nutshell? My child is obsessed with Doctor Who. And my husband hates me for it.