You know that motivational video where Shia LeBeouf is just standing there yelling “JUST DO IT!” over and over again?
THAT is what it is like to watch Wheel of Fortune with Scarlette.
I’ll give you a minute to soak that in.
Here’s the story:
We watch Wheel of Fortune almost every night. J and I have been doing this since we first got married and while I like to think that it was my painstaking persistence in parenting that taught my daughter all of her letters, it was very likely Pat Sajak.
It started out innocently enough. Vanna would turn around a letter and Scarlette would cheerfully identify it for her. “A! DAT IS A WETTER A, GOOD JOB MISS BANNA!”
Then she started calling out letters ahead of the contestants. “B! Q! RJKSTTYL!”
The appearance of more than one letter would make her blissfully happy. “TWO Ns! HE SAID DERE ARE TWO Ns MOMMY! DERE ARE TWO OB DEM!”
The absence of a letter would make her woefully sad. “Awwwww, no G’s. I so sorry no Gs.”
Then she graduated to trying to solve the puzzles.
That’s when things got a little competitive.
After getting a few letters on the board, Scarlette stands in the middle of the den and starts shouting random words at the screen.
“CAT! DOG! RAINBOW! BUBBLESHEARTBATHTUB! EATING! EATING A RAINBOW! EATING! A! RAINBOW!”
Now, I don’t mean to brag but I am a little bit good at Wheel of Fortune. (If by “a little bit” you mean “the greatest Wheel of Fortune Player OF ALL TIME EVER.” I’m also super humble and totally laid back.)
And Scarlette has picked up on the fact that I am very good at solving the puzzles. So what she does is, she waits for me to solve the puzzle and then she shouts that same answer at the screen like “FUNFOODANDFREEDOOOOOM!” and then yells “I DID IT! I DID IT MOMMY! I SOLBED DA PUZZLE ALL BY MYSELFS!”
I have no idea where she gets this level of intensity from.
Just kidding. It’s from her father.
(Okay fine, and also me. She never had a chance, really.)
So now what happens every night is that we will be sitting quietly on the couch, just super chill, when one or two letters are on the board and then Scarlette will jump up suddenly, turn toward us and scream forcefully, with a level of passion that I can not even adequately describe, “SOLBE IT! SOLBE IT! SOLBE IT MOMMY! SOLBE THE PUZZLE! SOLLLLBBBBBEEEEEE IITTTTTTT!”
And I am all “Scarlette! I don’t know it! I can’t solve it, there is literally only the letter L on the board right now.”
So then she patiently waits for one more single letter to appear on the board before jumping on the couch like Tom Cruise while balling up her little fists and screaming “SOLBE IT MOMMY! SOLBE DA PUZZLE!”
One day I am going to get this on video then I am going to send it to Ellen and become besties with her and have her introduce me to her BFF Taylor Swift. (Okay, so that train of thought went a little off course for a minute.)
But seriously, watch out Wheel of Fortune. Scarlette is very serious about you.
(P.S. For more funny stories about Scarlette, check out chapter 12 of my new book because it is full of them. And also it’s still on sale for almost half off. This is a shameless plug because I am real excited about my book y’all.)
