Vi discovers Vi

I am delighted to report that Vi is developing an appropriately positive awareness of herself. I'm pretty sure nobody else worried about this, but I can explain. You see, until just the last couple of weeks, she didn't care much about seeing her own image, either in pictures or in the mirror. Ask her who she saw and she'd say "Augie," or "Augie and Grandma," as if she was invisible to herself.

This tapped into a deep-seated old issue of mine. I have had a couple of bosses who paid precious little attention to my ideas and recommendations... and who even attributed some of my best proposals to someone else. Being underappreciated translated into feeling invisible. One night I had a vivid dream in which my portrait was being unveiled high on a wall in a very visible spot--only the face in the portrait was someone else. The trauma (and the truth) of that dream stayed with me a long time. Seeing Vi overlook her own reflection made me nervous. But no more.

She has discovered the joy of watching herself dance in the mirror, something her brother perfected at an early age. And she loves to see herself in photos--especially in the display on the back of the camera. This, of course, causes a new problem: Miss Vi, if you constantly walk out of the frame and demand to see the back of the camera, I can't take your picture. I'll keep working on it, though, because this grandma isn't having any little granddaughter grow up to be invisible!