Pillowhawns

Back in November, we were driving along a highway in Denver when Adrianna started pointing at something out the window and talking about “pillowhawns.” Greg and I looked out the window and tried to figure out what she was so excited about, but all our efforts were in vain. We would guess different words, and we could tell that Adrianna was getting frustrated with us because we were unable to share her excitement over this mysterious “pillowhawns.”

This same scenario played out several times over the next month. Sometimes she would refer to “pillowhawns” as “Teddy’s pillowhawns.” Unfortunately this didn’t help us much, because from the mind of our two year old we have heard that Teddy created the mountains, Teddy is her sister, Teddy is her daughter, Teddy poops in the potty, Teddy is the boss…and these are only a few among his many activities and attributes. That is one talented Teddy Bear.

We were so puzzled by what this “pillowhawns” could be that I had been considering doing a blog posting about it to see if anyone could make a guess that would help us to decipher what it could be. Usually we can figure out what she is referring to, but this “pillowhawns” really has had us stumped.

I am glad to report, however, that the mystery of the “pillowhawns” was finally resolved on Saturday as we drove through Kansas.

Adrianna became really excited as she spotted something out the window. I looked over in the direction she was pointing to see what a “pillowhawns” might turn out to be. We were in luck! The Kansas prairie was mostly empty (unlike the highway through Denver) and so I guessed, “Oil Pump?” and Adrianna enthusiastically agreed, “Yeah, pillowhawns!”

We remembered that she had enjoyed pointing out the oil pumps on our last trek through Kansas, but back then she had called them something more along the lines of “poi pums.” I think with the amount of time that had passed since the last time she had seen an oil pump, she couldn’t fully remember the name and so it had evolved to “pillowhawns.”