Samantha was two years old when she first watched “Dolphin Tale,” which tells the story of a rescued dolphin named Winter who receives a prosthetic tail.  For the next two years, she followed me around the house insisting she was “Mitch,” the “Doll Fin wif a hoit tail.”  (Not sure how Winter came out “Mitch,” but there we were.)

I asked the pediatrician about it. She laughed and said that “pretend play” is normal for this age.

But this was more than pretend play. This was an obsession. She wasn’t “Mitch” one day and a princess or a pony the next day. She was Mitch all day every day.

She would plant herself on the floor with her feet together and hold up a dish towel for whoever happened to be passing by, shouting, “I Mitch! I Doll Fin wif a hoit tail.” She expected you to bandage her “hoit tail.”

One day we were down south while my husband attended a conference.  I took Samantha out to see some shops.  But, silly me, I let her watch “Dolphin Tail” in the car on the way. And so she did not want to get out of the car. She started screaming, “No! Mitch! Miiiiiiiitch!” when I turned the car off.

Looking back, this may have been one of those battles that was not worth fighting.

But I was still a new mom. I only had like two years of experience with my daughter’s personality. So, in all fairness, I did not really know what I was doing when I insisted that we get some fresh air and sunshine that morning.

I carried her under one arm like a football toward the shops as she kicked and screamed.  “Noooooo!!!! Miiiiiiiitch!”

We walked  up to a beautiful two-story book store with a glass storefront. In the window was a life-sized stuffed giraffe and displays of children’s books.  “Look!” I pointed. “That book is called ‘The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse.’ I have never seen that book. Look!”

Screaming and sobbing from Samantha. Plenty of dirty looks from passersby.

I started jiggling her and singing softly and generally trying to get her to shut up without losing my cool.

The book store was not yet open, so we stood outside gazing in at all the lovely books. Or rather, I stood. She was still squirming and kicking and trying to free herself while continuing to scream.

After what seemed like an hour but was probably more like four minutes, the store opened. “Look,” I whispered. “They’re open. Oh, I really want to read that book about the blue horse. Don’t you?  But we can’t go in if you’re screaming. I guess we will have to wait here. Look, people are going in. None of them are screaming. Oh, see the worker inside? He is probably checking everyone who is going in to make sure they are calm enough to look at his books. What do you think?”

Finally. I got a reaction. She stopped screaming. We went in. She stayed calm.

Afraid to break the spell, we spent the entire morning in that book store and came out with… well, a lot of books, including “The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse” by Eric Carle.

She continued to be “Mitch” for the next two years.

I would like to dedicate this story to the memory of the real Winter. We had tickets to visit her in June of 2020, but our trip was canceled due to COVID. Winter died on November 11, 2021.  Both “Dolphin Tale” and “Dolphin Tale 2” continue to be household favorites with both of my children.