A-Maylia Pond

Over the past several weeks Maylia has seen more than her fair share of Doctors and medical professionals. From the international adoption clinic, to the medicentre for blood tests, Stollery Cardiology, Stollery Emergency, Bonnie Doon Health Center for immunizations - 5 of them - and back again to the International Adoption Clinic. It is not surprising then, that when she sees a nurse , a doctor or anyone wearing scrubs or a white lab coat she is more than a bit suspect.

But there is one Doctor Maylia has no trouble with.

Which Doctor you say? Doctor who -- you may ask? And therein lies the answer. Doctor Who.

Since Christmas our entire family has been more than a little obsessed with the BBC Doctor WHo series. We'd all noticed it on Netflix and had been hearing about it on the news, a revival that began as the series approached its 50th anniversary. We had talked about trying it out and finally over Christmas, as we cocooned ourselves in our home over Maylia bonding, we gave it a try one night. And then the next night. And then the next night and the next and the next and the next and here we are, in March nearly concluding series 6.

The fun thing about the series is that it's one that our whole family has loved, from oldest to youngest. Too often family movie night is rife with disagreement where the show that is loved by the boys is loathed by the girls and vice versa. But there has been something rather magical about Doctor Who. Quirky, Sci Fi, silly, and sometimes completely ridiculous, but so fun and funny and delightfully, refreshingly clean content. There's certainly not a lot nowadays you can say that about.

Maylia has her very own love for the Doctor. Every night as we begin an episode Maylia stands centre stage to dance to the opening credits. She spins, smiles and waves her arms - we call it the Dalek Dance. When the song concludes, she climbs up onto the couch beside us with her book or iPad or snacks and settles in pretty well for the duration of the episode. As the closing credits roll she's up on her feet again, spinning and waving and shakin' what her momma gave her.

Additionally as part of our nightly routine we kneel for family prayer at the couch. Maylia's got that all figured out too and has taken on a CPI or Chief Prayer Inspector role. At our 'call to prayer' she kneels beside the couch and puts both hands to her eyes. She's usually the first one and as everyone else slowly kneels around she peeks out from behind her hands to call out anyone -- usually Grayson -- whose eyes are still open. She'll wave her hand at them " Gaow, gaow" -- her word and action for " get your eyes closed you heathen", and then continues to monitor us all until the "amen".

Then it's " Ni-night" and kisses for everyone and up to bed.

We couldn't ask for a better prescription for a family tradition.