There is a young teen girl, clad in a white “Will Work for Rupees” Zelda t-shirt and jeans, sitting at a restaurant table. Her giant mass of hair is pulled back as if she didn’t care what it looked like (she doesn’t).

It appears that she is staring intently at an NES controller, but on second look, it is a case for an iPhone 5s. Next to her is a used copy of Orwell’s 1984, the progenitor of post-modern dystopian novels.

The girl LOVES dystopias, and is currently on chapter seven of her own dystopian novel about a society at the crossroads of the faery and human worlds. Her voracious reading and re reading has lent her a rather large vocabulary. The story she has created has been typed with her thumbs on her NES controller clad iPhone 5. She’s not doing this at the moment however; she is on an anime community site giggling at inside fandom jokes. And that phone she’s holding? That phone’s music playlist is not so much what passes for some music these days, but 90’s hip hop and show tunes, including anime and Broadway soundtracks.

She’s my daughter and she’s a Blerd. And her father and I did this to her. We didn’t mean to do it. But when you think about it, it was kind of inevitable.

She’s been in school since before she was born; undoubtedly listening to my literature discussions as she kicked a steady TLC beat on my bladder. Not for long however, because she was born frighteningly early, at 26 weeks and less than 2 pounds with extremely limited lung capacity. It was heartbreaking to go home without a baby. For 10 weeks I sat in the hospital for 8 hours a day reading to her, leaving and returning for at least a four-hour night shift with my husband.

The girl came home on breathing and heart monitors. Although she wasn’t wireless until six months old, but she became the absolute best, most perfect thing on this earth to us. And as I had taken off to be home with her, I very often would have full on adult conversations with an infant. No baby talk for me. I would have gone crazy otherwise. As a result, when she began to speak, it was in almost full sentences. Such a tiny thing with such conversation skills was surprising to most people. Needless to say, her personal library of books was well over a hundred before she was 1. Reading was just something we did.

When Daddy got home each day, she spent hours in his lap as he watched anime or played video games. His love of The Kid from Minneapolis led to a pretty risqué car ride playlist for a little one, but again she seemed not to be too damaged by the music she was hearing.

The girl cheerfully waved goodbye as I dropped her at daycare on my first day back at work after two years. By the time she was three, her father had taught her to read through phonics and her unique personality had already firmly begun to take root.

Our daughter has never been a girlie girl and even though she started tap and ballet at the age of three, she’s never loved the “frill life.” Barbie dolls bought never got their hair combed and I was never begged for a full wardrobe for a Brat doll at the store.

Even though she will participate in her 11^th annual recital in a couple of weeks and perform tap, lyrical, ballet and pointe in beautiful costumes, she hates tulle and sequins. Although she says she wants to get her 15-year dance award, she will never be like the little pink ballerina in the jewelry box. I fear anyone who tries to put her in a box because she inherited a strong will from an unnamed source.

Part of me was sad about that. Part of me wanted a girlie girl who cared about her hair and shopping and being popular because I was never that way. Well, make plans and God laughs. She loves to shop, but Hot Topic is the shop of choice and I think she just enjoys spending girl time with me. Talk about a weird 13 year old.

Although many of her friends are from other cultures because of her interests, the way she schooled me about Bloody Sunday after watching Selma last year leaves me confident of her pride in her heritage. She also loves acting and aspires to make a film one day. We may have a future Ava Duvernay using all of our data, who knows?

The girl is beautiful and could spend her time on her phone talking about and to boys, but she doesn’t. If she knew the power of that smile, she’d be embroiled in enough girl drama to drive any teen parent crazy. We are blessed that although things haven’t happened the way we’ve planned since she was born, she is exactly who and what she should be.

We did not consciously sit down and say, ‘we want our daughter to be different, a Blerd,’ but she just kind of soaked up the bookishness, ideas, and geek things floating through our house. No one can know for sure if Blerdishness is hereditary but one thing is certain: we are so proud of her. She is going to do great nerd things one day. And even if she does rebel and become a “normal” mainstream non-blerd being one day, we will support her lifestyle choices. We would make fun of her, but we wouldn’t stop her.