So, for about six months now, I’ve been playing into Isobel’s emerging personality. This is one of many, but what makes it different is that it’s into vandalizing. This kid stops at every single tag on every single telephone pole, bus stop, garbage can, wall and electrical box. She tries to figure it out, she traces the lines, she asks what it says. She knows that people are marking what they perceive to be their territory. She wants in on it.
She also, some evenings, has a hard time unwinding at bed time. On those nights, when I’m not frantic to dump her into bed with a quick kiss on the forehead and an I love you while backing out of the room, I cater to this by allowing her to do something that relaxes her – preening over me.
When I’m especially tired, or in need of some physical contact (yes, it does so happen) or I’m sick, like tonight, it’s all kinds of awesome that I’ve taught her some basic massage, and that she likes to comb my hair and to draw pictures on my back with her fingers.
My life is so hard, right?
Usually, she nails me in the head with the comb a few times, the drawings are merely scribbles with an unleaded finger that may feel more like poking and stabbing, and the massage is never longer than three seconds as she chants sauge sauge sauge, but still, I lie there, and she goes to town, and all the while both of our breaths are getting longer and further apart from the last.
It’s zen-ish, really.
Mr Lady gave me the great idea to put something in her hand that would make a mark when she drew. In her post, she talked about using pens. I’m not that brave, but I do have an abundance of eyeliner pencils kicking around – because you know I wear so much makeup, right? – so I figured, might as well. Maybe she’d be more focused for longer, and I could just lie there and do nothing.
I’m all for lying there and doing nothing. Sometimes.
Half an hour later, I was combed, relaxed and very aware that she kinda rocks free-hand straight lines, for a kid who usually just scribbles in circles.
What I want to know is, how the fuck am I supposed to get this shit off of my back?
