It doesn’t take long for a mother to learn one cry from
another and to pay attention to the most urgent ones. When a child screams in
pain or terror a mother comes running.
Lydia was outside my bedroom door screaming “No, No, don’t!” in such a
way that I knew she needed immediate help.
There at the top of the stair she sat in a large plastic tub. John was with her explaining how he was going
to push her down the stairs. If she
hadn’t been terrified I might not have gotten there in time. When I tried convincing him of how dangerous
what he wanted to do was, he started into his ever ready explanation of his
“safety measures”. Yes, he was planning on sending her down the stairs, but he
was going to stay in front of her to make sure she didn’t go too fast.
Lydia was walking around the house with a pencil. When I asked her what she was doing she
pointed the eraser end at me and said “sshhhhooooooo, you’re a baby duck”. I decided play along. I started to walk towards her waddling and
quacking. She began to run and several
laps around the house later she pointed it at me again and said “shhhooo you’re a froggy”. By the time I was too winded to play anymore
I had been a cat, snake, lion, monkey, tiger, rabbit and water. Judging by her
reactions each was as fearsome as the one before. I think the fairy godmother
costume at Halloween went to her head.
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