I have written before about the Force of Nature. We often babysit her, which is needless to say always a joyous, wonderful, stress-filled evening for two of the three of us. However the darling child does sometimes visit with her mother, like she did just this Sunday past.
Now I suffer from frequent migraine. For anyone who has been lucky enough to have never experienced a migraine, I shall now take a short diversion and describe one. To start with, imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had. Now add the distinct sensation of an elephant, wearing hob-nailed boots, standing on the side of your head. As if standing on your head while wearing hob-nails wasn’t bad enough, now the leathery arsed git starts to jump up and down, in perfect time to the beats of your heart. But wait kids, it gets so much worse. Suddenly, every little noise feels, weirdly, like someone stabbing you through the eyes with a pair of red-hot knitting needles. That’s in addition to the other two white-hot knitting needles, which find their way there every time you see anything even the slightest bit bright. Bright things like those slight shadows you see while lying in a pitch black room.
I love the Force of Nature. Adore the little troll. She has the brightest smile I’ve ever seen. Gives the most powerful hugs, the most healing hugs, I’ve ever experienced. She’s a little wonder.
She is also very accurately described by the title Force of Nature. Though admittedly usually not for the first few minutes after she arrives. So Sunday the Force of Nature and Mommy arrive for a nice Sunday dinner. Force of Nature has her face buried into Mommy’s shoulder and is playing it coy. This playing it coy, is something which only comes out when she arrives with Mommy. When we pick her up she’s usually all energy, bouncing, talk and more talk. But Sunday she was in coy mode.
And apparently starving. The Force of Nature’s eyes are often much bigger than her belly. But that’s fine, after all that’s what puppies named Winter are for, clearing up the remains of small dinners left behind by small girls. So Sunday was a typical dinner with the Force, lots of “I want, I want, I want.”, followed closely by “I’m full now.”, when only four or five mouthfuls have actually been consumed.
What many probably don’t realise is that “I’m full now.” actually has a very specific meaning when it is uttered by the very young. That being, “I’m full now, but I still want jelly and ice cream…can I have jelly and ice cream now?” The last part is always said in what the Force thinks is a very cute endearing manner. But what actually comes out is a whining noise that makes certain women very glad that the universe has seen fit to grant them the gift of sterility.
Of course, she gets her jelly and ice cream. Though not without a lot of face-making and eventually having the word “please” physically dragged out with white-hot tongs. But for all that, moments later a very happy and vocal Force of Nature is up to her ears in jelly and ice cream.
The chatter is flowing, and the Force has spent ten minutes parroting back everything, everyone else says. Anyone, who has been around young children for more than thirty seconds, will have encountered this at some stage or other. A darling little girl or boy, suddenly takes it into their head to repeat verbatim, everything that is said around them. While a little irritating it usually ranks a mere 5 on the justifiable homicide scale of young kids being annoying. This puts it far behind continuously asking “Are we there yet?” which ranks a good solid 8 on the same scale.
Usually ranks a 5, that word usually is very important here. Remember that migraine I described? Well guess who had a truly horrific one on Sunday? Want to guess how much higher on the justifiable homicide scale that migraine puts parroting by a young child? No, oh no, not an 8. Look behind you. See that figure 8 way back there on the horizon? That should give you a clue.
Well anyway, after listening to this parroting, for more minutes than my fragile sanity could handle. I Amanda Harper said in a joking voice to the Force of Nature,
“You know Force of Nature, sometimes, you really are a pain in the derriere.”
The Force of Nature, between big mouthfuls of jelly and ice cream smiles back and replies,
“You know Amanda, sometimes you really are a pain in the…ASS!”
Let this be a lesson to you all. Never mind that you had all the best intentions in the world. Never mind, that you have castrated your swearing abilities for 4 years out of a sense of responsibility. Never mind that the pain in your head has you thinking dark, dark thoughts. The facts of the matter are that laughing hard with a migraine only leads to more suffering and little, angelic-looking 4-year-old trolls probably know more swear words than you do.
So buggery to being good.
My Random Ruminations. 