Isobel learns sign language...I kissed a what?...

It was late and I was putting Isobel to bed.
Isobel: "Daddy, I'm sleepy."
Daddy: "Me too. I don't want to go to work, I want to go to bed."
Isobel: "Daddy, have you ever fallen asleep at work?"
Daddy: "I've dozed off a couple of times, yes."
Isobel: "They have beds at your work!!??!"
Daddy: "No honey, no beds. I fell asleep at the table."
Isobel: "There are beds on the table...what?"
Daddy: "No beds. There are no beds at the table, OK?"
Isobel: "OK. No beds at the table."
Isobel: "Daddy?"
Daddy: "Yes?"
Isobel: "Where do they put the sleeping bags when you're not sleeping in them at work?"





It never ceases to amaze me how quickly children develop and what they pick up along the way. They learn to speak most times without any real effort on the parents part. Oh sure, you correct grammar and the like along the way(unless it is especially funny and then you put it into a blog and hope many people read it) but by and large they learn it all on their own.
Television is, for my money, one of the greatest baby sitter's and teachers of language and societal norms available today. Because of T.V. my children can speak a little Spanish and a little Chinese. They both know how to sing the inch worm song,(two and two are four, four and four are eight etc...) though the other precepts of math are clearly eluding Isobel for the time being.
There are other things however, that can only be learned by careful observation of the human condition. Gestures and hand signals. We all use them, every one of us but I don't recall anyone ever teaching them to me. Nor did I teach Izzy any of them. But she is familiar with most of the internationally recognized signals and gestures.
She can tell you to come here, go away and once you have gone away, she can inform you that she can no longer hear you. She can tell you she's hungry, tired, she has a headache and even that she has farted, all without a single word. Though the last one we seldom need hand signals for.
There are hand signals that carry a certain weight in western society and Isobel (being her father's daughter) has taken to one in particular with relish and zeal. The one finger salute, the Trudeau stir stick, the F--- finger.
I didn't teach it to her, I swear. (pun intended) I actually prefer the U.K version where the offending middle finger is joined by the index finger in a sort of reverse peace symbol, which of course must be accompanied by a raspberry sound while being displayed. Though Mrs. Narrator is a fan of hoisting the middle digit. Why just the other day, she was demonstrating her proficiency in displaying it for me.
I had never actually seen Izzy do it but the Boy, who tends to get a little squeamish when Izzy lets fly with these things, would let everyone in earshot know that she was showing it.
"Izzy! Stop showing the middle finger!" echoed through the house and every time I heard it, I would quick run over to see if I could catch her doing it but she would tuck her hands away quickly.
I was downstairs on the treadmill when she came down to ask me if she could have a snack. She came back downstairs with a bowl and sat on a stool while I continued to run. Out of the corner of my eye I could see she was doing something odd. She had one hand in her lap and was manipulating it with the other. She held her transfigured hand very still and made her way from the stool to the stairs and when she had reached the top of the stairs she turned back to me.
"Daddy, look." she said
And there it was in all it's glory. "Phhht" she made a raspberry noise as she displayed it and then disappeared with a giggle.
I stood there with satisfaction and a little pride washing over me after seeing that...Then I came to the realization that what I had just witnessed was not accidental nor misunderstood. With the time and effort she had expended and the journey from the stool to the stairs and the waiting until the time was just right and a getaway was fast and easy...my five year old had just flipped me the bird.







We were at the movies a couple of weeks ago and the kids were both just getting over the cold that seemed endless this winter. Isobel was hit particularly by it. A double whammy, the cold and skin that was so dry it was actually cracking at her finger tips. She had been showing me the end of her index finger all day and making sure that I knew about the crack.
"Daddy, I have a crack in my finger from it being dry skin on it."
"Well, we'll just have to be careful of it and maybe put some medicine on it." I said.
"OK ," she said. "But don't put anymore hand cream on it. That made it hurt like hell." We learned that lesson the hard way.
She must have gotten some salt from the popcorn into the cut because she said it was really starting to sting but she didn't want to go to the bathroom and miss any of the movie. A little condensation from the side of the bucket of Pepsi worked nicely as a substitute and a kiss from Daddy made it all better.
A little while later I had dozed off a bit and woke up to Izzy's finger stuck firmly in my face. I figured she had gotten more salt on it so I reached for the pop and rubbed a little moisture on it and gave it a feel better kiss.
Isobel looked at me with a very odd expression and laughed an uncomfortable laugh.
"What?" I asked.
"You just kissed a booger." she said.
"What?" I said snapping awake. "What, I kissed what?"
"A booger." she repeated. "I couldn't find a Kleenex so I picked it out and it got stuck to my finger."
"Eeeewwwww," I said wiping my mouth with a napkin and gulping at the soda, in a vain attempt to wash away what I had just done.
Now you can swallow as much Pepsi as you like and wash your face with soap and water repeatedly but you can't scrub your brain and the image of me planting lips on the neon green nugget was locked in there for at least a week. Thankfully Izzy's long term memory is not fully developed yet. As it was she wouldn't kiss me the whole rest of the night. Though I can see her many years from now talking to a friend when a repressed memory bubbles to the surface."...yeah, and then my Dad kissed a booger."