Kids still say the god-damnedest things...sleep ninjas ...

There are two distinct schools of thought on growing pains. One side thinks them legitimate and real and excruciating. The other thinks them little more than coincidence and hokum. But Izzy thinks growing pains are very real and they are, generally responsible for every unknown ache or pain that happens to her.
Isobel: (Groaning and writhing on the couch) "Daddy!"
Daddy: "What is it my delicate flower?"
Isobel: "Wait, what? What am I?"
Daddy: "My delicate flower?"
Isobel: "No I'm not."
Daddy: "Whatever. What's the matter?"
Isobel: "Daddy, I'm having a growing pain."
Daddy: "Are you? Would a kiss make it better?"
Isobel: "O.K."
Daddy: (Giving a very reassuring and father like kiss on the forehead) "Better?"
Isobel: "Not there you goof... Here." (pointing at her knee)


One of my favourite things to do is eavesdrop on Izzy, especially when she is playing by herself, speaking to the masses. We like many other middle class never enough time parents, have a basement full of crap that we have been meaning to throw away/use/sort/put away/organize etc...etc. One of her prized basement possessions is the dancing Santa toy that comes upstairs every Christmas. She cuddles him and cradles him like a baby.
Recently she found an old toaster down there and the basement was instantly transformed into Izzy's Kitchen...and there's always something cooking...
"Now boys and girls," she began. "Who would like to have some toast with butter?" She pointed to several of her minions. "And who would like toast with peanut butter?" She made a couple of uh-huhs and then turned to Santa.
"Santa, would you like to have some toast? With butter or peanut butter? OK, you just sit there and wait then." She went about making the toast and handing it out to all...except Santa who must have been a little over zealous.
"Santa," she said. "I said you have to wait your turn." She turned back to the toaster but was onto him again. "Santa, I said you have to wait your turn." The frustration was noticeably rising in her voice. "Now who wants this piece?" she asked the thronging masses. Then it all went wrong, big time.
"Santa!" she screamed at the jolly old elf. "I said you would have to wait your turn. Now you will not get any toast. EVER." She turned away from him but Thought better of it. "Santa!" (Crack!) She had reached over and smacked Santa off of the table he was perched on. By the expression of pain that crossed her ever reddening face, she had obviously forgotten that Santa was a hard plastic mechanical toy.
"Are you O.K?" I asked, walking over to her.
She kicked Santa where he lay and started heading upstairs. "I hate Christmas." she said.

I can see why Seinfeld was a show about nothing, sometimes the best things (in my case, the best writing fodder) just happens. You can't write it, you can only write it down. I picked up Isobel from school and she had two plastic cups in hand.
"Daddy, I made cupcakes at school!" she proudly exclaimed. I complimented her on her canny use of frosting and sprinkles and her total grasp of the cubist use of marshmallows. She didn't get that but thought it was totally cool when I told her she did a good job on her cupcakes.
We went to get the mail and The Boy was waiting at the post office and took us up on our offer of a ride home. He noticed the cups straight off.
"What's in the cups?" he asked.
"Izzy made cupcakes," I said.
"Good job Izzy," he said in a kind big brotherly kind of way. "Are they edible?"
Pffffft," sputtered Isobel in a moist rebuttal. "No, you eat them."
"That's what edible means Izzy." replied The Boy.
"Oh," said Isobel. "...then yes."

Mrs. Narrator is happy that she has finally found a clothes shopping buddy and the two of them have looked through the catalogue more than once to pick out the coming season's wardrobe. Well, Izzy picks out her wardrobe, Mrs. Narrator mostly looks, points and laughs at what passes for fashion for adults these days. At least they can agree on bathing suits.
"Look Mummy, there are bathing suits in this catalogue." Izzy said gleefully holding up a magazine.
"Let's have a look," said Mrs. Narrator. Ooh look Izzy, these ones are mix and match."
"Let me see that," said Izzy taking back the catalogue. "Mummy, which one is this one?" she asked pointing at the picture of a red one piece bathing suit. "Is this a mix or a match?"

It was one of those rare tender moments that Isobel and I share far too infrequently these days. She had come over to me and after giving me a gigantic bear hug, curled up beside me and snuggled into me. It took me back to the days of when she was very young and I was the only person she would nap with. Or when she would lay on my chest on the couch and we would both watch the T.V. and try to stay awake. They were pure moments...moments that made me feel how I picture a father to be and here was another of those moments, seemingly a lifetime later. Me and my girl on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Completely unsolicited, she looked up at me, grabbed my cheeks and bent my head down to kiss my forehead. "I love you," she said.
"I love you too, Pick." I replied.
"I know," she said. "everybody loves me."



Isobel has recently become one of those children that must have every light within a fifty mile radius of her turned on at bedtime. At first I insisted on her turning off the lights but gave in quickly when I remembered the length of time I required a nightlight of my own (T.V. doesn't count, right?) At least she comes by it honestly.
But as we are not yet the Gettys or the Rothschilds (the Bakers of Ayr if you please) I turn off all the lights as a part of my nightly bedtime ritual. Isobel is no slouch however and within a day or two had figured out that the lights are not on when she wakes up in the morning, therefore someone must be turning them off...but who?
"Daddy," she asked me. "When I go to sleep at night my light is on and the hallway light is on. When I wake up in the morning, the lights are off. Who keeps turning them off?"
"The sleep ninjas." I said. All children know and have a healthy fear of ninjas...as they should.
"That's stupid, who is really turning them off?" she demanded.
"O.K. you caught me. It's really me." I said trying to sound as sarcastic as humanly possible.
"No really Daddy, who turns them out?"
"It's the sleep ninjas. You don't have to believe me but its true. They use their ninja skills to sneak into your room and turn off your light without you ever knowing they were even there."
This idea of nighty-night ninjas came to me one night as I went to turn off her lights and she started stirring. For fear of her waking up, I froze in a bizarre kung fu type pose in the middle of her room(I don't know why I did it either but it seemed an appropriate pose to strike at the time) waiting for her to settle back down.
I've never known a child to have such a dramatic reaction to her nightlight being turned off. Some nights its as though she is experiencing an electric shock the way she jerks in her bed as I click the switch. This past weekend, It was later than usual when I went to bed and so figured there was no chance of her even hearing a cannon go off when I went in to turn the lights off. She is such a sound sleeper.
"What are you doing?" she asked just after I put the light out, shooting gigantic holes through my entire sound sleeper misconception.
"I thought I heard a ninja in here so I came in to look and saw that the lights were out. Go back to sleep, honey." I thought I might have just kicked a gigantic hornet's nest if she clued into the fact that I just said I thought I heard someone in her room. She might not ever sleep in the dark again. I looked over at her and she was drifting off quickly. I turned to leave and she sat bolt upright, scaring the bejesus out of me.
"Daddy!" she whisper-yelled.
"Yes?" I whispered back.
"Leave my lights alone, O.K?"