Devils and Angels and Vampires and Living Dead Girls, Oh my...A Spooky Halloween Story...

We were getting ready to go to the mall, just Izzy and I, when the topic of zombies came up. It comes up more often than you would think...
Isobel: "Daddy, how do you make a zombie?"
Daddy: "I think it's mostly rum."
Isobel: "What?"
Daddy: "Oh, you mean a real zombie, that's easy. If you don't eat all your supper you turn into a zombie."
Isobel: "... Really?"
Daddy: "Really."
Mrs Narrator: "I heard that it happens if you don't eat your broccoli."
Isobel: "I guess I am going to be a zombie then. Oh well, whatever."
She fell asleep in the car on the way to the mall and snapped awake with a yelp that scared me enough to swerve the car.
Isobel: "Daddy!"
Daddy: "What is it honey?!? You scared the crap out of me!"
Isobel: "Daddy, do zombies eat pizza with pencil shavings on it?"
Daddy: "Not as far as I know, just brains."
Isobel: "Phew"

Ah Halloween! Izzy's favourite holiday...and I guess mine too. Though I have always had a problem with it being called a holiday. I have never gotten the day off work or school...wherein then, lies the holiday?
Anyway, Izzy loves Halloween. Once she understood the concept of knocking on doors equals candy (scandalous amount of candy) she was off and running. I'm sure most kids are excited about the prospect of dressing up and putting on make up once a year but to the child whose day to day play routines involve make-up and costumes of all sorts, careful consideration must be given to ensure that one's treat receivership is not compromised by a poorly planned disguise. A few 'and what are you dressed up as, little girl?' questions and the next thing you know you're trying like hell to make your pittance of Halloween loot last until the end of the week., never mind til next Halloween. We're still not certain how The Boy pulls off this feat every year. We think he may have the devil in him.
So with careful planning and a well thought out colour scheme, Isobel decided she would like to be the Devil. Not any demon or lesser imp, but the Big Red One himself. (or herself in this case) We went off to the second hand store and began to assemble the costume. I would hold up red items and Isobel would say either yay or nay to them. And horns and a pitch fork of course. ( how can you be the Devil without such things) She had initially seen and adult devil costume, one for an ample bosomed woman...complete with red fish net stockings.
"Devil or no, there is no way in HELL you are going to dress like that..." I believe was what came out of my mouth when she pointed at the costume.
And so we me in the middle with red warm up pants, a red sweater and a red fur lined hoodie. We decided against a tail because it looked "totally not like a devil tail anyway." No muss, very little fuss and we were back in the car headed for home with a good costume in under an hour!
So the Devil bit lasted about two days...I blame myself. She would put the costume on and strut around and dance a devilish dance and I made an off the cuff comment about disguising your true self at Halloween...I blame myself...
So off we went, back to the second hand store to get angel wings and a white gown. Izzy remembered that she already had a white dress she could wear and all she needed to have were the wings. Where in the hell was I going to find white wings that weren't going to cost me an arm and a leg? The second hand store, of course. There they were, a rack of wings. Red, black, white, blue and many shades of metallic wings. All for $10:00. You couldn't go wrong. And since she is my kid, the second he saw them, she wanted the black wings and wondered how she could pull off black wings and still be an angel? I blame myself...I suggested she could be a fallen angel, like in the video by her new favourite band. This of course opened up the new dilemma of what outfit to wear under the wings and what make up to wear along with it.
We agreed we would have a look at the video and see what they were wearing and we could do her make up and outfit based on that. She agreed and home we went, where she proceeded to wear the black ostrich feather wings around the house for playing until they became a little on the ratty side.
"I don't want to be an angel anymore, not even a fallen angel. My wings don't look to good now." she said four days before Halloween. I blame myself...
"What now?" I asked, the desperation and frustration beginning to show.
"A vampire." she stated.
That I could do, she just needed new teeth-99 cents at the second hand store. The rest we had left over from last year, even the fake blood. Off we went and got teeth and a little more make up just in case.
She had a Halloween party at school on the Monday of Halloween and I promised I would put on her make up before I went to bed in the morning. When I picked her up after school, she was still wearing the make up, which in my mind meant it went over fairly well. When I was putting the make up back on her before we went out that night, she said she wasn't a vampire anymore. I explained that as long it ddn't involve me running out anywhere in a full blown panic trying to get a costume piece at the last second, that she could be Mary Todd Lincoln's facial hair as far as I was concerned.
She explained that she was going to be a Living Dead Doll. Her make-up was identical only with out the vampire blood (which she said was bugging her chin anyway) and a bright red bow for her hair. It was one of those bows that people put around the bald heads of their baby's for photographs that cause people to ask 'why would you put that gigantic stupid bow on that poor baby's head?'
I have to admit, she thought about it, planned it out and it looked good. Most of the older folks said the standard 'great costumes, guys' to Izzy and The Boy (who incidentally cut as fine a figure of a Grim Reaper as ever I saw) but it was the young hip parents and teen aged girls that really liked what she was wearing and really laid the candy on...my baby know creepy and creepy pays on Halloween...



We were sitting out by the fire one night, Izzy and me and the topic of conversation turned to my Auntie Judy and how she makes the best pickles(she does) and how we should go visit her sometime. (we should)
"I'll bet she's really nice," Izzy said.
"She is, very nice." I replied.
"Does she make you tea when you go to visit her?"
"Always," I said. " "Auntie Judy makes the best tea."
"Does she have a brown tea pot?" Izzy asked.
"I think so," I said. "What else?" I asked.
"Was it Nana's?"
"Yes," I said "But my Nana, not your Nana."
"I think Auntie Judy has short , kind of curly hair." Izzy said.
"What colour?" I asked.
"White," Ozzy said. "Short and white and she wears glasses."
Isobel has never met my Auntie Judy and to my knowledge she has never seen a picture of her. For the record, my Auntie Judy has short, white hair that is slightly curly and she wears glasses when she reads. I can't be 100% certain but I believe the last time I was visiting her, my Auntie Judy made me tea in a brown pot that belonged to my grandmother, my Nana...I think I need to keep my eye on this kid...or take her to the track...Happy Halloween from all of us at Fuzzy Blue Chair!

The conversation...It would bring tears to your eyes...

It is the end of harvest season and close to Halloween. Izzy went on her first real class trip and came home very excited and carrying a small, mostly filthy pumpkin.
Isobel: "Look Daddy, look what I got from my trip at school.
Daddy: "Oh, lookie there. It's a big ball of mud and horse crap."
Isobel: "Daddy! It's my own pumpkin. I mean I found it and picked it for myself."
Daddy: "Oh look, there's a bit of orange under all that mud and horse crap. Maybe I could give it a wash."
Isobel: Really? You can make it all orange?"
Daddy: "Yep. Did you think that's just how it was?"
Isobel: "Maybe."
Daddy: "Now that your pumpkin is all clean what are you going to do?"
Isobel "I'm going to haunt my house. And when I get back, I'm going to keep...my...eye...on...you...muahahaha!"


I have to admit I was a little reluctant to send Isobel to school with our phone number written on a small piece of paper. She had said she needed to give it to her friend Candace who said she was going to call her. Maybe I was being old fashioned...that sort of automatic distrust of anyone wanting information from you. What if they give that information to someone who could do harm to me? Like the police or the tax department.
But this whole Father thing has really put things in a different light for me. I pay tax, I don't do illegal things (save maybe for the odd bout of speeding) and Isobel's friend Candace is five. I Know 'out of the mouths of babes' and all that but honestly, what sort of trouble could a five year old put on my doorstep anyway? It's that sort of arm's length attitude that has made the world an unhappy place and kept my parents weird and distant all of their adult lives...Name, rank and serial number. Never give 'em anything else...nonsense.
So I sent Izzy off to school with the number safely tucked into her lunch box. Figuring she would forget it outright or that she would lose it somewhere along the way. Mistake number one. She did neither but instead delivered it to it's intended recipient. Maybe I unconsciously believed that Candace's parents wouldn't let their five year old daughter use the phone. (is there an age of majority for the telephone?) Mistake number two. And lastly, mistake number three, I actually wondered aloud how much two five year old girls could have to say to each other?
I may as well have asked how many bricks does it take to fill in the Grand Canyon...They talked and talked and talked...and when they weren't talking, they were listening to each other breathe and snore and making fart noises. Isobel gave a rousing piano concerto (read Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) all the while holding her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. The poor child on the other end must have told her parents "There's something wrong with our phone, every time Isobel says listen to this, I can't hear anything."
I have noticed that Isobel seems to take the lead, even in a phone conversation. Now of course I can't hear the other end of the phone call but from our side Izzy was all boss.
"Now Candace, I told you I don't want to talk about that...(Isobel listening) No, I said I wasn't going to do that today. Candace, that's pretty stupid...See?...OK, fine, then."
The 'OK, fine then,' is usually an indication that Isobel is ending whatever activity she is currently involved in and moving on to something else that does not involve the person or thing (or minion) she is upset with. Santa got an 'OK, fine then' little over a month ago and he is still in exile on the floor of my car. But the conversation with Candace went on for another full fifteen minutes after Izzy dropped the OK, fine then...I was a little speechless.
Tonight, Candace called just as she said she would but Isobel was in the midst of making a fort with The Boy and wasn't interested in the phone...not right then anyway. But they managed to talk for a little and Izzy tried to talk while in the fort, which didn't go over well. There were tears and yelling and from the other room, it sounded to me as though she and Candace had had their first fight...maybe even broken up.
I asked her about it later.
"Did you and Candace have a fight?"
"Kinda," she said.
"Are you still friends now?" I asked.
"Yep, we are BFF's forever." she said.
"What about the fight?" I asked her.
"Friends do that. That's why we are for real sisters."
"Wow," I thought. "How very insightful."
"Tomorrow I'll go back to loving her and telling her what to do." said Isobel.
I think the pony just turned into a princess phone in her bedroom.



We were enjoying our usual Sunday night bedtime routine. I had just gotten up from my nap before work and was laying in bed with her. We were reading and tickling and giggling and farting and giggling and farting and giggling...well, you get the idea.
I'm not certain what it is about Sunday night bedtime's in particular, but after a good meal and a two hour nap, something happens to my insides...something evil takes up residence and surfaces whenever it damn well pleases.
I am a guy and a Dad, I revel in my own bodily functions and encourage such activity in my children. With that being said, even I thought I was rotten.
"I'm outta here." said Izzy as she got out of her bed.
"Wait," I said. "Where are you going? It's bedtime."
"You stink." she said.
I started laughing and I noticed she looked like she might start crying. Fellow parents will know what look I am talking about. Non parents-picture finding a full beer at a party and drinking it only discovering the cigarette butt as the last swallow passes your lips...that look.
"Don't cry, Honey. I'm not laughing at you."
"It's not that." she said.
"What's the matter, then?" I asked her.
"It really stinks in here now."
"What?"
"Just go, Dad." she said.
"What?" I asked.
"Please." she said.
Oh my god, she called me Dad. Not Daddy or Papa( my personal favourite) but Dad...how far off can it be before I hear; "I'm on the phone. Can you give me a little privacy, Dad. Said in that tone that we all know is a euphemism for asshole? Give me strength...my baby is growing up...

The Piano...Jack Lalane sucks...

We are coming into a period in Isobel's life that is fast becoming my favourite. Isobel is in SK now which means an ever increasing ability to read and write. I promise I will do a whole column on the things she is writing but for now, we were in bed at story time and Isobel was reading to me for a change.
Isobel: "Water can be cold."
Daddy: "Yup."
Isobel: "Water can be hot."
Daddy: "Very good."
Isobel: "Daddy, what is that?" (pointing to the water can be hot picture)
Daddy: `That is called a geyser. Water gets heated under the ground and then it erupts out of the ground and shoots up into the air.
Isobel: "Wow, that`s cool."
Daddy: "Huh?"
Isobel: "No, seriously that's cool."
Daddy: "That's it? That's all you have to say. Nothing else to add?"
Isobel: "That's it, I can't be random anymore today."


For the record, Isobel has not lost a finger nor has she been swept off her feet by Harvey Keitel dressed as a Maori. (wait, what?)
We were trying to remember when it was that the piano came to us and I think the consensus was that it was a gift for her first birthday. It was definitely my mother that gave it to her and it was the kind of gift that a mother gives. Not because she believes the child will be some kind of musical prodigy but because she swore she would get even with you for all the years of heart ache and unbridled, frustration fueled rage that you yourself put her through. If you were a particularly horrid child, you can count on a drum set being given to one or all of your children... But Izzy got a piano and not a very loud one at that.
At first she would use it as a source of ready made music, like the playschool wind up radios we had as kids. It has songs programmed into it and she would play them ad nauseum...to all of our delights. Soon after, she discovered that placing one's hands upon the keys of the piano caused sounds the weren't altogether unpleasant to emanate from the smiley piano and from then on the house was filled with the constant 'plink, plunk' of someone who hasn't a clue how to play a piano...even a toy one...that is more or less a player piano.
But she loved it, she had taken the bench from her make-up table(also a gift from my mother) and began to use it as a piano bench. I do remember that she seemed to have a knack for plink-plunking at the worst possible times. I would be watching T.V. in the room with her and the piano and she would give an impromptu recital just at the climax of what I happened to be watching...intently...with all my attention.
"Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father?"
"He told me enough, he told me you killed him."
"No, I...(Plink Plink Plink...PLLLUUUNNNKKK!)
OK, so I knew how that one turned out anyway but you get the idea.
But like all her things, the piano was replaced by something newer and flashier and it eventually ended up in the basement. Once in a while when she would come downstairs and play while I ran on the treadmill, she would see her piano and plink plunk away on it and giggle at the odd sounds it would make because the batteries were wearing out. Eventually, the batteries died outright and the piano was forgotten. Soon Izzy stopped coming downstairs with me and I subconsciously put the piano into the pile of toys to be donated if I ever get around to cleaning the basement.
Now, for the last week or two Isobel has been coming downstairs with me again and the other day she noticed her piano.
"Hey, it's my piano." she said.
"Yep." I replied.
"Hey, there are numbers written on it and numbers written in the book." Isobel exclaimed.
"Yep." I replied.
"Daddy, are these the songs? Is this how you play the songs?" she bubbled.
"Yep." I replied.
The batteries were dead and so no music for that day but we eventually got some batteries and she set about the piano straight way. She went first into the other room so she could practice and not be embarrassed. (I'm guessing...maybe she just didn't want an audience) It took a little effort but in a relatively short time the winsome strains of 'Twinkle, twinkle little star' and 'Baa-baa, black sheep' were coming out of my progeny's fingers.
I walked as quietly into the room as I could, to get a better listen and to call her to supper. She was playing away and talking to the minions.
"Holy crap," she said. "This is easier than I thought. No seriously, I am rocking this piano."
See, knowledge is power...just ask Liberace. I`ll bet he started the same way.



Isobel has begun to come downstairs with me again. Only now
she has decided that rather than play, she will exercise too. She put her summer jammies on ( shorts and a matching spaghetti strap tank top) and sweat pants and a sweater over top of that. On her feet were blue flowered flip-flops. A vision of health and vitality!
Her workout began with some simple stretches and right into jumping jacks. From there she went into stomach crunches and some dumbbell work. all of this happened over the course of about twenty minutes with no break.
"Daddy?" she began. "I'm getting sore."
"Take a break then." OI said. "You need to go slowly and build up your stamina. You can't go all out all at once."
She took a little breather and then was right back at it. I'd like to say that she was a natural at aerobic exercise...I'd like to say that but sadly, it was closer to striper-cise than it was to exercise. Lots of grinding on the floor and pelvic thrusting...too many Whitesnake videos would be my first guess.
She tried a kind of bizarre jumping jack where upon she leaped into the air while trying to touch her hand to the opposite foot...I think. She fell flat on her bottom and I quickly turned away so she wouldn't be embarrassed.
"Being healthy sucks." she said and stomped upstairs.
You don't need to be healthy to be a rockstar anyway...

The Weirdness of you Episode 2...My Perfect Cousin...

She had been playing downstairs and made a gigantic mess and so naturally, she decided to play upstairs and make a giant mess in her room. I found her hunched over her Dsi.
Isobel: "So then he went to that place and went whrrrrrr!!!"
Daddy: "Izzy, who are you talking to?"
Isobel: "Whrrr!!!"
Daddy: "Izzy, what are you doing?"
Isobel: "Whrrr, Gleenk, whrrr!!!"
Daddy: "Isobel!"
Isobel : "What is it , Daddy? I am trying to make my sounds."
Daddy: "You have a big mess you need to clean up downstairs."
Isobel: "I can't. I can't go downstairs anymore."
Daddy: "What do you mean?"
Isobel: "I can't go downstairs anymore, I am all out of up and down."


When I started writing this last week I realized that Isobel is just far too odd and far too often to just be captured in a single column. So here we go for the next bit.
Isobel has always had a fascination with religion and why people do what they do in those scary looking buildings. I don't know that she has ever been inside a church per-se but she has seen plenty on the outside. She once asked me who lived in there and without really thinking, I said the Baby Jesus. All kids know who the baby Jesus is, right? Not if they are never made to go to church they don't.
We were driving along, coming back from shopping somewhere when from out of my backseat I heard 'Jesus Christ!' I looked back to see what she was so upset about and all she would do was hang her head and point. I looked to what she was pointing at and sure enough, it was JC hanging off the side of a building...a church. She used to refer to the building as Jesus Christ, Cross!' but she's grown so much since then...
We were outside and she tripped and a 'Damn It!' slipped out of her. I said "Izzy, you shouldn't say things like that, you make the baby Jesus cry."
"How many times do I have to tell you, they don't exist."
"Who?" I asked, knowing full well what she was going to answer.
"The Baby Jesus, they don't exist!"
I chuckled a little and she seemed a bit embarrassed.
"Daddy?" she began.
"Uh-huh?"
"Daddy, do you really believe in the baby Jesus?"
"No, I guess not." I said, not wanting to get into a semantic discussion with a five year old whether or not someone of that description actually existed at that period in time.
"Oh thank god," she gushed. "me either. I just didn't want to be the only one."


We were driving along and she noticed two Sikh gentlemen walking toward the car. She seemed mystified by them. What they were wearing in particular.
"WHAT are they wearing on their heads?" she asked, not disguising the excitement in her voice.
"Those are called turbans." I said.
She thought about this for a minute.
"Do they wear them all the time?" she asked.
"I think so, Pick." I answered.
"Do they wear them because they're bald?"
"No," I laughed. "Just the opposite. Their hair is very long underneath the turban."
"That's why there is two of them."
"Two of what?" I asked.
"Two guys." she said.
"What are you talking about, my dear?" I asked, clearly having lost the thread of sense in this conversation.
"There are two guys so they can hold each others hair and wrap it up in the sheet."

We have been having unseasonably warm weather for the last couple of weeks. I picked her up at school and she went off as soon as she got in the car.
"Damn!" she said.
"What?" I asked.
"Whew," she said. "Damn hot."
"What?" I asked again.
"DAMN HOT." she said emphasizing the words as though I were hard of hearing or stupid...or both perhaps.
"I got that," I said. "What I meant was what has made you so hot? It's warm out but it's not as hot as all that?"
"I was running around with Cadence just before you picked me up. Whew, it is DAMN hot. Daddy. I can't believe how Damn hot it is. I am really DAMN hot."
We got to the post office and she was still going on about the heat as we picked up the mail. By the time we were back in the car, she was beginning to sound like an old woman trapped in a department store elevator.
"Daddy, it is so hot. I am so very DAMN hot. I don't know why it has to be so DAMN hot."
"Isobel?" I asked
"Yeah?"
"If you are so DAMN hot, why don't you take of your DAMN sweater?"
"Hey!" she exclaimed and took off her sweater. "That's so much better now."
"Daddy?" she asked.
"Yes?"
"That was a good DAMN idea."
"Awright," I said.




We had gone to my sister's place for Thanksgiving dinner and up until now, it seemed as though the kids didn't quite fit in with the other kids. There were age differences between the cousins that seemed just too great and they all had too little in common. And so as a result, the children were glued to the parents. Usually Mrs. Narrator, which made it difficult to be social and damn near impossible to eat without shooting food all over the child or the floor. Mind you they do have a big do that is not particular about licking floor or child, so long as there is food of some description going in his waiting maw.
I can happily report, that the children are now on par with the cousins and we barely caught a glimpse of either of them after we arrived and there was a fair amount of cajoling involved in getting them to leave.
My brother, is the solution to getting Izzy to get her things together and out the door in a hurry. Like all good uncles, my brother is a master of teasing Isobel. (I remember my Uncle Bill being as much of a pain in the ass in the few short moments between his finishing dinner and the food rendering him unconscious on the living room sofa) My brother likes to point out that Isobel has ears that stick out a bit. Rather like mine...and his. He will also demand a kiss from her any time she gets within a foot of him. There is a lot of 'Kiss the hand' type gestures being waved around from Isobel and a lot of mock crying from her uncle. It used to bother her but she will not be so easily swayed now.
I used to worry that the comments about her ears might be upsetting her and I was prepared to ask him to knock it off. But it didn't seem to be bugging her and so I left it alone. When we got home this time, she asked me a question as I was tucking her in.
"Why does Uncle Doug always want to kiss me?"
"Because he loves you, honey and he doesn't get to see you very often." I said.
"He says my ears stick out." she said.
"I know," I said. "Do you want me to tell him to stop?"
"Does Uncle Doug know his ears stick out too?" she asked.
"I think so," I said. "That might be why he says your stick out. He's probably happy there is another one of us who's ears stick out."
"OK," she said. "That's OK. But I'm still not kissing him."

The Weirdness of You...Daddy's little girl...

We were driving home from school when she let fly with a blue streak that might make a sailor blush. OK maybe not a sailor but it was out of character for her to use those words as an expression of her being upset, it is usually quite the opposite.
Isobel: "Damn, damn, shit damn. Daddy?"
Daddy: "Yes?"
Isobel: "Daddy, can I say the 'F' word?"
Daddy: "If you really feel you need to, sure."
Isobel: "I do. Fuck."
Daddy: "Feel better now, do you?"
Isobel: "I hate my hair. And my name, I hate my hair and my name. I like the way it's spelled...no I don't. I hate that too."
Daddy: "If you don't like your hair, change it. If you don't like your name, we could call you Ishbel."
Isobel: "What's that?"
Daddy: "It's Scottish for Isobel."
Isobel: " Um no, I don't need that. I want my name to be Cadence.
Daddy: "What!?! Why?"
Isobel : "Cadence is my best friend and she drew me a picture and it said 'Love Cadence' and she does. I don't have anything nice to give her so I want to change my name to hers. That would be nice, right?"
Daddy: "Why don't you draw her a picture?"
Isobel: "Nope, too hard. I'll just change my name."


I am often asked how all of this began and why I do it. It began as a way of telling my family what was happening with us and specifically the kids. It is a modern world we live in and so, rather than trying to remember all the minutia of what the kids had done, I started writing it down and sending it out to them. One thing led to another and here we all are. My sister in law asked me why I still do it, even though my family sees the kids more regularly now than when this originally began.The short answer is because I love to do it. I would do it if nobody read it because it's fun for me to relive all of it. I live through all of these adventures with her and I scarcely believe some of it.
I have a little book that I used to use to write down some of the things Izzy would say and random bits I would remember along the way. I started writing some of them down sometime before I started to write this column...premonition of some type? Doubtfully. Anyway my point is, the book is quickly filling up with Izzy-isms and snippets of the life of a five year old. I still write down most everything noteworthy (and that is most of it) that she says in the little brown note book and occasionally I go back and read through from the beginning.
There are things in there that are typical of the five year old mind and then there are some things in there that are so off the wall and bizarre that I can't not share them...

We were enjoying our new favourite activity of sitting by the fire and chatting when the subject of the the state of the backyard came up. The local wildlife seem to enjoy using our back yard as a toilet and I have threatened many times, to get a pellet gun and remedy the situation.
"So we would shoot them, the damn squirrels?" she asked.
"Yep." I said.
"What then? What would happen to the squirrels?" She asked, sounding concerned."
"They'd be dead." I said without thinking. It dawned on me that the prospect of a backyard full of dead squirrels might sound like a good idea to me but the cute factor would likely weigh heavily on her mind and even the thought of one dead squirrel would probably scar her for life.
"Soooo...we'd burn the dead squirrels?"

I am back on the night shift which means I have a tendency to nod off when ever I sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. Izzy has taken it upon herself to make sure I stay awake by slapping my face whenever she sees my eyes closed. I guess I nodded off while watching T.V. I was awakened with a slap.
"Wake up!" she demanded. "I'm not here."
"Izzy," I said. "Just leave me be. I'm tired."
"I don't want you to fall asleep," she began. "when you fall asleep, the were-woof comes out."
She had a point though in my own defence, this was the first week on nights and I was bound to be a little grumpy.
"Izzy, I will be more were-woof if I am more tired. Get it?" I asked.
She nodded her head and I guess I nodded back off. In a few minutes, she was sitting on my chest smacking my face again.
"Daddy, Daddy," she cocked her arm ready to let another slap fly. "Daddy, you were dreaming. I needed to wake you up."
"What?" I asked sleepily.
"You were dreaming that I was one eyed and wearing a pink dress."

"Can I have a snack?" she asked me.
"Sure, " I said. "But don't eat to much, we're gonna have supper soon."
She came back with a granola bar.
"I really like granola bars," she began. "But they're lazy."
Soon after that we were on our way to get the mail. A big thing for her is to run like mad to get into the post office and open our mailbox... she is still five despite evidence to the contrary...Our box number is 688.
"688 is a lazy number." she said. "Well, 6 is OK but 8 and 8 are definitely lazy."
"What's with you and everything being lazy lately?" I asked.
" I am tired of doing hard work for things that won't get their shit together." she said.
I am sensing I need to start watching my language...or at least my choice of phrases...


It's funny that I used to joke that the days never turned until I went to bed and woke up the next day. By that logic, I am actually about 37 thanks to many misspent weekends and week days and week nights and...Izzy has apparently inherited my sense of time...
"Daddy, when I wake up, will it be tomorrow?" she asked
"Yep."
"I knew it," she beamed. "I'm getting really good at knowing when tomorrow is going to be."
"Oh yeah?" I asked.
"Yep.(she thought this about a while and then it came to her) I know why, it's because I ate a sandwich ."
"Huh?" I asked.
"I ate a sandwich at school yesterday," she explained. "and whenever I eat a sandwich and go to sleep, I wake up and it's tomorrow."
Staggering...we're thinking of sending that one to Mensa...



There has been a noticeable change in the dynamic around here lately. In the normal run of things, the children tether themselves to Mrs. Narrator, regardless of what she is doing and fight and jockey for the best position beside her on the couch. She must therefore, sit dead in the middle of the couch so that no child gets more of her than the other and that both have equal time and space within her personal comfort zone. I sense this is not a unique thing and that most mothers go through it at one point or another.
It left me with the opportunity to go in the other room and watch the T.V. The kids don't actually care where or even if I sit. In fact, the kids don't give a flying shit if I am even in the province let alone the house. So long as Mummy is in between them and the T.V. is on some Disney-esque crappery then all is good with the world.
This weekend however, I had a shadow. Isobel. Whenever I turned around, she was there. She was very cuddly and there were lots of 'I love you Daddy' and lots of kisses and hugs. Normally I don't go for the 'AWWW' factor in this column but it felt kinda good to have a fervent admirer. Kind of what I had hoped being a parent would amount to. Not that it has been bad up to this point but I think everyone has a mental image of what being a parent is and this was one of mine, a kid...my kid... following me around and wanting to be my buddy.
This kind of thing has happened before but never without provocation. Usually if Izzy is upset with Mrs. Narrator, Dear old Dad is the next best thing. And once the anger has cooled then it's back with Mummy. But, so far as I know, there was no altercation between the ladies of the house, she just wanted to hang with me...and it was great.
I tucked her into bed and she hugged my neck for a long time and spoke right into my ear.
"All I can think about is you and how good you smell," she said. "Except when you crap your pants."
Daddy's little girl...