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."