Isobel: "Daddy?"
Daddy: "Yes pigeon?"
Isobel: "Daddy, Does Santa really travel the whole world and give everybody presents in one night?"
Daddy: "As I understand it, that is how it works."
Isobel: "OK, that's just creepy. He doesn't even own a plane."
Daddy: "Nope."
Isobel: "He does it all from his sled? A sled which has flying reindeers, which I don't even believe in."
Daddy: "Oh?"
Isobel: "Daddy, are reindeers white or brown?"
Daddy: "Santa's reindeer are brown like a...deer."
Isobel: "OK, it's the white ones I don't believe in."
There is a story, told by my family...countless times. Usually in the presence of a girlfriend during my teenage years or my wife before we were married. It involves me as a toddler, my brother and my sister, yellow fuzzy sleepers, carpeted stairs and a pile of dog crap. I may have mentioned it here before but suffice it to say that fuzzy yellow sleepers make an excellent delivery system for fresh Schnauzer mess.
What's the point of this trip in the wayback? I often asked my mother why she would let my brother and sister embarrass me like that...time and time again.
"I am your Mother, I gave birth to you. I've earned the right to humiliate you."
To that end, I give you this week's column. I don't think it will embarrass Isobel. She is truly one of the oddest people I have ever know and likely would not be fazed by any of this being shared but in case it does. I am her Father. I have earned the right to humiliate her. Keeps her strong and honest.
There are times when my children have confided in me. They are few and far between but they do happen on occasion. They usually involve something they think their Mother will lose her mind about and they figure I can help them out of said jam. They fail to realize that not only is their mother going to lose her shit, it will likely be at me anyway for 'letting the children get themselves into such a situation in the first place and do you have any idea what could have happened to the children if they had really gotten their hands on'...wait what? What happened? I disappeared there for a moment...bit of a flash back...
"Daddy," asked Isobel sheepishly. "Can I ask you something?"
"You just did, Pick." I replied.
"What?"
"You just did ask me a question." I repeated.
"No, really." she had a worried tone in her voice.
"What's up?" I asked sounding kindly and very father-esque.
"I had a problem...in the bathroom." she said.
My mind raced. I mean I thought about this day and figured it would be me but I guess you never are really prepared for this sort of thing. (insert sound of needle being raked across record) Wait. She's six. Whatever it is, it ISN'T that problem.
"What is it Isobel?" a little less father knows best tone about it.
"What colour is your ...poop supposed to be?"
"I'm sorry?" I asked not quite believing what she just asked.
"I think I'm sick. Mine has a green stripe in it." she said.
"A green stripe?" I asked..
"A green stripe." she repeated.
I'm certain there are many parenty type things that we are all asked or expected to do by our children but if you would have told me that I would be standing in the bathroom examining the excrement of my six year old child I would have slapped you and then called you odd for even thinking such a thing. Yet, here I was. Looking into the bowl at a poo with a nearly perfect symmetrical stripe running through it.
I have to say that the first thing that crossed my mind is that it bore a passing resemblance to Fruit Stripe Gum. The next thing I thought how in the hell did it get a green stripe in it in the first place. We are not a big family of green eaters. If it had bones or bits of sausage wrappers in it, I could see but green? It didn't make a lot of sense."I told you." Isobel said. "Green striped."
"It sure is, Pickle." That nick name took on a whole new meaning just then.
"What would make it green like that?" she asked.
For all of the knowledge I have acquired over my years on this planet and to all of you who proclaimed 'Sid knows shit.' I have to say I was stumped. We don't eat a lot of greenery as I mentioned so unless she has started mimicking the cats and munching on the house plants, I could think of no explanation for the green poo.
"I don't know. What have you been eating?"
"I don't know?" she answered.
A day went by and she reported to me the next morning that the stripe was gone and it was ALL green now. Again I looked and sure enough it was. Green as the grass used to be.
"Are you feeling alright?" I asked her.
"I feel fine." she said.
And clearly, she was not ill so I was stumped. Stopped in my tracks by a chartreuse log.
So anybody that knows me, most especially my wife, knows that if I go out I am (by and large) coming home with something for the kids. Both kids love cotton candy and gigantic buckets of it were on sale at the grocery store. Two buckets duly arrived at our house. One of which was ravenously devoured by a ravening six year old candy floss fanatic. The colours in the bucket o' floss were blue (berry) and pink (bubblegum) but primarily blue. Now if you mix the blue candy floss with an acidic beverage like apple juice or lemonade (even better) the resulting liquid is GREEN. Use a six year old sugar freak as your mixing vessel and bingo! A Jade Jobby. Isn't science fun?
I was going to write about something else here but something happened just tonight that was so good I had to share it. Izzy was asked if she would like to go with her friend on a trip to Montreal. I said that "that is a big something." It wasn't just like sleeping overnight at a friends house. It would be a long day in the car and then a long trip on a train back home. As exciting as that would be, she is just six and the trip wouldn't be with the friends parents (who we know) but with her grandfather (who we don't know at all). I said not to 'get her hopes up' but that ultimately it wasn't up to me as I wouldn't be home all weekend.
So Mummy was asked and understandably, Mummy said no. Not yet anyway. Maybe in a few years. This is one of the times that it is hard to be a parent. Doing what you know is the best thing for the health and safety of your child, even when it isn't what your child wants. This is also one of the times when I am glad that my wife was the barer of bad tidings.After she was told she couldn't go, Isobel sat at the coffee table and scribbled the following note which she unceremoniously chucked at her Mother and then stomped off upstairs.
"Der Mommy. Isobel.
I'm going tothe
Dutstr (a picture of a very angry girl's face)
Love Isobel.
Dutstr I was told later is dumpster. I guess she figured by her threatening to go live in filth and squalor, her Mother would be so upset that she might change her mind about the whole trip thing. She told me she 'wanted Mummy to be upset at any rate'. But she still signed it with love! The teen years around here are going to be glorious, I can just tell. Anybody got i room I can rent out in say...ten years?
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