The Trickster

Do kids know they are silly? I question their sense of right and wrong, perhaps because it seems completely non-existent most days. I look at a picture like this and I think, if you look deep enough into the child's eyes, you can see a tiny glint of silliness. In other words, I think he knows that putting the duckie IN the mouth is just plain ridiculous. What if, however, we were talking about something slightly more harmful or dangerous then a rubber duckie...

This morning when I got out of the shower. Picture morning music, birds chirping, steam swirling about me like eddies. I step out all relaxed and warmed through to the bones and there is my daughter. She is playing with a box or two of Dove soap and a dried sponge. I grab my towel and look back down. She has a flap on the box open and, thank goodness, it is the empty of the two boxes. I flop my head upside down to rub my scalp dry. I swing back up to become Mommy-towel-head and I hear cartoon horns of alarm...ARRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOGAHHHHHHH ARROOOOOOOOOOGAHHHH! My daughter is chewing on the toliet sponge. Careful not to scare the bejesus out of her I quietly say, "Oh Elena, Silly Girl, that's a dirty sponge" and whisk it away in an instant. Jeepers creepers, will my skin ever stop crawling? Bleck, bleck, bleck! Ahhhh, were it only possible to watch her every second of her life.....sigh.