Tuesday, May 06, 2008

A child's perspective can be tricksy.

'Guess what your nephew did yesterday.' My eldest sister said on the phone earlier.
A thousand thoughts raced through my mind as I thought of my rambunctious nephew, all of them ending in mischief.
Had he burned something down? Blown something up? Drowned something? Flushed his daddy's wallet down the loo again? Had he 'coloured in the walls'? Used my sister's expensive face cream as window cleaner? Had he dug up the back garden? Had he pretended to be a dog and run around barking and biting ankles? Glued his fingers together. Booby trapped his elder sister? Used the cushions as a toboggan on the stairs? Were the doors on his wardrobe still on? Had the Barbies still got their heads? Was her husband's computer still working? Had he coloured in her wedding album again? Had he finally managed to get to the top tier of the hotpress, her silky dressing gown tied around his neck so that he could fly/throttle himself
What could it possible be?
'I don't know.'
'He gave himself and the baby a haircut.'
'Oh god. How bad is it?'
'Well, the baby has none of her baby curls left and he is minus his fringe-and most of the hair over his left ear. I had to take him to the barber this morning to try fix it.'
'And could they?'
'Only in that he now looks like a skin head.'
'Oh.
'He likes it.'
That actually made a kind of sense.
'And the baby?'
'She's rocking the pixie look earlier than I had anticipated.'
'Oh darling.'
'I suppose it could be worse.'
'How?'
'He could have decided to give me a hair cut while I slept.'
'Have you considered fencing him in?'
'I'm considering boarding school right now.'
And so it goes.

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