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A Two-fer

Story 1.

Koko asked me why I wasn’t as wrinkly as Grandma. I told her it’s just that I wasn’t that wrinkly yet, but she wasn’t listening because I had hardly said as much when her eyes lit up with the epiphany. “Oh!! I know why!” she said,” It’s because of that spray you use that you keep in the bathroom.”

For those who know me, or who have surreptitiously looked through my medicine cabinet, know – I don’t stock up on youth serums or cremes and such, so I, too, looked at her for further clarification.

“You know, that wrinkle spray!! That wrinkle release spray!!”

I had to tell her that unfortunately that spray only cheats you out of needing to iron, not anything more exciting, like aging. But I guess I’ve never tried it for other means, so maybe I shouldn’t knock it till I do.

Story 2.

John and John John and I were talking about the fact that giraffes and humans have the same number of neck bones, and that somehow turned into did you know you can eat chicken feet? No you don’t eat the bones, just the cartilage and maybe skin. John John let us know that he thought that was disgusting, and the only thing he would eat that was like that was a pig’s butt.

I did almost spit out the beer I was having. John started questioning him – where have you seen that?

“Oh, at the butcher shop,” he answered.

I had to excuse myself from that conversation – as I walked toward the restrooms, I heard John continue, “Which butcher shop?”

“Galvans,” I heard John John’s reply in the distance. I tried to imagine our local butcher shop selling any kind of off cut like that. I mean, I knew people ate it, but it seemed a reach for our neighborhood full-service butcher shop.

I was relieved that the topic had been dropped by the time I came back to the table. We were watching the US Open on the big screen at the brewery. There were some sets that came and went. John leaned over to me.

“He meant pork butt,” he shared.

I knew I had to memorex this along with the Downy Wrinkle Release story, as Kathy V. urged me to do. They won’t be this age forever.

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Teach your parents well…

Koko is now big enough to be trusted to walk next to me through a parking lot. She won’t run off putting herself in harm’s way because she knows the rules and mostly abides. Number one rule, of course, is holding my hand through the parking lot. But when we are holding hands through a parking lot, old habits have a way of creeping in and I still instinctively make the pinky-thumb-wrist-lock on her sometimes. You know, the kind you do when they are newly ambulatory babies prone to breaking from your handhold, rushing off to certain danger. It is not conscious and I would not have even noticed I do it, except for the little voice recently.

“Mama, you’re hurting my ankle.”

I looked down at Koko, confused. Her ankle appeared fine. “Your ankle?”

“You’re hurting my…little ankle,” she said, hesitating. “My ankie?” she added, helpfully.

At this point I realize she is referring to her wrist and just about melt from the cuteness.

She still refers to most any joint as an ankie lately – shoulder, elbow, you name it. But I am trying not to put the lock on her hand ‘ankie’ anymore lest I cause discomfort, to say nothing of preventing her from being the big girl she is.