I know what it’s like to be a zombie. You see them staggering around the streets with their ragged clothing, ragged skin, ragged breaths. “I won’t become one, I’ll be careful.” Then there’s an itching at your ankle. “Nothing, nothing at all.” Time rolls forward then one day you notice your sleeve is torn and your jawbone is hanging loose like the wing on a boiled chicken. You’ve become one of Them.
By Them I mean those horrible people who prattle on about their children. Junior is called into the living room at a dinner party while Mother prods him, “Go on, do your thing. You know, the thing!” Junior jumps up and makes a bleating sound, then scurries back to his room. “Isn’t it amazing! Only five and he can already do a plié!”
I never wanted to be one of those people. The achievements of children only really make sense when you’ve been there since the beginning, witnessed the transformation from milk-spewing pink lump to sentient being. For Joe Houseguest who just wants to have a nice dinner then go home, the astronomical incredibleness of your kid’s ability to sing the first line of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds horribly off-key isn’t likely to register more than polite applause and a reminder that really, he must get back, oh my look at the time.
[exhale] That said, look at the f#@king incredible drawing my daughter just did! She’s only three and a half, and already drawing pupils and irises in her portraits! This one is of Jaques Chirac in his early years before he became all jowly. Wait, where are you going?
Writer, architect, father, husband.
LOL. No apologies needed as I have been living vicariously through you for awhile now. 😉
Aaaawwwww! Better than a Rembrandt self-portrait! Soooo gifted!
Aha! I taught her how to draw the circle for the face! In fact, I still have the drawings in a notepad in my purse and discovered them yesterday when, after getting lightly rear ended I had to squeeze the other drivers insurance info between two of th’s s drawings ahem works of art