The Lost Smile

This week Shannon has not slept at school, at all. Really as a result of the incident and the fact that she has coped well without sleeping. However, once in a while she seems to need to catch up and, having reached that point, she collapsed on the couch when she got home one day, and was asleep before I even noticed! Being an indulgent mother and, knowing it would only be me who paid for it at bed time when she was refreshed and ready to play, rather than tired and ready for bed, I left her to sleep. Until bath time.

I was once given some worthy advice about sleeping children... let them sleep. Well, I woke her up. Only to be rewarded by Little Miss Grumpy. Only little in size. I asked her what was wrong so she said, "I didn't have a nice sleep." I asked her why, to which she replied "coz I lost my smile"

Now, indulgent parent I am but not so much so that I can't find it in me to tease my poor, defenseless offspring. Lost your smile? Oh dear. I'll help you find it!

And I searched. High and low. Pantomime style. Her Highness was not impressed. "It's not funny!" she told me. But it was. Very funny indeed. And I was enjoying myself so not ready to stop. Sean went and busied himself in the kitchen to avoid the wrath of Shannon, since he couldn't stop laughing. Jordan looked at me as if I had finally completely lost my marbles (presumably in deference to Shannon) I looked under the chairs, in the toy basket, under the cushions, in her mouth to see if she'd swallowed it...

Slowly but surely she began to see the funny side of it and, after watching me make a fool of myself for a few more minutes, she said to me in a whisper: "I know where my smile is!" Where? I asked her, "here!" says she as a big grin spread across her face! Hmmm, perhaps not so defenseless after all.

© Jane Hendry 2008