Saturday, January 09, 2010

Ishani's pink jacket phobia

I rarely write about this little girl of mine.
She is the one who comes up with those funny oneliners like the ones you read in the Readers Digest.
Like declaring after a hearty breakfast smacking her lips " Bacon is the best chicken ever!" Or after a tumble with me in the bed emerges sweating and laughter all over her face gasping " Oh my God! Love is hot!" And then after counting the worry lines on my forehead and asking me what they were for, went around looking for her lines and finally found them on her little tummy!
Like most little girls, Isha's favorite color was pink for a long time. Even till last year. I bought her a pink winter jacket which she wore all of last winter giving her purple one a clear ignore.
The jacket is one of those in which you can take off the fleece to make it a windcheater, so it could be worn in spring too.
Suddenly, Isha developed a strange apathy for this pink jacket.She just stopped wearing it.
When I asked her why she said "It stinks". So I washed the jacket and offered it to my little goddess, who took it a little hesitatingly and then in it went into the closet.
I stopped trying to figure out what was the matter.
Many weeks later, Isha and I set out on one of our weekend 'mother-daughter bonding trips' as she calls it. Taking advantage of her mood, I asked her to wear the pink jacket and she said "NO. I dont like it!" But why not I insisted.
"You know this spring, Alison and I used to collect bugs?" she asked me. I nodded. "One day I put two grasshoppers in my pocket because I did not have my bug catcher. And then I forgot about it. The next time I put my hand in the pocket, they were all squishy!"
"But I washed it!" I told her. "No. they are still in there"
Sure enough, on my return I checked and there were some small remains of the poor grasshoppers which even the tumble in the washer had not taken out. Even though I have since cleaned the jacket, my bug loving and animal loving daughter is not going to wear the jacket which will remind her of the dead grasshoppers I know!