tiger claws & road trips

My little Lady A is snuggly, sweet and happiest when she's curled up in my arms. However, though I love the snuggles, lately, my darling little girl has decided to slowly claw my skin off. Snuggled up, she takes her tiny little baby nails (aka. her claws), and digs them into my arm, chest, neck; wherever she can reach, really. She resists having her nails cut, but they seem to grow at super-speed, leading me to believe she may have some sort of super power.

Of course, if I say 'no' to her scratching me, as if to say: "don't do that tiny little tiger baby", she looks up at me with her beautiful, big brown eyes, and flashes her wide, tooth-free smile, as if to say "I love you too, mummy". So, she doesn't quite understand what 'no' means, and I continue to be clawed at.

I was thinking about this tonight, and realized that perhaps this is the universe's way of getting back at me. And, by 'universe', I think I mean that my older brother, Greg, has placed some sort of voodoo curse on me, and is having his curse carried out by my youngest daughter.

You see, as children, we spent many, many hours in the car driving back and forth to visit our family in Florida. My brother and I would argue and fight in the backseat like any normal siblings would, and as we got older, our shenanigans became less and less acceptable to our parents. So, we found more 'silent' ways of fighting, so as not to alert mum and dad to our spat. Clever, weren't we? Ok, I think we were just extremely bored, and perhaps tired of playing Game Boy.

On one particular trip, I discovered the power of my nails, and quietly scratched at Greg's arms until he had small cuts all over them. Sounds kind of vicious, right? Well, I don't really remember what he did to me, but I'm sure I had bruises on my arms, whatever it was!

So even now, nearly 20 years later, my darling brother has some small scars remaining on his arm, so you can see how I think he's somehow secretly trained my baby to get back at me, day after day, night after night...

Greg...I'm on to you. And maybe someday Lady A will put her little tiger claws away, stop fighting me when I want to trim her nails, and start scratching my brother instead of me!