It was the funnest thing to do during a window in time when she was between 4 and 6 years old. It would always just start out as, "Let's talk." And she'd lay over there on one side of the bed and I'd lay on the other, and we'd stare at the ceiling and have the damnedest talks you've ever heard. If you want to know what's really going on, you need to ask a kid around 5 years old. (It's all downhill after that, you know.)
Depending on the friskiness of the moment, there might come a time where one of us would say, "You want to play rough on the bed?" And it would start.
Of all the times we did it, I think there were only 3 serious injuries. And none of them lasted a lifetime. Once, she poked her finger in my eye. That hurt. You ever had your cornea scratched? That's a pain you won't forget.
Sometimes now, she'll point her little index finger at me, right at my eye, as if to say, "Remember, I can hurt you!"
Once I had her in a leg lock that went awry and she wound up on the floor at a pretty good clip.
Once I grabbed her up and started running through the house like a madman, holding her in my arms stretched out in front of me. It was all fun and games until she threw her head back to laugh just as we went past a doorway. Ouch! That had to hurt. I was so afraid I'd done some real damage.
There's only one type of this form of love. It's the perfect love. I would wish this love on every father and every son and every daughter and every mother and every daughter and every son. . . . If I only could.
I see a story on the news about a woman who murders her children. I imagine that I'm the 5 year old girl, and I hurt like I didn't know I could hurt.