Every once in a while she’ll ask me to paint her nails. Never in one color, but always in a pattern of different colors spread across her small fingers. I do it even though I know once the polish dries she will begin the task of peeling it off, one finger at a time.
Today she was impatient and as I ran outside to help Abby look for a kite, she started the task on her own, leaving me with only two fingers left to paint. I remarked on what a good job she did and we tried with all our might to remove the red polish from our unfinished wood table that holds remnants of ink and nail polish and paint like tattoos of their childhood. We shrugged our shoulders and said “oh well” when all we managed to do was smear the polish a little deeper into the grooves.
By dinner the polish on her fingers was all but gone. She’s predictable, yet still so surprising all at once.