"What's wrong, sweetie?" She didn't look particularly distressed. "My arms feel tight." I asked her to show me where, but she had a hard time pinning down the precise location. I rubbed her arms and shoulders for a minute and pursued my inquiry further. She'd been reading at JW Tumbles. "What position were you in?" She was laying on the rug in the hall demonstrating when Kim walked up. "I had to sneak by your door, mom"
As Bean was finishing her restorative drink of "hobbit water" -- the bottles from New Zealand they sell at Trader Joe's -- she started talking about how difficult it is to describe the taste of it. "I think of it as cool and refreshing," Kim said. But that didn't put Skylar's mind to rest.
On the way to bed, she continued to restate the problem. When Kim told her it could become a preoccupation of her philosophy, Skylar said she wouldn't be able to match Wittgenstein. Kim said something encouraging about being a girl and a philosopher. Skylar brightened. "That would be hard for Wittgenstein too, describing the taste of water." While Kim was tucking her in, I replied that it was the sort of problem that would have interested him a lot.
As I bent down for a bedtime kiss, Skylar adopted a netural tone and remarked that, "A newborn child has no teeth. A goose has no teeth. A rose has teeth." Then she paused. "But a rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast."
I played her quite a few songs off my iPod Shuffle on the drive home from art camp two weeks ago. Old Red has no CD player, you see, ruling out another reprise of The Carpenters' greatest hits. I'm pretty shocked that Matmos made such a deep impression on her. I sure do love her. What a brain she has!
