Band-Aid

     On Monday, while she was playing outside, Clara came upon one of my tiny coffee cups on the patio table.  The "cups" are actually very pretty little ceramic shot glasses.  Since I can only tolerate a few ounces of coffee a day, I drink from these.  (What must people think when they see me sipping from a shot glass as I barrel down 28th in my soccer-mom car, a toddler strapped in the back seat?)
     Grunting and pushing with her delectable toddler thighs, the ceramic shot glass clutched in one fist, Clara managed to climb onto a patio chair.  I chose that moment to step inside for my phone.  While I was gone, she threw the cup down onto the concrete (I've no doubt she was aiming for Wilbur the dog, who was seated nearby). It shattered and then she leapt down on top of it.  Miraculously, she only got a small cut right above the toenail on her big toe.
     "Owchie, Mommy! Me 'oe! Owie! Tiss! Tiss!"
     Since her toe was bloody, I kissed the air near it as I carried her upstairs to wash it in the bathtub.  Then, when it was clean, she instructed me to kiss it several more times, and also to say, "Peeeee-yewwww!"  because it was her foot I was kissing, after all.  Then I had to kiss her other foot and say, "Peeeee-yewwww!"
     We got ready to run errands.  I put on some pink lipgloss while Clara stood looking up at me, wearing a yellow T-shirt with a picture of a tractor on it and a ruffled, fuschia polka-dotted skirt.  I'd already put her hair in pigtails.
     "Me this, Mommy," she said, pointing to my lip gloss.
     I'm not sure if nineteen-month-olds should have lip gloss, but I went ahead and smeared a little on her lips (which she carefully puckered for me).  It would be nice, she indicated, if I kissed her toe with my lip gloss on.  I did, and then she sat on the bathroom floor and tried, with perfect success, to kiss her own toe.
     We went to the grocery store and bought Sesame Street Band-Aids.  Clara wanted a Big Bird one.
     She has never worn a Band-Aid.
     Before we were out of the store, and while I had her captive in the front of the shopping cart, I peeled the protective paper layers off the Band-Aid and tried to put it around her toe.
     "Ow, Mommy! No 'icker!! Ouchie! Mai owie!" she yelled indignantly.
     "Honey, it's not a sticker.  It's a bandage to keep germies out.  See this soft white square? It goes over your owie."
     "No, Mommy! This me! Mai!!"
     After several unsuccessful attempts at bandaging her toe, I went ahead and gave her the sticker.  I mean, Band-Aid.  She stuck it to her tummy.  Then she stuck it to the front of my shirt.  Then she took it back and put it on her arm.  The next time I saw that Band-Aid was this evening, two full days later.  It was stuck to Wilbur's belly.  Because of his fur, it adhered to him much more strongly than it had to either of us.  He looked at me sorrowfully when I pulled it off.  I think I must have yanked out a couple of his hairs with it.