I haven’t gone mad. Well.. I think I haven’t, but I have begun to wonder about the rest of my family. For reasons that now escape me, there was a time that I desperately needed my fae distracted. To this end, my husband came into the playroom and told her in a matter of fact tone that she needed an ostrich.
I admit, the question marks that appeared above her head were the mirror image of my own. But with that mysterious statement, he strode out of the room and, true to form when confused, our fae followed him like a little duckling. They returned with an overly-extravagant feather duster – real ostrich feathers! In the corner of the room, unnoticed by me or fae until this moment, was an extensive cobweb. It was too high for our daughter to reach even with the advantage of the duster. But with help from her tall gym-going father, she was able to beat seven bells out of it with the duster. Apparently this was jolly good fun, and they went off on a cobweb hunt.
To his credit, this did successfully distract her from whatever the hell I was doing. The downside is, now whenever she sees a cobweb, regardless of where it is or what time of day, there will be a squeal of “OSTRICH TIME!” At which point, two pairs of feet will stampede to the location of the duster and said cobweb will be eliminated with extreme prejudice.
This is fine when it’s only us around, but other people seem terribly confused by the idea of waving a manically giggling child at the ceiling with a duster in the hunt of spiderwebs. Still, the house is cleaner, and it does distract her, so there’s that..
Raising the Modern Fae 