Twist

We went Way the Hell Up North, Munchkin and I, for a wee break. And part of the rupture of routine was to have my perceptions of my own mother twisted somehow.

I read the paper and looked out at the lake as Munchkin played teaset happily by herself. After a while her orbit tightened around my chair, as it will, and she started to get a little silly. She pulled my slipper off one foot and turned into 'the Tickle Monster!' She laughed at her powers as she reduced me to chortles. This carried on for a while and, fair's fair, she asked me to tickler her in her turn. She dangled a little foot towards me.

I pounced, tackling her onto the carpet, the two of us rolling and squealing. Tickle fights are a fine exercise in self-control for all parties: the pleasure of a helpless laugh is counterbalanced against, well, the helplessness.

"Stop it, Mimi, for God's sake," my mom intervened from the kitchen.

I was annoyed, a little, that she was mad at me for roughhousing with Munchkin--she was probably, I figured, irritated by the noise, or by Munchkin's obviously mounting excitement. Did she think it was too close to lunch, or I would crack both our heads on an end table? Or was it simply indecorous or maybe overindulgent.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, Mom, I've got it under control."

She put her hands on the counter. "It's just that my mom used to tickle me mercilessly when I was little and it was really awful."

Empathy. For Munchkin. Not a critique on my parenting, per se. A snippet from her childhood. An admission of past vulnerability.

Huh. Tweak! I gave them both hugs.