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Wherein I'll Catch the Conscience of the King
The trip to Neung's school takes about fifteen minutes. Sometimes she is happy to make this walk; sometimes she feigns tiredness and asks to be carried some of the way. Normally I do not indulge her; occasionally I do. Recently, though, she has become more insistent ("Papa, please pick me up." Ten second pause. "Papa, please pick me up."), and so I have been having to put her and my foot down. One day last week, I told her that her only chance of being carried was if she did not ask for it. She asked anyway, and so ended up sulking most of her way to school.
Before we left this morning I again told her that she would have no chance of being carried if she asked even once.
We were less than twenty yards down the road when:
— Papa, please p-
She stopped dead. Then she made two figures from the fingers of her left and right hands.
— Papa, this is a little boy, OK? [*wiggling left fingers*] And this [*wiggling right fingers*] is his mama. And the little boy says, [*puts on acting voice*] "Mama, please pick me up".
17/5/2006