By Sallie Mattison Young
I stopped brushing my hair to look
down at my 3-year-old.
“Crystal, what happened to your
eye?”
“It’s hurting!” Her lower lip
quivered.
“It’s all gunky! Do you have a
fever?” I checked her forehead.
“It itches.”
“Well, it looks like you’re
allergic to something. Were you sleeping with the
kitty again?”
Silence.
“Were you?”
Guilty silence.
“Crystal Ann, I’ve told you not to
sleep with the kitty because you might be allergic
to her. Now look at your eye!”
“She was, Mom. She was sleeping
with the kitty,” informed five-year-old Tiffany.
“Well, I’m afraid I have bad news.
If Crystal is allergic to the kitty, then we will
have to give the kitty away. We can’t have her eyes
swelling up all the time, can we?”
Thoughtful silence.
“Mommy, couldn’t we keep the
kitty, and give away Crystal instead?”
About the Author: Sallie
Mattison Young is a former journalist and current
technical writer whose greatest accomplishments are
her four beautiful daughters. During her journalism
career, she wrote investigative news, features,
columns, and editorials for various daily and weekly
newspapers, and also penned articles for local city
magazines. Her poetry and essays have appeared in
Seeker Magazine, Lovewords, and Red River Review.
She has self-published limited editions of two
chapbooks dedicated to her two oldest daughters,
"Crystal in the Middle" and "Tiffany's a Teen,"
which can also be viewed online in her library at
Pathetic Poets Society http://www.pathetic.org/library/210/
http://geocities.com/one_writer_2000/ |
