Thursday 17 January 2013

Lions and Tigers and Tygones...

Lochie was at the day-carer's today. It was fine, he likes it there, he is usually happy and smiling, and happy to go in and happy when he comes home again.
We got a picture sent to us during the day, they'd been face painting and he'd been made up to look like a Lion.
That was the idea at least... he was meant to be a lion and the photograph that the day-carer sent to our phones looked pretty lion-like. I got the picture in the middle of an English lesson, and my wife got hers in the middle of a council meeting about expected redundancies during the next round of pay cuts.
The pictures were fine but neither my wife nor I realized what the face painted Lochie-Lion had turned into during the day. He'd wanted to be a tiger you see, but the other children, who'd been painted before him since they were younger, had all wanted to be tigers as well and the bright orange face paint had all been used up. The day-carer, clever in psycology as these ladies need to be, had painted him as a Lion but said that he was Lochie-Lion, King of the jungle.
But that wasn't enough, sadly, he wanted to be a tiger, you see, and tiger he would most definitely become. He had announced for the other four children that, actually, he wasn't just Lochie-Lion-King-of-the-Jungle but was in actual fact, actually, really, now to be known as, and called by forever, for all eternity and forever and ever: Lochie-the-Tygone-King-of-all-the-animals-everywhere-including-Tigers. The other children didn't argue, because he's the oldest, and the morning passed peacefully with Lochie-the-Tygone firmly in control of proceedings at the day carer's.
As I'm writing this, he is still Lochie-the-Tygone-King-of-all-the-animals-everywhere-including-Tigers, having refused to allow the face paint to be washed off and absolutely refused to let slip the new, tougher, and all powerful personality that he has become during the day.

Now my three-year-old son is asleep in bed as a half painted lion/tiger mix and only time will tell if the Lochie of old will be permitted to return to us in the morning when I try, once again to wash his face.
Wish me luck...




No comments: