Reading in her Fort

Ava loves books. She has loved them for as long as she has been Ava. They are the first thing she packs in her backpack, asks to take in the car, brings with her in the bathroom, and sneaks into her bed. When her daddy built her a fort, she spend the remainder of the evening reading in it. Lately, these favorite friends have been creating unnecessary pain and hardship for the little reader. Due to a combination of dry air and sharp pages, Ava has been getting a considerable number of paper cuts.

As any mother will tell you, the moment a child discovers an owie, that child needs a bandaid. Now there are only so many bandaids a mother can distribute for the increasing number of paper cuts, and little round, dewy fingers are not quite conducive to bandaids anyway. In my experience, they eventually find their way into Ava’s mouth and then the floor and then need to be replenished.

Yesterday, Ava presented with a paper cut in the crook of her first two fingers. Now how can clumsy bandaid fit in there?? And what good could it possibly do? So I reached into the cupboard and pulled out a ball of white fluff and showed Ava how to hold it between the fingers. To my great surprise, Ava was ecstatic. Cotton balls appear to be the perfect antidote to paper cuts. Ava can now be found about the house with any number of “cotton tails” in the creases of her hands. And yes, I have found a few soggy ones on the floor.