Soft

My Ally is angrily screaming in her room.  She's screaming because I sent her there for playing with water.  She's screaming because it's also bedtime and she's tired.  We joke that she has a feral side about her but it's only funny as a parent - as a bystander it's actually quite the act of defiance and, scary.

And now it's quiet.

And I'm reminded of how gentle she can be.  My Ally loves textures, especially softness.  When she was even smaller than she is now, I would let her crawl into bed with me.  She'd ever so gently touch my hair, stroke my face, press her cheek against mine and gently move across it - back and forth, always soft, always gentle.  She would keep this up long into the night until I'd put her back in her own bed, unable to sleep myself.  She'd carry cotton balls around the house with her, plucking them off of bunny crafts and packing them clutched in her hands and mouth, for hours.  She has a ballerina ornament with a feather/downy tutu that's never on the tree - it's being held up to her face so she can feel it tickle her nose.  At nights, if the cat it to be found, I find her face buried in his belly.  Ally does something with me called "magic makeup" where we pretend to put makeup on the other one.  It's all about soft, gentle touch, on the eyelids, eyebrows, eyelashes, the cheeks, the lips, and, she insists, the chin.  She, is wonderfully soft - when she isn't screaming.