Ankle arms

Amelia has decided that she no longer has the need for elbows. Their very existence causes her an overwhelming amount of stress. We avoid using the word elbow at all costs!


Just a few days ago, after Andrew finished his mound of homework, I treated the kids with a pay per-view movie. While Amelia was balanced quite freakishly on my knees she noticed them, and by them I mean the elbows. I think their sharpness is was what put her off. She kept touching them and making a dissatisfied face.


"I don't want these!' she declared


"You don't want what?" I asked


"These!" She said looking at me as if I were the biggest idiot she had ever had the misfortune of dealing with


"Your arms?" I asked


"Nooooo!" she said getting annoyed "These, my… my… ankles."



The boys being the boys that they are, and getting immense pleasure out of anything hilarious and outlandish, of course found the idea of Amelia thinking her elbows were ankles endlessly hilarious. It was a little funny...at first!

"Her ankles!" Jacob yelped. "Amelia has feet for arms and arms for feet! She's a weirdo! Maybe she's from space. "Andrew, Amelia is from space! She has ankle arms!'

I thought he would pee himself by the way he was carrying on and on about how funny that was. Who needs a $3 pay per view movie when you can be entertained by a sister with ankle arms?


Amelia was not laughing, nothing about her ankles were funny! She was actually bitterly sobbing over their existence.


"Those are your elbows Amelia. Ankles are down here." I said pointing down to were her ankles really are


"I don't want elbows, get rid of them!"


"Everyone has elbows Amelia; you need them to move your arm."


"Get rid of them momeeee, I don't want them"


This is when I realized that no reasonable explanation was going to do. Clearly I was dealing with an ankle armed outer space child. For the next two hours she would randomly check if her elbows were still there. She would slowly inch her fingers in their direction and finally touch them. Upon realizing that they had not gone anywhere she would completely lose it.



"They are still here!" She would shout in total dismay "take them off me!"


Finally I came up with the genius idea of putting her in long sleeves. After pulling the shirt down over her belly she did an elbow check.


"They're gone!' She shouted with such enthusiasm that you would of thought for sure that the most exciting and magical moment in her life had just occurred

"mommy my elbows went away."


I didn't dare explain that her elbows were hiding out under her sleeves because sometimes it's nice to have peace and quite!