Don't wreck it, don't touch it

The other day I bought a couple of hockey sticks for Laura and myself (9$ each) so we can easily play with the kids. So they don't end up in the pile of stuff at the neighbours when the kids all play together, I've been writing our names on the outside toys.

So I took out a super-indelible-never-come-off-till-you're-dead-and-maybe-even-later marker and wrote our last name on the stick. Alice was bouncing around wanting to use it. I said no and indicated that I should be the one writing on it. Then I relented and let her do the names on the kids stick. But now she had a taste for it and wanted more. She wanted to draw a picture on my nice new stick. I told her definitely not. I didn't tell her that I didn't want my stick to have weird pictures on it, but I thought it.

Then I paused, took a breath, and thought some more.

And you know what? I'd love for my daughter to draw a picture on my stick. To be able to look at this stick and remember her how she is at this age. This bright eyed, sometimes infuriating, smart as anything, bright little girl. My little girl. Drawing a picture on it made her happy, and that makes me happy.

You know that it's a good stick because it's got three flowers on it. The flowers remind me of something from a Mario game.