Long and Cuddly

2.5 Years: “I’m long and cuddly, like a ferret.”

I took my daughter to the pet store just for fun and showed her some of the oddities. Among them was a baby albino ferret whom I immediately named Skolinkenlot, after an unimportant character mentioned in passing in one of my daughter’s favorite books, The Fat Cat. He scampered around, raced up my arm, chewed on my hair, and chirped pitifully when I had to put him back in the cage with the other ferrets for sale.

As I was leaving, completely rejuvenated by my run-in with little weasly Skolinkenlot, I asked my daughter what she thought of the critter.

“I think he’s long and cuddly,” she said. It was an accurate assessment.

A few days later, my toddler climbed into my lap and then stretched out to fill as much space as possible. She then announced to me that she, like a ferret, was long and cuddly. It was an accurate enough assessment.