Sensitive Skin

Allie has extremely sensitive skin. When she was an infant, I noticed that sometimes, after picking her up, my hands left faint, red outlines on her back. When my sister's did the same, she asked, "What's wrong with the baby?", but I always figured it was just the fairness of her skin which, though not as freckled as mine, is nonetheless freckled and sun-burny - like all the other skin in my Dad's family.

This sensitivity is no better now that she's sixteen, and still unable to bear shirt tags against her neck. As a child, she accidentally ruined many a shirt trying to cut off those annoying tags without asking for help (No one was happier than I when clothiers started printing the tag information on shirts themselves). Nightgowns were also an issue, causing her to wear the same soft, lightning bug t-shirt for so many years it grew embarrassingly small. And don't get me started on shoes that hurt her feet, including Yellow Box flip flops. !!!??

As she began to complain about the discomfort of certain bedding, I started calling her "The Princess and the Pea". (I can walk around all day in wet socks and a hair shirt, never realizing I'm uncomfortable, but Allie will rip off anything not made of silken, spider threads, and forage around irritatedly for something tolerable.)

Betimes, she dramatically asks me, "How can you stand to wear that? It itches!". I just shrug my shoulders, look pitiful, and answer that since Daddy didn't find enough magic beans today, there was only enough to buy the gossamer thread woven by fairies in the moonlight for her clothes. I had to make do with fur the dog scratched off - before his flea bath - at high noon.)

She seems very princess-like, indeed, when one sees her lying atop her covers at night, wrapped partially in a soft, brown throw and partially in the baby blanket Aunt Lynne made for Luke twenty-one years ago. The best-made blanket in the land, I might add, lasting as it did through three children and a nervous Chihuahua/terrier.

In addition to the jumble of diverse bed coverings, Allie's eyes are covered with a satiny night mask - to block out the light that so disturbs her royal highness's sleep. But the truth is that she genuinely suffers from this sensitivity to the point that her fellow thespians at play practice are always questioning the sudden appearance of red marks on her neck. A few nights ago, Allie complained of developing heated streaks after a younger girl with "boogery fingers" toyed too long with her necklace. (This is also, likely, the reason we are now sick.)

I asked if she explained to them that her skin was Princess-and-the-Pea-type skin, but Allie has a way of coldly staring down rough-skinned Proletarians like me.

(Nobody ever tell her about this blog. Ever!)