So Wednesday night I’m caring for Alex cause Poppa Paul is off flying in the States and Unca Keith is visiting his elders like a right child do, and it’s just me and the boyo. He was non-resistant when I carried him off to bed but we have a tradition of me singing to him.
I sang him the tickle song. I wrote it for my own children about bodily autonomy. “If I ticklex3 you will wigglex3 and you’ll gigglex3 and you’ll jigglex3 and then sometimex3 you will yellx3 PLEASE STOP. And I’ll stop, and you’ll say” (and the kid sez 
or go.)
I wrote it because when I was impressionable I read an Ann Landers letter about tickling & about how some children and adults like to overtickle & impose their will on small children this way & it’s super creepy. So I gave the kids a metered amount of tickling they controlled.
So I sing it, like, uncountable frickin’ times and I’m feeling really really victimized by my reproductive success, how about I phrase it thataway, and suddenly I ask him if he’d like to me sing the song as if I was Mater from Cars.
Three repeats and he’s out. Singing the song in a cornpone accent complete with yeehaws and pretending that my horn is stuck. That’s what it took.
