So Very Tiny.

Tonight, Josh had taken Oliver to his crib and was sitting on the floral couch while I read and ate peanut butter fudge cookies in the big green chair.

Josh said, "You are a tiny mouse sitting on a book, eating cookies and cheese."
I answered, "But what if I'm cold?"
"I will give you a tiny shawl. I will put it on your shoulders and stroke your head, and I will give you a bottle cap full of Dr. Pepper."

This filled me with such a delicious sense of joy and safety. Then, I remembered sitting on a bench with my grandmother. I don't know where we were or exactly how small I was. But I must have been discussing my obsession with smallness. Independently or with my prompting, she began to tell me how she would care for me if I were Thumbelina-sized. I think I asked countless specific questions to keep this going. The only specific part I remember is her saying that she would carry me in a box, which she would line with velvet to keep it soft. My then-imagining of a green velvet-lined chamber and the coziness inside yet beyond the muffled sounds of the world is still so vivid in my mind.

I Dream of Genie only captured my attention because of the cushioned and peach-tinted bottle room. Thumbelina's walnut bed and tiny dresses were dreamy. I loved the tiny sparkle of the tiny ring the nervous mouse carried in one The Rescuers movie.

I began a collection of those tiny porcelain animals one used to find on little mirrored shelves in Hallmark stores. I only had three: a fawn with a chipped ear, a Siamese kitten, and a yellow duckling. I remember the smoothness of their painted heads under the pad of my right index finger. 

Of course, the American Girl Collection provided endless wonder: a detailed deviled egg, a nib pen as long as a needle, a pencil box, palm-sized wire-rimmed glasses, miniature pennies.....

My mother bought a Robin Woods doll with thick black curls and painted blue eyes. She sewed a gauzy, pale blue princess gown with white glimmer trim and a royal blue velvet cape with silver trim and lining. She had numbered the packages that Christmas morning. The package held a wooden box she had painted with scrolls and a keyhole and lined with plush silky silver. The accompanying gold key was almost as exciting as the silver and opal rhinestone tiara inside the treasure box. That day, my uncle gave me a set of tiny books. I remember one was an old-fashioned alphabet book; reading it was a thrill.

Someone...maybe one of my grandfather's (not the one belonging to the grandmother) girlfriends...bought me a package of bitsy colored pencils smaller than matchsticks. I was so overcome with joyous delirium that I would, at random, squeal, "I love my tiny little pencils!"

I had a set of mottled blue metal dishes: plates, bowls in which I could barely fit a bit of my fingertip, teacups. I imagined whole stories around the tiny meals.

One Christmas, I tore at the paper around a large, lumpy shape and uncovered my mother's dollhouse: white with blue shutters, a doorknob I could barely grasp, and three stories of wonders. I endlessly studied the thin velvety carpets, the wooden ice box, the black water pump, the little hard-ribboned presents I could never unwrap, the hair-fine candy canes on the Christmas tree, the cushioned burgundy velvet sofa, the brass bed with pink coverlet, pink plush blanket, and lace-edged sheet, the wardrobe with modest white nightgown, the tiny candles and tinier candle snuff, the canopied green bed, the chip of soap on the pedestal sink, the narrow claw foot tub, the delectably fragile roll-top desk, and the Goldfish-sized books with real blank pages that fluttered out if I wasn't gentle enough. I wondered what invisible words could have filled those pages.

Now, I sometimes buy mini gel pens, and I gaze longingly at Madame Alexander trunk sets with their little worlds of selective luxury. I wonder how a designer can choose just three or four outfits and a literal handful of accessories to build the doll's life portrait inside that gold-hinged trunk. My Madame Alexander Anne Shirley doll sits above our kitchen cabinets in her tiny-snap boots and cardigan with unfathomable small blue buttons.

So, mouse reference aside, I wanted to start asking Josh a thousand questions, testing his ability to imagine and wrap me in the cozy glee of tininess. He does always say, "Out in the world and at work, you have to be big and brave. But here, you can be small."

The family Easter basket Mom made for Josh, Oliver, and me this year contained a special gift for Oliver to enjoy when he's a little older: a set of itty bitty colored pencils.