Magic to do
Yesterday, Kavi was blowing bubbles in a glass of water, using a straw.
This morning, she again had a glass of water and a straw. I came over to the table, and she pointed at a nickel sitting on the table.
She said: “I'll blow bubbles, and you do magic.”
I picked up the nickel and did a French drop. (I learned that as a kid, from an excellent book called Sneaky Feats.) But Kavi wasn't looking when I did the trick. I showed her my empty hand, but she hadn't seen the first part of the trick so she wasn't surprised that my hand was empty. I showed her the nickel in my other hand, and she said, “You didn't do magic!”
So then I did it again while she was watching, and plucked the nickel from her ear, and all was well.
But later in the day, she kept putting the nickel in various places. She would hide it in a box (while I was watching), and then ask me to pull it from her ear. I tried taking it out of the box, but she would tell me it had to stay there.
I was puzzled by this at first; how could I pull the coin out of her ear if it was hidden in a box? But eventually I realized that as far as she was concerned, since I really was pulling it out of her ear, there was no need for me to take it out of the box first.
I finally went off to another room to get another nickel, but by the time I came back, she was off for a nap, and that was the last of the day's magic.
(I suspect Ben was the one who showed her the nickel-from-ear trick.)
