Sunday, November 04, 2007
Smart, but not Wise
Ellis is screaming.
Like really screaming, as if she’s been hurt.
As a parent of young children, you begin to de-cypher the flavors of crying that swirl around you. You can tell in an instant whether the kid’s hand is caught in the garbage disposal (again!), or she is just grumpy and wants one of her brothers to stop hoisting her up by her overalls and putting her on the coatrack.
This was a “I’m really hurt” cry, so we parental units sprang into action (at the commercial break) and came running.
Ellis is holding her arm as if it’s been eaten clean off by a bear.
“What happened?!”
“Lucas hit me!” though it took about five minutes to discern that through all the wailing.
“Really? He did?” I was a little surprised, frankly, Lucas is quite mild for a 13 year old boy and is certainly not prone physical altercations. Plus, there are some very set in stone rules about hitting and psychological torture in our house. (Only I get to do the emotional torture stuff, it’s off limits to everyone else.)
“YES! HE HIT ME!” Holy meerkats on a meteor was that loud when she screamed that. You’d think that not only had he hit her, but also said that all princesses were dumb and princess-hood should be abolished, just so she could NEVER become a real princess.
“Why did he hit you?” we ask, knowing that we’ll probably get a completely different story from him, but we are investigators as well as parents. It’s best not to always jump to conclusions and immediately believe the person with the volume turned up way too high. You have to get all the facts.
“He hit me because I was hitting him.”
“Oh, really? So, he hit you because you were hitting him.”
“YES!”
“Hmm. Why were you hitting him?”
“I was hitting him so he would stop saying that he hated me.”
“Ah.”
That is soooo funny. Somehow I bet Lucas’s version of the story isn’t far off from Ellis. :)
Posted by Anitra on 11/04/07 at 07:35 AMGood thing they have your example to follow. Imagine how lost they’d be otherwise.
Posted by Radioactive Jam on 11/04/07 at 11:10 AMAnd, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure this is the way the current administration handles foreign policy these days. Beat (bomb) them until they stop hating you.
Works for countries about as well as it does for 4 year olds.
Posted by Jon on 11/04/07 at 01:55 PMI am pretty certain that EXACT situation has happened in my home. EXACT.
Posted by OMSH on 11/04/07 at 02:24 PMWe had a choking incident a number of years back between a 9 year old and a 7 year old. The 7 year old girl came in telling on the 9 year old brother. When asked why he choked his sister, it was because she just wouldn’t shut up. The next day, I took them separately and opened their eyes to the world of abusive relationships and after each phrase of ‘did you know...’ I asked ‘do you know why’. They each at their turn, reply ‘I don’t know’, to which I gave the response in a loud emphatic voice “because she won’t shut up”. I went through that a few times, and continued with the conversation of being in control of their own actions, of not letting anyone control them through words or actions (by getting angry at the other person) etc. Anyway, you get the idea. It was quite funny and a fun way to present the admonishment, and it never happened again. Kids are so much fun. (And Sirdar and I reserve the right to do the emotional tormenting of the kids is our home also.
Posted by Dawn on 11/04/07 at 05:00 PMWelcome to another addition of Birth Control Is Our Friend, brought to you by the Deal family. ;-)
Posted by michael on 11/04/07 at 06:15 PMI’m visiting from Radioactive Jam and glad I did!! This is priceless LOL Ah indeed.
Posted by Joy T. on 11/04/07 at 10:20 PM
Holy Crap! Look at all this STUFF down here. It's awesome!
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