Thursday, June 18, 2009

Three going on Thirteen

Ever since Elise turned three, she’s been acting mostly as a typical 3 year old would…doing puzzles, drawing, harassing her sisters, you know…typical. Sometimes she also regresses and acts like she’s one…baby talk, can’t do anything by herself, harassing her sisters, you know…typical. And then – every once in a while – she acts like she’s thirteen and harasses her mother. Case in point:

Pulling out of the parking space this evening, ready to head home, Elise yells at me from her seat (she’s quite a backseat driver, actually, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog) “Mommy! Drive home now!” And when I didn’t respond to her the very split second after sound stopped coming out of her mouth, she yelled again, “MOMMY! DRIVE HOME NOW!”

I said, calmly, “Elise, it is not nice to talk to mommy like that. You may not yell at mommy. Now, what do you need to say to mommy?” I was of course thinking that she would say “I’m sorry, Mommy”, which she is very good at. Do you know what that child said? With just a wee bit of thirteen-year-old-attitude?

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Ball.”

What? Did she just call me Mrs. Ball? My three year old?

“No, Elise, you need to say, ‘I’m sorry, Mommy.’”

“Oooooh. I’m sorry, Mommy.”

In the background Bethany just can’t hold it in any longer. She’s in hysteric-giggle-mode. If you know her, you know what this is like. The rest of us in the van can’t hold it together any more either, so now Elise thinks that calling Mommy Mrs. Ball is funny. Great.

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