Thursday, September 17, 2009

Mean girls? Already?

This is the new game Cora has wanted to play lately: I have to be one of her classmates (let's call her Ann) and she is herself. Then she wants me to call her stupid, and then say her mommy is stupid.

Really?

Now Ann was also linked to Cora's introduction to the word stupid and the world of namecalling, so while a 3 year old's report on what happened a school is sometimes worth regarding with skepticism (you had pizza for lunch every day this week? really?), when something keeps coming up in the same way, there must be something to it.

And I can tell that Cora is mulling all this over. Sometimes she will ask me, "Momma, are you stupid...or not?" And her tone is genuinely quizzical. We've talked about what "stupid" means and when it is okay to say it and when it isn't and what we should say to people who call us stupid. And I'm not completely living in my rosy-colored world; I know kids call kids names and that I neither can nor should protect my girl from everything. Still. I had hoped we would make it a little longer before we had to talk about why some people are mean to other people.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Princess small talk

This evening Cora convinced me to play princesses with her. This involved scrubbing the porch floor with damp paper towels, while she was Cinderella and I was Sleeping Beauty.

Cora/Cinderella: Sleeping Beauty, I'm glad you came over to my house today.
Me/Sleeping Beauty: Well, it's always nice to scrub someone else's floor for a change.
Cora/Cinderella: I have a fairy godmother.
Me/Sleeping Beauty: Really?
Cora/Cinderella: Yes. How many fairy godmothers do you have?
Me/Sleeping Beauty: Oh, I have three.
Cora/Cinderella: Well, what are their names?

And so on.