Wit & Wisdom, week of May 16

Not much funny stuff recorded this week due to our kitty sadness, but here are a few cute one-liners courtesy of Maggie. (New words in italics)


• "Oh thank you, thank you, giant ice cream man." (when Daddy brought her some ice cream)


• "Is aint a bad word?" I told her it wasn't bad in the sense that other words were bad; it just isn't a correct word. "Oh," she replied. "I think it's an infection." me: "You think aint is an infection?" Maggie: "Yes, an infection. Or maybe it's just wrong language."


• "Let's put on our seatbelts and pretend we're at Sonic." (This may not seem too funny on the surface, but we were at Sonic when she said it! We park at the drive-in and eat in the car, and she gets to sit up front with me -- a big deal for her. Today, she also ordered her meal through the loudspeaker all by herself! I was fully prepared to have to translate--after all, those things make it hard for adults to understand each other--but the man taking orders was able to understand her perfectly!)
• "I have to protect my bed from bugs, slugs, and snails."

Dealing with Holly's death:

• "Is Holly at home?" Me: no. "She's living with God?" Yes. "Because she was sick?" Yes. "Then can I have a piece of gum?" (So does one necessitate the other in Maggie's world, or did she see an opportunity to take advantage of my "mourning"?)


• "I wish Holly could die back to us so she could be here instead of with God."

Oh, and here's a good one ... Today she told her first good series of lies. She's been fibbing for a while now or answering questions with "Nothing" instead of a real answer. But today she lied over and over about the same issue. She was on the screened porch, hand-feeding dry dog food to our dog. She's eaten dog (and cat) food before, and she knows it's not allowed. She came in to use the potty and announced, "I'm not eating dog food!" which immediately made me suspicious. I smelled her breath (yes, that's gross, but I can usually smell it on her) and since it didn't smell like Kibbles -n-Bits, I let her off with a warning. But when she went back outside, I watched her through the door, and sure enough, she was putting little pieces in her mouth, chewing, and swallowing. I gave her a few minutes then walked outside:

Me: "Maggie, what are you eating?"
Maggie: "Nothing."
Me: "Tell me the truth. Were you eating dog food?"
Maggie: "No."
Me: "Is that the truth? Were you eating dog food?"
Maggie: "Not really."
Me: "I saw your teeth moving. What were you chewing?"
Maggie: "Jasper's fur."
Me: "Remember you need to always tell me the truth. You'll get in less trouble if you tell the truth. What were you chewing?"
Maggie: "Ummm ..." (looking around the porch) "The pig." (a plastic toy pig)
Me: "Maggie, this is your absolute last chance to tell me the truth."
Maggie: "I was eating dog food."

So she got a timeout for eating the dog food in the first place, since she knows it's not allowed. When the timeout was over, I went and had our typical post-timeout talk, where I explained why she was in timeout (though nowdays, she explains it to me, most of the time). Then I talked to her about lying, and I pointed out the FIVE lies she told in the above scenario. As a result, she got five spankings (or five licks) for the five lies. This didn't upset her nearly as much as I thought it would, but I'm hopeful that somewhere a lesson was learned and she'll remember this the next time she's tempted to lie.

Finally, she's developed a fascination for the word dam, as well as its identical-sounding twin curse word. She actually said the curse word first (she won't tell us where she heard it), and she later heard the word dam on the TV news, used as part of a story about the local Chickamauga Dam. We've tried explaining the difference, though we assumed the nuances of language would be lost on a 3yo. However, it seems she might understand more than we think, because now she takes every opportunity to use the word "dam" in a sentence. She'll usually say something like, "Why does dam mean holding back water?" or "Dam is a crazy water word." It freaks me out every time she says it, but I'm really trying not to make a big deal of it, lest she say it even more.