Baby Girl has certainly learned to be more expressive these days. She’s speaking more clearly, after her surgery, and she’s obviously hearing better as well. About a week ago or maybe two – it all runs together – my student Sloane came up to me in the barn and said “Baby Girl just told me that mommy pissed her off.” My head spun around – “What?! You didn’t hear that right – I don’t know what she said but it definitely wasn’t that!” Sloane says maybe not, but it certainly sounded like that’s what she said. So I go into the tack room and ask Baby Girl – what did you say to Sloane just now? CLEAR AS DAY she responded “Mommy pissed me off!” I sat down hard. I wanted to laugh but I knew better. So I told her “don’t say that Baby Girl!” That’s not a nice thing to say!” She looked at me and then… repeated it.
I admit, my family has its moments of profanity and bad language. I’m not above using a cuss word or two (or twelve) in a moment of passionate anger or frustration. I learned from the best (thanks Mom!!) and my brother and I wouldn’t blink twice if the F word was muttered when Mom dropped the jar of spaghetti sauce all over the kitchen floor. We would of course look at each other and bust out laughing, and then Mom would laugh too and we’d all help clean it up. Sometimes stuff like that is really just a moment in time that builds an awesome memory.
Anyway, stunned as I was, I was MORE stunned by that fact that she got the sentence completely right than I was that she actually used the phrase. She clearly did not understand what it really means, but she must have heard someone say this a lot in order to parrot it back so well. What, me? Me?! The MOMMY?! I’VE said it? Enough to have it as my epitaph?
Huh. Well I never. I suppose maybe… it could have been me….. Maybe.
Fast forward a few days. Baby Girl and Daddy and I are sitting in the living room. Out of the blue Baby Girl says to me “You pissed me off Mommy.” Now it’s Daddy’s turn to swivel around. “Um excuse me?! What did you say?!” Baby Girl calmly says “Mommy pissed me off.” I swear Daddy’s head is about to explode. I say to Baby Girl – “don’t say that Baby, that’s not nice.” And she looks at me kind of confused and repeats it, this time with a little whine in her voice. “DON’T SAY THAT!” says Daddy very strongly. Slightly taken aback she now really whines “but Mommy pissed me off!” Daddy gets mad and Baby starts to cry, continually saying the phrase.
Eventually Daddy threatens a time out and Baby Girl screams over the injustice of this and runs away. Problem solved.
I have no idea what Baby Girl thinks this phrase means but I guess I’d better start watching what I say. Problem is, you get so upset about something that you’re going to say it without even thinking about it. I even said it to HER one day, in total frustration. BABY GIRL YOU ARE PISSING ME OFF! So no wonder she’s confused – I said it to her – she should say it back to me, right? Ah, the joyous moments of stellar parenting. I was expecting a “shit” or you know – something else – but I was not expecting her to learn a complete phrase and parrot it back perfectly.
Like I said, her hearing is a lot better now.
