Last night Matt was out playing poker, so the bug and I had a girls' night. We brought dinner upstairs to the TV room and folded laundry and read books.
One of her favorites is "Tails," a sort of push-and-pull book with tabs that lets the reader make the animals with tails move. Our copy is well-loved with all the physical evidence of this love one might expect from a 21-month-old. One of the best pages has a mama pig who is swatting flies away from her baby with her tail. Last night, the mama pig's tail finally ripped as the bug was pushing and pulling it.
"Broke," she said, bringing it to me in her cupped hands.
"Yup," I said. "You ripped it. We can't fix it."
"Fix?"
"No, honey, we can't fix it. It's broken."
"But, flies?"
"What?"
"Flies! Flies!" (increasingly upset) "Poor piggies. No swat."
At this point, she starts stroking the baby pigs on the page, crooning, "Sorry, sorry, piggies. Broken." Over and over, until I finally took the book away and we went to brush teeth and get ready for bed.
On the way back to her room for bed, she picked up "Tails" and tucked it on the shelf behind the other books, saying, "No flies."
Wow, you never know what's going to stick in a toddler's noggin.
2 comments:
It's an important lesson to learn, that's for sure. The earlier she knows that some "brokens" can't be fixed, the better, I suppose. At least she's learning it with flies rather than with love or antiques, though I'm sure that will come later :).
PS-I love that you use the word "inculcate" in a sentence (opening entry). I don't get to read that often enough :).
I was going to comment on "inculcate" as well. That was beautiful usage.
Welcome to the blog world. Finally! I look forward to reading all about your daily life, since I feel like we hardly ever talk despite our living so nearby.
We need to meet up soon. Last time I saw Miranda she was not working out such complex conversations! Poor piggies and all the flies...
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