Two weeks ago, a store that's located between our house and D's kindergarten put four large Hello Kitty dolls in its front window.
D was, to put it mildly, excited.
(I'm too lazy to make a picture, so you'll just have to imagine a skinny five-year-old with several pigtails pressing herself onto a storefront window, arms outstretched, trying to... show Hello Kitty her devotion? Bring a doll to her through sheer willpower? I'm not sure.
I'm lucky the store only opens at 10; I'm not sure the staff would have appreciated it.)
As the days went by, the number of Hello Kitty dolls in the window slowly dwindled, until earlier this week there was just one left. D was not pleased.
"Mommy, you are going to buy me a Hello Kitty," she ordered.
"We'll see," I answered.
"Mommy, you are going to buy me a Hello Kitty, or I will destroy you," was her response.
Ahh, those parenting moments where you can tell you must be doing something right.
Anyway. I tried to explain to D that threats of destruction wouldn't help her cause, but the truth is, she was going to get a Hello Kitty doll either way, because I'd bought one a week earlier and was saving it for Hanukah.
We don't even usually do big gifts on Hanukah - but how could I resist? The thing about giving gifts to young kids is you just get so much happiness for such minimum effort. Adults get less visibly excited about winning the lottery than 3-year-olds do when you give them a cookie.
So yeah. D got her Hello Kitty, I got to enjoy the sight of her wiggling in excitement as she opened the wrapping (OK, OK - as she pulled it out of the bag), and nobody got destroyed. All is well.
***
D just started speech therapy this week, after months of waiting for an appointment to open up. I couldn't help but be briefly concerned that her occasional threats to destroy me are going to sound a lot more disturbing once she can enunciate them properly.
***
D is not the only one around here who threatens to destroy people on occasion. One of her older sisters was overtired and angry at everyone earlier this week, and told her sisters through tears:
"I'm going to destroy you both! I'll destroy your brains! But you don't have brains - that's the whole problem!"
***
S also got a Hanukah present - a wooden train set. So for the past day, whenever the table hasn't been set for meals (and sometimes when it has) it has been home to her train. When she came home from daycare today, her first announcement was, "I need my train." Like I said - so easy to please.
D was, to put it mildly, excited.
(I'm too lazy to make a picture, so you'll just have to imagine a skinny five-year-old with several pigtails pressing herself onto a storefront window, arms outstretched, trying to... show Hello Kitty her devotion? Bring a doll to her through sheer willpower? I'm not sure.
I'm lucky the store only opens at 10; I'm not sure the staff would have appreciated it.)
As the days went by, the number of Hello Kitty dolls in the window slowly dwindled, until earlier this week there was just one left. D was not pleased.
"Mommy, you are going to buy me a Hello Kitty," she ordered.
"We'll see," I answered.
"Mommy, you are going to buy me a Hello Kitty, or I will destroy you," was her response.
Ahh, those parenting moments where you can tell you must be doing something right.
Anyway. I tried to explain to D that threats of destruction wouldn't help her cause, but the truth is, she was going to get a Hello Kitty doll either way, because I'd bought one a week earlier and was saving it for Hanukah.
We don't even usually do big gifts on Hanukah - but how could I resist? The thing about giving gifts to young kids is you just get so much happiness for such minimum effort. Adults get less visibly excited about winning the lottery than 3-year-olds do when you give them a cookie.
So yeah. D got her Hello Kitty, I got to enjoy the sight of her wiggling in excitement as she opened the wrapping (OK, OK - as she pulled it out of the bag), and nobody got destroyed. All is well.
***
D just started speech therapy this week, after months of waiting for an appointment to open up. I couldn't help but be briefly concerned that her occasional threats to destroy me are going to sound a lot more disturbing once she can enunciate them properly.
***
D is not the only one around here who threatens to destroy people on occasion. One of her older sisters was overtired and angry at everyone earlier this week, and told her sisters through tears:
"I'm going to destroy you both! I'll destroy your brains! But you don't have brains - that's the whole problem!"
***
S also got a Hanukah present - a wooden train set. So for the past day, whenever the table hasn't been set for meals (and sometimes when it has) it has been home to her train. When she came home from daycare today, her first announcement was, "I need my train." Like I said - so easy to please.
