My kid is a terrible share-er.
I know this is hard for y’all to believe on account of how she’s just about the cutest thing you’ve ever seen and all but it’s true.
She has discovered the phrase “DATSH MINE!” and she’s not afraid to use it.
The problem really seems to come into play (no pun intended) when involving any sort of baby dolls. Scarlette is operating under the assumption that baby dolls belong to her. As in, all of the baby dolls, ever.
I found her insistence to be the keeper of the all of the baby dolls interesting because we don’t actually have any baby dolls other than the one that I handed down to her from my childhood. You know, the creepily realistic looking one that has anatomically correct boy parts?
(Okay, so maybe we can trace the problem back to that, actually.)
When J and I took her to preschool orientation we spent most of the time negotiating with her about sharing the baby dolls with her friends at school. She eyed everyone suspiciously as though they were less “friends” and more “small people standing in the way of her and an armful of baby dolls.”
“But datsh my baby!” she would insist as we patiently explained over and over again that the babies belonged to everyone and that it is kind to share the babies with our friends and how we don’t need to hoard all of the baby dolls and hide them in the freezer of the play kitchen just so that the other kids can’t have them and other such things in hopes that one day she will be a productive member of society.
She came home from her first day and we asked her all about it. And then we asked her if she had shared the baby dolls with her friends.
“But no! Dere my babiesh!” she insisted
So last week I went to my first MOPS meeting, which by the way, was awesome because they took care of my child while they fed me coffee and chocolate and let me do crafts. I basically wanted to never leave.
Anyhow, when I dropped Scarlette off in the 2 year old room (after using up all of the available space on her name tag to write in her allergies) she looked so small and nervous that I was a little anxious about leaving her.
I needn’t have worried, apparently.
Because at pickup the scene I was confronted with involved my tiny little sweetheart of a child standing guard in front of the play cradle with every single one of the baby dolls in her arms.
“DESHE MY BABIESH!” she was demanding firmly to the semi-circle audience of tearful two year olds towering around her as she struggled to keep all eleventy of the baby dolls in her grasp.
(I apologize, fellow MOPS moms. Don’t kick me out, I love you and your adult conversation and your free lunch.)
The following school day I asked her about her morning and she told me all about how they read a story about Jesus! Loves! You!
And oh, also about how she had to say she was sorry to Jolie.
I was pretty sure I knew where that story was going only before I could ask her to elaborate she continued:
“But I NOT shorry.”
Lately she has taken to stamping her foot at me.
Like that is even acceptable in this house.
I tried asking her to share her baby doll with me at home, to practice things like “taking turns” and “not being a bully.” That’s when she turned, stomped her foot and said “NO! I NOT SHARE DA BABIESH AND DEN I SIT IN DA TIME OUT.”
Then she put the baby in the entertainment center.
And then she sat herself in time out.
She sang herself a song about time out and chocolate donuts while she was in there.
Also, I left an “H” out of Scarlette’s pronunciation of the word “sit”
I have a very vivid memory of Nurse C looking at me over the isolette while a one pound, nine ounce, seriously ill Scarlette batted her tiny fist furiously against her hand as she attempted to moisten her miniature lips with a cotton swab and remarking that if she made it through this, she would bet money that she was going to be a spitfire in her toddler years.
If those were Vegas odds, Nurse C would be one wealthy woman right now.
“And though she be but little, she is fierce” – William Shakespeare
