Thursday, February 17, 2011

Hannah on Relative Naughtiness

We've found ourselves sitting in a lot of waiting rooms lately, and so to fill the time we have begun "telling stories." I will start a story with a sentence or two, then each girl will take turns adding another sentence or two until we've woven a creative, time-passing tall tale.

Today, as we were waiting to pick up Naomi's next 24 hour urine collection kit, I began a story about Borris and Horris the bears. I thought I would use this story to teach a little point so I made Borris and Horris naughty bears who didn't obey their mother. "And Mommy bear said, 'you naughty boys! You go home right now and stay in your rooms!'" I said in my scolding voice, then added dramatically, "but...Borris and Horris didn't obey."

It was Hannah's turn next. "Well, they tried to obey their mommy as best as they could," she whined, clearly empathizing with the bears' plight, "but it was too hard for them."

At my next turn I added a dreadful pack of wolves snarling at them to scare the bears into obeying their mother and going home. Naomi appropriately scolded the naughty bears in her best mother bear voice. But Hannah felt this was unjustified, "But we weren't being naughty!" she insisted for Borris and Horris, "We were just playing a game...it's called hide and seek, you know?"

Black isn't really black and white isn't really white, I prefer it this lovely shade of gray. Postmodernism...inborn in my four-year-old...oh help.

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