I already wrote this to Roni but I wanted to write it out here, too.
So Madison called my mom yesterday morning to gush about baby Roscoe and about how fun it was to hold him and her little monologue went something like this.
“And he’s so cute and he knows how to swallow” (because she was really impressed by the fact that he is an actual working person and can do things like swallow and blink) “and I know how to hold him and he smells good and he looks like me” and she finished with, “And I want to tear him limb from limb!” in the same happy voice that she praised his swallowing capacity.
When I got on the phone with my mom after, my mom said, “Good for her! Better she put it all out in the open then let it fester!”
See, I come from a mother who says, “Good for her!” when her granddaughter casually mentions her interest in dismembering her baby brother and that’s why I don’t say, “Oh now, you don’t feel that way! Oh no, you don’t mean it!” My mom knows that we often DO feel that way and we often DO mean it but that feelings are not actions and because of her, I know that, too.
See? My mom — she taught me good.
I love your mom. And you!
That’s what separates the “good” big sisters from the “bad” ones, you knoww. The good ones don’t actually follow through with it!
Good mommas, all of you!
Ha! I will pass that on to Madison!!
What I want to know, because you know I specialize in not quite the point, is where she got the phrase “tear him limb from limb”!
Becca, I asked her and she reports that she heard it on The Patty Duke show. I told Noah it was the Zack and Cody of Grandma’s day and now they are both hooked!
OMG, I loved the Patty Duke show. The kid got hooked on The Brady Bunch.
I think if I heard that comment from one of my kids I might engage them in a detailed discussion of exactly how they proposed to execute the dismemberment, getting wilder and kookier with each suggestion. Tends to disarm them. My daughter was heading for a meltdown once this summer and I engaged her in a step by step tutorial on how to throw the best tantrum ever, complete with make believe squealing and foot stomping. She very quickly caught on to the humor of the moment, and no more tantrum.