<overheard while the DragonMonkey plays quietly with trains>
“Gordon, would you please help me with my impo’tant job? Thank you, Gordon.”
a little later…
“Yes, please… please help me back on tracks… Oh, no!” I hear a soft clatter. “Oh, no, Gordon! You make all the trains fall off the track! Please, would you please be more careful?”
The play continues, and after a bit I hear the gentle sound of trains falling yet again….
“Please get back on the track and be more careful, Gordon. You please be more careful with your job, and please don’t make all the other trains sad. Please, Gordon? Would you please help us, and be nice? Thank you so much, Gordon. Thank you.”
Awww… listen to him.
This. This is why I fight so hard, all day long, trying to instill manners and sweetness into my kids. This is worth all the fits at the grocery store, and all the times in the corner, and all the headaches and frustrations… this right here. Tangible evidence that my hard work is actually paying off.
“Uh, oh, Gordon. You made all the engines go off the track again. Would you please be more careful with your trains and engines?”
I smile proudly. I can picture it so clearly – the quiet, peaceful scene he is imagining, all the little Thomas the Train engines chugging along like reliable little engines should – lending each other compassionate assistance when they mess up.
“No? You not want to be more careful? Well. Okay, then.”
<violent clatter>
“I’m sorry, Gordon, but you not being more careful. Now I crash you… and squish you… and hit you… and make you dead.” Each pause is punctuated by another harsh clatter as Gordon is punished for his crimes.
“Now I make you bleed, and I not take you to the hospital…..” A pause, as he thinks about that one for a moment, then his voice returns, with a new enthusiasm. “Yes, I take you to the hospital… I hit you and crash you and I make you bleed…and you go to the hospital and they give you biiiiig needles. Very big needles. All over you. You are gonna bleed, and then you gonna have big needles all over you.”
Another pause, and then a regretful, “I sorry, Gordon, you not want to help other engines. Now you all bloody and squished and you die.”
I think I’ll just blame it on the TV. I must have missed that episode: Thomas & Friends and their visit to the KGB.
It is the age, right? It has to be. Isaac is having very similar conversations.
aawww well Gordon should of behaved better!!
Lovely manners there that’s for sure.
He’s a boy!! It’s normal!
I’m sorry, I laughed. I used to get in trouble when I laughed at my nephews’ behavior at that age.
Clare used to play The Lion King at age three.
“Mommy, you lay on the floor and be still.”
Then she would climb on the couch and get ready to leap.
“I jump on you. Hold still while I eat your neck. Then I eat your tummy and then (giggle, giggle) I eat your butt.”
She was usually dressed as a gypsy fairy princess….
LOL! Well… the manners are there. I say you’re doing just fine!