Totally Her Father's Daughter

Tonight the kids and I hopped in the car around 7:30 to run to the store.  Despite the fact that it was mostly dark already, Eric found his sunglasses and put them on.  As soon as Ella saw that, she demanded her sunglasses as well.  Monkey see, monkey do.  Except, as I reminded her, earlier, she had insisted on leaving her sunglasses at daycare for some reason.  No way, no how were we leaving that building with her sunglasses in our possession.

So, as I backed down our driveway on the way to the store, she began to throw a royal fit over her lack of sunglasses.  At night.  Long, skinny arms and legs went flying in every which direction.  Screaming, kicking, you name it, it all happened.  Eventually, she calmed down enough for me to understand what she was screaming at me.  She was (not so kindly) demanding that we return to school to get her sunglasses.  "Ella, we can't go to your school," Eric told her.  "It's closed now and if we break in, the police will come and we will all go to jail."

Well, lordy, lordy did that girl ever launch into an all new tirade.  I didn't catch every single thing she said, or shrieked, as the case may be, but the gist of it was a three-year-old version of "fuck the police."  She called the police all sorts of mean pre-school names, and insisted that she was going to bite them, scratch them, kick them, etc.  Eric, totally exasperated by her...threeness, replied with a deadpan, "Ella.  If you did all that, you'd be dead in a matter of seconds."

That kid cracks me up.  His delivery was awesome, and I'm not sure that I'm accurately capturing it in writing.  I don't know where he comes up with half of the things he says.  But I get that sentiment--I'm largely exasperated by her threeness as well.  This will pass, I'm sure.  Things will get better.  I do worry, however, about the fact that I'm raising one future cop and one future criminal and/or gangsta rapper.  I hope that works out ok for us.