Happy CentinoBlogiVersary to me!

Or something like that. I've made 100 posts. That's better than any diary I've ever kept. Who knew I just had to add the exhibitionist quotient? (Answer: Probably a lot of people.)

I had to share this snippet of conversation that I had with OG tonight. (OG is six, going on her Juris Doctorate.)

The background of this is that she has begun to do some more deliberate disobeying of long-set rules; i.e. one child on the trampoline, no sharing food with others at school, that sort of thing. Not necessarily things that lead me to think she's going to end up a drug-addled prostitute, but issues that still must be put to rights. The notion that I'm supposed to ensure her safety causes her some consternation, because she's a logical sort, and since nobody has actually died yet at our house from sharing food or a trampoline, she really cannot see the need for such prescriptive rules.

So, after a few incidents this week, and some discussion between her, The Man, and myself, it was decided that dessert tonight was off the table, so to speak. She went through the five stages of grief rapidly, and came out the other side more or less unscathed. (Oooh, though, but when she was upset, she kept crying that Daddy was the nice one and Mama was the mean one. That man could whap her across the face with a belt on a regular basis and she would not EVEN remember it, she is so in love with him. It is SO UNFAIR.)

Anyway, she was back to speaking to me again within 10 minutes (so I don't think this is a CPS matter, campers,) and we went thenceforth about our getting-ready-for-bed ways. When I was drying her off after her bath, I started a little conversation with her about rules and all, and why we have them.

Me: "(OG,) why do you think grownups have rules?"
OG: "So they can tell kids what to do."
Me: "Well...it's more than that. What rules can you think of that grownups have for you?"
OG: "Um...don't run in the hallway at school. Don't jump on the trampoline with someone else. Don't go out into the street."
Me: "So, do you see a pattern here?"
OG: "Um...no."
Me: "Did you notice that all of those rules have to do with kids potentially getting hurt?"
OG: "Oh, yeah."
Me: "Do you understand that grownups don't want kids to get hurt?"
OG: "Yeah."
Me: (a bit misty) "Do you know that I love you very much, and cannot stand the thought of you getting hurt? Do you understand that these rules are in place so that you don't get hurt, and your friends don't get hurt?
OG: "So...if we get hurt, then, it's really your fault, isn't it?"

(I believe it is a testament to my will and strong moral character that I did not throttle her purple right then and there. "Why you little," indeed.)