The Know-It-All

I should write a book: Stupid-Ass Conversations With A Four Year Old "Know-It-All." I could make millions, maybe get a TV show. Or a sanity check. SACWAZAFYOKIA. It even has a (somewhat) snazzy acronym, I can picture SACWAZAFYOKIA plastered across billboards everywhere, with people saying, "Sack was a eff why o'kia?" Catchy, huh? Now just try getting that shit out of your head. Go ahead. I'll wait.

I may be the "queen of the catch-phrase" (even though I'm self-crowned) and I even have a couple that I pass on to my employees when dealing with idiots (specifically, You should never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person, and If you argue with an idiot, passers-by might be unable to tell the difference between the two of you) You would think I would remember that when dealing with my stubborn clone, the fruit of my loins. I'd like to think I'm "arming" her for any future "battle of wits," teaching her a calm method for disagreements. I know in my heart it's not true though, because she drags me into a pointless conversation (that quickly pisses me off) nearly every day:

Me: What do you want for breakfast?

Her: Hot dogs and ketchup and cheese!

Me: Hot dogs aren't a breakfast food, what breakfast food do you want for breakfast? Cereal? (No) Oatmeal? (No) Peanut butter toast? (No) Yogurt? (No) Cereal? (No) Well, what do you want, because you can't have hot dogs?

Her: Grapes!

Me: Grapes are only part of breakfast, what else do you want?

Her: Hot dogs and ketchup and cheese!

(For brevity's sake, just imagine this conversation repeated about three times before she decides on cereal. With milk. And a napkin.)

The only time breakfast is (relatively) easy is when we have pop tarts. Both the "know-it-all" and her sister will eat chocolate pop tarts without question, I don't even have to run down the list of available (AKA nutritional) breakfast foods, just slap a pop tart on their plates and call it a day, and honestly, I adore pop tarts for that reason alone. Viva la Kellogs!

Yesterday, I let the dogs outside while her dad got her breakfast, since he had to hurry and take them to Nonna and Poppa's house. What did she have for breakfast, you may ask? Yep, hot dogs. I nearly had kittens in the kitchen, I was so pissed. He (of course) didn't understand why I was "upset."

"Why am I upset? You have no fricking idea the battles we go through in the mornings over what she'll eat for breakfast! Every. Fucking. Day!"

"I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and she told me hot dogs, so I got her hot dogs. She's eating it, problem solved. What's the big deal?" And I told him we needed to watch Bill Cosby sing about chocolate cake (and we will watch it. Soon) before he would understand the daily fucked-up arguments my daughter and I engage in over truly inconsequential stuff. Like hot dogs for breakfast. And "nicknames that she likes" versus "nicknames that she hates so much she cries." And other various miscellaneous bullshit topics.

If you ever see an adult woman and a toddler walking down the street arguing over the color of the grass, I would be the one (pulling my hair out) telling her the grass was green, while she would be the one disagreeing with me and telling me it looked brown to her (lack of rainfall, what can I say?) And we're still working on her colors - for reference, you might remember the "turquoise is a shade of blue" conversation I mentioned in a previous post... and now I think I'll hate turquoise forever just on principle. It "worx" for me! Of course, my mother tells me she acts just like I did when I was a child, but she's full of shit! I never did half these things, because I was a well-behaved child, dammit!

I'm seriously trying to prepare my little mini-me for school - you can't argue with the teachers like that, they tend to get pissed. We've gone through mostly everything else: we've hit the (capital and small) ABC's, (mostly) nailed colors and shapes, memorized sight words, and we're ... (somewhat) finished with potty-training. All that's left for her to learn (other than the whole do-not-fucking-argue-with-Mommy rule) on her list of shit-your-child-must-know-or-we'll-call-you-a-bad-parent is 1) tying her shoes (Velcro is both a blessing and a curse) 2) her address and 3) her telephone number.

And this is where shit falls down: we don't have a home phone, only cell phones. I think we fall in the majority of households now-a-days that ONLY use cell phones. I mean seriously, what's the point of a house phone? Bill collectors? I have a cell phone that shows caller ID, I can silence that shit! Marketing call? Fuck you, telemarketer, I'm not answering! Friends and family just send me a text or email me on my smart phone. When you can carry your "personal" phone with you practically anywhere, why do I need a home phone again? So someone can call and wake me up in the middle of my day-slash-sleep-cycle? I don't think so!

Oh yeah, it's because my pre-schooler needs to memorize it before she starts school. I think this is a capitalist conspiracy to make us all spend $50 extra dollars a month so our kindergartner has a number to memorize. Even if I had a home phone, I wouldn't fucking answer it - everyone has my cell number if they really need to talk to me, and anyone else can go fuck themselves. Right? All of the (older) kids have cell phones, the adults (and I use that term loosely, Mr. "Hot dog" man! Wait... anyway) have cell phones.

My mom brought up a good point, though: "What if she needs to dial 9-1-1?"

"What? She's never alone, why would she need to dial 911? She can learn that shit later."

"When you were three, you called 911," she told me. "Don't you remember?"

"No, I ... Wait, I do remember something - I remember playing with Granny's phone when I was about three, and seeing the numbers 9-1-1 printed on the face of the phone, and then pressing the numbers, but when someone started talking, I hung up. Granny was pissed because they sent police to her door, and then everyone was upset with me. That's really all I remember. It was the house she lived in when I was three. Did you teach me that or something? And how is that story supposed to encourage me to get a house phone exactly?"

"Nope, I was only 20, I didn't think about teaching you shit like that when I was younger. Well, that explains it then! I've wondered for years how you knew to call 911 when your babysitter died, but now I guess I know."

"What?! No, I don't remember a babysitter dying AT ALL! When was this? What happened?"

"When you were about three and a half, your babysitter died while she was babysitting you. You're sure you don't remember it?" If I'm the queen of catch-phrases, she's the queen of understatement-of-the-fucking-year.

"Uh, no, I don't. I called 911? Seriously? I don't remember a babysitter dying while I was there. What the hell happened?"

And she told me the story: I had gone to the babysitters house like normal, but that morning, the babysitter had asked my mom to pack me a lunch because she wasn't feeling well. Then around ten in morning, my mom got a call from the police, who were at the babysitters house with me. All the information she had about what happened was from me (and three is not really considered a reliable age for factual story-telling) and what little the police told her. I guess I had walked to the store around the corner to get the babysitter aspirin, but she didn't wake up when I got back. I called 911, but she was already dead by the time the police and ambulance arrived. My mom didn't know why she died (they never told her) but the police officers were very impressed with the three year old (me) who called the police. My mom was much less than impressed with the woman sending her precious three year old (me still) to the store to buy aspirin, but there was nothing she could really do about it, since the lady was already dead. Seriously, what was she going to do, fire her? I guess the police even gave us a ride home after putting her bicycle in the trunk.

"You don't remember her dying at all?"

"Nope. Not even a smidgen. Just what I told you about what happened at my great-grandma's house."

"Huh, I thought you'd be scarred for life, but I guess not. Anyway, you should probably teach Diana how to call 911. You just never know."

Well played, Mom, well played. (Grandma -1, Mommy Already Knows It All - 0) Great, now I have to get a home phone. Shit! Anyone know a cheap home phone service?