My daughter walks up while I'm watching History Channel and asks me how fish die. "Well, fish can die if they don't get water, because they breathe water, so if they stay in air, they die. And if you're fishing...well fish can die in other ways, too." I ended lamely. I am not talking about cutting off fish heads to my four-year-old, but sometmes my mouth goes faster than my brain.
"And fish can die if they don't have any food," she tells me.
"Well, yeah..." as I'm picturing emmanciated fish in my head. Gross and creepy, a two-fer.
"I want to have a fish in a bowl," she said. Don't we have enough pets? Where does she get this shit? Oh yeah, I remember where...
"Were you watching a TV show that had fish in a bowl?" I asked her.
Sometimes she comes up with weird ideas on her own, and when I ask her what she saw that made her think that, she tells me she just 'thought of it in her head.' But most of the time, she's seen something that makes her think of it, like last week when she told her dad she was 'high-maintenance' and I asked her where she got that word. "I just though of it in my head," she told me. Right! Because little girls just 'think' of words like that. Either 1) she's somehow plugged in to the 'conscious collective' or 2) She heard someone say that word. Like maybe to or about her. "High-maintenance" is a 'male' word, and not usually a compliment, and this makes me wonder where she actually heard it. Her brothers are going to be in some deep shit when I get ahold of them!
When I asked her what it meant, she said she didn't know, and I told her she wasn't high-maintenance just Mommy and Daddy's princess. "I like being a Princess," she told me, and I told her that I knew that! (She has never seen Inspector Clousseau in action, but her Dad has, and he laughed. Good enough!) Don't worry, I'll deal with her brothers later, but for now, back to the fish.
"Yeah and there was a fish, and water, and a bowl," she told me. When I asked which show she was watching, she hopped up and down on the couch and said, "Blue has a fish in a bowl, and she feeds it so that it doesn't die. Can I have a fish in a bowl?" She is then climbed on my lap after she asked me, and gave me 'huggies and kisses.' High-maintenance, indeed! Fucking Blues Clues! I used to like that show (for her, not me. Ok, for me too) but it seems it just gives her fodder for asking me weird questions at inconvenient times. Blue's Clues should be renamed to What Strange questions Will This Bring Up And Make Mommy And Daddy Answer. Too long for a title? Well, one can hope. Again, back to the fish.
"We'll see, I'll. Talk to Daddy about it and get back to you."
"Ok, can I have a drink?" as I get more huggies and kisses.
"Ok, honey," and I got her a drink. Hmm, does anyone know how to undo high maintenance?
No comments:
Post a Comment