I'm not being vain here. It has very little to do with me. Other than providing her with a place to grow, I did not create her. God did, so yes, I think it is ok for me to state that she is undeniably beautiful.
She will be 4 years old next month, but it is never too early to begin thinking about how we will run off the boys. Jelani wants to take notes from Will Smith in the movie Bad Boys 2 and answer the door in a wife-beater tank, looking crazy, screaming, "I ain't afraid to go back to jail!" Where as my brainstorming has taken a more practical direction.
Chastity has this amazing, innocent quality about her, which causes her to be honest about everything. She will pass gas like a champ and follow it up by yelling, "I pooted! Excuse me!" Often, when they are like chain reaction poots, pop pop popping out, we'll hear, "I pooted. Excuse me. I pooted. Excuse me. Ipootedexcuseme!" There is the lesser known, sister phrase as well, "I burped. Excuse me."
Then, yesterday before nap time she said, "Mommy, can I tell you something?"
"Sure," I answered.
"Yesterday, I picked my nose."
"Uh, well..."
"I ate my booger. It tasted weird."
"You ate your booger?!"
"Yes!"
"Are you just kidding?" I asked, hopefully.
"No. I really ate it. And it got stuck on my teeth. And that was funny." (Insert goofy, giggly grin here)
It was so funny, and so gross at the same time, that I wasn't quite sure how to react. "Oh, well that's...ummm...yucky. We shouldn't eat our boogers." But as soon as it was out of my mouth I somewhat regretted saying that.
Yes, I regretted telling my daughter not to eat her boogers. Two things occurred to me here. 1. She trusted me, to tell me something she knew was weird, but that she thought was funny and wanted to include me in it. I once read a quote about how if we want children to talk with us openly and honestly as teenagers, we need to listen to them openly as children. And here she was, just having a very open and honest moment with me. I was actually very honored. 2. The dilemma: do I stop her and teach her to be more of a lady? Do I tell her that picking her nose (and eating her boogers) and "pooting" in public are impolite and unladylike? Or...hear me out...or do I allow these traits to run the boys off quite naturally? Chances are she won't be quite this brazen with it for the rest of her life, but if I stifle it, she might go the opposite direction and try to be something she's not, and won't her true love one day, love her just the way she is anyway? (With the time transcending powers of the blogosphere, I hope he is reading this right now).
Yes, I am rationalizing a way to keep boys temporarily away with farts and boogers, and maybe that doesn't make much sense, But it could keep her safely in the friend zone just a little bit longer. After a few seconds of thought, with Chastity still looking up at me with her innocent smile, still remembering the hilarity of her booger story, I smiled back and said, "You're so funny. I just love you."
She sighed, "Me too, Mommy."
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