She may not be old enough to cross the street by herself or cut her own meat. Heck, she can’t even reach the bathroom faucet without the help of a stool, but my 5-year-old daughter is never short on answers. The kid has a retort for everything. Her opinions flow like liquid mercury down a steep hill.
Her insistence to have the last word on everything would be infinitely annoying; however, most of her back talk is not meant to be sassy or rude. Rather, my daughter truly believes that what she has to say is valuable, and she’ll stop at nothing to convince me that she—not me—knows what is best for her.
For example, here are just a few of the gems my daughter uses when told that nighttime is for sleeping and that she better get back in bed… or else:
“Mommy, my eyes are broken. They don’t close.”
“I don’t have any sleep left.”
“My eyes are done sleeping.”
“I used up all my sleep, Mommy!”
“I can’t sleep. The bed is too fluffy.”
Then, there was the day when my daughter decided her little table and chair set was better suited as a platform for aerial stunts than arts and crafts. After her third jump I threatened to move the set into my bedroom.
“Don’t do that, Mommy.”
“Then stop jumping off the table and chairs.”
A few minutes of silence were followed by a horrendous crash.
“What was that?” I yelled from the kitchen.
“Nothing!” my daughter insisted.
“That was something,” I replied making my way down the hall.
“It was nothing, Mommy!” my daughter shouted while intercepting me in the hall.
“Really… because I definitely heard something,” I replied gazing down at the child who had strapped herself to my legs hoping beyond hope that I would take her word for it and not venture into the living room to survey what I knew would likely require at least an hour’s worth of damage control.
“No, Mommy,” she responded quickly. “You have an ear infection and didn’t hear the chair fall into the Christmas tree.”
Does your kid have an answer for everything?
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