What A Bummer

The Boy misses his older sister desperately when she is at school. Really. I swear he does. He has a little game where he asks me, "Where's Sissy?" and then he answers himself, in a head slapping kind of way, "Oh, right, she's at school!" You can almost hear the Duh! implicit in his tone. So it is beyond me why he feels the need to needle her constantly when she gets home. Maybe it's because she tends to have an I love you, now get away from me kind of attitude towards him at times, or maybe he just wants to punish her for leaving him -- either way it can drive an otherwise calm woman into cracking open a beer in her kitchen at 3 in the afternoon. . . I'm just sayin' . . .

Since he knows that his sister can never (and I mean never) seem to ignore him completely, he knows that the best way to get a reaction from her is to say something bad under his breath. Now in our house, we try to foster kind and respectful speech so we don't say stupid, butt, dumb, etc in reference to people, so bad words can be a pretty relative term. The kids have to get creative when it comes to verbal combat. In addition, Older Girl is like our own private FCC -- constantly monitoring conversations for something that could pass as offensive in any way. So it was no surprise that yesterday, I heard this from the playroom:

The Boy, laughing crazily.

OG: "What did you just call me?"

TB: indistinct murmuring

OG: "You can't say that! I'm telling Mom!"

-- cut to Me looking for a place to hide from the impending tattlefest --

OG: "Mom, he is calling me a really bad name!"

Me: "I'm not interested in tattling. Work it out with your brother."

OG: "But he called me a bummer!"

Me: "A what?" -- trying hard not to laugh right in her face. Really hard.

OG: "A bummer!"

Me: "Wow, what a bummer -- now go work it out with your brother."