I thought I wouldn't hear these all to familiar words for another 9 or 10 years. After all, Sasha is only 4 and a half.
Yet after I picked him up yesterday from day care he smiled at proclaimed for no apparent reason those seven words all parents hate. "You are not the boss of me."
"Excuse me?" I said shocked.
"You are not the boss of me."
"Oh yes I am." I proceded to prove it by proving that I can yell louder, threaten more colorfully, and stomp with more force than he could. Finally, with no resource but to put him in his room, and to prove my bosshood by picking him up and carrying him in there.
I laid him on the bed and went to leave.
He didn't like that and grabbed to follow. The result was that he fell out of the bed and hurt himself. Now neither of us felt like having this silly argument.
However he was now in a listening mood. I used this calm time to explain the rules of life to him. Papa, and Mama, were the bosses of Sasha. However, we would never take advantage of that. We only sought his best because the secret is, Sasha was the boss of our hearts.
He loves that phrase.
I kinda like it too.
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
Dan, can I just how much I admire you for adopting a preschooler? Of course, lately I have a hard time remembering my kids as any age the age they are.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Awww. Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
How cool that John Linnell's wonderfully perfect phrasing of that time-honored concept has entered the preschool vernacular!
Before that song by They Might Be Giants that's the theme to some tv show, people used to say "You are not my boss." I like the new version much better, for some reason I can't quite fathom.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Next thing Sasha will be telling you that he is not your broom. (He's had enough, he's throwing off his chains of servitude!)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)