Child abuse

Ella had to take some medicine this morning. A powder consisting mainly of salt dissolved in a bit of water. She errggh-ed and yuk-ed for ages until I got fed up and walked out to get ready. When I came back the cup was empty and she was rummaging through the fridge to find her recess snacks.

Me - Ella, did you drink your ALL your medicine?
Ella - [silence]
Me - You didn't did you? Did you pour it in the sink?
Ella - No, I did not pour it in the sink.
Me - Did you drink it all.
Ella - ... Yes.
Me - I don't think I believe you. Tell me the truth Ella. Did you drink it or pour it out?
Ella - I did drink it.
Me - I still don't think I believe you.

And I had to leave it there because I could not prove that she was lying.

Fast forward to tonight.

Me - Ella, tell me honestly now, did you drink all your medicine this morning? I won't get angry if you tell me the truth.
Ella - No, I poured it out outside.

After that followed a few conversations about me not being able to believe her anymore now and that it would take a while before I could again.

Me - If you always tell me the truth every time now, I'll believe you again. But you must never lie. If I get cross over whatever it is you've done, so be it, you'll just have to deal with that.
Ella - But never hit me for no reason!
Me - [laughing out loud] Have I ever hit you? And for no reason? Imagine. 'Whack! What did you do that for? No particular reason.'

We'll see how we go with the lying. It's a tricky one. I always thought that lying should be regarded as worse than whatever they're trying to hide. But that implies that if they choose to tell the truth it cancels out the bad thing they're supposed to have done. It confuses me. So I think all I can do is appeal to her sense of morality... And develop a better bullshit radar!

Cancellation

I don't know where she gets these from...

Me - We have to go visit Kala (friend's dog) because she's very sick and she won't live for much longer.
Ella - Is her life going to be cancelled forever?

Staying alive

Ella - And mum, something important in life is...
Me - What?
Ella - ... that you still breath. You have to breath.

If it weren't for Ella's survival tips, I would've probably dropped dead by now.

Vivid imagination

Ella has this friend who has a really vivid imagination. And Ella is oh so gullible!

The other day she told me that Em does not live with her mum and dad. She lives with the queen. The story went for about 20 minutes and greatly confused me. When I finally convinced her that there was no queen in Australia, she decided that she must live with the Governor General then. Sigh.

Yesterday she informed me that Em now does not have a mother anymore. Apparently her mother was sitting on the toilet one day when this metal claw came out of nowhere and grabbed her by the chin. She died. She acted out the horrible accident for me whilst sitting on the toilet. I did manage to make her see on this occasion that that story could definitely NOT be true.

Em also convinced Ella that x-rays hurt and Ella once did not visit the school library for 3 weeks because Em had made her believe that everyone who entered the library had to wear 3D glasses!

It does make me laugh often and I tell Ella that Em is a damn good story teller. But I also get annoyed because Ella believes everything Em says and prefers to stick to her version of events when I try to expose her lies through logical arguments!

And I have now absolutely no idea what to believe when it comes from Em. Like, did she really have an older sister Beth who died in hospital? Not the kind of thing that you could casually ask a her parents!

Like love

Ella - I think I know why you love me so much.
Me - Why?
Ella - Because I'm so nice to you and to other people. And because I say sorry when I hurt you. And...
Me - That's why I like you. But you know what?
Ella - What?
Me - If you were absolutely horrible to me and everyone else, I'd still love you. But I wouldn't like you very much.
Ella - Oh. But I think I know when you started loving me so much.
Me - When?
Ella - When you knew how much you liked me!

Forever and a day

I found myself having a conversation about mortality with Ella in the car. As usual, I was being brutally honest and then started to regret my bluntness halfway through the conversation.

Ella - Mum, it's going to be a sad day when we die.
Me -  I suppose, but we won't know.
Ella - You mean we won't know that we'll die that day?
Me - We might. If we're really sick and the doctor tells us that he cannot make us better.
Ella - Oh, that would be bad.
Me - But that happens mostly to old people.
Ella - That's good then. But it will be a sad day when we die.
Me - But we won't know because we'll be dead.
Ella - But if we're in heaven we'll miss all our friends and be really sad.
Me - IF there's a heaven we'll be happy there because everybody's happy in heaven. IF there's no heaven then we won't know anything because we won't be able to feel or think when we're dead.
Ella [suddenly getting teary] - But our friends and family, they will be sad the day that we die and they will miss us.
Me - Yes, that's true. But it's no use getting all sad about it now because we won't die for years and years and years and years...
Ella - ... and a month!

Maybe that's what my bluntness does. It teaches her to lighten the mood when it gets too dark.

Mothers Day

So I had a sulk on Mothers Day because a) my child did not even remember it was Mothers Day (thank you school for being so overly politically correct that you won't even mention Mothers of Fathers Day at school anymore!) b) even after I explained that the idea of Mothers Day should probably be that you make your mother feel special and appreciated my child did not make me feel any more special or any less of a servant than any other day of the week and continued to watch tv all day c) said child did not keep promises.


So I scrubbed the whole house on my own. Mind you, it was necessary and I felt a lot better after it was done!

In the afternoon I finally got out of my sulk-powered cleaning fit and decided to join the fruit of my labour in her laziness. So we watched a DVD together and I confirmed that she was the best Mothers Day present I could wish for.

Next year we will make it a mother-daughter day and plan more relaxing things to do that we both enjoy.