The Laugh-until-you-cry Day

So, today promptly at 11:30am, I went downstairs from my office to collect K and K2 from preschool.  Typically the routine is to herd them to the elevator and up to my office so I can wrap up a few odds and ends and then pack everybody up.  Today, I happened to be in the throes of editing a technology letter that really needed to get finished ASAP.   I have a few toys in my office, so I basically went back to what I was doing and “ignored” the girls playing behind me.  I overheard some snippets about someone pretending to be a baby, and someone pretending to be a mommy, and some spinning-in-circles in the office chair but overall, I zoned out and focused on finishing my letter.  About 15 minutes later, I told the girls to get ready to go and they ran over to my desk.

K: Mom! K2 gave me a haircut at the barber shop!

CM:  Wow, that’s cool!  What a fun pretend game!

[whereupon K slaps a big hunk of wadded up hair on my desk. REAL HAIR.]

Oh yes, one of my coworkers left scissors on my round table, and K2 actually gave my daughter a REAL haircut.  K already had a short pixie-style cut, and now picture that with some sprigs of alfalfa-style standup hair at the crown, and a distinct large patch of hair missing over her left ear.   My first thought was THANK GOD her ears were still intact, because those were some damn big scissors!

We then had a little conversation about the difference between pretending to give haircuts and really giving haircuts

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Tonight, getting ready for bed, K decided to pick up the thread of a conversation from last night.  Last night while getting jammies on (after the 2nd poo massacre), she rediscovered her nipples and was asking what they were.  So I explained that they were a normal body part and everyone has two nipples…trying to be very rational and all.  She wanted to know if daddies had nipples, and babies had nipples, and we talked about nipples being body parts that grow up and get big just like arms and legs.  (That was probably not my best explanatory idea ever.)

Tonight:

K: What are these? (pointing to nipples)

CM: Don’t you remember? we talked about that last night…those are your nipples, they are body parts.

K: can I see your big nipples?

CM: ummm, not right now. (seriously floundering here…)

K: but I want to see the big nipples.

CM: maybe daddy can show you his nipples real quick so you can see that daddies have nipples too.

FF: what?! (elicited in a kind of high-pitched, strangled, squawk)

[I should insert here that FF is a very modest, prim, and proper male.  He rarely goes even around the house without a shirt.]

CM: howling with laughter over FF’s tone of voice

K: Mommy, stop laughing!  (she grabbed my shirt and tried to pull it down)  I really need to see the big nipples.

FF:  I am not an animal exhibit at the zoo!

CM: uproarious laughter, tears and all

K: but I really want to see Daddy’s big nipples!

CM: gasping and hanging onto the changing table, laughing

Well, we had this circular conversation for a few more minutes, with K insisting that I stop laughing, and wanting to see “big nipples”, and indignant protest from FF (still muttering about being an exhibit), and CM howling with laughter at them both.   Finally I suggested to FF that she was just trying to innocently make sense of my (botched) information and the quickest way to ‘get over it’ would be to bite the bullet and let her see that men have nipples too.  So he showed her, and she had a gleam in her eye that meant she was clearly intending to come poke them.  It was simply more than he could handle so he put his shirt down, put arms over chest and told her to GO drink her milk.  

I nearly peed myself laughing so hard.