“Daddy, these pictures look creepy.”
“Regina made those pictures, those are pictures of us.”
“Wow. I am way better at drawing than she is! There aren’t any arms or legs. What’s what here?”
“Those are the eyes and that’s the mouth. Don’t be too quick to criticize Hun. Your pictures were nearly identical to these when you were her age.”
“Sorry.”

The next day…
“Time Out Regina. Now.” I said.
“Waaaaaah! I cry Daddy! Look. I cry!”
“No need to point it out, it’s pretty obvious.”
Lyd walked up to Regina, “Regina, you got your time out because you didn’t do what Daddy told you to do.”
“Get away from me Widda!”
(Ugh) “Lydia? We have a couple things to address here. First, Time Outs are supposed to calm her down. Goading her makes her more angry. Don’t poke the bear. Second, my job is to be the Daddy. Your job is to be the Lydie. If you wish to do my job, then I’ll let you change her diaper before we go.” Lydia looked at Regina. Regina scowled back at Lyd…I might have heard the hint of a snarl from her.
“Sorry.” There was an awkward silence before Lyd spoke again. “I sure am glad I never threw tantrums like this!”
“Lyd…you threw tantrums just like this. Once in a while you still do.”
“Oh. Well I’m glad I never…”
“Lyd, I’m kind of thinking you should move on to a different subject.”

And the next day…
“I think it’s time Regina went to school.”
“Oh do you?”
“Yeah, and I’ll be the one to do it.”
“How so?”
“I’ll teach her to read. We’ll start with the Sight Words I had back when I was in Kindergarten.”
(Back when you were in Kindergarten? You finished Kindergarten five months ago.) “You want to start with Sight Words? Perhaps you want to consider the alphabet before Sight Words?”
“Alphabet is boring, Sight Words will be more fun. I’ll finish her school by reading her a book.”
“Suit yourself!”
“School” was not as smooth as Lyd was anticipating. Regina was about as cooperative as she is with pretty much everything. Lyd actually ended up reading all of the Sight Words herself while Reg rolled around on the floor. Regina did not perk up until Lydia pulled out a book. A fight broke out. Regina was not being a “student”. Regina did not want to look at the pictures when Lydia turned the book around, She insisted on sitting next to Lydia and seeing the pictures in real time.
After Lydia conceded to that. Everything went smoothly. She joined me in the kitchen afterward.
“So, how did school go?” I asked as I sipped my coffee.
“Regina didn’t like it that much, but she was okay with the book. It’s important that she learn to read Daddy. Reading will make her more of a person and not so much of an animal.”
I suppressed a laugh, despite her saying something pretty funny, this was a pattern that I actually found serious.
The senseless chaos of Kindergarten is over. Now we are living in the more sensible chaos of First Grade. True childhood friendships are forming. The education has been clicked up a couple notches, including an education in how to an acceptable member of society. The kids are learning social behavior and interaction. Lydia is starting to witness consequences for good and bad behavior in a public context. I suspect she is bringing this education back home to perform her first rudimentary attempts at political strategy. At first I smiled, I could see what she was doing from a mile away. But she’s becoming bolder with her experiments. Now she’s digressing to mud-slinging. I need to start thinking about how to deal with this.
Can I call her a brown-noser? No. She’ll ask why they’re called brown-nosers.
Maybe a kiss-up? Again, no. Again, I’ll get lost in the weeds trying to explain the history and reasoning behind the phrase.
I gotta hit this now, I cleared my throat, “Lyd? I really appreciate you trying to help. I really am. And no, I am not angry, however I am being serious now…it’s just a lesson. You are a kind and thoughtful little girl and we see it, everyone who meets you sees it. You don’t need to point yourself out to us because that actually makes you look bad when you do that. When you point out how much better you are than your sister, you are actually insulting her more than making yourself look good. You don’t bring yourself up by bringing others down. You bring yourself up by…well bringing yourself up and bringing others up with you. Think about that morning pledge we do every day. Those two questions I ask you at the end. ‘What do you do when someone falls?’ and the second question, ‘What do you do when you fall?’ That pep talk, that daily pledge we do actually matters Hun. I want you to live by that pledge. You don’t need to tell us how good you are—we notice.”
That was the gist of what I said to her. The reality to the monologue was that I was a little less eloquent (every day I find myself wishing that I could speak like I write). It was peppered with a couple “uhms” and “uhs”. There were a couple repeated phrases; some redundancy to drive Home a point. It did end with a hug and she decided to be a little sad when I finished. I turned the tears to giggles and assured her everything was okay. I doubt I squelched these issues because I think it’s actually a phase and I have yet to successfully kill a phase, all I can do is encourage it to end soon.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, parenting has always and will always be improvised. No one really has this thing mastered.