Friday Round-Up

Lately Raphaela  'borrows' my portable coffee cup and takes it to Gan in the morning, filled either with water or herbal tea that she merrily sips.  This morning she showed the cup to one of the two teachers who had already arrived, and Raphaela explained that she needs to drink water because otherwise, "Mommy says that my pee will be brown, and that's not healthy."

From across the room, one of the teachers laughed at the statement, presumably in surprise at hearing the sentence from a three and a half year old.   The other teacher - who has communicated in the past that she feels this teacher takes her job less seriously that she should - glared with the Look of Death across the room, pulled over Raphaela and said very seriously, "Raphaela, dehydration is NOT funny, it's actually very sad.  You should drink water all day, especially when it's hot outside.  It's not funny at all."

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This morning, every time I attempted to start my shower, Raphaela came up with another task for me.  Here I am, literally running around the house naked and fulfilling her demands, and at a certain point I drew the line;  Raphaela wanted to paint and I told her that she could have paper and crayons but nothing more until she returned from Gan in the afternoon.

I could hear her crying as I finished my shower.

At noon, when I picked her up and we arrived home, she asked to do art projects, and I gave her paper with crayons and markers and paints.  Raphaela paused and said, "Mommy, are you nice?" I looked at her funny and asked to repeat the question, which she did, several times.

Then my daughter qualified the question, "Because this morning you were an angry Mommy and you didn't give me paints."

I assured Raphaela that I was feeling like a Happy Mommy, and that I didn't like to be angry as a general rule,.  She hugged me and said, "Thank you, thank you!"

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This afternoon Raphaela attended a birthday party of one of her classmates, and on the way out each child had the option to construct their own loot bag.  She chose a toffee and a small bag of cereal, and then had the option of either funky sunglasses or a toy gun. 

Raphaela deliberated for quite a while, and then to my surprise chose the gun, though I am still fairly sure that she has no idea what it represents.  I asked her what this toy does, and she answered that it is called a "Ptoo ptoo";  my daughter then illustrated its use, jabbing it into the air and making the sound effects of a weapon.

I assume she learned about guns in school, from the boys in her class.  At this point I will leave her naive about the rest, as I am sure that as she grows up and understands the land and Israeli culture in which she lives, a gun will make perfect sense.  I still dream of a day when she will not have to go into the army or worry on a regular basis about her personal security.