Talk to the Hand

This is Natalie.

Cute, huh?

My wonderful best friend in the whole wide world (cough cough Jennifer!) taught my daughter "Talk to the Hand" last week. Now parents are fully aware of the repercussions of teaching a 4 year old sarcasm. One of those repercussions are that it puts consistentcy on the back burner. The other repercussions don't come until later in life, when the cute sarcasm stops being cute and starts pissing you off in that slap-her-in-the-face-if-she-says-that-to-me-again way.

So this morning, Natalie comes up to me and gives me a great big hug, her eyes still droopy with sleep and her nightgown disheveled. She literally looked like the cutest, cleanest hobo child I've ever laid eyes on. My immediate thought was "Awww, I wish she would always be like this. She's wearing me out acting like a 16-24 year old. Sigh. At least I have this moment of hugs and just waking up is the perfect time with her because she's sweet and calm."

As SOON as I finished those thoughts she gets this cheesy grin on her face and says "Guess what, Mom? (she didn't wait for me to guess, go figure) I found something even BETTER than Talk to the Hand!"

I was silent for a moment, thinking OMFG what? Instead of uttering this, I looked at her and said "And what's that?"

Cheesy grin again, "Talk to the FINGER!!!!" And up went that middle finger in all it's glory.

So here is my 4 year old daughter, supposed to be ANGEL but FARRR from it, short bobbed hair, big blue eyes (I'm so excited they are changing to green!!!), teeth exposed from one end of her mouth to the other, and that bird finger [that she isn't aware is screaming "F**K YOU!" at me] proudly shoved in my face.

After the initial shock, what do I do?

I laughed my friggin butt off.