I have never seen her like this before. As I sat in the drivers seat all I could do was blankly stare at her sitting in the back. She gave me some crazy, scary look which brought me to the understanding that we really needed to get a move on.
As we are driving down the street her gaze is fixed on the daycare center as if a dragon was going to come right out the front door and fry us with his fiery breath.
As we turned the corner her insistence started again…”Hurry Mom! Hurry! We need to get out of range. We really do.” About a mile away from the daycare center she let out a sigh of relief and finally relaxed…for about 5 seconds.
“Mom! Mom! I have to tell you something! It’s something really, really important!” Hmm, maybe there really was a dragon about to jump out of the daycare center, do you think?
Me: “Alright honey, what is it that has you all frazzled?”
Snow White: “Are we far enough from the daycare where they cannot hear us?”
Me: “We are plenty far enough. Go ahead and tell me what ever it is.”
Snow White: “Are you sure? Are you really, really sure?”
Me: “We could drive to Mexico and you can tell me there.”
Snow White: “Ok…um this is what happened. Um, maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”
Now my dander is up! She really has me all worked up and my patience is going out the window. ‘shouldn’t tell you’ She better start spilling it out right now! But I have to be calm so I can find out what happened. ugh!
Me: “Honey, you can tell Mommy any thing. Don’t worry about, just tell me.”
Snow White: “Ok but if I say a bad word would you get mad?”
Me: “Can you replace the bad word with a not so bad word?”
Snow White: “No.”
Me: “Tell me without saying the bad word.”
Snow White: “That wont work.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes while I think. I do not feel comfortable giving her permission to say a bad word but I need to know what made her so afraid. I want to know what the heck happened?! Her scared little face is reflected in my rearview mirror. I need to let her say what ever it is so I can reassure her everything will be alright.
Me: “Ok, you can say the bad word this one time. Do you understand you can only say it this one time, never, ever again.”
Snow White: “Ok [big gulp] here goes.”
She closes her eyes and ….
“I. Am. Bruce! I. Am. Bruce! I. Am. Bruce!”
It sort of hit me like an annoying yappy puppy noise but I was waiting for her to tell me what happened.
Apparently a slightly older boy started yelling this at the daycare center, for no apparent reason. A staff member came over and firmly told the boy never to do that again! Snow White laughed because she thought the boy was funny. Then the staff member gave her a steel-eyed-gaze which shut her up right then and there. At that precise moment is when I walked in to pick her up.
She was not afraid of the staff member, she was afraid one of those words out of that boys mouth was a “bad word.”
I explained to Snow White the boy might have been annoying the staff with his little outburst of “I am Bruce” for a good while before they told him to stop.
In the end it was all just a big to do about nothing.
Update on the Daycare Bullies L&E. They, along with Snow White, have all agreed to Thumpers rule of “if you can’t say nothin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” and basically they are ignoring each other. Not the best solution but it makes for a more peaceful daycare.
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