Morality

              Well, now, had an interesting conversation with Feisty Pants the other week.  She was happily sitting and watching tv when she burst into tears.  A cry /whine when she is upset or angry is typical, actual tears are not.  FP is one tough little kid. So we went running to see what was wrong.  When asked she said she was awful. Actually, what she said was "awful. ooooey oooey oooey."   That's her word for ouch.  We said "what's wrong?".  She said, " 'mergency.  Need a donut".  Both my kids are Daddy's girls, but this is getting ludicrous.  Especially since, because she made her father laugh really hard, she got an emergency donut.  And now gets an emergency donut every week at the grocery store.  Well, until this week, when FP informed her father that she needed an emergency cupcake.  Her sister, however might need an emergency donut so we should pick one of those too.  What is it about ten year olds that they are all such cunning little buggers?

                  I do worry with FP that we are not giving her enough of a moral foundation.  Her sister was easy.  Hippie Pants was born trying to save the world.  She was bringing home strays by the time she was two.(ANY strays- people, frogs, kittens, anything that stood still long enough.  And she always said the same thing.  "Mommy, he looks hungry. Let's feed him") HP stopped eating meat at age six- the day she found out where it comes from. ("That's just MEAN!!!")  Feisty Pants, however, is well, mostly feisty.  She doesn't like what she thinks is rude.  ("How ROOO") But that's not quite the same as empathy.

                And, it's hard you see.  It's really hard not to applaud  no matter what she does.  She's little. She's adorable.  She's feisty as hell.  And having watched her go through everything she has been through, it's really hard not to do cartwheels for any evidence of self determination or action at all. Or to get angry or stern when she quickly grows snarky and defiant to some adult who is treating her like an imbecile or an infant.  I want to smack them too.  So, this post is in a sense, an apology for whatever type of junior Bond villain she is quickly becoming.  I'll work on her empathy and manners.  You'll work treating her like an equal.  And hopefully, her father will only get her an emergency donut, and not that dynamite she has been asking for.