We Don’t Say That

Tonight, while we were giving the girls a bath, Annie looked at us and said, “I am God.”

Abby and I were both standing there, and Abby, wisely sensing the hopelessness of attempting to address this statement, immediately said, “That’s something for your father,” and promptly left the room.

Where do you begin with such a statement? At the end of a week full of pretending to be things she wasn’t – a mommy, a puppy, a doctor – I knew from where those three words had come. Still, it was and is a pretty interesting (and horrifying) sentence to try to unpack and address. However, since I was slower than Abby in darting from the room, I was up.

I began with the quintessential buyer-of-time that most parents use, but that, if you think about it, make very little practical sense: “We don’t say that.”

She looked at me, and I could tell that she was thinking the obvious response: WHY don’t we say that?

Here goes – why not?: “Because it’s disrespectful . . . You are NOT God . . .God made you . . .”

The look on her face changed, and through her slight smirk, I could see that she got it.

Or not.

“MAY I be God? Is THAT what we say?”

Did I fail or succeed in this one – I can’t tell.