Thursday, September 22, 2011

Pig Tricks

We try to encourage Daughter not to be a little twat.  For instance, we repeatedly tell her not to play with her food.  She is not yet two and, therefore, does not always take direction very well.  This evening at dinner, she was drinking milk and, at some point, decided it would be a good idea to fill her mouth up and dribble milk down her chin.  Jester noticed it before I did and yelled, "No!  That's a pig trick!

Daughter looked concerned at first, but it's hard for one parent to effectively discipline a child when the other parent is laughing his ass off.  How utterly confusing that must have been for Daughter, not only because I was laughing (which then caused her to start laughing), but also because what the hell is a pig trick?  Holding back tears, I asked Jester what it meant.  She responded as she often does with this sort of thing, as if this is a common saying.  "Haven't you ever heard of a pig trick?"  No.  "You know, it's something piggish."  No.  The phrase -- which I am sure is not real -- makes no sense at all, contextually or abstractly.  Pigs aren't known for drinking milk, especially not from sippy cups, and they aren't known for spitting milk out.  Also, I don't see where the trick comes in.  Daughter wasn't trying to pull anything over on us; she was just being your average insolent toddler.  Pigs aren't known for their cunning, and I've never met a pig who mastered sleight of hand.  For the next half hour or so, I kept thinking about it and cracking up.  A pig trick.  Love ya, Jester.

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