A couple of noteworthy things regarding the boy today.
After dinner, he beat his sister to the bathroom. When he was done, he walked out and flipped the lights off. This action upset his sister to the point of whiny tears. Noticing the rather pleased look on his face, I shot him a look communicating “Why?”, he responded:
I didn’t know I shouldn’t turn the lights off, so I did.
First off, yes it’s lame. The more amusing part, from my perspective, is that it’s clear he did it to aggravate his sister, whom played her part to the hilt. I then warned him to be careful, because anything he did to her she would repay him for later. When he claimed he would be too fast for her, I pointed out that he would never see it coming. He blew that off.
Having a younger sister, I know. He doesn’t.
But he will.
The second one was a strange sort of amusing.
We were playing a kids version of Scrabble, where the words are formed and tiles are played onto the words on the board in an attempt to be the one to complete the most words. It’s an observing game and being older and wiser is of limited value.
Regardless, I was beating him pretty badly and upon my completing yet another word, he muttered, “Oh man, I guess I’m the big African loser.”
It came out so fluidly, and was such an absurd thing for him to say, I couldn’t help but laugh at it. I defy anyone to completely stifle themselves in that situation. He laughed with me, no doubt pleased with himself that he’d come up with something funny enough to make me laugh.
Naturally, my PC-radar went off and I asked him where he got that from- not in a cross fashion but in a good natured way. I knew he’d clam up immediately if I’d sounded even remotely upset.
He claimed he made it up on the spot and that it had “just come out.” Then he asked:
Why Dad, is it inappropriate or something?
Now, it was clear by this point that he had just come up with something and there was no double meaning or anything. So what do I tell him? Knowing full well that if his teacher heard him say that I’d likely get hauled in before the town Sheriff and his Principal so they could figure out what I’d been teaching the boy, I felt the prudent thing was to tell him that, yes it was a little inappropriate and he should be careful about saying it. He nodded his head and we went back to playing the game.
It was funny though.