Sunday, February 22, 2009

Never Give a Half-Baked Answer to a 4-year-old

Conversation with above 4-year-old tonight, just before bed:


4-year-old (In sweet lispy 4-year-old voice): "Mommy, what does 'fat' mean?"
Me (In an absent-minded, lazy voice): "It means 'big.'"
4-year-old: "Mommy, you are very, very fat!"
Me (In a paying-attention-now voice): "Honey, many people don't like it when you call them fat. It means they are...uh...bigger than they'd like to be."
4-year-old: "Mommy you are bigger than me!" (OK. I can agree with that.)

I suppose I should have told her that "fat" means, "having too much adipose tissue." (see below). That would have cleared things right up.

P.S. I really don't have a problem with the word "fat" myself (not that I want people yelling it at me in the street), but I don't want 4-year-old to start telling anyone who is larger than she is that they are "fat."



4 comments:

Hurricanehol said...

Oh my goodness that was cute. You have no idea when, where, or how loud but that will come up again at the most wrong time. :-) Trust me. I've been there. It's still cute though...

Anonymous said...

Joe told me I had a big booty last week. Hmmmm. Should I have been offended? He also told his sister that she did too, and she's all of 60 pounds and in middle school - my petite child. I think he had picked it up from school...that, or The Fairly Odd Parents. Either way, I told him that wasn't polite for the same reason you told your little 4 year old about the "fat" word.

Wendi said...

I love that cute little talkative 4-year-old of yours! :) My almost-10-year old enjoys flicking my under arm flab and cracking up. :) Ya gotta love these kids that keep us humble! :)

Holly said...

Wendi-You just bop him right on his noggin when he does that.

Sweet-You go ahead and bop Joe, too.

The nerve of these kids! :)