We’re up to 4 Goats and a Cow

My daughter is very lovely.  She got a fantastic gene cocktail with her father and I – she is much prettier than I ever was.  That’s a really damn good thing, too because, as her father and I see it, that’s going to save us a fortune in the dowry.

She couldn’t have been more than 3 years old when we first realized that this was going to be a problem.  He looked at me and said, “We better start saving for the dowry now.”

She’s a challenge, but she’s smart as a whip and funny, too.  She’s also beginning to get sarcastic – I don’t know where she gets that.  I’m always perfectly genial.  I’m also beginning to think she’s got a little Rain Man in her or, maybe it’s that character Jack Nicholson played in As Good As It Gets – the obsessive/compulsive one.  Let me explain: once she sets something in motion, there’s no stopping her until she’s finished.  She absolutely CANNOT stop in the middle of the ABCs or Rudoph the Red Nosed Reindeer to name just a few.  There is a book that they read in 1st grade this year, Tikki Tikki Tembo.  It has a character in it named Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo.  Apparently, the girls in her class have latched on to this phrase and they recite it over and over and over until their parent’s heads explode.  They repeat it as fast as they can to the point that no one can understand a word they are saying.  She does it at home all the time.  ALL THE TIME!  It has driven me so crazy that I want to commit violence.  The next time I see her teacher I want to sock her.  Unfortunately, her teacher is very tall and very fit so she could probably take me, but I have the element of surprise on my side.  The other parents might be shocked at first, but when they find out it’s all because of “Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo”, I’m sure they will drift over to my side.

Back to the point.  We went out to dinner tonight.  She was very “Sassy” at dinner, by which I mean she was acting very much herself.  At one point I started laughing because it was that or choke her.  Her father looked at me with all seriousness and said, “I’m going to stab her with a fork.***  We’re going to have to explain to her husband why she has fork marks on her arm.”

I just don’t want to raise the bride price any higher than we can afford.

***Now My Honey is mad at me, and on our anniversary no less, for telling you the fork story.  I would like to assure you that my husband would in no way stab, poke, impale, puncture or perforate our daughter with a fork or any other implement.  I told this story because it’s funny, and I want you all to know just how funny My Honey is.  He, however, doesn’t think I’m anywhere near as funny as I think I am.  Deep sigh.  I’m wrong.  I admit it.  He can list this incident in the divorce papers if he wants.