Uncivil Obedience

Phoebe is maturing quickly.   She is now expressing herself in sentences such as “That’s a Rudy”.  Everything get’s an article.  It is quite enjoyable to hear although she does go a bit overboard on the “What’s this”, “What’s that” line of questioning where there is no waiting for a response before moving onto a new curiosity.   Her devilishness is increasing with her language skills and since she has no respect for me and rightfully never will it is a bit difficult for me to control her.  Thus she continues to chuck food and stand on the heater instead of using her nice stool that her mother gave her.  Generally the advice I get from others is that she’ll learn on her own.  Two split lips later she has either not connected the dots or is too stubborn to admit that the stool is a safer place to stand.  I normally don’t get too involved in these matters but whenever I see her whack her chin in a fall I think of my friend Jim who fell through the hatch in his family boat in Senegal when he was five or so and bit straight through the bottom of his tongue after hitting his chin on the way down. Tongues and teeth and west Africa are generally a bad combination but after being turned down at Club Med they apparently found a doctor who stitched him up quite nicely.  Jim’s mom is quite a tough individual.  I once saw her get kicked in the face by a sheep and Jim’s dad explained to me that the reason she was experiencing discomfort was that she had previously injured her nose during a misjudged parapente landing when her face collided with a house.  However, I am not sure how she stomached this sewing of the toddler tongue situation.