A punch to the cups

While checking out at Target recently Violet was chatting with the grandmotherly clerk, going on and on about how her friend, Daniel, was five and he was going to start kindergarten, but she was going to go to four-year-old preschool - all very compelling stuff.  Then she switched to, "And my sister hits me."

The clerk glanced over at Lorelei, the bigger kid, and said, "Well, someday you'll be big and you'll be able to get her back."  I chuckled, pointed to little Zoey and said, "Oh no, she's talking about this one." The poor lady looked a little appalled and really had nothing to say about that.

Our Zoey's got a mean streak.  There doesn't even need to be any specific provocation.  You'd understand, if not condone it, if the littlest was fighting sibling injustice with her fists but she's more of a random acts of violence kind of girl.  The other day she threw her sippy cup on the dining room like she was spiking a football.  I told her "we don't throw our cups on the floor, please go pick it up."  With balled fists she said, "No!" then marched over and kicked the cup.

"Zoey, pick up the cup."

She shouted, "No!" and followed up with a punch to the cup.

"Zoey Alexandra, pick up the cup right now."

"No! I hit you!" And she did.

I'd like to say I handled it firmly, but gently and set Zoey on a course toward a peaceful, non-violent protest kind of future, but instead I giggled. She's probably gonna start punching more than cups.