Verbal Abuse

Kat, our nanny, has begun suffering verbal abuse on the job. In the span of 24 hours, here's what happened:

Kat was moving one of the riding toys and bumped against something. Kaiya yells, "Be careful, you idiot!" Kat asked - "What did you call me?" Kaiya: "Idiot!" Apparently she learned this lovely phrase from Sebastian on The Little Mermaid. She got a time out and was told to remove the word from her vocabulary.

The next afternoon, both Kat and I were home, relaxing in the living room. I can't remember what prompted it, but all of a sudden Kaiya looks at Kat and says, "You are ugly!" After making an attempt to explain what ugly means. In case you are wondering...this is not easy to explain to a 3 year old. I used several Disney analogies and did my best to communicate the hurt that these words can cause. After some probing, I discovered that she learned this line from Sound of Music. One of the boys tells Frauline Maria that her dress is ugly.

Seriously... the kid is a sponge right now. And she watches TV with her breakfast and again while dinner is being made. Which I thought was a reasonable amount. We may be coming up with a new game plan... Then again, maybe this is just part of being three.