My daughter said what??

My mom is in town for a couple of weeks which is so fabulous! It's like having a wife, she cooks, she cleans, she changes diapers and plays with the kids. Yesterday my sweet, newly turned 4 year old daughter Ella was full of vinegar.

It seemed like it was going to be quite a day with Ella. She started off the day by getting frustrated that she couldn't cram 10 things into her small makeup case. She uttered this sentence, "I can't close the damn thing"! I told her that she couldn't say that word, and helped her fix the problem with the makeup case. Then my mom told me Ella couldn't open up something in the play room, so she said "what the Hell?". My mom told her that was a bad word, to which she replied "I didn't know Hell was a bad word".

We all went to Target yesterday afternoon and my mom bought each of the kids a $5 gift at Target, much to my dismay, but none the less. So on the drive home Ella kept teasing her brother with her doll, and poking him with it. After the 5th time of asking her to stop teasing Ryan, I grabbed the doll and tossed it on the floor by my mom's feet. Well, Ella was ticked after that and she decided to take her anger out on her Gigi (my mom).

Here is what happened next. Ella says out of nowhere, "Gigi, I hate your shirt". My mom didn't miss a beat, and said "oh thank you". Then Ella said, "no, I said I hate your shirt", and Gigi said again, "I know, thank you".

I was a little shocked at her nastiness to her Gigi and I asked her why she would say something like that and she said "Ryan told me to". Ryan is not quite two years old yet, and although he can say many words, he could never say that!

Then my mom said "Ella why would you say you hate my shirt"? to which Ella replied "because I hate you". At this point I had no words, it was clearly a case of her trying to shock us and it was kind of funny, but so inappropriate that I had to address it.

My mom then said "Ella, what you should do is say that you are sorry for being rude to Gigi". Ella then replied "I'm not going to say that". At this point I told her she was going to time out when we got home. After the time out I told her that it was NOT okay to talk to people like that and asked her what she should say to Gigi instead. She replied "tell her I'm sorry". I told her that was a good idea but she ignored the advice and didn't say anything. So after a few minutes I had to force her into it! AHHHH!

So we had quite a day yesterday. To follow up, she did get up this morning and tell Gigi that she didn't hate her shirt. What will the high school years bring? I guess one day I'll look back and laugh at all of this.....I hope.......oh and my mom just informed me that Aubrey said the other day he was half Italian and half Southern.....does it ever stop?