More Shocking Than if She Had Flipped Me Off

The other night Sody said the most shocking word I have heard her say yet: "hate." She had been having a little tantrum out of nowhere about her pajamas...who knows why: because I forgot to let her do the zipper or because the pajamas have hippos and she decided not to like hippos that day or because of anything, really. It could have been anything. But she freaked out for no reason in that special two-year-old way and then was sitting on her bed in a crying screaming mess about it and suddenly started screeching, "I HATE these pajamas! I hate them, I hate them!!" and I stopped in my tracks.

Hate.

Such a strange word to come out of the mouth of such a small person. It was awful because she knew it and said it and used it correctly. Such a negative emotion I don't want her to know and feel and say, not yet. She is still too little and pure for such a thing. And it got even worse after we put on new pajamas (yep, I gave into the irrational desires of a toddler - what of it? You wanna come over and wrestle my crying, snotty kid into bed when she is wailing for ridiculous reasons?). I told her to go give Daddy a kiss goodnight and she told me, "NO. I hate him."

Oh man, I could have cried right there. Where is my baby getting this? How is she learning and spewing about hating things? And worse, hating people? Worst of the worst - hating *Daddy*?? It wasn't just perplexing, it really, really bummed me out. Something about it seemed like a little loss of innocence in a weird way. And I wondered about it, and was sad about it, and was confused by it...until the very next night at bedtime again. We cuddled up and cracked open our first book of the night: How the Grinch Stole Christmas. This was a brand new book that Daddy had been reading to her a lot in the preceding days, so much so that she has already memorized a lot of the lines. Maybe you are familiar with the book: it starts out with, "The Grinch *hated* Christmas..."

OHHHHHHHH.

Duh.