Timing Really is Everything

Recently Hailey told me of how a boy in her class kept telling her she was stupid, or dumb, or something along those lines. I asked her, "What did you say to him?"

"I didn't know what to say," she replied.

I tried to hide my surprise. Hailey didn't know what to say??? Hailey, who at the age of three loudly said, "He's got a BIG ol' butt!" about a larger friend of mine (no one from my local hometown, no one that any of my three readers know, don't even try to guess). I swear I had never used that phrase around Hailey...heck, I'd never used that phrase at all. My point: Hailey had never been at a loss for words.

"What should I say to him?" she asked.

"Welllll, why don't you just look him directly in the eye and tell him he's full of it," I instructed her, of course meaning that she could say that to him the next time he called her dumb or stupid.

"I can do that?"

After a quick glance at my moral compass I said, "Sure."

The next day at school Hailey marched right up to the little boy, looked him directly in the eye and, without provocation told him, "You're full of it!"

We need to work a little on timing.