Little Miss Sweetness

Friday, 5 February 2010

Living with Lisa is a sweet sort of experience, rather like having a whole meal of strawberry shortcake and whipped cream on top and then realising that even doing the dishes afterwards is not a particularly distasteful chore at all. Even the worst sort of occurrences seem to turn out pleasantly, like when she got her hand stuck in the bath drain or when she spanked JJ for being disrespectful or when she coloured her panties with Sharpie marker to make them 'all flowery' like Jessy's and then it ran all over her other clothes in the washer. But really, since she has been out of diapers she really has never been much of a mess at all, unless it's only the normal sort of accidents that happen to small children. This last week with the three of us girls on our own has shown us all that we are all very compatible and thoughtful towards each other. I mean, Lisa actually cleaned my bathroom the other day-- not that it was so dirty to begin with, or that she used a good washcloth instead of the ooky sponge, or that everything wasn't put back where I wanted it, but that's really off the point, isn't it?

One of the amusing things is when Lisa mistakes who is in charge. I have said before that sometimes she slips and calls me 'Mummy'. But I've realised that it's almost always when I am giving her directions, like when to brush her teeth, when to go to sleep, when to say 'please' and 'thank you' (which she normally never has a problem with). I have noticed that she seems to be very sensitive to what the right thing is-- something I tend to stress often. At six years old Lisa never has a problem with discerning the right thing-- she has four teachers in this house and propriety and decorum are top priorities round here. She has been taught to do the right thing because it's what's expected of the good people. She covers her nose when she sneezes or coughs. She says 'excuse me' if she burps. She says 'please' when she asks for something and 'thank you' when it's given to her. She puts both loo lids down. She closes doors after herself. She picks up whatever she drops. She carries her dish (at the times when she remembers) and collects the used forks and spoons from her place too. Mother says she is the most eager-to-please child there ever was.

I believe that Lisa does it out of love. She values what Jessy and I teach her and she is committed to doing what she believes we want her to, just because she believes it's how you should show a sister you admire that you love her. And we cherish her for that. Most surprising is that she's developing a sense of what to do before she is told-- she takes initiative, figures out what some situation calls for, and then tries to do what she thinks she should. I can't say she always gets it right-- but her heart is in the right place and you can't fault a child for that.

Long ago Mother taught this conundrum to me. When she was at U.Del a professor opened his mouth and said, 'You can't teach morality to a five-year-old.' The entire class erupted in disagreement, mentioning their own kids, nephews and nieces, smaller siblings, kids they had baby-sat for. So the professor gave them the test case:

Say there are two children, both about five years old. The first spies the cookie jar on top of the refrigerator and finds a chair, pushes it across the room, climbs up on it, then goes up on the counter and then to the top of the refrigerator, and takes out a cookie for himself. In so doing he knocks over the cookie jar and makes a huge mess. The second child sees his mother is tired and goes into the kitchen, gets a plate of milk and cookies for his mother, even brings a paper napkin, and in crossing the room to present it to his mother he trips over the footstool and makes a huge mess.

If you are to tell this story to a five-year-old he will always feel sorry for the one who wanted to present his mother with a surprise snack and will always recognise that the one sneaking the cookies was doing the wrong thing (otherwise the cookies would not have been on top of the refrigerator, which is one thing the kids recognise as a way to tell). This is a natural tendency in all children-- it would take a terribly vicious parent who would have taught his child, by that age, that whatever you can take for yourself is rightfully yours (as Joseph Kennedy once told his children, probably when they were older than five).

I told this to Lisa once and by the time I was done she was weeping for the 'poor little boy who was only trying to do something nice.' I actually had to explain to her that it was only a made-up story.

'Did his mommy make him clean it up?' she asked me.

'I don't think so,' I said. 'I think she was just happy that he was being so sweet.'

'I do too,' said Lisa. 'Where does he live?' she wondered.

I was ready to laugh-- but if course I couldn't. 'I don't know,' I said. 'Why?'

Lisa looked about herself with that little blush. 'I just thought we could bring him some cookies, to make him feel better.'

'And you want to bring him the cookies?'

She nodded.

I scooped her up in a hug then. 'I think we should go make some cookies first,' I said-- and off we went to do that.

I confess I let Mother set her straight on the conundrum story, but only after Lisa made up a tray of cookies and milk and a napkin and took it in to Mother in the parlour. And no, she didn't trip over the footstool. (I think she actually went in and pushed it well out of the way before she got the tray.) Mother was pretty impressed with Lisa's gesture. Of course she recognised it from the conundrum, though she didn't know I had told it to Lisa then, and when I told her about Lisa's reaction she was pretty impressed with Lisa's compassion herself.

Really I don't know why she should have been-- for it's clear Lisa gets it from her mother who, aside from being stunningly beautiful, impressively intelligent, and irreproachably virtuous, maybe the sweetest, most charitable woman in the known universe.

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