The Boisvert Life

A few weeks ago, while we were all in the kitchen getting dinner ready, Barney and I noticed something very strange. 

I rinsed out the milk jug we had just finished using and asked Barney
to stomp it flat as usual (because he had his hard-soled slippers on,
and I was barefoot.  I’m telling you, it can hurt doing that
barefoot, I know) Well, he put it down on the floor and squashed
it.  Lindsay had been watching this whole procedure, so it’s not
like it took her by surprise or whatever, but she started bawling! 
Like full on, huge tears, inconsolable bawling.  We sort of
laughed in shock and consoled her, and commented on how strange that
was for her to react that way, because we’re pretty sure she’s seen us
do that at least a couple times in her life.

It made me think
back to about a week before this, when Lindsay and I were sitting in
her room, playing with her toys, and I noticed a huge black
furry-fanged gnarly spider crawling along where the wall meets the
floor.  Well, Barney wasn’t home, and spiders and I just don’t
mix.  I can’t even capture them in a glass and slide paper under
it to release them back into the wild like I make Barney do when he’s
home, for fear that the spider will somehow evade the glass and bite my
hand off or something.  ;)  Irrational, I know, but
yyyyuuuuuuck, they give me the willies.  Anyway, I ran and grabbed
one of Lindsay’s little hard soled shoes (that she has yet to wear
because, all together now, she’s still not walking!) and
approached the spider, all of the little hairs on my arms standing up
in terror.  ;)  I zoomed in, prepared to strike, and SMOOSH,
I got him!

Lindsay F-R-E-A-K-E-D.  She sat there, eyes
scrunched, tears falling down her face, and I couldn’t figure out
why!  I didn’t scream when I did it or anything, so it’s not like
it should have scared her.  And if it was the noise that the shoe
made hitting against the wall, that really confuses me because she
usually loves loud noises and giggles like crazy and asks for you to
do it again, and this wasn’t even loud!  Could she really have
known that I was killing the spider and have cared that much?

This question arose again this evening as we were once again preparing
dinner.  I didn’t even think twice when I plopped the milk carton
onto the floor and squished it beneath my feet.  Barney and I
turned to see what was wrong when Lindsay started bawling, and quickly
made the connection that once again, she was upset that we had squished
something.  Barney seems to think that she gets upset because she
thinks that we’re, as he so delicately put it, "kicking the milk jug’s
@$$".  It makes me wonder, because why would she get so riled up
every time we squish something, and that something that once was, is
now flattened and "no more", yet if we bang things together or the
like, and they remain unharmed, she thinks it’s hysterical?  
  

It may just be a freak thing, but sometimes
kids amaze you with what they actually comprehend and
internalize.  Perhaps she really does get upset that we’re
"killing things" in her eyes, even if they’re not alive.