Recently the kids and I were in an elevator with a sweet, grandmother-type who complimented the ball gown that Sec was wearing.
“You look like a princess!” she admired.
Primo piped up:
“You shouldn’t tell her that because she will just want people to say that all the time and not many people will and then she will be disappointed.”
The woman missed the point of his advice and replied, “But she does look like a princess.”
Then Primo felt compelled to inform her – as he does many a co-rider on the elevator -- that his sister was going through the “terrible threes.”
And the grandmother replied – as many a co-rider in the elevator do:
“Oh I can’t believe that! She’s so pretty!”
“Yes, she is pretty,” said Primo, “but she’s also bad. Like the stepmother in Snow White.”
You can tell that this is a lesson I have drummed into my children's heads. I've found it a particularly important one for Primo, who will one day fall head over heels for some cold-hearted woman whose face could launch a thousand ships. All Disney princess movies should require children to repeat a hundred times “It’s what’s on the INSIDE that counts” after each viewing as a kind of antidote.
In any event, the grandmother looked relieved when we got off on our floor. She just wanted to give a pretty girl a simple compliment but Primo wouldn’t let her off the hook. That’s my boy.
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