Lucy Reflects

“That’s It, You’re Going to Boot Camp” At the ripe age of two, my daughter started dismembering her Barbies.

I reached out to fellow parents and they pretty much said it was normal. I still think they just said that to put my mind at ease, but I digress.

Then I started finding doll parts buried in the soil of houseplants. For the love of God, how does she even know to bury a body? I never explained death to her. I never let her watch Dexter with me. Which I still need to finish watching because OMG that show is like a train wreck and I love it.

Then there was that time she decapitated the dolls and laid them in front of our motorized Lego train.

Do I make an appointment with a psychiatrist? Are we both going to be shackled and taken out of our homes in hand cuffs? Her cuffs being tiny and cute and representative of Rapunzel who she loved so much? Can she be detained as the pretty princess she dreamed of as the feds drag her and I away?

I wasn’t sure what was creating this “problem.” As the problem progressed, I was certain this wasn’t normal and neither was my little Bea. Was she acting out about the fact that she was head butted by a goat that one time at a petting zoo? Was it a weird youtube video she came across while I was folding laundry?

“Stop it, Bea.” I’d say to her as I dug for limbs throughout the house. “If you don’t stop it, mommy’s going to send you to boot camp.”

Then suddenly it stopped. She started playing with her dolls in a “normal” sense. No more creepy weird stuff where she was shoving a doll’s leg in my pocket and saying, “It’s the doll’s leg and you will hold it, OK?!”

My point is, it stopped. And we moved onto something else. Kids are always exploring and figuring every moment out. Did it bother me? Sure. But as quick as it did, it was gone. Kids are quirky and weird. Embrace those little tikes.