Smackdown

Ellie and I made a quick trip to the coffee shop this morning and while she was waiting for me to put milk in my coffee, she started smacking herself on the head. The guy next to me was kind of taken aback and said, "She's hitting herself!" I had only caught it out of the corner of my eye, but I leaned down and said to Ellie, "What are you doing? Are you okay?" Ellie just pushed herself into me and looked down at the ground. I shrugged my shoulders at the guy, but he started laughing and said, "Did you see her? She just hit herself on the head!" I said, "Yeah, I don't know what she's doing." He chuckled again and left. Then we left, and Ellie was so mad. She started bawling as soon as we got out of the shop. "You and that man were laughing at me!" she sobbed. I tried to explain that we were laughing because we were confused about why she was hitting herself. I said we weren't trying to laugh at her. She was really upset on the way home but she'd calmed down by the time we got home.

A few minutes after we got home, Ellie mentioned that mean man again and how he laughed at her. I said, "Honey, he wasn't trying to be mean, he was just confused. I'm still confused about why you were hitting yourself." She said, "I was hitting myself because you told me that I should hurt myself to see if I'm awake." The other day, Ellie told me that she wasn't sure if she was dreaming or awake. I said you can tell if you're awake by pinching yourself and if it hurts you know you're awake. Apparently she forgot the pinching part and processed the hurting part so now she thinks you tell if you're awake by beating yourself to a pulp. At least now she's learned the perils of doing it in public.