Rage against your animal friends.

I mentioned in a previous post that Nora enjoys stories about a made-up squirrel named Charles Squirrel. He's seriously like a member of our family. She has to have at least one Charles Squirrel story every night before bed, if not more. Usually Jason tells the story, but sometimes I do and sometimes Nora does. Charles Squirrel exists in the plane of semi-real, which is something I think is unique to kids Nora's age. I think on some level she knows the stories are just stories, but at the same time, she feels really warms towards the idea of a friendly, bumbling squirrel that lives in our back yard. We're moving soon, and she was really anxious about Charles until we told her he would move to the tree at our new house.

So this morning.

We have a mama cat and three kittens living under our porch. Real, actual cats, who are eating the real, actual good I bought them. I would like to get them some veterinary care, but so far I haven't been able to get close enough to even pet one of them.

This morning I looked out the window and saw a squirrel eating out of the cat food dish. When we were leaving for school, I said, "Nora, this morning I saw Charles Squirrel eating the cat food. For real!" (I for real saw a squirrel, and his name is Charles if I want him to be.)

Nora: Oh, no! I want to tell him not to do that.

Me: Okay.

Nora: (angrily and at the top of her lungs) CHARLES SQUIRREL, STOP EATING THE CAT FOOD! DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!"

 

Me: Wow, you were really loud. You sounded mad at Charles!

 

Nora: Well, Mom. I kind of was mad at him.

I hope after Charles's verbal smackdown, he still wants to come with us to the new house.