That looks like a squirrel, right?

Thursday afternoon I’m hanging out with my buddy Niamhy (nee’-vee) … who is four … trying to get some work done, but also trying not to be completely negligent.

So I cut a heart out of a piece of paper and she thought it was great and got her crayons.

“Sweet,” thought I, “this could work.” As she set about scrawling on the paper heart I cut out a star and a flower.

Then she started making requests.

“I want a circle.”

“I want a … SMALL TRIANGLE!”

“I want aaa … SQUARE!”

By this time she’s stopped coloring, and is just calling out shapes. I’m holding out hope that once I run out of room on this sheet of paper she’ll start coloring.

“I want aaa … SMALL RECTANGLE!”

Now I’m out of paper, and she’s still thinking of shapes.

“Niamhy, I’m out of paper. Why don’t you color those and then we’ll find some more paper.” There are two more sheets on the couch next to me, but I’m ignoring them for now.

“I want aaa …”

“Are you going to color those, or have I been laboring under a misapprehension, here?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re not really holding up your end of the bargain, are you?”

“I want aaa … CHURCH!”

Fine. I grab another sheet and – with a small pair of children’s safety scissors, mind you – cut out a house with a cross on top. She’s apparently satisfied.

“I want aaa … JESUS!”

“Really? Okay.”

Now the tables have turned and the conniving four-year-old has somehow figured out that demanding figures instead of primary shapes is more of a challenge, and that it’s somehow intriguing to her babysitter who never backs down from a challenge. Now she’s the one distracting me.

But I cut out a pretty decent silhouette of a guy with long hair in a robe holding the stereotypical shepherd’s hook. There are no pencils involved here, just random twisting of the paper and cutting.

Then things got ugly.

“I want aaa … SQUIRREL!”

She’s apparently out of Bible-inspired requests, which I must say, for a PK, wasn’t a very good run. Two? Come on.

“That’s kind of an obscene request, don’t you think?”

Blank stare

“Fine.”

So I cut out the above squirrel silhouette, which I think is pretty stinkin’ good, all things considered.

She was not impressed. I held it out and she looked at it, and then at me, with a four-year-old face that said, “We’re not friends any more.”

Finally, slowly, she obliged by at least taking it out of my hand, but not really moving it’s position much. After another moment she stretched that hand out to her side, eyes still deadlocked on mine as though if she just held my gaze I wouldn’t see what she was doing, and dropped it to the floor in front of the couch.

“Bummer,” she sighed.

“It’s a bummer squirrel?” I asked.

“It’s a bummer squirrel,” she clarified.

“It’s a good squirrel!”

“No,” she said calmly, “it’s a bummer squirrel.”

“You’re a bummer squirrel.”

She just looked at me the way my husband sometimes looks at me when I try that, “You’re a [whatever he just said]” line.

“No,” she said, still calm, leaning over but not releasing my eyes from hers. Holding the squirrel up again she reminded me, “This is a bummer squirrel.”

Maybe 30 minutes later her father had come home and I was explaining the shapes scattered around the living room, and recounting the tragic fate of the bummer squirrel. Niamh (neev) was sitting on the floor in front of the couch unpacking a Yahtzee box when she started to protest.

“No! No I didn’t!”

“Uh, yes you did. Don’t try to deny it now, missy.”

She stared at me for a moment, dropped her eyes to the floor just before her, and lamented under her breath, “I hate that squirrel.”

I almost peed from laughter and walked over to where the poor thing was lying unloved on the floor.

“Fine,” I challenged, still laughing, “I’m taking it with me then.”

“No!” she protested.

“But you don’t like it.”

“I want it here to … to …”

“You want it here so you can hate on it?”

“Yup,” she quipped, satisfied that it didn’t matter if it were true, or righteous, because she’s four and she knew I wasn’t going to argue.

I wonder what’s become of the poor, hated squirrel now.