g has learned to be Sorry. she did not learn it from us, but i’m pretty sure they taught her at daycare. sometimes on the daily report when there are tales of biting and hitting, the teachers note that they make G go say sorry to whomever she has attacked, or vice versa. i thought the teachers’ writing that they made her say sorry was bullshit that they tell parents lest we think its a Hobbesian war of all-against-all in the 1’s room, but clearly that is not so. She understands that you say sorry when you upset someone — its still not clear to me that she understands how to hurt someone or upset someone or when something is disapproved of. but for sure once it is clear to her that she has done wrong, out comes the sorry.

the fact that this can be taught is yet another instance of how well socialized daycare helps G to be. and it makes me question so many ideas such as if not hurting one’s own kind is nature vs. nurture? Is empathy learned, unlearned, or simply natural? when to introduce kids to skills so that the skills develop and flourish putting her always ahead of where she might otherwise be? are popular people popular at an early age cause they know how to socialize, or are they just all really hot?

this morning i was dozing and she was jumping on my head and pounding me with toys and ramming her giant baby head under my pillow to go “helloooooooooooooo”. mostly i let it slide, since after all i was trying to sleep off 4 days of partying in Mexico, and it seemed quite white trashy to take it out on G; sleeping late was white trashy enough. but when she smacked me in the head with her plastic dog, i barked at her. Sorry! Then again and again the rest of the moring and evening – when she spilled, when she threw food, when she took all the clothes out of the dresser.   Sometimes she is sorry towards inanimate objects.   She will apologize to the cabinet for banging into it, and the dishes from dropping them.
sorry is such a loaded word, and G such a novice to the art of tone and reflection, that it always comes out funny. Sometimes it sounds earnest, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes very small and sometimes very confident, sometimes very perfunctory, sometimes very false, and sometimes so soulful that i want to weep and forgive her whatever her sins. except when she attacks me with her giant baby head.