Ellusive Recollections of Back-Pinching

We have a rather routine drama around our house, where Madeleine will abruptly run away from Daniel crying, and with her two-and-a-half-year-old, squeak out something like "Naniel wah me."

This leads to the standard investigation, where I approach Daniel, asking him what he did to his sister, and, amazingly, it always turns out that the grievance runs in the opposite direction, and Madeleine did any number of things to annoy him which somehow magically brought pain upon her own self. In fact, although I start out the conversation asking Daniel what he had done, somehow Madeleine turns out to be the subject of every sentence in his often-long-winded reply.

Today, I persisted, based on some biased obsession with the idea that perhaps Daniel had done something to Madeleine as well. Finally, Daniel provided the best approximation of a testimony that his failing capacity could muster:

"Well, I didn't even notice, but... I pinched her in the back."

(October 16, 2010)