Apparently, Hands ARE For Hitting

Emma's not been above a little sibling violence lately. She mainly lashes out when they are all smashed together in the backseat of the commuting car, which she loathes. Her go-to move to express displeasure is taking off her shoes and socks every.freaking.time she gets in the car, so that every.freaking.time I make a stop, which is A LOT OF THE FREAKING TIME, I am forced to put them back on. It infuriates me. And, she knows it. So she does it. Today, we had to make two stops after school. There's generally a lot of screaming and fighting in the car at 3:30 — it's that time of day — so she immediately went full throttle, upsetting her siblings and announcing, "I AM GOING TO SHRIEK AND FUSS IN THE CAR!" She was true to her word. Off came the shoes. I made a new rule: "If you take your shoes off, then you cannot walk. You will be carried." This is a big threat, because "I want to walt!" She replies, "I WILL take them off and I WILL walk!" I then somehow got into a minute or two of "No, you will not" "YES I WILL!" before I realized I had just said, "OH YEAH? JUST WAIT AND SEE" to a two-year-old. Who was, naturally, barefoot.

So yesterday on the way home from school — which took 90 minutes, thanks to suburban hell traffic — they were all screaming and crying, usually at the same time. At one point I hear both Cody and Cordelia shrieking "OW! Emma! STOP KICKING! STOP PINCHING!" I whip around and say sternly, "We do NOT kick and pinch, Emma!"

Emma: "Yes! We do."
Me: "No we do NOT."
Emma: "Yes. We DO kick and pinch! I am going to kick and pinch RIGHT NOW!"

I'm driving, so there's not much I can do. So I say more sternly, "HANDS are NOT for pinching, Emma, and feet are NOT for kicking people!"

Emma: "Yes! Hands ARE for pinching. And feet ARE for kicking people!"

Chorus: "OW! SHE DID IT AGAIN! STOP IT EMMA!"

But...