The Revenge of the Pansy Fairy

There comes a time in every mother's life when she is both horrified and overwhelmingly proud of the things that come out of her children's mouths.

My 7 year old daughter has suffered years and years of systematic torture from her 13 year old brother. Relentless teasing, tickle torture, spit-wads, ostricization. I even caught him testing out Chinese water torture on her at one point.
Honestly a 7 year old vs. a 13 year old is no match. But for the most part, she's sucked it up and dealt with it, with only the occasional whining, "Moooooommmmyyyyyyy! He's piiiiiiiicking on meeeeeeee....!"

But now, she's finally found a chink in his armor. She's finally found his Achilles heel.

We were decorating our Christmas tree and sorting through the ornaments and my daughter came across a Hallmark ornament that my mom had given her. The box label said, "The Pansy Fairy". My daughter closely inspected the box, sounding out the words, did a double take, mouthing the words silently to herself again. An evil mischievous grin spread slowly across her face. She ran to my son and said, "Hey! I found another one of your ornaments." She hands him the ornament, with her ornery smile and watches as he reads the box in horror.
"That's not mine!" He shrieks in his mid pubescent cracking voice.
"It has to be," she tells him, quite matter-of-factly. "You're the only pansy fairy that I know!" Then turns on her heels and walks away as he sputters and whines in defense of his masculinity in her wake.

I'm observing this little exchange, completely in conflict. I'm horrified that my 7 year old daughter knows what a pansy and fairy are (despite my god awful sailor mouth, I keep it relatively clean around my kids). But the awesomeness of her wit in finding his week spot and twisting the bayonet is a proud moment for a woman whose best and worst quality is her razor sharp wit. The perfect timing of her heel turn. The attitude in her stride as she walks away from him. The perfect subtlety of the immasculinization. This was her coming of age moment. The moment that I knew that she was unequivocally my daughter.

As I gave her the required, "Funny, but wrong" lecture that seems to fit in these types of situations, she did her best to look contrite despite the self-satisfied smirk on her face. I wiped a proud maternal tear from my eye.

<3,
~Jane