Dominic - But it was for their own good!

Dominic has a way of explaining his assaults on his various siblings that leave me wanting to sympathize and reassure him that everything is okay, and of course it is perfectly understandable and reasonable that he took a pair of child's scissors to the flesh on his sister's back while she was sleeping, or bit his twin brother repeatedly in the face.

Meet Dominic:

Stats: Age 3,  part of a matching set, wildly mischievous, hyper and downright silly.  Also incredibly sweet when he puts his mind to it.

(You can stop staring at my overflowing laundry basket in the background now.  Yes I'm aware of it, and yes I'm planning on doing something about it....at some point...)

Last night Alexandra (age 5) comes running down the stairs shrieking at what can only be described as banshee decibels,  that Dominic was cutting her back.  Actually it was more like:

Alexandra:  AAAAAAAGHGHGHGGHGHGH D'mic cuh-uh-uh-uh my ba-ha-ha-ha-ha-aaaaaaack! *sob* *sob* *sob*

Me: Wait, wait, WHAT??


Alexandra:  D-d-d-dominic cut my back. *sniffle*

Me: With what??

Alexandra: Remember we were making snowflakes before bed and you said we could use the kid scissors and I was teaching them how to make snowflakes and I can teach you how to make snowflakes, Oh! Let me show you the snowflakes we made! *begins to run off to retrieve snowflakes*

Me:  Hold on, so you're saying he cut you with the kid scissors?

Alexandra: *remembering and resuming hysterical sobbing*  Ye-he-he-he-essssss and it really hurts really ba-ha-ha-haaaaaad!

I look at her back and see the faintest evidence of of some red scrapes.  So having assessed that she will live and no, despite her protestations, she does not require a band-aid (stop judging me for not giving her a "feel-better" band-aid, I can hardly keep them in the house for more than a day because the kids want them on everything) I call Dominic down and sternly demand to know why exactly he "cut" his sister while she slept.

He gets this sad tortured forlorn look on his face and tells me most sincerely, "Alexandra not wake up, I say 'wake up Alexandra, wake up', and she not wake up and it was scary."

Me: So you felt your only option was to cut her with scissors?

Dominic: Yeah....

Me: Well then....you must never never never cut another person with scissors (I felt momentarily conflicted here, because if he was being attacked by a bad guy and scissors were his only defense, of course he should use them, but I decided that this addendum would only confuse the lesson I was trying to impart in the moment which was basically, 'don't cut your sister in her sleep', and if necessary I could later go into possible scenarios where cutting someone with scissors might be appropriate) even if you are scared because they are sleeping...(which apparently can be terrifying enough to inspire such drastic measures).

After some debate about the validity of his approach, Dominic acknowledged that his action was wrong, apologized and I confiscated the offending scissors and sent everyone back to bed.

Lesson Learned: Taking scissors to someone's back is a highly effective method of getting a reaction out of  a sleeping person.  I must remember this approach for the next time I am trying to determine if my husband (who can sleep through pretty much everything), is: a) merely pretending to be asleep,b) actually sleeping or c) possibly dead.  Although I guess it is actually only useful in ruling out option 'c'.  I wonder how convincing I would be at the "you wouldn't wake up and it was scary" defense.  I have a feeling that Dominic may have a slight advantage there.

P.S. -  Similarly, tonight, Dominic bit his twin brother, Dante, repeatedly on the face because he *thought* Dante had a penny in his mouth and was concerned that he might choke. Dante *refused* to spit out the penny (that turned out not to have been in his mouth in the first place), and really what else can a concerned brother do in that situation but bite his brother's face until he submits to having his mouth checked for choking hazards?