I will knife you. Seriously.

Zack was not having a good day.

His dad brought him to Primary early. Our first meeting is Sharing Time, where all the kids ages 3-7 have a big group lesson and singing time before we break off into classes by age group. The kids sit in two sections divided by an aisle, and our class, the Sunbeams, sits in the very front row.

Zack stood in the aisle with an annoyed and slightly dazed look in his eyes--like a permanent eye roll, and with his jaw dropped just the slightest bit to hint at his outrage. You just can't take a kid this cute seriously when he makes a sour face, because it's adorable. He was just sort of standing there, leaning forward with his arms hanging straight down at the floor.

"Hey, buddy! Do you want to come sit up here?"

His eyes rolled and his shoulders slumped further, but he didn't look at me.

"Ugh. No."

"Okay... why not?"

Zack gave an exaggerated sigh and punctuated every word of his lisped answer:

"Because. I don't like you."

I couldn't help but laugh. Zach is the cutest little kid. When he wants to be, he is completely sweet and charming. He once poked me in the shoulder during a song and whispered in my ear "You look pretty." Imagine an adorable four year old with big brown eyes saying that to you with a lisp. It was beyond darling. He followed up a few minutes later with "I love you." The little heart-breaker.

Todd came to Sharing Time a few minutes later and helped Zack find his seat. He scowled his way through the group lesson and the singing with only a few snide remarks, then we were off to our Sunbeams class. He was pretty sour throughout my lesson and kept asking things like "when can I leave?" or "are we done yet?" About 30 minutes in, he had enough of us dodging his questions and resorted to threats.

"You better let me out of this classroom in 10 minutes or else."

I have learned something about Zack: he thinks he is the sassiest kid on the planet. But he was going head to head with a former sassiest kid on the planet (me). So my very mature response was:

"Or else what, Zack?"

He actually likes it when I (playfully) throw it back at him--it's a pretty effective way to get him to realize he's being silly. He usually smiles shyly, giggles, quiets down, and stops being sassy. But today he didn't look amused. I ignored his silent moodiness and continued on with the lesson. A few seconds later, right in the middle of my story about something good and holy, Zack found his comeback:

"I will knife you! I will rip your throat out of your neck. Seriously."

Todd and I lost it. Zack is the youngest of four, and goodness knows his older brother has threatened to knife him a million times and Zack was just waiting for an opportunity to use that line on someone who wouldn't beat him up for it.  I don't think we even scolded him, we just laughed and carried on with the lesson. Zack was so mad--he was trying to make a serious threat!

In retrospect, maybe we should have had a conversation with his parents about this. I don't presume to know how to keep a house full of kids in line, but I'm pretty sure preschoolers shouldn't ever hear this type of threat, let alone use it! Maybe he should watch more age-appropriate TV programs? Spend less time playing video games? Attend an at-risk preschool program?

I don't know, but I'd better watch my back.