Sweep the leg, so goes the line. But it’s only funny if you’re talking about The Karate Kid (the original, not the execrable remake), or if you’re talking about what a dick someone else or someone else’s child is being. But when it’s almost 10 p.m. and you turn on the baby monitor for the first time in weeks and overhear your sweet beatified daughter dropping a Cobra Kai verbal beatdown on her hapless, pudgy little brother lying in bed across the room from her, then it’s less funny and more a feeling like: Wait, can a 4-year-old girl be a dickhead? Not that I would call her that, but her conversation, let’s say, was one that an actual dickhead might enjoy having.

A snippet:

Dalia: “Don’t tell me you know more than me.”

Nico: [Unintelligible]

Dalia: ” Do you know how to do a pushup? Do you?!”

Nico: “No.”

Dalia: “Well, then, you don’t know more than me. I am not the baby here, you are the baby.”

Nico: “No.”

Dalia: “I know how to do a pushup. You go down, lift up, and then make a scary face.”

Nico: [Unintelligible]

Dalia: “Does this face I’m making scare you, Nico?! Does it?”

There you have it: all our bright dreams for this sensitive and whip-smart young woman, and the moment I turn off the lights, all she really wants to do is intimidate a 2-year-old. Sigh.