Dumb Moves\Mom and Roberta

There was one day when Roberta decided she wanted to join us out side for our daily explorations. I think most times we just headed out the door and whatever we saw first is what we put our efforts into. It must have been spring time when the ground was not frozen from the winter, nor sun baked from the hot summer temperatures, the first thing we saw was a shovel so we decided to find some buried treasure or some similar artifact. The truth is, one hardly ever finds buried treasure unless it was put there by themselves at a previous time so we had to be content with a goodly supply of earthworms we had dug up.
Roberta was a youngster and you know how excited they can get just from the simplest of experiences, so Berta took a close inspection of the worms and a curious probe into the texture of their skin and the reactions they got from her blowing on them, touching them, you can probably imagine the scene.
When she started off away from us with the small collection of worms in her hand we wanted to know where she was going, so we inquired as much after her.
“I'm going to show Mamma” was her reply.
We could never see the need to let Mom in on our escapades, after all, such information usually got us into trouble so we tagged along just in case we had to do some explaining and defend ourselves.
Berta marched right up to Mom and thrust her little hand up and into Mom's face as best she could, displaying the little collection of nature she was holding there in her palm for Mom's consideration.
I know Mom doesn't have any fear of little creatures as harmless as worms, but she had to make some kind of reaction to the offering that was now in front of her. It might seem a common thing for a boy to have in his hands, but for a little girl? Mom pulled back in mock horror, opened her eyes widely and let out a forced “EEEK!!!” while throwing up her arms as if a big, ugly mouse was being forced upon her.... bad move.
Roberta now seeing Mom's repulsion at these poor little critters figured she must be in some danger, so she immediately dropped the whole pile of the little slimies onto the floor and stepped back quite aways to have a safe distance from the squirming monsters.
This wasn't quite the reaction Mom hoped to instill, but couldn't do anything after that to let Roberta know she could do other such things that were natural activities if she were going to be a tomboy. From that day on I don't think Berta ever followed us out again to participate in our world of being boys. As a result she turned out to be much more interested in curls, frills, lace and anything princessy.