Short and to the point, this is how my 8-year-old son D- and 5-year-old daughter M- spend much of their free time:
M- (her part of some random chit-chat I'd tuned out): ...duty.
D- (starts to laugh): Wait, do you mean the FUNNY "doody", or the normal, serious "duty"?
M- (almost disappointed in herself): The serious one.
D- (soberly): Oh.
The following is a conversation that just took place in our playroom, where my 8-year-old son D- and 5-year-old daughter M- were each playing with Legos in their own way, after my buddingly verbal almost-2-year-old son E- happily waltzed in. I think it pretty well captures their relationship most of the time, these days.
E- (idly content): Wehhh-gooooooes...
M- (sounding not unlike Ian McKellan's Gandalf): E-, this is my tower, and you cannot touch it!
E- (decisively
oblivious): TOUUUUCH!
M-: No, DON'T touch it!
E-: TOUUUUUUUUCH!!
M-: Arghhhhhh!
The following is a recent conversation I had with my 8-year-old son D- and 5-year-old daughter M-, the tone of which is predictably not all that rare around here:
D- (sharing an announcement with the world) : She LICKed meeeeee!
M- (feebly beginning a defense): No...
Me: M-, did you lick him?
M- (thinking better of it): Yes... Because he was being a jerk, and wouldn't stop!
Me: It's not a good strategy to use your germs as a weapon. And it's never a good idea to ever LICK an 8-year-old...
D- (almost proudly): Yeah, especially THIS one!
After more than eight years of parenting, my wife J- and I consider ourselves pretty skilled at manipulating each of our three kids like puppets, using whatever tools fit each kid at a given moment.
Sometimes, though, they show flashes of the similarly wonderful parents they may become themselves, someday:
J- (wanting a favor from our 5-year-old daughter M-, spinning it with a reliable phrase): So M-, can I count on you?
M- (not in the mood to help, and looking for a loophole): Ummmm... well, no, not today. (walking out of the room) I don't want anyone counting on me today.
My 8-year-old son D- and 5-year-old daughter M- are apparently taking some interesting lessons to heart about the fundamentals of good parenting, as evidenced by their recent conversation in the back of our parked van, regarding their 1-year-old brother E-:
D- (possibly sarcastic, after M- had been speaking through rage-clenched teeth at E-): Boy, you'd make a real good parent, always grabbing and pulling on his (inaudible)...
Me (thinking she had been grabbing his face): Pulling his what?!
D- (quickly polishing an explanation, likely due to a favor he owed his sister): I said, she'd make a real good parent, because she always gets real serious with him. And he listens to her...
M- (eagerly): Yeah!
D- (aside): Oh, by the way, your pants are on backwards.
Despite two years served under the patient ears of The Tattling Turtle at school, my 5-year-old daughter M- still tattles like nobody's business*, and her 8-year-old brother D- has long ago earned his Veteran Kid status, which entitles him to get away with all kinds of secrets and sneakiness under our noses, as this frustratingly inconclusive conversation demonstrates:
M- (the "eager" version of The Tattling Voice): Last night, I was trying to sleep, and D- was keeping me up by saying a bad word. One that means "horse poop"?
Me (mild curiosity officially piqued): ...Oh? Which word was that?
M- (wishing she could help, realizing she's out of ammo): Ummmm... I don't remember. You should ask him.
Me (recklessly pressing the point while the iron is hot): You won't get in trouble for saying what it was. Was it something like "cr... cr... cr..."
M- (blank stare): Uhhhh...
Me (scrambling, hoping she doesn't start asking followups, to add to her extensive vocabulary, but now confident I've nailed it down at Level 2): Was it something with "sh... sh... shhh..."
M- (another blank stare, then resignation, which is apparently what you get when you seem to take tattles seriously): Umm, well, I don't really remember what the word is, but I know it's bad, and I know it means "horse poop".
So, it seems that D- is either cataloging new slang words that don't spring to my mind, or he may have invented a hilarious new game of 1) declaring secret, scandalous meanings to made-up words; or 2) assigning new meanings to existing, innocuous words; with the primary or secondary intention of getting his sister to cash in all her tattling chips on unenforceable violations. Both of the latter options are genius, and make me pretty perversely proud.
The following conversation between my 5-year-old daughter M- and my wife J- took place during our multi-state car trip right before Easter, during which my wife indulged in many of her Rhode Island favorites from childhood, including "Easter bread", a very sweet, iced treat:
J- (concerned that the kids have buried and/or crushed the loaf we were taking home, somewhere in the van): Where's the Easter bread?
M- (immediately jumping in, with a "Magical Storytime" voice all cued up): He stays in a nook, faaaaar under the ground...
J- (interrupting, totally confused): What??
Me (realizing the disconnect): No, the Easter BREAD.
M-: OHHHhhhhhhhh!
J- (cutting through the visions of candy and gifts, to the most important matter at hand): So... you don't know where the bread is?
They were definitely very happy to have the Easter Bunny himself leave his beloved nook to visit shortly after this, though he didn't leave us any Easter bread. Just lots of what I could only assume were jelly beans...
My 5-year-old daughter M- is still working out the kinks in her understanding of numbers, as evidenced by our recent conversation below:
M- (putting on her most comically dignified voice as she approaches me, clutching a bundle of imaginary balloons): I would like to buy these... 8 balloons, please.
Me (like a bored street vendor who knows he's got you right where he wants you, but doesn't much care anymore): That'll be four hundred dollars, please.
M- (still with the voice): I don't have that much money.
Me: Then you don't have any balloons, either.
M- (sliding toward her normal voice, as she tries valiantly to keep this one from getting away from her): How about this, how about we bargain: I will bring the number down to: six... million dollars.
Me (slipping out of character in disbelief): Six million dollars? DOWN to $6 million?!?
M- (regaining her Monopoly-guy voice in full glory): Or wait... How about... I pay you what you asked for. Here you go! (sprays fake money at me and runs)
So in the end, she acted pretty much like me in every negotiation I've ever been forced into.
My 5-year-old daughter M- was indulging my 7-year-old son D-'s penchant for spontaneous, awkward hand-to-combat practice one day recently, when he began the following exchange:
D- (with the expected pseudo-karate posturing): I'm gonna break your HEAD off!
M- (popping his balloon as sharply as she can): No, you're not! You'd be in HUGE trouble... You'd have to sit on the STAIRS for the rest of your LIFE!
D- (accepting this at face value, then feeling smug as he thinks about its relative leniency): No more than that, though.
M- (thinking aloud, qualifying her previous statement): ...Until you were a grownup, then you could go back to eating candy, and playing, and everything.
It seems "life" as they know it ends in just a few years. They're probably right.
Pretend I'm more on-the-ball and it's still Valentine's Day, and enjoy this then-appropriate conversation I had awhile back with my now-5-year-old daughter M-, when she saw just how many yogurts I'd picked up at the store while she was at school:
M- (joking, with an incredible amount of enthusiasm, while standing at the fridge): Wow! The Mom yogurts made a LOT of baby yogurts!
Me: Oh? All by themselves?
M- (without a trace of doubt): Yes!
Me (foolishly playing with fire, for my own amusement): Without any help from Daddy yogurts?
M-: No. (thinking twice) Well, a LITTLE help, maybe. They help do stuff like carry heavy things, and pack up the clothes for them, and stuff. (taking the opportunity to drop another hint of a present idea) Like their roooooooobes...
Now that my son E- is officially 1 year old, hopefully he's sturdy enough to not require conversations like the following to take place between his 7-year-old brother D- and his 4-year-old sister M-, with D- giving his best approximation of my explanation of the fontanel:
D-: No! Don't touch his head! Remember there's a part on top where he has no head bone, and if you touch it, you're touching his BRAIN, and then he'll be crazy forever?!
M-: Crazy?
D-: Yeah, you know, like....
M-: Like he says, "Uhhh, spaghetti is macaroni, ummmmm..."?
D-: Yeah, just crazy; like his brain doesn't work right. So just don't touch his head.
Here's a revealing conversation I had with my 4-year-old daughter M-, when I absentmindedly vented my brain of the potentially hazardous buildup of Christmas songs stuck in it:
Me: "I don't want a lot for Christmas / ..."
M- (interrupting with an important point, while gesturing slightly to herself): I do.
Me: Oh you do, do you??
M-: Yes. Do YOU want a lot for Christmas?
Me (really overselling my angelic virtue): No. I just want everybody to be happy.
M- (brow furrowed in earnest reflection): ... Well, I want a lot for Christmas.
The following conversation took place when my wife J- was fixing up my 4-year-old daughter M-'s hair one night before bed, as she and M- both complained about how tangled it was:
Me (pointlessly defending myself): We were running late, and I forgot to bring a hairbrush with me this morning, so her hair looked like a rat's nest... I had to just comb through it with my fingers and pull it back into a ponytail.
J- (about to share a story of mild mortification under the firing-squad gaze of Other Mothers of Daughters, after she'd had an "all-ready-to-go" daughter in a tutu packed into the car by her husband): Yeah, I could tell, at dance class...
M- (cutting in, as she realized we were talking about her): Don't call it a rat's nest!
Me (realizing it didn't sound very nice, after she'd uncharacteristically decided to pay attention when adults speak): That just means how it looks-- it wasn't your fault.
M- (not comforted at all): Don't CALL it that.
Me: Would it be better if I called it a (dementedly happy voice) "squirrel's nest!"?
M- (probably more frustrated): Don't call it a nest at ALLLLL!
Note: I made no promises. I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
This is a bizarre, but typical, conversation I recently had with my 4-year-old daughter M- as I was preparing lunch for the kids:
M- (after I'd opened the floor for lunch-plate requests): I want the We-need-the-Pooh plate!
Me (since this wasn't the first time I'd noticed this, I figured I'd ask): Why do you keep calling him "We-need-the-Pooh"?
M- (blankly): Because that's his name.
Me: No, it's "Winnie". "Winnie-the-Pooh."
M-: ...... "Winnie" is a strange name.
We all know boys and girls are different, yadda yadda yadda-- I won't bore you by spewing back some old saws you've heard and said a hundred times yourself. I just feel compelled to begin recording some of the noteworthy quips, statements, threats, and conversations with my 4-year-old daughter M- that definitely have never before come up with my 7-year-old son D-*:
M- (having described in detail, in the manner of a time-share salesperson, a water park/resort that a classmate was going to): ...So... can we go there, too?
Me (having known where she was going the whole time she was going on about it, and not in a mood to humor her): No... I don't think so.
M- (more than a little smugly): Well, when I'm bigger, in college, and I'm on a date with my friend, we will go there. We'll stay there and go on all the rides and have SO much fun. ...When I'm in college and on a DATE, with my friend, together.
I'm not sure that there's a lesson to be found here in this conversation between my 7-year-old son D- and my 4-year-old daughter M- as they got ready for bed recently, but it is what it is, and I swear this really happened:
Me (to D-, who's given to sleeping shirtless solely to save himself seconds of time in the evenings and mornings): Get a shirt on, or you'll be sorry-- this morning you were huddled up in a freezing ball again.
M- (gleefully butting in): He should have "CONsequences", Dad!
D- (seeming to have temporarily forgotten his deep familiarity with this word): What?
M- (in a rational, expository tone, with only a slight hint of smugness toward the end): Consequences-- you have to sleep with no shirt, and you're very cold. That's "consequences" of what you did.
D-: BANG! Two socks in the face-- that's YOUR consequences!
Here's a puzzling conversation I just had with my 4-year-old daughter M-, as she hit the home stretch in her quest to write out the whole alphabet.
Me (singing a portion of the song, since I couldn't bear to sing it all again for the 50th time): And the next letter is.. Q, R, S; T, U...
M-: Vee!
Me: That's right, now write that down.
M- (hesitating at the paper): Uhhhh...
Me: It's like the U, but pointy on the bottom, like this: (writing in the air)
M-: ...
Me: Remember... it's like an upside-down A, without a line across the middle?
M-: Oh! Like a V!
All three* of my children are very intelligent, but they definitely have different ways of manifesting these smarts. This is in part because they just have different ways of thinking, and one way my 4-year-old daughter stands apart is that much of her thought process happens out loud, and usually far beyond what would be considered necessary volume.
For example, the following puzzle is excerpted from a longer chain of thoughts idly expressed --without interruption by me-- as we colored a life-sized outline of her body for her dance class:
M-: ... If you need any crayons** sharpened, I'VE got a crayon sharpener... It's really nice, because you can sharpen any crayon you want, anytime, and you can never lose it, because it's attached to the big box of crayons, and that would be really hard to lose. ...Actually, I don't know where it is right now... I think we lost the big box of crayons... I lost my crayon sharpener, Dad.
The following short but sweet conversation between my wife J- and my 4-year-old daughter M- speaks volumes about what we face these days with our little "senior in preschool".
J- (obviously quite serious, calling her over a second time for a reprimand): Excuse me, ma'am!
M- (pointedly referring to her ongoing game, to explain her previous lack of response): Do you mean, "Princess"??
J-: No, I do NOT mean "Princess"!
While setting up a sort of industrial-strength collapsible steel bin in the garage yesterday, I stood on it so I could reach each of the sides at once. My 7-year-old son D- and 4-year-old daughter M- were immediately shocked that this device could EVEN hold up DAD!
I informed them that it could probably hold up an elephant, since it's made of centimeter-thick hardened steel bars crisscrossed in a grid of one-inch squares, supported by large, thick, solid-steel feet. I made the mistake of adding, for effect, that they couldn't break it if they tried.
They immediately took this as a personal challenge, and sought to undermine it the only way they knew how.
D- (conversationally): Well, the Incredible Hulk, if he was here, he could just SMASH it like that. Right?
Me (distracted): Sure, I guess... since he's not real, and they can make up anything they want about him.
D- (strangely triumphant): Yeah, so he could...
M- (looking to contribute): And they made up that he's the strongest guy in the whole world... so HE could break this if he wanted to, but we couldn't.
D- (exultant, but now totally off topic): HE could break ANYthing... he's so awesome. ERRRRRRGGHHH...
M-: Yeah!
This went on for a few more idle minutes. Meanwhile, thoroughly put in my place, I continued to feebly assemble this contraption as their own personal ball- and toy-storage bin. And of course, I then had to lay down for a few hours to regain what meager strength I manage to muster each day.
