Yes, This Is Becoming The "Things My Kid Says" Blog

On the way to the car after school last week, 2 stops to read a sign.

2: What does D-R-U-G spell?
Me: Drug.
2: "Drug-free School Zone." So, no drugs in school?
Me: Yep.
2: [pondering] Is caffiene a drug?

Well, my almost-6-year-old, let's make a deal. If you say caffiene's not a drug, I'll say the Disney Channel isn't, either.

All the Things I Don't Know

"Would people still be good if there weren't any polices?" 2 asked me.

We drove in silence for a few moments: me, astonished; 2, patient.

I told her it was an excellent question. I blathered like a parent.

"I was asking, would people be good, not can people be good," she said.

For Dust You Are

The yellow crocuses 1 planted around the grave of the baby quail have bloomed in this warm spell. I'm sitting near them, in the back yard, reading in the sunshine. 2 plays her standard repertoire of 5-year-old games: restaurant, house, ballet, sporting event.

Then she slides half-way onto a chair beside me and grins.

2: I have a question for you. If you get it right, you'll get my very best trophy. Who made us: God... or Mother Nature?

Me: Is there really a right answer?

2: Yes! [expectant pause] If you think about what we are... you'll know ...

We speak at nearly the same moment.

Me: Mother Nature?
2: Mother Nature!

2: I thought about it and figured it out for myself. --I don't know if it's truth or not, but it's what I think.

I pretended I had to go blow my nose and ran into the house so I could scribble the conversation on a piece of scrap paper. For the record, I never speak about a "Mother Nature" figure; I'm not sure where she got it from, but she's been mulling over the different between the two characters for over a year now.

What was happening in her brain as she pondered this? What does she think God is that we are not?

The Blues

This Saturday is my birthday. I'm so tired of thinking about my life, I have nothing left to write.

Here's a rhetorical question: What the hell is up with my child?

Scene: Mid-afternoon. Child 2 walks up the stairs, making up a cheery little 4-note tune as she goes, unaware that I can hear her. The words:

I'm going upstairs and when I get to the top
that's when I say
My dad is always right and I'm always wrong
My dad is always right and I'm always wrong
My mom is always right
My big sister is always right
And I'm always wrong
Everybody is always right and I'm always wrong


I shouldn't have, but I ran into her room and asked, almost laughing, "What are you saying?" She looked at me guiltily, I think--it was as if an adult were staring out of a 4-year-old's eyes--and tried to pretend she thought I was talking about something else. I pressed her once and she became clearly annoyed, so I left.

Two Cute Stories About a 4-Year-Old That Happen To Be Entirely Different in Tone

At supper last night 2 asked, out of the blue, "Do you know what I wish for most, besides Thanksgiving going on forever, and wings?"

I was so disarmed by the question, I can't even remember what her answer was.

---
About a week ago, 2 was pestering 1 to get off the toilet so she could use it. 1 finally finished and hastily flushed, but it didn't take. From the living room, I heard some commotion in the bathroom, then little footsteps tearing down the hall and a panicky voice, "SOMEBODY GET A PLUNGER!"

Some Chicks

These are the survivors of the science class incubator. 1 brought them home over Thanksgiving break, and even dug a few worms out of the compost pile for them.

Clockwise from top: Ronnie, Nolan, and Too Cute To Name

Bailey was the lone quail hatchling. Dwarfed by his boxmates, he would try to clamber up on their backs when they sat down to sleep and push his head under their wings.

Bailey died as Thanksgiving day dawned, lay in state in a tin breathmint box for two days, and was buried beneath a daffodil bulb on Sunday morning.

Off-springing

I finished reading "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" to 1 tonight. She asked if there was a sequel. I said, "No, dammit, this was written before the concept of the money-making sequel existed." Which isn't true... I didn't say dammit, and sequels have been around as long as novels have, pretty much.

"It's so... so open-ended!" she sighed. I almost made another smart-ass remark, then she gripped the book and said, "This is the BEST book ever!!"

I love to hear 1 say that. She's not much of a reader. I used to qualify that statement to others with "yet." I'm not sure she ever will be. It's very uncomfortable, not liking a characteristic of one's own child.

My disappointment is deep, but of course my love for her is deeper, so I'm left with the perplexing realization that she is her own person, not, as I so wished for her first 5 or so years, a little me. Awe has built within me in the years since at her self-ness, even as it seems to turn out that she doesn't especially like the practice of reading.

Conversations in the car on the 4 1/2-hour drive to Grandma's house

2: What comes after Sunday?
Me: Monday
2: No, it doesn't!
Me: ....
Me: Well, what do you think comes after Sunday?
2: [irate] I don't know! But you know! So tell me!
Me: Zippity-do-day.
2: [kicking seat, screaming] No! [cries at length]

***

2: Why do far-away places have to be far away?
Me: uhhhh... because Earth is a big planet and... if everything was close together... um... the people would be too crowded.
2: No! You're not listening to me! I SAID, why do far-away places have to be far away?
Me: ...
2: Answer me!
Me: I have nothing to say to you.
2: ANSWER ME! [kicks seat, screams]

***

2: Will tomorrow be a magic day?
Me: What is a magic day for you?
2: It's when you go to sleep and wake up in the morning but it's still the same day.
Me: [relieved, somehow] Yes! Tomorrow will be a magic day!

A spoonful of sugar keeps the little ones awake

It is 10:35 p.m. and 2's little voice drifts down the stairs, singing. I have to creep closer to the steps to make out the song: "Supercali, supercali, frajalisty ... expe-aladoshis... if you say it loud enough you'll always sound preto... toshis..."

She did have a nap too late in the afternoon, but still, this is crazy. Crazy but delishis.

Super-Grouch

1: What's wrong, Mom?
Me: People keep asking me questions.

I think this is possibly the funniest thing I've ever said.

Subtitles Come In Handy

I forgot
I forgot how much I sleep once the sun starts setting before 7:00.

Things that give parents pause
You're in the bedroom folding laundry or plucking eyebrow hair. You hear your three-year-old in the next room, singing a little made-up song. As her voice gets closer, you hear the words: "It used to be a banana, but now it isn't. It used to be a banana, but now it isn't." You hear her steps enter the bathroom, and you hear a thunk in the trashcan.

Alight
Twelve feet up on scaffodling like hatches of a calligrapher's brush, men lay bricks in the chill morning. Some men squat or kneel; some have worked faster than others and they stand to lay their red rows higher. The white and yellow helmets they wear are dusty but still catch the sunlight like the undersides of the wings of the birds that rise above them, turning as a flock toward an invisible beacon, a future rest.

An art installation of 130 hand-built ceramic cubes, etched with labyrinthine designs on five sides, glazed and arranged on a bed of sand
Is art obsession?
Are artists possessed?
Can one become an artist without being possessed?

Jesus Christ

2's alter ego is a fuzzy stuffed bear, entirely blue. Sam has, in the past two or three months, developed a complex personality and is prone to extremes. For example, he "always sleeps," except when he "never sleeps."

Today we were late for her summer preschool program because of an altercation that climaxed with her hitting me and me carrying her screaming to her room.

Tears, kisses, we're on the bike to school. The little voice behind my head (amazingly clear, considering the bike is speeding along) says, "Sam hits me and I don't get mad."

Opera in 3 Acts

1. For the second day in a row, 2 is wearing the dress I wore at her age. It tickles me that a minor consumer object has held up so long. I think it came from Sears.

2. This is the week of cat opera. Two in the morning, aria and chorus. Six in the evening, duet. I tried to tiptoe and peer between the houses, because I want to see what a cat looks like when it makes that sound like its stomach is being pulled up through its mouth. But they must have a modicum of decency left and stopped when I approached.

3. Yesterday I yelled at 1 in front of her friend because I was so angry at 2's tantrum. I apologized almost right away, but I can't erase how small I made 1 feel. She kept saying she was sorry, sorry, sorry.