There are many things to love about small children: the whimsy, the total lack of self-consciousness, the imagination and joy in discovery… and sometimes, if you are in the right frame of mind, the absolute brutality of their honesty.
Consider this exchange:
Jessica: “Simon, can you tell me who you love?”
Simon: “I love Grandma.”
Jessica: “I know you do honey. Who else do you love? Do you love Papaw, too?”
Simon: “No, just Grandma. She’s my best friend.”
OK then! So much for sparing anyone’s tender feelings. What about faking modesty?
Jessica: “Simon, you did a very good job counting things in your book tonight. You paid attention, took your time, and counted almost everything correctly.”
Simon: “Yeah, I know. I’m pretty smart.”
And there is the summa cum laude truth teller, a friend’s child we watched briefly last week. The exchange, with changed identifying details, ran as follows:
Jessica: “Becca. I know you want to play with Simon’s trains. And you will. We just need a minute to talk to him first. It can be hard to share sometimes, especially with a toy you really, really like.”
Becca: “I had a hard time sharing at my birthday party last week. Abby wanted to play with my mermaid doll, and I snatched it from her, and she cried.”
Jessica: “Oh, Abby cried? Did that make you feel bad.”
Becca: “No, I really wanted it.”
Beautiful! I mean, probably not for Becca’s parents. And soon enough, when Simon hits this phase, not for us. But from a complete third-party perspective, this is the stuff that makes parenthood laugh-out-loud funny.
My cousin Christopher, at age 6:
“Mommy, do you know everything in the world?”
“No Christopher, I don’t.”
“Daddy, do you know everything in the world?”
“No Christopher, I don’t know everything.”
“Well, then I’m smarter than you because *I* know everything!”
On Christmas Day while getting ready to go to Oma and Papa’s for dinner, I told Evan that he would be getting more presents from aunts and uncles, etc. He started crying and said, “Mama, I have enough!!” Out of the mouths of babes!