These first few came in December. I’m sure many parents of five-year-olds are used to their sometimes dictatorial ways. But how many of them hear this particular nag?
Come on, I’m ready to go to bed!
It’s true: Simon has always loved his bed and is fully capable of deciding he’s ready for a nap or bed before we make the decision for him. He also voiced an opinion about his elementary school of choice:
I want to go to school at the coffee shop.
Don’t we all, buddy! Once we explained that the school was simply near the coffee shop, Ben’s school became his top pick. Sometimes, my sweet boy is sweet and not-so-sweet at the same time:
I’ll take your hand cause I love you better. Daddy has stinky breath.
Oof. Next up, sensitivity training. That said, I think he was teasing. In matters mathematical, Mr. Whitworth values precision even at this tender age. Hence, a correction of my diction:
It’s ‘one’ hundred, of course. ‘A’ hundred is a nickname.
And now, the February roundup. First, a comment to Agotich when she walked into our dining room closet to play:
“Are you going on the Concorde? I’ll miss you!”
Next, an interruption in the midst of Simon attempting to sing the 80s classic “99 Red Balloons” in the orginal German:
“Mach schnell!”
He was talking to his not-schnell enough truck, by the way. Then, a summary of the letter-finding race at school:
One day in the letter finding game Braylon and Caroline worked together and they only found 16 of 22 letters. That was a mess!
He’s got a little Sandra [Correction: Sarah, per RWG below] Bernhardt going on at times, too:
I’ve only got a teeny tiny morsel of energy left. It’s, like, the size of a cell.
Relations among children at school are getting more complicated, and Simon is noticing if not completely understanding. Thus the following exchange:
“X and Y fight a lot. They say they are best friends, but then they do mean things to each other.”
“Well, honey, sometimes even best friends have little tiffs.”
“They aren’t little. They get into BIG fights. I don’t understand it.”
Wait ’til he sees how friends treat each other in middle school! Deep thoughts about dinosaurs:
A T-Rex would eat hot dogs because they’re carnivores.
A not-so-gracious but accurate response to praise for helping:
You know me, I like to help.
Free association, totally out of context, but nonetheless sweet and true:
Daddy is a really good daddy. He plays soccer with me and does drum practice. And he read The Hobbit to me and helped me read that other book we got from the library. Yea. My daddy is a really good Daddy I think.
He is. I hope you will always remember that. Here’s a near miss that I expected to come in December. The following chat took place after a visit to friend Greta’s new house last weekend:
“Greta told me that Santa came down her chimney.”
“She did? You didn’t say anything, did you?” [We don’t do Santa at our house, so I’m worried Simon will spill to someone whose family does.]
“I just said ‘he does’. I remembered that you and Daddy said not to ruin anyone’s fun.”
Thank goodness! And finally, this is what happens when you (and by “you”, I mean “Matt”) allow a child to watch the BBC World News Report while dinner finishes up on a given night:
“Syria is having a war. Libya’s war is already over. Iran might be next because they are making bombs.”
And with that I fear that my five-year-old has demonstrated superior knowledge of world events than many adults who vote!
I know it’s way before your time, but the name is Sarah Bernhardt unless there is another that I don’t know about. If that is the case, I am so sorry. And, yes, it is sad that so many adults know nothing about world events and do vote. Scary!
Mom used to call me Sarah Bernhardt when I was little, as in, “There goes Sarah, wrist to forehead, exit stage left.”