We’ve had a few gems of late. Some require explanation, the first does not:
“I wish I could be two Simons, so I could be two places at one time.”
Get used to that feeling, buddy!
“Oooh, mommy, it’s cold. I need long-sleeve pants.”
Ah, six. Old enough to do cool stuff; young enough to get things adorably wrong.
And now, a little dialog from a car-ride. I’ve just told Simon that I went to kindergarten at his old school, KIP. He doesn’t quite believe me, so I offer to get out an old picture.
“Where are you sitting in your kindergarten picture? On the side, or in the middle?”
“I don’t remember, Simon.”
“You mean you don’t remember where you sat in a picture 36 years ago?”
I’m silent.
“It was 36 years ago, right? You were six then, you are 42 now, so it would have been 36 years ago. Right?”
Oh that math brain. He has no idea how lucky he is to have that math brain.
Walking with friends at a recent outdoor holiday bazaar, Simon gets a balloon, refuses to tie balloon to hand, and to no one’s surprise lets go of balloon by accident and loses it. Here’s the exchange with a friend of ours:
“Well Simon, do you think that balloon flew all the way up to the moon?”
“No, once it gets to the stratosphere it will pop.”
True that. So much for trying to cheer Simon up.
The irony was lost on Simon one night when he was too tired to read, but not on his parents:
“Daddy, I want to read ‘I Can Read About Dinosaurs’ tonight. Will you read it to me?”
And here’s one for all you EPL readers out there!*
“Oh boy! I bet Sir Alex is getting into the gum.”
You’ll have to trust me that that one was hilarious. Or you can read the explanation at the bottom.
And finally, two holiday related sentiments. The first from Simon, said after admiring the Christmas lights of neighbors and sighing heavily:
“Everyone is getting ready for Christmas except for us.”
Translation: We don’t have a tree (yet), and we don’t have outdoor lights (at all).
Final honors go to Matt. Here’s an exchange the two of us had with Simon just last night, with Matt speaking last:
“How many presents do I get for Chanukah, Mommy?”
“Three or four.”
“Why not seven since Chanukah is seven days long.”
Me: “You mean eight. Chanukah is eight days long.”
“Then why only three or four and not eight?”
Matt: “Because you are only half-Jewish.”
Ba-da-BOOM! Not totally helpful, but sometimes a ridiculous question deserves an equally ridiculous answer.
*OK. Matt and I have noticed that English Premier League football (soccer) managers (coaches) have a tendency to chew gum. A lot. British or European, it does not matter. And the more tense a game—the worse their side (team) is performing—the more likely is the manager to get out some gum and chomp away the stress. So two weeks ago, Man U (top of the league) got down a goal early to Norwich. This is like Miami being down 20 at the half to Golden State or some other perpetually terrible NBA team. Simon saw the goal on Goals on Sunday (one of this three favorite TV shows, the other two being Fox Soccer News and Word Girl), and immediately offered that bit of color commentary.