Interested and Interesting
Posted on April 17, 2008
Filed Under kids, parenting, milestones, challenges |
It’s spring and it’s All Red Sox All the time at my house these days. I’ve had to warn the kids that baseball is the kind of sport that is played round-the-clock, each and every day until November and if we don’t fight the compulsion to watch every bleeding game we will lose some important variety in our lives, totally ignoring the need for bathing, eating, or sleeping; never mind completing homework assignments and furthering our reading abilities.
Somehow Spring and baseball and my inquisitive six year old who has recently begun peppering me with questions like, What’s your favorite adjective and What’s your favorite feeling remind me of a dear college friend with whom I’ve sadly lost touch but who wrote me a remarkable letter just before the birth of my son. This friend was a really gifted baseball player and is still, I’m guessing, a darn good athlete and a terrific pal to those he hangs with in Santa Monica. I’ll share his sentiments of my impending parenthood that he sent me way back in 1999 because he seemed to know a little more than I did about what I was getting into.
“Congratulations, CCE. You’re going to be a great Mom. I think you remember when my little sister, Phoebe, was born our freshman year in college. Well, Phoebe is growing up. She’s six now. She takes piano lessons and attends the same Kindergarten I went to. She plays softball and soccer on the same fields on which I played. But the coolest thing about Phoebe is, well, how cool she is. Now I can sit down with Phoebe and have a conversation with her. I crack jokes and she laughs hysterically. I show her pictures from around the world and teach her about different places and she’s able to listen. She’s interested and interesting. And at the coffee house where my family gathers every morning, after she applies way too much cream cheese to her bagel, she sits back and watches people and makes small talk with strangers.
I’ve gotten carried away talking about my sister Phoebe but my point is that to create a little person that will someday, not too far off, sit across the table from you at a coffeehouse and ask you repeatedly about your favorite color and your favorite song is just awesome. Until that day, good luck with all the diapers. I mean, if it wasn’t for diapers, I’d be having kids tomorrow.”
And while I couldn’t quite imagine what he was talking about at the time, (as predicted, the two infants that I produced shortly after receiving his letter in no way resembled this Phoebe-character he described, no small talk with strangers, no soccer or softball or Kindergarten or bagels, but there were an awful lot of diapers), suddenly, right on schedule, I find myself spending the chill spring evenings kicking a soccer ball around with a team of six year old girls. I rush two children through homework assignments and piano practice and try mightily to set realistic limitations for television and video game consumption. I make breakfast, lunch and dinner to the constant banter of two developing little people who are exploring the reasons for everything in the universe, things as profound as poverty and as banal as public swimming pools and belly buttons.
And while I’m not too sure that I’m all that good at tackling these important topics, my answers to their queries are mostly inadequate, I’m still amazed by the little thinkers that have recently sprouted from toddlers of the chubby cheeks and the downy hair and the flat, flat Flintstone feet. And while each afternoon is a challenge akin to a final exam, a defended thesis, I can honestly say that they are now interested and interesting little people, even if they do exhaust me with their almost academic pursuit of knowledge.
So I do my best. Here is a typical fifteen minute conversation with my G who, now six, has officially become the Phoebe-character of my friend’s letter,
G: “What’s you’re favorite adjective?”
Me: “Well that’s like having to pick your favorite font. It’s just impossible to say with any absolute conviction. It’s so mood dependent. Today, my favorite adjective is ‘winsome’.”
G: “What’s your favorite feeling?”
Me: “Unequivocally - happiness.”
G: “Why do we have belly buttons?”
Me: “Because that is how you and I were attached when you were floating around in my belly waiting to be born. There was a long cord that connected us via your belly button.”
G: “So that’s how you kept track of me, with a leash?”
Me: “Well, not exactly, it had more to do with nutritional exchanges and blood flow and all that good stuff.”
G: “Well, how did I get in your belly anyway? How are babies put in bellies?”
Me: “That’s a conversation for another day. Okay, sweet pea?”
G: “When was the last time you ate whip cream?”
Me: “Oh, I don’t know. A month ago. At Starbucks when I forgot to order my Frappuccino without it.”
G: “When do you think I last had whipped cream?”
Me: “Last month at Fuddruckers, on your milk shake?”
G: “Wrong. Today. I had whipped cream today on my jello at school.”
G: “How was the first person ever born? The first person couldn’t have had a mother, right?”
Me: “Right, people evolved from apes. Kind of changed over time and became human.”
G: “So the first person was a monkey?”
Me: “Yup.”
G: “So where did monkeys come from?”
Me: “Well, all creatures probably evolved from one basic organism that inhabited the earth a long time ago and differentiated over time into things like frogs and rabbits and monkeys and eventually humans.”
G: “You mean I was once a zebra?”
Me: “Not exactly.”
G: “I didn’t think so because I don’t have hooves or stripes or a tail.”
Me: “All sure signs that you were never a zebra. Correct. Bedtime. Thank God. Bedtime.
G: “Okay. Bedtime. Can I read a little?”
Me: “You can do whatever you want as long as it’s silent and doesn’t involve another question.”
Today, after school, I think I should bring her to the local coffee house and let her exhaust perfect strangers with her ceaseless curiosity because I am clean out of answers.
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12 Responses to “Interested and Interesting”
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The whole bellybutton-leash thing left me in tears. Not sure because that was so funny, or because your post was so touching. But you left my crying and laughing at the same time.
As your friend rightfully predicted, what an incredibly cool little girl you conceived. I’m so very impressed by all the smart questions. I can understand though how it might be hard to keep up with her. My mother told me once that she would get headaches from just listening to my rapid fire queries. If I might ask, can you privately send me your home address? I have something I should like to send to you. My mother got me a version of this book many many years ago and according to her, it gave her some much needed respite from my non-stop curiosity. Consider it a paying forward from one mother to another. Someday, when my own kid tires of the strings and I can make sense of his pseudo mandarin (still doesn’t speak clearly), you can send it back. For the moment, it just sits there begging to be opened by one such as your G. And you know what, from everything I’ve read here in your blog, I have to agree with your friend. You are a great mom. It takes patience and love to answer children as you did in this conversation. It must also take the most fabulous of mothers to nurture a child along to this superlative six-year old level of intelligence. I have to admit that I myself could use some of her gray cell power.
Anyway, at the risk of sounding like a broken record (it will play thus forever I assure you), another great post. Lovely to read, thoughtful and thought provoking.
That letter from your friend is such a good bit of advice for any new parent. My kids are definitely in the stage of a million questions and guess-whats, but I’m happy for their ability to articulate their thoughts (most of the time).
This morning, my son stumped me with a question about a particular metric vs.standard measurement. In the end, I said “ask your teacher, but don’t tell her Mommy didn’t know.” So there.
Knowing G since she was 1, but not having seen her in over 2 yrs now, I could clearly ‘hear’ her words - & yours - being spoken. It brought a smile to my face, I laughed out-loud and in the end I had watery eyes. Where has the time gone?
When asked what he wanted for his birthday in carpool yesterday, my oldest told Ale’s mom: I want a remote control so I can control my brother. Witty & sincere all at once, it brought me back to all the crap I used to dish my little brother.
Touche.
cce,
Your G is at a marvelous age. My other favorite ages for daughters include, but are not limited to, 2, 4, 11, 15, and 21. (I can’t go any higher than that.) And the questions don’t seem to stop - or get much easier to answer. I remember the look of dismay on my children’s faces when they were about 8 and 10 and, in response to some situation or question, I said, “I don’t know. I have never done this before. I’ve never raised children.” They looked genuinely alarmed, as if it had never before occurred to them that they were being raised by an amateur. But speaking from experience, you’ll have reason to revel in all the stages (just not all the days).
You have the best conversations!
This is all so true. And yes, let the coffee house feel the joy only the little ones can give us as they fill us with their questions…
God luck and keep up the great posts…
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
www.grammology.com
she’s just like jack, who’s the same age! amazing.
I loved the conversation, what a wonderful curious mind your child has…it is a tribute to the environment in which she was raised…which is my way of saying that you are a great mom, with a wonderfully intelligent child, and it kinda stinks that you write really well too!
-suz
Oh how I long for those days! The questions I get nowadays are not so easily answered.
Oh I love kids at that stage, even though bedtime is so welcome! Enjoy!
Wow you have a greater degree of difficulty to your conversations with children then me. I would have been stumped at “winsome”.