#standard parenting

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

Went to the grocery store with my kindergartener. We weighed some bananas: 2 pounds even. We weighed a watermelon: 4 pounds even. We weighed some mangos: a little over 1 pound. We weighed the watermelon AND the bananas: 6 pounds even.

“That’s funny” said the child “because 2+4=6 and two pounds and four pounds is six pounds. It’s like the same as math!”

“What happens if you add 6+1?”

“SEVEN”

“What if we put one pound of mangos on the scale?” <mangos added>

“IT’S THE SAME!!”

“OK, what’s 7-4?”

“Three?”

“What if we take the four pound watermelon off the scale?” <watermelon removed>

“Mama! Are you telling me math works In Real Life? Think of all the things you could measure!!”

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

A thing about parenting is that there are a lot of behaviors that you want to encourage your future adult to have that are SO HARD TO HANDLE in children.

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

After school care pulled me aside about my child dropping an f-bomb “without remorse” and I put on my concerned face and nodded a bunch.

Apparently he was building something with a younger kid “who really looks up to him and is just starting to make friends” and said “Hey, you’re really fucking good at this.” which is, in my estimation, really a parenting victory.

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

At a playdate, the playdatee’s younger sibling is telling me about local man-eating tigers and I am asking supportive questions because that’s how you a) support conversational skills development and b) tease truly magnificent weirdo stories out of the babble of social lies. The playdatee comes by and in typical older sibling fashion says

“Hey, he’s lying. In case you didn’t know.”

“She knows” says my child, “she just pretends to believe people who are lying to be nice. CLASSIC my mom.”

Young man you are only six years old come back here and explain how you know that. I mean don’t I have to get this conversation about a tiger eating someone’s head at the trampoline park back on track but I WILL be circling back.

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

Also on the email clean out I was reminded of the time a new kid joined my child’s preschool and he’d never seen a fire truck up close.

“I telled him we had a lever that made a fire truck come RIGHT HERE and fire fighters come talk to us about safety and we went to pull it but Christina sawed us and said ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT’.”

“Do you remember what the firefighters said about safety the previous times someone pulled the lever?”

“Mama they said lots of things. Don’t let fire in you house. If there is fire pull the lever. If there is NO fire… they said… a lot of things. We got stickers.”

“They said not to pull the lever if there’s no fire?”

“…”

“They said it’s important to not pull the lever because they have to protect people who DO have fire?”

“…”

“Buddy?”

“How do you make fire?”

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

The child brought home a book for Earth Day and it was clearly, clearly, CLEARLY written in the 1990s/Exxon Mobil is manufacturing culpability/ you can personal responsibility your way out of an ecological crisis. But.

“We already DO that” he said. “We already have reusable bags. We’re already careful about water. We already give away clothes I outgrow and use other kids clothing they outgrew. We already recycle. Why are they telling us?”

“Well, we didn’t already do that when they wrote the book. Kids like me and your dad and adults who cared worked together to make that normal. And some of the other ones — turning off lights, see this page? Unplugging appliances? — scientists and engineers worked to make it not such a big issue. Now it’s your turn to find things that need doing and our turn to be the scientists and engineers who can make solutions that are easier for people to do.”

“Well they have to write a new book.” he said “I’m a kid, I don’t know all the problems yet.”

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

The child has like a small upper respiratory thing that we’re trying to KEEP a small upper respiratory thing so I told him I was going to make him some orange juice.

“If I’m sick, shouldn’t I have Gatorade?”

I start explaining about like electrolytes and how hydration with gut problems is different from hydration with a cold (the difference is that orange juice makes there be less ambient citrus in my home) and osmosis and anatomy. He listens very gravely.

“Does that mean… we should have pho for lunch? I think it sounds like pho would be a healthy choice.”

The PIVOT to another high-value food item three hours in the future! My baby is growing up!

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

Last night the child came to us a little before bedtime and refused to engage with the concept of bedtime unless he got a final snack and some wrassling and “maybe some other things”.

“Fiiiine” we said, “it’s spring break, some of this can happen.”

I followed him to his bedroom to begin the wrestling portion and he said

“Hey. We’re going to do an April Fools prank on my dad.”

“He doesn’t. Love those?” I said.

“Here is the prank: I am going to brush my teeth and get in bed, when he comes to tell us I HAVE to go to bed right now I’ll already be asleep! He’ll be SO PRANKED!”

…

…

“Yeah that’ll… that’ll surprise him. I think we can make that happen.”