Sometimes, six year-olds bug!
Azul and I were having our ritualistic after school conversation, “How was your day? Good. How was yours? Good.” Then I told him I had swallowed some gnats while I was biking earlier that day. There were gnats everywhere! Some people were even wearing masks to keep the little bits of protein out of their system. And to be fair, I didn’t swallow them all, I snorted two of them right up my nose. Charlie Sheen might call that “winning!”
Well, his six year-old response of course was in song, “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly!” And then he couldn’t stop laughing and singing, over and over. It was as if this was the funniest thing he had ever said in his entire life. Are you kidding me?! Ugh!
He wasn’t grossed out or even excited about eating bugs, he went straight to making fun of me! I don’t know where he gets that from.
After the initial shock of being called an old lady subsided, I was able to appreciate the joke, which was actually super funny! I do know where he gets that from.
Phone Phight!
“I think I broke my brain,” Azul said looking down, rubbing his six year-old head with his little hand.
“Oh my love, maybe you should stop playing on the phone,” is what I said. What I meant was “get off my phone.” Much like old men say, “get off my lawn,” just not as old or angry.
In a defensive move he replied, “You say the phone is bad for my brain and you’re on it all the time!”
“I’ve done enough harm to my brain, I think I’ll be okay.” You are witnessing my brilliant parenting skills at work right there in that response. Eek!
So, he asked, “Why is it bad for my brain?” Oh, the fight is on!
“I’ll tell you what, when you finish Grad School, you can play on the phone all you want,” I answered.
Azul loves to bargain and make deals, so intrigued he asked, “How many schools is that?”
Holding up my hand and raising a finger for each one, “Well, you’re in Elementary School now, then there is Middle School, High School, Undergraduate School in College and Grad School in College. That’s five.”
“Noooooo! That’s too many. I was thinking when I was eight or nine,” he said, throwing his right-hook in the negotiations.
I laughed and gave in to the winner. “Okay, we’ll talk about it when you’re eight or nine.”
Treat Your Children With Tenderizer
My little partner Azul and I recently went to a casual happy hour ping pong tournament to do some much-needed visiting and mingling with other adults. And yes, of course I took him, I take him everywhere with me, plus he really is a good little date and is now six years old. On the way home I said, “Thanks for being my date this evening.”
He replied in his high-pitched little kid voice, “You need to pay me.”
I said, “What? I need to pay you for taking you out? I’ll pay you with love and caring and tenderness.”
“I’d rather have a hundred dollars,” he announced.
“Yeah?” I said giggling and scrunching up my face in the rearview mirror so he could see my displeasure with his reaction.
Azul decided to change his tune and said, “Okay, I’ll take the love, and what else?”
“Caring and tenderness,” I answered in the sweetest mommy tone I could muster up.
All of a sudden he shuddered in his booster chair in the back and grabbed on to his seat belt as if it was the only thing he could find that would save him. “Ahhhhhh! No!” he said through his teeth and smiled fearfully.
“Why not?” I asked in confusion, while I turned around to look at my cowering child.
Still holding on to the “belt of life” (a.k.a. seat belt), he asked, “Doesn’t that mean to eat someone?”
“No, Babies” (I call him that sometimes), “not to tenderize in order to eat you. To be tender, which is to be soft and gentle.” And I touched his knee that was closest to the driver’s seat.
He relaxed, laughed and agreed, “Okay, love, caring and tenderness.”
Carmelina Hart 