Archive for the ‘conversation’ Tag
July 09 2012
My 8 year old went to sleep with a flashlight.
He’s never been afraid of the dark. He has a nightlight, but he’s never one to think monsters were hiding under his bed. Except something has changed.
He still doesn’t fear monsters. That’s not what’s hiding in the shadows of his room. Instead, they’re miniature stickmen. Jumping from his toy chest and lunging towards him in galloping leaps.
And of course, all of this had to happen at midnight.
“I saw something”, Jedi whispered to me, coming in my room as I was just about to close my eyes after a long day. “It was a little stick man”, he relayed in detail, then demonstrated its striding movements.
“Go back to bed”, I replied, unsympathetically I realize.
“I can’t. I don’t want the stickman to jump out at me again. Can I sleep with you?”
No.
So I told him I had a better idea. “Take this flashlight”, I instructed while walking him back to his room. “If you see something move, just shine it on whatever it is. It’ll disappear and you’ll see there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Every night since, he’s gone to sleep with that flashlight. But he hasn’t seen the stickman since.
May 04 2012
Wednesday was my first ever foray into the pick-up line at Buzz’s school. Or any school, for that matter. I had been with my mom that day, so she happened to be along for the ride as well. It was obviously her first time in a pick-up line, too, and a learning experience for us both.
“I called his school earlier, to tell them I’m going to be there to get Buzz and to make sure I know where the pick-up line is”, I said to my mom in general conversation.
“They have a pick-up line?”, my mom wondered, astounded. Though I remember her picking me up at school long ago, this was now apparently a bizarre concept.
A short time later as we made the turn around the back of the school, we drove slowly past to make sure we were headed towards the correct exit. Noticing a few cars waiting in line, my mother asked, “Is that the pick-up window?”.
“It’s not a pick-up window, Mom. A pick-up line. He’s not an order of fast food”, as we laughed and pulled in place, rolling with what we had started.
“I’d like one Buzz to go, please.”
“Can I get fries with that?”
“And can you make sure there’s extra napkins? He’s kind of messy.”
April 24 2012
I am participating in Momalom’s Five for Five. Today’s topic is on Words.
“I’m gonna kill you!”, my 5 year old son states, charging after his older brother in play. He’s thrust in the role of the bad guy, on the hunt for the arch-nemesis hero. But I have to remind him, we don’t say that word.
“Say ‘get him’, Buzz. You’re going to get him. You know we don’t say that other word.” Boys will be boys, it’s what they do. Like cops and robbers. Good versus evil. While it means the same, I realize, just a simple substitution of words sounds so much better.
Jedi overhears my correction and stops mid-run, an argument rising. “I don’t have to say it like that, though. Because that’s the baby way of saying it.”
“Everyone says it like that. We don’t want to kill, or hurt, anyone. Even when we’re playing”, I explain again.
“No, that’s for babies”, my 8 year old son continues, puffing out his chicken chest in a stance of misplaced power. “And I’m a big boy.”
Unable to contain myself, I laugh. “You are a big boy, but you’re not that big. You’re getting bigger every day, though. For now, and always, you’re still my baby.”
“Fine, how about I’m a medium-sized boy?”
“Yes, you’re my medium-sized boy”, I agree. “But we still don’t say that word.”
March 19 2012
I’m writing this because I was told to.
“I thought of something”, Jedi said to me with a smile. “Do you want to hear it?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know what those little pieces of fire are?”, he asked, touching his fingers together to illustrate how small he meant.
“You mean embers?”, I offered, unaware that his question was probably meant more as a rhetorical direction in conversation.
Rolling his eyes in a way he’s learned to master recently, he continued. “No, not ambers”, he huffed and I didn’t have the heart to correct his pronunciation. “They’re called nanoflames.”
“Oh.”
“Nanoflames. It takes like a hundred nanoflames to make a big fire. I made that up all on my own.”
“Good job, kiddo. That’s a great word. But it’s time for bed now.”
As I tucked him in under his covers, he made me promise. “You need to help me spread the word about nanoflames. You need to tell everyone you know. Put it on your blog! Because I know you have a blog and they need to know about nanoflames.”
So this is me, spreading the word on my blog. Just one nanoflame with the hopes of it catching fire. Pass it on.
February 16 2012
After weeping over how grown up my oldest is getting earlier last week, Jedi later came home with a stuffed zebra he acquired at his school’s Valentine shop. With all smiles, he literally skipped his way to me.
“I got to go to the school store!”, he exclaimed, the animal’s paws dancing behind my son’s bouncing back.
“What’d you get?”, I replied in turn, not able to see fully what he had at the time.
Bringing it to light from behind his back, he beamed, “A zebra! He was my bus buddy on the bus!”. It was a mohawked zebra at that, obviously in need of a wild handle to go along with his appearance.
The rest of the evening, he wouldn’t allow Bus Buddy, as it came to be referred, to leave his side. It sat next to him while he ate, it watched him play on the computer, he gave it a voice and put on a show with his sister and her bear. Thus, it was no surprise when he wanted to take Bus Buddy to bed with him. Alas, as we were ending the night, I decided that his zebra couldn’t go without a proper name any longer.
Now my kids have never been the outlandish sort with the monikers they choose. Still, I tried. “You know, Bus Buddy needs a name. We can’t just call him Bus Buddy forever. How about… Buster? Get it, Bus… ter?”. I thought it was rather creative suggestion. Jedi didn’t feel the same, however.
“No”, he refused flatly, clearly a better, crazier idea in mind. A zebra with a mohawk, the options were endless. Or as far as his imagination would take him.
“I know!”, he said. “I’ll call him Zebra Buddy!”
His imagination didn’t take him very far.
Welcome to Kid Things. I'm Crystal. A mom to 3 living in the Midwest USA. Here, I like to tell stories from our days and share what we enjoy...
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