Circular Reference

Part of the school day routine is that when it's over, you ask the Boy how his day was and he'll reply (in a thoroughly bored tone) Guuuud. And then you ask him what he did or what he learned and he'll tell you that he doesn't remember. Which is when Daddy usually says, "Then what the heck are we sending you to school for?" which usually prompts a giggle.

Sometimes if you get the conversation going right, you can mine that little brain and you come up with diamonds. Schooling miraculously becomes apparent. And then there's the conversation the Boy had with Mamma:

Boy: Did you know that the Earth is a rock? We live on a rock?

Mamma: It is? Then how do all the grass and trees grow?

Boy (full of grade one attitude): The rock's on the inside. And it's not a circle, either or you'd drive right off it.

Mamma: What is it?

Boy (still full of grade one attitude): Don't you know your shapes?  It's a spear. Not un sphere, because that's francais and we're talking english.

Mamma: A spear?  Like a spear you chuck?

Boy (puzzled): Like an egg?

Mamma (now also puzzled): What? An egg?

Boy: You said chucky egg.

I figure that somewhere up in heaven, Lou Costello has his TV set permanently tuned in to watch my family.

What's French for "Fambly"?

As a parent, I discover that it's more fun doing homework when it's not you doing the homework.

The Boy's weekly exercise is to read his two french books and then when he's done, to write a sentence in his "cahier". It can be a sentence straight from story or the child can be more imaginative and write down a thought that was suggested by the story.

So it's a late afternoon and the Boy and I and the sister-cats are home alone having finished the pitiful little supper that we usually have when Mamma's at work and Daddy cooking (if'n you call peanut butter sandwiches "cooking"). The Boy finishes reading his story called "Ma Petite Soeur" which is about all the things a big sister does with her little sister. Je mange avec ma petite souer. Je lit avec ma petite souer. Je joue avec ma petite souer. Like that. He finishes and I start a little discussion hopefully to prompt some thoughts about the sentence he'll write. I say that since he's an only child he does all those things with mommy and daddy. Hoping maybe Daddy gets a plug in the sentence? Maybe. So, I ask. What does he think he wants to write as his sentence?

Boy: Ma petite souer est un chat!

A Strong Stomach.

Yesterday, I saw my shadow.

Unfortunately, this didn't mean that we were going to get an extra 6 weeks of summer, it only afforded me another view of my protruding front porch of a stomach. Getting old sucks, by the way.

After my half-round (which didn't go well) I picked the Boy up from his after school program. We pulled into the driveway and there was lots of stuff to take into the house. And the Boy left his window down. So in all I made two trips to fish stuff out of the car. The Boy watched me from the front door of the house. When he started talking, I had a pretty good idea where the conversation was going to end up.

Boy: Daddy, you have a really strong bum.

Me: Yeah? I do?

Boy: Yes. When you sat down in the car I saw it go way down and when you got out I saw the car go up again.

What's In A Name

The Boy is becoming more aware of golf and the different Tours. Today he advised me that he'd have to come home from school early because he saw on TV that coverage of the Canadian Open starts at one o'clock. I had to be the one to break it to him.

This past weekend he was listening to the results of the Deutsche Bank Open. The commentator said that the winner was Olin Browne.

Boy: His name is Olin Browne but he should be named Holin One.

The Bathing Suit Conundrum

For his few weeks of swimming lessons, Mamma bought the Boy a brand-new Roots bathing suit for the summer. The bathing suit was around for only a little while before it suddenly and mysteriously went missing. Days passed. Weeks. A month. Mamma was baffled as to where that swim suit could have gone. Weekly she asked if anyone had run across it. She described over and over what she was doing leading up to the discovery that it was gone. I described the last time I'd seen it: putting it into the washing machine. She confirmed having taken it out and then doing .... what? What was it? Where was that suit?

Over the labour day weekend, the Boy decided he wanted me to inflate this wading pool I'd bought from Canadian Tire several years ago. He (meaning I) would get it all set up and invite his friend over. So I got the pool out and got it blown up, and then the little inflatable basketball net, then the other smaller deeper pool. He got it all.

I was in the storage room where we keep all the suitcases, my drums, the freezer, the tools and assorted junk when the boy picked up my drumsticks and started banging on the drums.

Boy: Look Daddy, I can play on these.

As I'm rummaging through the shelf I note that whatever he's hitting now has muffled the sound of the drums. I turn and look, and he's tapping on the Roots bathing suit which is sitting there on top of the floor tom.

Me: Oh. My. Goodness. Go take those and show them to Mommy.

The Boy rushes upstairs with trunks in hand.

Boy: Mamma! Look what Baby Bird found!

Mamma: Oh my goodness! Where did you find them?

Boy: On Dadda's drum!

Mamma: I looked everywhere for those!

Boy: Not on the drum.

The Tooth, the Whole Tooth and Nothing But the Tooth

It finally happened. The tooth that has been so loose finally came out. I was frantic to keep him from always wiggling that tooth, because once it was out, that was forever the end of that beautiful little smile. Baby teeth smiles, especially his baby teeth smile, are very cute and beautiful. I was desperate for it to last for as long as it could.

But like the song says, nothing beautiful lasts, and there he was one day out on the swing at Poppa and Granny's house, I was nowhere in sight (playing golf) and there he was, wiggling it again, pulling on that tooth again - when to the Boy's great surprise and excitement, it painlessly and bloodlessly came out in his fingers.

When I came home, he craned his little neck back as far as he could and grinned his biggest grin so that I could see the new hole in that beautiful little smile.

You could see that the new tooth, the grown-up tooth, the tooth he'd have as an adult, was already coming in.

But despite that new tooth, he's still just a little Boy. So we wrapped that small little tooth in some tissue and put it under his bed at night and the next morning the Tooth Fairy had left two dollars.

It prompted some inspired discussion around the breakfast table.

Granny: I wonder what the Tooth Fairy does with all those teeth?

Boy: I don't know. Maybe she saves them and gives them to little babies who don't have any.