Now that we've (once again) got a daughter who's just starting out in school, we get a second chance to hear all of the great stories and adventures from Senior Kindergarten. None of this is made up, except the names and unless my 5-year-old correspondent (who I will call 'D' - for daughter) made it up.
The boy who can pick up the whole school
"There's a boy at school who can pick up the whole school", reported D the other day. Not sure what she meant, I probed for more details. D continued, "He told us he can pick up the whole school. Into the air. By picking it up." Then she added, "He's 4", because that's an important detail.
I can just imagine this boy, standing around with the 5ers, and they're all chatting about their various exploits: "I have a wiggly tooth." "I stuck my finger in my bum" (more on that one later). "I have a cat". When this poor 4-year-old, in a rush to keep up, blurts out "I can pick up the whole school." Heads slowly rotate towards him as his more seasoned classmates mull over the news. "Impressive, Dude," one of them likely says.
So I asked D if she believed him. She thought for a moment, then said "no, because it's attached to all of the other buildings."
Didn't think of that, did you little man? No way you can pick up a whole strip plaza.
The friend who stuck a finger where it shouldn't be stuck
D asked her mom (my wife, of course), "Does my bum hole go all the way into my body?" Her mom did what she always does when confronted with one of these tricky questions, she blew it off, then sent an e-mail to everyone in the family telling them all about this cute thing D had asked (I prefer blogging).
Later, when I heard about the question (not having been included in the e-mail), I chided my wife for not asking where the question was coming from. After all, she might have been worrying about something, or imagining something gross about how her body works.
Being the responsible father that I am, I asked. (Aside: I was also the responsible parent who took it upon himself to have 'the talk' with our eldest when she was old enough. And I had to make a lot of it up because my parents never had 'the talk' with me.)
D got a cute little smirk on her face (where else would it be?) and revealed that a friend had bragged about sticking a finger there. She also hinted that she was thinking about trying it too.
To answer her question, we went upstairs to consult a picture book she has about how the human body works. Alas, no good bum pictures.
We then turned to Google and searched for "pictures to show your child how a bum works" (or something like that). We got sidetracked when we saw a link about how to teach your child how to wipe his or her bum. Big mistake. Back to the search. This time we tried "pictures for children of bum anatomy" (trying to avoid the wrong kinds of bum pictures, of course). We found some good pictures and learned that your bum hole doesn't go all the way into your body.
We ultimately agreed that it's probably not a good idea to put anything up there. And that we'd wash our hands more rigorously and more frequently at school.
Princesses are real and they live in Florida
Schoolyard chatter has it that princesses are real and they live in Florida. This has been confirmed by several of the kindergarteners first-hand. They also vacation in California sometimes, which is where D saw some of them (we have pictures to prove it).
Apparently, one of the more street-smart children voiced a dissenting opinion ("they're people in costumes", or some such nonsense), but that kid has no credibility.
(As an aside, I'll tell you that being a smart-ass Dad, it's tough when your 5-year-old looks you in the eye and says "Princesses are real and they live in Florida" not to say "Yes, and some live in Thornhill too." But I didn't. I would never say such a thing.)
Oops, we missed "show-and-share"
D told me that we forgot to send her to school with something for "show-and-share" (what used to be called "show-and-tell").
"It was about Fall".
I told her that it was a shame that we didn't send anything in because that's a really good topic. I didn't tell her that it's not our fault when she forgets to bring something in for show-and-share, and that she's got to take responsibility for things like that. We like to prevent our kids from feeling responsible for things, after all.
Instead, I made a wee joke: "Because you didn't have something to show, did you fall down a lot instead?"
Again, the little smirk: "Yes, but that's not the same kind of fall." (I like the fact that first she said "Yes".)
Then I asked what other kids had shown-and-shared.
"There were lots of leaves".
I felt less bad.
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