Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Sister, suddenly grabs me in a hug: "I love you, Mommy!"

Me, surprised by the suddenness: "Oh, I love you, too!"

Sister, pulling back and looking very serious: "I still love you even though you are mean to me."

Uh-oh. She is setting me up.

Me: "I'm mean to you?"

Sister, very assuredly: "Uh-huh. But I am mean to you."

Me, a little confused: "You are?"

Sister, nodding her head: "Uh-huh. But Big Brother and Tank are more mean to you because boys are meaner."

Nope. She is setting her brothers up. I wonder when the fall will be?

Shaping the Next Generation

Their little minds are absorbing information at an alarming speed as they grow and experience this world and society around them. We have to teach them so much that is not inherent or instinct. They need to be taught to be kind, say 'please' and 'thank you', to tie their shoes, and how to make the perfect peanut butter and honey sandwich. (The secret is to mix the honey with the peanut butter on one side and then put honey alone on the other side....)

And you kind of know this when you become a parent. But you are still in awe when you have a monumental moment of passing on your acquired knowledge and experience to your offspring. You know it will be a moment that changes their young lives and expands their thirsty minds and sets them on the path to ultimate enlightenment and profound happiness. And you can't help but be transformed by the moment yourself.

"No, Honey, it is not a thief that is also a camel. A 'camel thief' is a thief that steals camels."

Don't Blame Me!

As I watched Tank stomp around in his rain boots, roaring and waving his arms, talking and singing to nobody in particular, I wondered at his imagination and murmured to Big Daddy, "Where does that come from?"

Sister piped up from across the room: "It didn't come from me!" 

He's Advanced

Tank is now three years old. We have always known that he is advanced, and we have considered private, academic-accelerated physics-immersion preschool. But we were concerned it would not challenge him. I mean, this kid has his own language! In this language he has developed and nobody can interpret because we are just not smart enough, he tells epic stories, delivers eloquent monologues, and roars like nobody's business. What other spoken language in the human world has a roar as a means of expression? None of them! You have to cross over into the animal kingdom to find a roar. This. Kid. Is. A-mazing.

As he has aged to catch up with his heightened mental capacities, he has shown an awareness of social consciousness and has realized that he has to dial it back, take it down several notches, and communicate with others on their level. As such, he is starting to translate his language to American English at an alarmingly rapid rate. 

A particularly proud moment came the other day, when he was rewriting a computer game on my laptop. The computer was not responding to his commands, probably because it is a year old and WAY behind Tank's level of programming. Anyway, he got frustrated, and he succinctly summed up his feelings, translated them into American English, and yelled at the computer screen, "AW, SH!"

We are expecting his first college acceptance letter any day now.

And That's How It Is Done

Tank: "Drest? Go ow-side?"

Me: "No, it's naptime. You can get dressed and go outside after you take a nap."

Tank: "Weally?"

Me: "Yes, really."

And he ran upstairs and jumped into bed.

What just happened? Who is this kid?