Pick Your Favorite Color

What's your favorite color? Wait a minute. Start over. If you're sitting down to a game of Sorry, what color would you be? I'm ALWAYS red. My oldest son is always blue. Daughter gets yellow. We convinced her a long time ago that yellow was pretty and so she took it, begrudgingly. And now it's the baby's turn to play. "You get green, Charlie." (My husband gets a wadded up piece of paper or sometimes a tiny lego piece that happens to be sitting on the floor next to us at the time. He's the 6th kid in his family. Perhaps that's been chosen for him for awhile now.)

Anyhow, Charlie gets green. No choice. No good luck feelings at all for the poor kid. Green. So, after a few months of playing along, green has now become Charlie's favorite color. For everything. He will only drink out of a green straw. He only colors with the green ("bean") crayon. And he notices "bean" everywhere. "Hey, my Deigo unders have bean on dem!" So now green is his favorite color. I even heard him tonight when he was looking for a book to read, and he said, "hey...dat guy has a bean shirt on. He just wike me!" Green is his new i.d. But it was chosen for him. How can he really like it? 

Easy. The only reason my older brother liked the Minnesota Vikings growing up was because someone gave him sheets with Viking helmets and footballs all over them. It's almost as if someone pre-thought out the whole ordeal. "Here you go, son. Welcome to your 8th birthday. You shall now become a Minnesota Viking fan." And then my next brother got Oakland Raiders sheets and that set that love affair in motion too. But really...I'm pretty sure the sheets were on sale at the local Emporium and they looked good. That's why they got purchased in the first place. 

So, poor Charlie. He may end up with a lifetime of decisions already made for him. I hope they're the right ones. I hope that someday his future girlfriend doesn't dump him for having such a lame favorite color. I personally love all things green. Maybe she'll think he's brilliant for picking it. Or...having it picked for him. I don't know. But I'll have to make a mental note of it all...must let Charlie create his own favorites. Must let Charlie be his own person. Must go make Charlie a new green gift from me to him. He picked a good color to love...

A Funny Story About a Little Girl, (or a Little Story About a Funny Girl)

Oh geez. Kindergarten has arrived for my middle child, Maggie. It's very exciting for all of us. She's one who was made to socialize and go to public school. READY Freddy. I think her year of preschool last year could make for a best selling book. I had to start a podcast with her last year just to satisfy her craving for "MORE." May as well start this year with a wee story of her on her first day.

Actually, her first day was more like a mini-conference. The teacher broke the class into small groups and we stayed for an hour, just to check out the room and get to meet a few other kids and parents. Just a casual meeting. But of course, I had prepped Maggie about making a "nice girl" impression on her teacher. 

Let's just begin by saying that she is in an "I don't want to match" mode right now and so she arrived in pink camoflauge shorts, last year's orange shirt with a sequined pumpkin on it (it's only early September), red polka dot knee high socks, and hot pink mary jane shoes. Oh, and she has naturally curly (BIG) hair which she refuses to brush. Take a moment to visualize that. 

We arrived and spotted the teacher who bent down to grab Maggie's hand and guide her through the ropes in the classroom. Maggie was actually very timid and sweet and listened very carefully and smiled appropriately. The desks, the cubbies, here's where your supplies go, mark your milk or lunch order off here, and on and on.  The teacher had already put in so much effort and had gotten the room organized to perfection. Maggie's face was filled with excitement, but she remained fairly quiet. I was happy that we could just blend in with the other kids who were ready for their turn with the teacher. 

Once Maggie was done, she grabbed a picture of a little mouse that could be colored at her desk while the other kids were getting the tour. Maggie's not a big colorer...this will be a challenge for her this year. She gets a bit bored and I can just imagine her getting out of her seat in the middle of any coloring assignment. Most likely, she'll get up and start giving advice to other kids about how they're coloring their picture. The fact that her seat at her table is the only one exactly lined up with the hallway door gives  me a giggle too. She'll be all over the official kindergarten greeting committee for each person who passes by on their way to the cafeteria or the bathroom. In fact, she'll probably find out just where it is that each person intends on going. And she'll report back. All just very factually. No judgement, "Jeremy's been in the potty for 4 1/2 minutes, but Maria's been in there for about 10. Hope everything's o.k." I can hear it now. "I wonder if they washed their hands. I'll go ask them." 

Anyhoo...back at her desk, we noticed that little Audrey Jane would be sitting next to her. Audrey Jane is not there at the moment, but I had filled Maggie in about her on the way to school. Audrey Jane was the niece of friends of ours and she was adopted from China. She also has muscular dystrophy and uses a walker to get around. I'm sure Maggie will love being her helper and I can imagine that it's the best seat in the class.  When we sat down, I told her, "oh hey...Audrey Jane sits next to you! Remember I told you her name before? I know her aunt and uncle." 

And then came Maggie's response. At full volume.

"WHAT?! Suh-weet! I'm next to an orphan!" 

Oh geez. Back peddle. "What? No no, Audrey Jane is not an orphan," I say quietly while giving a look of embarrassment to the other parents, which include the principal and his wife. They've got the perfect girl, quietly unpacking her supplies and putting them away. "She was adopted, hun, not an orphan. Hey, your coloring is going well." 

She went on, "Oh I can't believe it. I'm so excited. I'm next to an orphan!!! Orphan! Orphan! Whee. I wonder if she KNOWS she's an orphan. I'm gonna tell her! She'll love that news!"

Oh shit. Just shut up about the orphan. At this point, all that is echoing through my brain is "orphan orphan orphan..." and it's making me dizzy. Mind you...all of this is announced as if someone accidentally placed the loudspeaker underneath Maggie's chair. 

But then she just put her head down and went back to coloring. I think everyone was relieved that the commotion was over. And probably a bit curious. Was there really an orphan in their classroom? This Maggie girl was the source of the some good scoop. 

Then, after a couple minutes of actual serenity where they were all coloring and the room was getting a good dose of Raffi's "Brush Your Teeth," Maggie slammed her red orange crayon down and put her head up with a look of shock and horror on her face. "I'll bet she's sorry she was adopted!" Before I could ask why or wipe the shock and horror off of MY face, she added, "She could've stayed in Bejing. She MISSED the o-LYM-pics!!!" And back to coloring she went. 

Wha?! Um...was that funny or smart? At this point, I wasn't sure. I was still just stunned that she couldn't stop saying these wacky things. I looked around and saw the other moms give looks of...I'm not exactly sure. Pity? I've been there with ya? Or was it more - I've got to remember to ask the teacher to put my son WAY across the room from the wacky girl. ?? Not sure. 

I AM sure that kindergarten will be a year to remember. Good or bad. Maggie will see to it that everyone is on their toes. 

When I Was Your Age...

It seems that most of us had a parent or grandparent at some point in our lives who would tell us about life in their day. I'm sure there were interesting stories that were told - my own grandpa used to tell great ones, although I'm positive his were all made up (you can't really pull the guts out of a recently killed horse and hide from the enemy in his body cavity, can you?) But I'm talking about the stories that were meant to make us feel bad for how we live today. 

You know..."when I was your age, I had to walk uphill to school, both ways...through the snow," or "back in my day, we worked all day until dinner and woke up and did it all over again the next day!" Stuff like that. And as you listened to it, all you could think was, "well, fine then. I'm glad I don't have to do that." Tra la la. What a carefree life I live. Whee! 

And so recently I heard myself explaining to my own children about "hardships" of my youth. Wha?! Did I have it hard? Apparently so. Here's the deal: My kids refuse to eat watermelon. Even the seedless kind. There are still little soft (and completely unnoticeable) white seeds in them which they demand be picked out by ME ahead of time (doesn't happen). I find myself saying, "you guys don't even KNOW from seeds. When I was little, we had big black hard seeds we had to spit out as we ate." Whatever, they weren't impressed. 

And then we tossed a whole fish on the BBQ, which I had pathetically filleted. As I served it, I repeated the line I'd heard all of my life..."Now, there might be a bone or two in your salmon. Just pick it out of your mouth and it'll still taste good." My kids looked at me with horror on their faces. "You want us to put a BONE in our MOUTHS?? And then pick it OUT??! EWWWW!!!"  Answer, "Um, when I was your age, we didn't have the chance to buy pre portioned fillets with no bones. We had the whole fish. Skin on. Maybe still had a bone in it. Tough it out." 

I got major eye rolls. To be noted, my kids are little. The eye rolling is WAY too early. But perhaps it's just a genetic tendency to think the generations before us are most likely lying to us to get us to do something impossibly fowl. I mean...seriously? You had to get up off of the couch and walk all the way over to the t.v. just to change the channel? And you didn't even know what would be ON the other channels? AND there were only 13 channels? Stuff like that cannot be true. 

What whimpy things will THEIR kids be doing one day to make my kids look like they had it hard? 

Maybe I should keep the snow story in the mix, just for good material's sake.