Out of the Mouths of Babes

Readers' Odds and Ends

August 2006, Part 2

So close, and yet so far...

A bunch of the kids in our homeschooling park group were goofing off at a friend's house. I was in a corner catching up with some work and half-listening to their conversation. Apropos of absolutely nothing came the following statement from a cheerful, intelligent and easygoing boy of ten, uttered in an upbeat and matter-of-fact tone: "Sometimes I think I'd have a much better life if I was six years old." I jotted it down right there, wanting to at least be sure to remember the words, knowing I'd never quite be able to bring the tone across. There was just something so charming about what he said and how he said it.

Credibility problems...

We were coming out of a restaurant where the air conditioning was really blasting. The night air was breezy. "I'm cold," my son said. "Can I have a hug?"

I felt vaguely insulted, though it did make me laugh. "That's not what hugs are supposed to be for," I said.

Without missing a beat, my son said, "I love you," in exactly the same tone as he'd said he was cold. "Can I have a hug?"

Knock it off...

Overheard from the backseat of the car, where too many kids are crammed into too little space:

Younger Brother -- "Knock, knock."

Older Brother (with exasperated sigh) -- "Who's there?"

Younger Brother -- "I'm annoying."

Older Brother -- "I'm annoying who?"

Younger Brother -- "I'm annoying YOU!"

Hear me roar...

I was relaxing over a cup of tea after dinner one night while my son, as is his wont, wandered around the room enjoying his dessert. (I usually at least try to make him sit down at the table with it, but every now and then the two minutes of quiet are worth the crumbs on the floor.) As he passed behind me to throw something in the trash, he said, "Good cupcake, woman."

Well, if it's a choice between that and working on my grammar...

My daughter's been having a bad couple of weeks in terms of not wanting to sit down and learn. The other day, she sat back in her chair, deep in thought, and said, "Being homeless wouldn't be so bad. I mean, if I don't do my schoolwork and don't learn anything, I'm going to be homeless, right? Well, I don't mind. So I'm not doing lessons any more."

And now, from the department of stuff that's funny in a really, really wrong kind of way...

We don't do corporal punishment in our family. I'm philosophically against it, since I have bitter memories and it never seemed to have any effect except to make me angry -- certainly didn't make me see the error of my ways or anything like that. I also frankly don't want my son getting the idea that it's okay for people to hit people who are littler than they are, since I'm five feet four and my son is showing every sign of growing up to his grandfather's height of six foot three, at least. And I just don't like the relationship it sets up between parents and kids. My son knows who's boss -- hey, I'm the one who has to do the cleaning and the cooking and the getting us to the park on time -- but he doesn't exactly cower in terror when I'm around. He thinks it's the funniest thing in the universe when I "threaten" to spank him.

"That's the third time I've asked you to put that laundry away," I said one morning. "Get it out of here or I'll spank you one clear to the moon."

Instead of laughing and running away, his whole face lit up. "Will you, really?" he asked eagerly.

"What?" I asked incredulously. "You want me to spank you?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Homeschoolers love being spanked."

This was news to me. "They do?"

"Sure," he said. "At the park on Monday, Olivia was up on the monkey bars and she wouldn't come down when her mom told her to. So her mom said she was going to spank her, and Olivia said, 'Great!' and stayed up there."

I tried to explain to my son that Olivia's mother is a lovely ex-model who's as narrow as an arrow, so even if she took it into her head to really spank her daughter, which she wouldn't, Olivia probably wouldn't even feel it. He wasn't convinced, though. It's official now. Homeschoolers love being spanked. Which makes me wonder if I ought to be offering to spank him. If he's good, I mean.

And now, the kind of thing that makes it all worthwhile...

Just a nice Homeschooling Moment for you:

I was telling my boys that they were going to get to stay up really late one night (even later than the "usual late" at our house), and this is what happened.

(BTW, Price and Aubree are two of our school-schooled friends. We've talked in the past about how hard it is to schedule time to see them because their schedules and our are so different, and they go to bed, take naps, and eat meals a lot earlier than we do.)

So...I said, "You guys get to stay up real, real late tonight." They were of course thrilled, and Jason, my four-year-old, said, "Price and Aubree don't get to do that." I said, nope, you're right, they probably wouldn't stay up this late. Jason said, "That's because Price and Aubree have to go to school, but we get to see the world."

Got a funny homeschooling moment or tough question from your kids to share?
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