Those who have been paying attention to the critical minutiae of my life know that I recently attended my cousin’s wedding in Mexico. It was a kid-filled trip, so I had, and overheard, more than the average number of conversations with kids. My favorites were the grown-up-like conversations like the following three.
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My cousin and her daughter:*
When we first met up with my cousins, their daughters had a sudden bout of shyness that was shared by my niece and nephew. These 5 kids have always gotten along really well and always look forward to seeing each other. This trip, they finally realized that they don’t fully share a language. (They’re in the 10-14 year age range where they’re getting adept at awkwardness.)
It took some bullying from the grownups to get them to talk to each other. My cousin encouraged her youngest to talk to my nephew, who is about the same age. In fairness to the little girl, she’s the one who speaks the least English of the lot, but her response to her mother was “I can’t talk to him. He’s a man and men are complicated.” (I really don’t want to contemplate where that came from, thanks. These are the same cousins who were appalled that my brother made his own bed when we were younger. I’m hoping they’ve progressed a bit from that. Oh, and the kids? Once they got started talking, they were the same ol’ gang again.)
*
At the wedding reception: *
So, I’m chatting with my brother and his kids. They wander off and a boy, maybe 8 or 9 years old, walks up to me and says “Hi.” I say "Hi” back and figure he’ll wander away in a moment, but he stares up at me, expecting something more. (Retrospectively, I’m embarrassed that I don’t expect kids to be able to hold conversations.)
“What’s your name?” says I, ever the creative conversationalist.
“A.” says the little kid.
“I’m GT.”
“You’re from the States, right?”( Ah ha, he’d been eavesdropping. Or someone was talking about us.)
“Yes.” (Yeah, I can be pretty complex.)
“So, how did you get to Mexico? Did you fly on a big plane?”
“Yes, and then we took a bus.”
“What kind of plane was it?”
“Umm…I’m not sure. I’ll bet my nephew knows, though.”
“But he doesn’t speak Spanish, does he?” (I vote for eavesdropping.)
“Well, no, but my brother does; he probably knows what kind of plane it was too.” (He did, by the way. Plus he told me that when you get on the plane there’s always a sticker that tells you what kind it is and when it was built. This is not information that I want to know. It’s not like I’m going to march off the plane if I find out the plane was made in 1923.)
“So, was it a 767 or 747 or another number like that?”
“No, it wasn’t one of those.“ (I vaguely remember that it had a letter in it.)
“Well, which airline was it?”
“United.”
“Oh, I have one of their planes.” (I’ll assume he meant a model and not an actual jet…. :D)
*
At the airport, waiting to leave:*
My nephew and I were sitting together, waiting for my brother to come back with food. We were talking about what a nice time we’d had and he took control of the conversation:
“I think it would be nice if teleportation was possible.”
“Me too.” (Did I mention I’m a sparkling conversationalist, especially when I’m only half-awake?)
“If we could travel by teleportation, it would hardly take any time to get here.”
“Yeah, that would really be nice.”
“And I could go home and see the cats when I felt like it." (No mention of Mom, I notice.)
“That would be convenient.”
“And we could spend more time here, too.” (I don’t think he brought up the implied benefit of missing out on air-sickness.)
All of these moments made me smile. I think it’s the earnestness that gets me every time.
It’s Monday again! (How’d that happen?) Share your conversations with precocious kids! And anything else you like.
