My 11 year-old daughter returned from a Girl-Scout trip to Savannah and returned to me her unspent pocket-money that we provided to her. A few well-crumpled bills and a handful of change was dropped onto the table. Upon hearing the change jingle on the table, I said “something doesn’t sound right”, and I pawed through twenty-or-so coins to discover a Canadian quarter, which I help up with an “Ah-Hah!”
It seemed like a real rabbit-out-of-the-hat moment for her. I explained it as “it’s one of those things we Dads just know”.
I was talking with a friend of mine’s daughter’s little girl (okay, her granddaughter.) whom I had never met before. She was around six years old. She was bright and extroverted, so we got to talking on many topics. I wish I could remember how exactly we got on the subject, but we somehow were discussing nutrition, and one thing I said made her eyes go wide in classic kid astonishment – “We’re MADE of protein?”
It was a year ago, but while staying at my son’s house, the flush arm broke in the basement toilet. I went and bought a replacement and asked my granddaughter if she wanted to watch me fix it. In the process, I explained how the whole mechanism works together to flush and refill. “How come you know so much, Grandpa?” Gave me a swelled head, it did.
I cashiered for a woman and her young (maybe 10 year old) daughter. The mother commented on how fast I did it. I said “I bet you didn’t realize I’m doing it with only one hand,” and explained about my disabled left hand. I then said “People told me I couldn’t do this job. I figured out a way. I never say I can’t do it until after I try to figure out a way I can do it.”
The daughter was totally silent during this exchange, but then said “That is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. I’m going to remember that.”
Conversation with a 7-year-old this morning, who is going to camp this summer, and likes swimming best. I asked him if he was scared when he first started learning to swim, and he said yes (actually, hi s mom answered for him). I told him that all baby animals naturally know how to swim when they born, and you can throw baby animals in the water and they will swim naturally and not drown. And that on South Pacific islands, babies are thrown in the ocean after a couple of weeks, and learn to swim by themselves.
tl;dr: In September, I started writing my kindergartener a story one note at a time in his lunch. The story involved time travel, quests and running questions. Through a combination of pyrotechnics and other special effects, tons of planning, props and actual items, the story concluded and then came to life on Fathers Day.
It wasn’t that amazing in that he knows Uncle Jay and Auntie Nava have his back, but he found the information itself amazing.
“Figuring what I want to do when I grow up” is one of the biggest quests of childhood. The Nephew (10yo) has been saying for more than a year that he wants to be a primary school teacher. Whether he will actually do that or not, his relatives on the paternal side consider this is an interest worth exploring; even if he happened to be interested in it for the wrong reasons (he’s not), it would be good to go over why is he interested. His maternal side isn’t so positive: Uncle Moron is being a jerk as usual, 1.Grandma isn’t clear on what’s involved (but at least she isn’t negative, she has his back but isn’t sure how to have it) and the kid’s mother is completely against it.
One of the last times we had a whole-family meal at my mother’s, Nephew and SiL arrived arguing about it “what you have to do is study something else and then get a Masters in teaching and that way you can be a secondary school teacher or you can do the something else” “but I want to be a primary school teacher, and that means going directly to teacher’s school. And you said I have to study in Saragossa, and there is a teacher’s school there, so I can!” “but if you go to teacher’s school, all you can do is be a primary school teacher! What if you don’t like it?!” “:dubious:…”
Uncle Jay “there’s other things he’d be able to do, though. Such as any job that requires a Degree, but doesn’t specify in what. A lot of administrative jobs, for example.” (He’s in business administration)
“Or IT consulting. Or write books and manuals. Or teach adult education…” (I’m in IT consulting, write lots of manuals and train lots of grown ups) "I could do jobs like yours, if I don’t like teaching primary school? Maybe not the same but similar?"
I understand SiL still isn’t happy about it, but we took away her biggest argument. Last time I saw the kid, he greeted me with a bounce and a “hello! I still want to be a primary school teacher! :D”
This week I’m in charge of games for VBS. The director came to me this morning and asked if I’d take a new kid under my wing as a helper. Of course I said yes. Well, today was carnival day and I was doing bits and pieces as an homage to Grease.
(Which is perfectly fine for church, I tell you. Why do you ask?) One has a limbo pole and my new little sidekick thought it was the coolest thing ever to mimic me saying “How low can you go?” in the deepest baritone his 12 year old self can muster. I think we’ll be fast friends always.
I was at lunch the other day with a friend and her son, age 11, recently-sprung from elementary school. I made a bet with him: I told him he could have a dollar bill, if he could get it out of the package it was in without tearing the package OR the bill. Before meeting, I had origami-ed a water bomb, with the dollar inside. Due to all the intricate folds, I thought it would amuse AND confound the kid. He studied it for a minute or two, and mirabile dictu proceeded to unfold the cube, in the precise reverse order in which I had constructed it. Dollar liberated and a big smile at his cleverness. I WAS going to ask him to reconstruct the bomb, but I had already been shown up once.
Nephew: What’s this?
Me: That’s Gumby. When I was a kid he had his own TV show.
Nephew: When you were a kid?
Me: Yes, and he had an orange horse named Pokey.
Nephew (amazed): You were a kid like me?
