Car-versations with Preschoolers
A conversation in the car (car-versation) with one of my twins en route to the wading pool:
Meg: Mom, when you and Dad are dead, and Aunt Stephanie is dead, can Uncle Ben be our Daddy?
Mom: ………..Holy cow, Megan.
It is important to interrupt here and point out that she just met Uncle Ben for the first time last week.
Megan: I can’t wait!
Mom: You can’t wait till Daddy and I are dead?
Megan: ‘sigh’ Yeah. I can’t wait till Uncle Ben is my Uncle when you’re dead.
Mom: Meg, Uncle Ben is going to be your uncle when he and Aunt Stephanie get married. No one has to die.
Glad to know she’s going to be just fine in the event of my untimely death. “For every negative there is a positive,” and so on…
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I have decided that I am going to start a parenting class. There will be a whole series covering the usual stuff—birth, sleep, sadness, regret, etc. Then, in the final class when everybody thinks they’ve got this s$%# on lock-down and they are ready to go, I prepare them for the toughest challenge of parenting a young child. It’s time to play “Questions From A Preschooler!” OH YEAH! And you thought you were bad, huh? Now who wants to give me advice on how to get my kid to sleep? That’s what I THOUGHT.
It will be an oral exam, and we will do it while driving on the highway, with me in the back seat asking the questions at a pitch and intensity typically heard only when evacuating a nursing home during a fire.
Here are the questions. Are you ready? Doesn’t matter, here we go:
1. What is a chicken enchilada called? And also, what is a chicken?
2. What is this cut on my finger called?
3. Why?
4. Why?
5. Why?
6. When is next week?
7. So, the day after tomorrow?
8. Two days after tomorrow?
9. I am going to say the days of the week. Stop me when I get to next week. Okay?
10. Where do socks come from?
11. Can I have a gronlong?
12. No — a GRON-long. Can I have a GRON-long?
13. A GRONLONG! GRONLONG GRONLONG GRONLONG!!!!!!
14. Did you know that the word “right” has the word “right” in it?
15. When you die, will you still be my mommy/daddy?
16. I’ve decided I don’t want to wear pants when we get to the mall. Convince me otherwise.
17. Good job. I shall wear pants. But I won’t go to the mall.
18. Mall or pants – your call. YOU CANNOT HAVE BOTH.
19. What does that word “sexy” mean?
20. Excellent. I have some more questions for you about your vagina/penis, but I will wait to ask those at Pizza Hut.
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Have your own ‘car-versation’ to share? Please comment below.
Meredith Bland is the mother of twins, born in 2008. Her popular blog, Pile of Babies, received a 2012 Golden Teddy Award from ParentMap magazine as one of their readers’ favorites.
