Kid Talk

Every Thursday morning from 9 AM until just before the lunch bell, I participate in a french language reading program at my children's school. Aside from it being a wonderfully rich and rewarding experience personally, it is also a great way for me to observe the children (my own included) in their natural habitat. Children will show you who they are if you pay close enough attention and because I am an adult, they often forget that I am even in the room about 10 seconds after my presence is acknowledged. This is when my needy, childish wounded-child side is most put out and my selfish, self-interested writer side is best served.

That's where you come in, dear reader.

Here are few excerpts from some overhead (okay, eavesdropped) conversations.

Convo #1

Girl #1: How come we have to read these books?

Girl #2: So that our parents can feel good about making us learn French all day.

Girl #1: Yeah. I thought so.

Convo #2

Boy #1: I am going to Colorado Springs next week.

Boy #2: How far is that from Florida.

Boy #1 (sagely): About 2 Nintendo Games away.

Boy #2: Right. Why are you going there?

Boy #1: My dad has a conference call. (pause) He's the President of the United States

This is the part where I butt in like an interrupting cow because I can take it no longer.

Me: So your dad's Barack Obama, huh?

Boy #1 (without missing a beat) Yup.

Me. Tell him I said, Hey.

Boy #1: I will. (pause) Does he know you?

Dinner Anyone?

Someone told me once that you could make anything on a barbeque (Okay, maybe not a baby). Guess what?

It's true 'cause I made a pizza on one. Crazy........

Old Pipes

old sewage pipe
Originally uploaded by TTL!

Today is my birthday which means I'm getting old. Here is an example of the attitude that I can look forward to from the young people.

Benoit (my son): Look at my guns, Gaga!
Gaga (my mother-in-law): What are guns?
Benoit: Arm muscles! Daddy has guns and Mummy has pipes.
Gaga: Oh, I see. (pause) What does Gaga have, then?
Benoit: Old pipes.

Sigh.

Dance World

mom practacing her pole dance routine
Originally uploaded by dale4232000

For the past two weeks, I have found myself sucked into a sub-culture that has supplied me with no end of fascination. It is the world of the dance competition and - Oh lawd, people! - is it a wormhole of unending dips, dives, turns and sashays.

Here are some simple observations I've made in the course of my first week in dance competition world:

10) No one should adapt Quest for Fire into a dance routine. No one, people!

9) When you choose a Def Leppard song as the inspiration for your routine, the stripper comparisons will flow like manna from the heavens. Just sayin.

8) Purple, sateen as a basis for the dance costume is a big bowl of wrong.

7) When a child asks her studio to build a routine around a Miley Cyrus song, it is said studio's responsibility - nay, duty! - to say no.

6) Is there an unwritten rule among judges in Dance-Comp World that if you must wear crazy-almost-hooker-like footwear?

5) Just cuz Brittany Spears does it in her video doesn't make it okay for you to reproduce it on the stage with a 6 year old.

4) Holst's The Planets is a wonderful piece of music but a little over the top for a ballet solo.

3) If your child doesn't win a medal, you probably shouldn't buy her one after the competition is over. Just a suggestion.....

2) No winking at the judges. None.

1) If your child asks you to take out another dancer with a pipe (I believe it is now refered to as "Pulling a Galooli") you should not pause contemplatively before answering in the negative.

i Drone

Superman ~
Originally uploaded by FatoOoma Qatar ~

So it's happened. Officially. I now own a cellphone. That works. An iPhone, too, no less. I am a telephone Luddite no longer. Sigh.

The problem is that now I have been indoctrinated. Fully. How do I know? Well here are some tell-tale signs:

Have I used the iPhone to check out a band name when stumped? Check.

I have I used the term "apps" in a sentence without rolling my eyes even once? Check.

Have I thought twice before letting another adult touch said iPhone? Check.

Have I told the children flat out that they cannot touch it? Check.

Have I turned the car around after more than 10 kilometers upon realization that I have left iPhone behind?

Yes, to all of the above. See? Ruined.

Call me on my crack phone, though, okay?

Book of Grace

Last night at dinner, my dear friend, Jennifer, told be about a project recently embarked upon by one of my many secret girl crushes, Suzan-Lori Parks, to promote her newest play at the Public Theater in New York. In the play , The Book of Grace, the title character keeps a book of things she sees as evidence of good. The book includes newspaper clippings, photos and stories of things that remind Grace there is good in the world.

Brilliant. Idea.

Here is one that what would definitely be in mine:

Once, after a play date with one of his friends, my son asked me point blank what religion we practiced. Thomas (his best friend and a PK) and Elliot are Anglican and when Charlie's Grampa passed we went to the United Church, so what were we? I wasn't raised in the church and my husband is a lapsed Catholic, so I was stumped. What were we? Heathens? Radiohead fans? MAC- users? He was fixing me with such a soulful, earnest look that I didn't want to brush him off with a joke. What to say?

We are kind, I told him. And our religion is Kindness. And I expect you to practice it every day. For the rest of your life. Can you do that? He nodded his head and promised me he would.

That would definitely be on the first page.

What's in your Book of Grace?