Why every academic writer should live with a 5 yr old.

So as Ambriel learned to talk and mastered that oh so enormous part of childhood question, "why?", I discovered that I'm the sort of parent who tries to answer every query honestly. While this has led to some sticky situations regarding fictional characters like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, and has forced me to think carefully about which version of the truth I want her to know about, say, where babies come from, the biggest problem I've run into is that she asks about things I don't completely understand myself.

I think it was Gerald Graff who argued that if you can't explain your ideas in a way that someone who knows nothing about them can understand, then you probably don't have as firm a grasp on them as you think. I thought that I understood plenty about the world around me until I started trying to explain it to my daughter.

"How does the gas get from the pump into the car and how does it make the car run?"
"How does my blood work?"
"Why do I need shots to keep me from getting sick?"
"Why are there four seasons?"
"Why does water turn into ice?"
"How do chickens lay eggs?"

Now most of these may not seem like very difficult questions, but they've all given me trouble in their own  ways as I've struggled to find the right words, or realized that I don't know exactly how it works, only that it does. The moments when I don't know are great for teaching her about research, of course, but I hate the thought of losing my status as the all knowing parent, and I also worry about ruining the magic of childhood by making everything too clear and matter of fact.

Still, I was reassured yesterday when one of my explanations seemed to pay off. We've been talking recently about how actors pretend to be other people in order to make movies and shows for us to enjoy because she recognized the same actor in two different movies. I hadn't told her about voice actors, however. As we were watching Apollo 13, though, she cocked her head to one side and said, "He sure does sound a lot like Woody in Toy Story."
"That's because he is." I replied. "His real name is Tom Hanks and he recorded the voice of Woody."
"That's so COOL, Momma! I didn't know that people made the voices!"

I guess there is still some magic, even in how things really work :)

Conversation at 10:00 AM

Me: Hey lazy bones! Are you finally going to wake up?

Ambriel: (sleepy smile)

Me: We are going to have some serious trouble adjusting to the kindergarten schedule in the fall, I think.

Ambriel: Yeah. I'm a "sleep-in."

Me: But you need to be an early bird to make it in school.

Ambriel: But I'm a late bird, Momma!

Bonus conversation:

Me: It seems to be taking you a long time to eat your spaghetti tonight.

Ambriel: Well. Some nights are like that.

Bedtime Query

Just before bed tonight, Ambriel walked up to me holding a small rectangle of paper and asked

"Are you the bank manager?"

I of course burst out laughing because who expects such a question from a five-year-old, especially one whose mother does essentially all of her banking online and uses Kroger as an ATM. Seeing her frustration with me, however, I replied that I was if she wanted me to be. I then returned to reading random posts on facebook, absentmindedly answering the questions she continued to pose.

Ambriel: "What is 20 and 20?"

Me: "Mmm...40."

Ambriel: "What is 2 and 2?"

Me: "4"

Ambriel: "What is 30 and 30?"

Me: [long distracted pause]

Ambriel: [piercing stare into my skull]

Me: "What?"

Ambriel: "If you are going to be the bank manager, you need to know everything about letters!"

Me: "You mean numbers."

Ambriel: "Those, too!" [walks off in a huff]

How Elmo helped me teach my daughter the meaning of sarcasm.

Last night before bed, as we waited for her cold medicine to kick in so she could breathe/sleep, I asked Ambriel what she could remember of the car accident we were in when she was two-and-a-half. While her overall account had some major holes in it, I was thrilled that she mentioned how Elmo was being sarcastic (and yes, she used that word correctly and pronounced it beautifully) and making fun of Papa by telling him "Good job! Good job!"
For the sake of helping the rest of you to understand how Elmo helped me teach my daughter about sarcasm, I'll tell you the rest of the story.
On a beautiful August day, Ambriel and I were riding in the backseat of my parents car as we drove through West Virginia on the way home from helping my sister move to Florida. My dad was driving, my mom was navigating, Ambriel was sitting behind my dad, and I was next to her, trying to entertain her. Then, as my mom was attempting to take a drink from her water bottle and I was looking at Ambriel, my dad changed lanes to get around a slow car only to see a large, round metal piece off of a bull dozer tread. He had no time to brake or get back in the other lane, so he just centered the car to go over it and prayed we would clear it.
We did not. Instead, we went airborne, the air bags deployed, and we slowly skidded to a stop safely on the edge of the expressway. We grown-ups were pretty stunned, though unharmed, so Ambriel was the first to speak coherently when she cried "Papa's hat is on me and I'm all wet!"
I was confused at first, but then I realized that when the air bags went off, they knocked my dad's hat off his head and into her lap, and my mom's water bottle out of her hand and splashing all over Ambriel. We all started laughing a little then, and assured Ambriel that everything was okay. We all got out of the car, then, as we waited for the police and tow truck to come, but we heard a strange voice coming from the trunk of the car.
When my dad popped the trunk, we saw that the impact had shifted our luggage in such a way that Ambriel's talking Elmo potty, which said encouraging phrases when you pressed Elmo's hand for a "high 5" and which my mom had insisted we bring in case Ambriel had to "go" between rest stops, was wedged up against the inside of the trunk with his hand pressed so that he just kept repeating "Good job!" over and over. Again, we all laughed and told Elmo to ease up on my dad and stop being sarcastic.
Now I don't know if Ambriel really had any idea what we meant at the time, but she has heard us tell the story of how Grandma's Camry died, and Elmo is always a big part of the tale. I'm just impressed that she made the connection between that story and my explanations of my own sarcasm. I imagine I will be less impressed with this talent when she's a tween or teen aiming her sarcasm at me, but that's a worry for another day. ;0)

All from this morning...

"It's too bad our new cactus doesn't have any friends but us. Don't you think it would like another plant to play with?"

"I knew that was coming." (In response to a painful sounding cough)

"Could you please turn on the TV so that I can just relax? When it's on, I can get some rest."

More Ambrielisms

At Kroger:

"Look Momma! Free examples! Can I eat one?"

On her biological father:

"He's a good person. He's just not good with women."

On parental roles:

"Don't worry about that Daddy. You need to rest this weekend. Momma will take care of all of the work."

Love song to a cactus

Ambriel is currently singing to her new cactus plant with musical accompaniment on a recorder. We got the cactus in the hopes that it would be a house plant we couldn't kill, even with the limited sunlight and attention spans we can offer in our apartment. And because it is pink and green. We transplanted it into a bigger (pink) pot this afternoon, and, since I wouldn't let Ambriel do much of the dirty work, she decided she needed to do something to ensure the plant's health and prosperity.

Ambriel: (singing) "Oh, I love you cactus! You're so beautiful! You are pink, my favorite color, and green, my momma's favorite color!" (Non-note blowing on the recorder for several bars) "And here's my hamster, my new toy hamster! She loves you, too. So do I, even though you're not a toy and Momma says I shouldn't touch you, since you have prickers!" (More noise from the recorder)

There were about ten more verses to the song, but they were all pretty much the same.

She keeps reaching out to touch the top when she thinks I'm not looking. I'm afraid I have a regular Sleeping Beauty and spinning wheels kind of fascination on my hands. Perhaps we should have just killed another potted daisy...