Conversations with my kid

It never ceases to amaze me how different my kids are from one another. Yes, they all have a knack for doing the same things to send me over the edge, like leaving their shoes in the middle of the kitchen floor while I am trying to get dinner finished (um… okay, you got me…trying to get dinner started.) But on the whole, their personalities are remarkably different. My girls, for example…

Josie has always been a ‘girl of few words’, a little bit quiet, a little more reserved… prompting more than one person to say, “Are you SURE she’s your kid?!” hah! Josie is our writer. Notes, stories, journal entries, letters, lists… She was even kind enough to make a chart for me this weekend when she was sick, charting her temperature and the time it was taken. ;)

Oftentimes when I check on her at night, there will be a note on her dresser for me. ‘Mom, I need clean jeans for tomorrow!’ or… ‘Can I wear these earrings?’ or …‘Davis put a fake tarantula under my pillow. Just thought you should know.’ (I swear to God. I actually took a photo of that particular note.)

And then, there’s Libby. My four year old chatterbox. My child that likes to have long, drawn out conversations in the car, in the tub, before bed, at the dinner table, at the breakfast table, at the… well, you get the idea.

This kid LOVES to talk. Sometimes when we’re in the van, and she’s quiet for a couple of minutes, she’ll shout up to me, “Wow, Mommy! Wasn’t I being QUIET?!”

And some of the stuff she comes up with just cracks me up. Usually I can’t keep a straight face at the stuff that comes out of this kid’s mouth. She loves to ask questions about all sorts of things, like “Where did I come from?” Um… “from Heaven, honey. Jesus sent you straight down from Heaven,”…to questions about college (?!!), when Josie will go to college (I just know its because she wants the bigger bedroom), if college is fun (ahem… “Yes, honey. You meet a lot of nice new people.” ;)

And after that long discussion about college, she finally asked the question:

Libby: What IS college?

Me: Well, it’s where you go to learn how to do kegstands...(I’m kidding, people!…learned that in high school anyway. ;) It’s where you go to learn what you want to be when you are a grown-up. Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?

Libby (nodding her head, emphatically): A Dalmatian.

Me: Honey, you can’t be a Dalmatian. A Dalmatian is a dog. What ELSE would you like to be?

Libby (thinking…): Hmmm… a teacher?

Me (relieved): Oh, that’s a good idea! Did you know mommy used to be a teacher? What do you think you might like to teach?

Libby: Weeeellll… I would teach everyone how to be a Dalmatian.


Anybody know if they’re giving out scholarships for that?