If I have time...

It's interesting to me how kids view adults. When I was a kid, I assumed that being an adult was great because you didn't have to go to school, you got to drive a car and you could buy whatever you wanted. Julia seems to have a similar view. Lately, she's lamenting being a kid and wishes to be an adult for some of the same reasons. She's just started Kindergarten and fondly remembers the carefree days of Pre-school when it was learn for a few hours in the morning and play all afternoon instead of the learn all day stuff she's now subjected to.

Before Christmas, Laura and Julia gave Julia's kindergarten teacher a Christmas gift, which included a candle holder of some sort.

I was unpacking Julia's backpack a few days ago and came across a Thank You card. I opened the card and read it to Julia. It was a card from her teacher thanking her for the gift.

As we were getting ready for bed, Julia walked into the bathroom behind me chuckling to herself.

I asked, "What's so funny?"

She said, "Adults like candles a lot don't they?"

I said, "Well, women adults like candles a lot. Men like other things. Do you like candles?"

"Ya," she said.

I should point out that Julia has taken to saying "Yeah" like she was born in Minnesota for the last several years. Her pre-school teachers tried to rid her of that habit, but with little luck.

"Do you think you'll like candles when you're an adult," I asked.

"If I have time," she said.

I paused a second and asked, "What do you mean: 'If I have time.'? Why wouldn't you have time?"

"Because I'll be carrying babies around!" she said in a 'Isn't it obvious?' way.

Laura and I laughed about that one. She seems to think that being a Mom means that she'll have no time for her kids. Keep in mind, she's told me on several occasions that she doesn't want kids.

Julia also has a semi-distorted view of vitamins and medicines, too.

I read somewhere that kids don't get enough Omega-3 since Americans don't eat as much fish. So I decided to give Julia Omega-3 supplements for kids.

At first, I was using a brand that tasted like oranges, but this new one I got, while having a lot more Omega-3 than the other brand, is very squishy and weird tasting. Julia tried one and then gave me a look that screamed, "Are you kidding me?"

I tried one, too and did my best not to look disgusted by the taste. I swallowed and said, "Oh well, they don't taste that good, but they have a lot more brain food in there than the other brand did."

I had told Julia that the stuff was brain food so she wouldn't ask what it is. I'm sure she'd freak if she knew that it was taken from extracted algae and anchovies.

The next night I gave her two of the new ones. She grabbed them and started to eat one.

"Take two of them?" Julia asked.

I said, "Yes. That's what the bottle says."

"I better not take four then."

"Why?"

She said with a wry voice, "Otherwise, I'll be a genius."

"Oh." I said trying not to laugh.

.....................

Julia likes to gab a lot in her kindergarten class room. If you talk or are misbehaving, the teacher will pull one of three crayons on their desk. The first warning is your green crayon, like the 'Go' light on a stop light. The second warning is the yellow crayon like the 'Caution' light. The third and last warning that gets you sent to the principal's office is the red crayon.

The first week back from winter vacation, Julia would have at least one crayon pulled a day. One day, she hung her head as she walked into the house from the bus because she had two crayons pulled. Seeing a trend, we challenged Julia to not get crayons pulled on a Friday. If she did, we'd do something fun. Friday afternoon, she waltzed into the house and proudly proclaimed that she did not get a crayon pulled.

That Saturday night, I was reading a book to Julia called 'Cheater Pants' from the Junie B. Jones series of kid books. In the books, Junie B. is a too-smart-for-her-own-good first grader who bends the rules as she interprets them. In 'Cheater Pants', she forgets to do her homework, so she copies off a classmate that left hers out while she was away from her desk. Junie B. is caught because it was an essay about what you did that weekend. Of course, hers perfectly matched the girl she copied from. Junie B. tries to explain that she was only copying homework and not a test, so it was okay. She didn't realize that she was doing something wrong.

We went upstairs to get Julia ready for bed. As I was giving her vitamins and some allergy medicine, Julia asked if it was lying if you got in trouble in class, but didn't tell us about it.

I said, "It depends on what it is. Why? What happened."

Julia nonchalantly said, "Well, you said that if I didn't get any crayons pulled that I wouldn't be in trouble. I didn't get in trouble with the teacher. She yelled at me once, but she did NOT (throws her arms sideways for emphasis) pull any crayons."

I looked at her surprised and said, "Oh really!" with a tone of surprise and accusation touched with a little bit of sarcasm.

"What did you do to get yelled at?"

"Umm... Nothing." Julia said with a quiet smile.

"Julia... You brought it up. Just tell me."

Julia sighed. "She was yelling at me to be quiet, but she's always yelling!" Julia raised her hands in frustration at this.

All I can say is that it's going to be a challenge to stay on my toes as Julia gets older...