Conversations with Kindergarteners

You gotta love kindergarteners. Cameron had a school friend over for a playdate today. He eagerly showed him around the house. "And look," he said, "if you look through this vent, you can see down to the basement!"

"Cool!" his friend replied. "Hey, your TV is really big! That's bigger than my TV."

"Yeah," said Cameron. "Look, this is my garage and here's my bike. It's a two-wheeler. And it's blue. And it's really fast."

"Why does your garage smell funny?" said the friend.

"Maybe there's something DEAD in it!" answered Cameron enthusiastically.

Here, I broke in, lest the friend report to his mother that we have dead things in our garage. That might cause some awkwardness. "No, there isn't anything dead in it. Garages just smell funny," I explained.

The friend was not convinced. "Not our garage. Our garage smells good."

Our garage does not smell good. I have a hard enough time keeping our house smelling good.

"Hey," said the friend to Cameron. "What's your mom's name?"

"Sharon."

"Really?" He turned to me. "Sharon, can I have some juice please?" He grinned, a little mischevious jack-o-lantern grin with three missing teeth.

"Sure," I answered. I don't mind kids calling me by my first name. In fact, I much prefer it.

"Hey, did you know that you have really big eyes?" the friend observed. "And so does Cameron. He has really big eyes like you. But yours are kind of slanty, like they slant up, and Cameron's eyes are not slanty."

I was actually quite impressed. My eyes do slant up -- upslanting palpebral fissures, I learned in Dysmorphology. Nothing like studying clinical genetics to make you aware of your exact imperfections.

"Hey, wanna play Legos?" asked Cameron.

"Awesome!" answered the friend, and they were off.