There comes a stage in your parenthood where your child knows more about something than you do. I pride myself on being pretty smart and knowledgeable about a variety of things kid related. I have been able to successfully explain games/trends/activities to my kids without sneakily checking “rules of scrabble junior” on my smart phone. So of course I had to go ahead and think I knew everything about everything until one of my kids trips me up and watches me flail pitiably in my ignorance.
Example : Button is a total whiz at Video games. He plays all sorts – racing, mine craft, Concept, free roam open world, driving any sort of land/see/air/rail vehicles and of course the angry Birds genre of knocking things over and over again. He’s not just good at them- he’s brilliant. Give him a few years and he’ll be sporting a backwards baseball cap and chugging his sixth four loko, while trying to beat a bunch of sweaty teenagers in a Halo 10 tournament.
So imagine the look of condescension on his face when once, I excitedly grabbed a random construction toy and declared “Bulldozer!”
“Backhoe loader” he countered.
“Huh?”
“It is not a bulldozer, it is a backhoe loader” he explained patiently. He was 3.5 years old at the time.
I blushed….Well!!
And then there’s Sunshine. She’s all about the music. Sing her a tune/song in any language and within an couple of minutes she’ll be parroting it back to you. She knows songs in languages I didn’t even know existed. She’s more than 1/10th my age and she has me beat. The other day I was looking up lyrics to a song I’d forgotten about and I heard this tiny quacky voice reading them along with me with perfect baby diction.
And honestly, this is not me humble bragging. My kids are incredibly smart, but also total bozos in a variety of categories like cleaning up after themselves or remembering to ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER YOU USE THE BATHROOM DAMMNIT!
But I often find myself wondering – was I this skilled as a kid myself? I honestly don’t think so. I have memories of eating a lot of mud as a child and that’s a pretty damning blow to my case. But hey, the squirts don’t know that!
So I’ll be safe for a couple more years….. or at least until one of them catches me in a bald faced lie about some fact. Whichever comes first.
Example : Button is a total whiz at Video games. He plays all sorts – racing, mine craft, Concept, free roam open world, driving any sort of land/see/air/rail vehicles and of course the angry Birds genre of knocking things over and over again. He’s not just good at them- he’s brilliant. Give him a few years and he’ll be sporting a backwards baseball cap and chugging his sixth four loko, while trying to beat a bunch of sweaty teenagers in a Halo 10 tournament.
So imagine the look of condescension on his face when once, I excitedly grabbed a random construction toy and declared “Bulldozer!”
“Backhoe loader” he countered.
“Huh?”
“It is not a bulldozer, it is a backhoe loader” he explained patiently. He was 3.5 years old at the time.
I blushed….Well!!
And then there’s Sunshine. She’s all about the music. Sing her a tune/song in any language and within an couple of minutes she’ll be parroting it back to you. She knows songs in languages I didn’t even know existed. She’s more than 1/10th my age and she has me beat. The other day I was looking up lyrics to a song I’d forgotten about and I heard this tiny quacky voice reading them along with me with perfect baby diction.
And honestly, this is not me humble bragging. My kids are incredibly smart, but also total bozos in a variety of categories like cleaning up after themselves or remembering to ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER YOU USE THE BATHROOM DAMMNIT!
But I often find myself wondering – was I this skilled as a kid myself? I honestly don’t think so. I have memories of eating a lot of mud as a child and that’s a pretty damning blow to my case. But hey, the squirts don’t know that!
So I’ll be safe for a couple more years….. or at least until one of them catches me in a bald faced lie about some fact. Whichever comes first.
