There are so many caveats to teaching a child the ways of the world. For example, shortly after we moved, Alexandra couldn't help but notice the massive helicopters flying overhead. At first they frightened her and sometimes at night, as I was putting her to bed, she would hear them. Her eyes would get big and she'd look at me as if to say "what the..." and I tried to reassure her by saying the helicopter was coming back to say "goodnight." I don't think that helped. Anyway, after a while she began to enjoy seeing them and now anything with a noisy motor is assumed to be a helicopter. Also flying overhead quite often are Osprey (Marcus pointed out that some may not know what I'm talking about so click on the link if you think I'm referring to a bird...because I'm not). Now, how do I explain those to my child? They aren't a helicopter. They aren't an airplane. So, for now, they are also helicopters.
Another factor brought on by our move is the sound of mortars being fired at all hours of the day. "Noise?" Alex says to which I reply "they're practicing." Practicing killing people but practicing nonetheless. I left that last bit out of the explanation.
Alex played with a Barbie for the first time and noticed the similarities in Barbie's chest and mommy's chest. We agreed that both mommy and Barbie have breasts. Then, Alex started playing with the Ken doll and pointed to his chest and said "breasts." I said "No sweetheart, boys don't have breasts...well, some boys have breasts but they aren't supposed to." That was probably too much information.
Today, we read the same book about a million times and each time at the end of it I would say "Spot is having his good supper" to which Alex looked at my quizzically and said "supper?" "Yes, supper. It's like dinner. I think. Well, if we were British I might know the difference." That didn't exactly clear things up for her so we're just going to go with supper and dinner are one in the same.
I've never been known to keeping things short and sweet when I go to describe something and I realize that's a fault of mine. I'll catch myself saying the same thing but in a million different ways and probably driving the listener crazy. I'm probably going to do that to Alex and eventually Jo. Well, naturally I'll drive them crazy, this is just one way I'm already aware of.
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