Is exactly what it sounds like.
Diagnosis: when you make a joke and your child says:
“See, mum, you can be funny when you want to!”
Is exactly what it sounds like.
Diagnosis: when you make a joke and your child says:
“See, mum, you can be funny when you want to!”
All my daughter has done today is watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And the only time she´s been out of the house, is when I took her to the supermarket. There we bought popcorn, which we had for dinner.
In my world, that counts as some pretty bad parenting: no museum visits, no theatre plays, no park, no nutricious three-course meals.
Of course I am not raising my child solely on ninja turtles and popcorn. But today was just one of those days, you know, where you use 15 minute naps to muster up the energy for half an hour of administrative chores.
And you know what, I think that´s totally okay. We don´t need to be Super Parents all the time.
Besides, on the bright side:
* she spontaneously asked for a tomato after all that popcorn
* she has undoubtedly picked up a lot of (American) English today – and is there anything cuter than a Spanish five-year-old who knows the word “dude”?
Last Friday they celebrated Peace Day at my daughter´s Kindergarten. All the children had to come to school wearing a white shirt.
One little boy showed up that day in a colourfully striped T-shirt. Because his father had forgotten about the white shirt assignment, or simply couldn´t be bothered, I don´t know.
I imagine the teacher seeing that boy walking into the classroom in his multicoloured shirt, amid a sea of white. I imagine her raising one eyebrow and sighing. I imagine her thinking what she´d like to tell the dad, like, for real.
But – it was Peace Day. So, you know, what can you do?
My daughter has a few recurrent questions. Some are very easy to answer (“Can I have chewing gum today, as an exception?” -No), others are more of a challenge (“What happens after we die?” -Eeeeh…).
A thought-provoking specimen in that last category is “Does magic really exist?”
This is of course a logical query for a 4-year-old. She sees all that Bippety-Boppety-Boo stuff on tv, but none of her own magic wands work. Not the ones mum made out of chopsticks, not the wooden ones she found in the park, not even that impressive plastic one her aunt sent over. Pushing its button will make the star at the top flicker like a pink stroboscope, but no magical conversion of spinach into pasta takes place.
To make matters worse, at the end of the Magic Project they´d been working on in Kindergarten a magician came to give a performance. My daughter, who had eagerly been counting down to this encounter with what she hoped would be a real wizard, observed that the magician seemed to have no magic in him at all. He simply used “mechanisms”, she said. How disappointing.
Hence the question: does magic really exist?
Below you can find a delightful answer from Roald Dahl, but I´m also very curious to hear what you think…
3-year-olds at the outdoor pool, showing off the results of swimming classes
they dive like dolphins
they swim like fish
their confidence wider than the cloudless sky above
and a mother ponders:
we were taught to keep our heads above the water
breast stroke, whip kick, not much more
and we swam in line, our progress being measured by how many lengths we could swim without interruption
the first thing these kids learn is to put their heads UNDER
no breastroke or anything
and it works
they dance in the water, they embrace it
maybe that will help them to embrace life
and to know what to do when they go under
What you need:
* one tired parent, in shorts and a tank top
* one bored child
* a set of face paint crayons
Procedure:
The parent hands the crayons to the child with the instructions to use the parent as canvas.
Then the parent lies down on the sofa, and the child starts colouring.
Note: you will have to wash the colouring off afterwards (or not?), but at least you can rest for a few minutes while keeping your child entertained with a creative and educational activity.
At my daughter´s Kindergarten, there´s one hour a week where the class is split up into two groups: those who take religion and those who take an ethics-class. Since my husband is a typical Spanish Catholic, we have our daughter signed up for religion. One of her best friends, Dani, takes ethics.
This is the conversation we had at the breakfast table this morning.
Daughter: “I don´t like religion.”
Me: “Why not?”
Daughter: “Because then Dani is not with me.”
And I thought: wow, what a grand lesson she has already learned.
Religion is no fun when it divides people.
Mothers and daughters, lying next to each other
on the floor of a sports centre
are usually refugees, fleeing from
earthquakes, floods, war
We´re both on our backs, looking at each other
on the wooden floor of the old gym
we too are on the run: time is on our heels
turning moments into memories
in the blink of an eye
So we look at each other
and we don´t blink