Monday, November 23, 2009

The King of Spinning

I was sat at the park with Jack yesterday when we saw an older boy with a skateboard.

"Can I have a go on one of those mummy?" he said. "Maybe when you are a bit older" I said "When you - and here I got a bit lost for words - are a bit taller and can balance and won't fall off and hurt yourself". As a mother I offer up these rambling idiotic responses quite often. He says why can't I have coffee? and I say because it'll make you go bananas and he says I didn't ask for a banana, why can't I have coffee? I hope I am not the only one that turns to a blithering idiot when it comes to reasoning with toddlers.

So anyway, back to the skateboard. After I basically told my son that he was short, unbalanced and accident prone, he looked VERY offended and said "mummy, I can balance and I am fast and I can kick a ball and do the monkey bars AND I am really good at spinning around!" I can't argue with that one. He spins round so fast sometimes I catch my breath in my throat when he stops, half expecting him to lurch drunkenly sideways and crack his skull open on the nearest object. But he doesn't and he'll do it again and then run like a pro athlete to do something else.

It's so great how kids define their skills in life isn't it. Imagine going for your annual review with your boss. "So Pam, what did you accomplish in 2009?" "Well boss, I got a grant, taught a couple of classes, wrote a few articles and I'm really rather good at spinning round."

4 comments:

Clippy Mat said...

sounds like a well rounded resume to me.
you're hired!
;-)

Emily said...

That's hilarious.

I overheard another mom telling her kid that he couldn't do such and such until he was 6. So I started doing that when Katy asks these kinds of questions, which she always does. "You can have a sleep-over when you're 7. You can ride a school bus when you're 5. etc etc." Then she'll often ask why, and then I give the blubbering answers like you described.

Pam said...

Hi Clippy, Thank you! I always fancied a job in Canada!
Emily, Congrats again. I really am excited for you. I might the the age thing. If nothing else it'll give me something to say!

mountainear said...

The fun goes out of it when you're grown up sometimes - we forget the joys of hopping, skipping and jumping and making funny little noises apropos of nothing. Or we get locked up.