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Sunday, 29 May 2005 03:36 pm
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Last night we had an invited visit from a friend of my dad, along with his wife and daughters -- ages 2 1/2 and 4. I usually enjoy kids, but the very young make me nervous, like at least one of us is going to make a very big mistake. Moreover, the long-time absence of anyone nearly so young in this household made me wonder how we could occupy them for the 2-3 hours they'd stay. Even Tangrams are for ages 3 and up.
Fortunately, they brought backpacks with some toys of their own, and my mom's recent nostalgic acquisition of several kiddie books enabled me to fill the time doing something I've come to like very much: read aloud. The younger girl never seemed to pay attention to anything more than 7 seconds, but she stayed out of trouble. The older girl charmed me with her questions, some difficult ("Why didn't your cat finish her dinner?") and some amusing (in response to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, "Why are they happy there's a big pie on the school?"), as well as her rendition of the Grateful Dead's "The Monkey and the Engineer." It's nice to know I can still love time with the really young.
Some other not-quite-necessary evidence that I'm still young: My mom was describing dreams in which she was in her teens or 30s or whatnot, and I realized that my vivid, long-reaching memory for my dreams did not include any in which I was younger. And the times I've been apparently older are when I'm someone very different, be it Stanley Ipkiss from The Mask, an undead psychopath, a female secret agent, or Underdog.
Fortunately, they brought backpacks with some toys of their own, and my mom's recent nostalgic acquisition of several kiddie books enabled me to fill the time doing something I've come to like very much: read aloud. The younger girl never seemed to pay attention to anything more than 7 seconds, but she stayed out of trouble. The older girl charmed me with her questions, some difficult ("Why didn't your cat finish her dinner?") and some amusing (in response to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, "Why are they happy there's a big pie on the school?"), as well as her rendition of the Grateful Dead's "The Monkey and the Engineer." It's nice to know I can still love time with the really young.
Some other not-quite-necessary evidence that I'm still young: My mom was describing dreams in which she was in her teens or 30s or whatnot, and I realized that my vivid, long-reaching memory for my dreams did not include any in which I was younger. And the times I've been apparently older are when I'm someone very different, be it Stanley Ipkiss from The Mask, an undead psychopath, a female secret agent, or Underdog.
