Children & Parenting
Finger Sprouts
My uncle Obert had only 3 fingers on his left hand. He lost the others during corn planting one spring. My fingers are buried out in these fields somewhere, he used to tell us & I check for them every summer to see if they’ve sprouted yet. I asked him once what he’d do if they ever did sprout. He thought for a minute. I’d run like hell, he said, & never look back & then he made us promise not to tell my aunt.
Enough Time (Feminine)
Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.
Enough Time (Masculine)
Everything changed the day he figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in his life.
Enough Time (No Gender)
Everything changed the day I figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in my life.
Disappearing Act (aka Magical Thinker)
Can make stuff magically disappear, especially if it’s got a lot of butter & sugar in it
Confusing World (aka Free Country)
Why is the world so confusing? he said
& I said it’s only confusing if you believe
it has to make sense & he looked at me &
shook his head. I can’t believe they let just
anyone have children, he said.
Color Blind
What color are souls? she said &
I said, Color isn’t that much of an issue
when you’re talking souls.
Clean Underwear
Make sure you got clean underwear, she always said, in case you get in an accident & I always figured that’d be the least of my worries, but now I’m older & I see there’s a lot you can’t control & some you can control & clean underwear is one of those you can. For the most part.
Clockwork
When did the world go to hell? he said & I said it happens about this same time
every couple of years & that seemed to calm him down
Chocolate Scare
You think he’s scary now? she said. Just wait till he finishes off all the chocolate.
Christmas Dragon
What’s that supposed to be? I said. That’s a Christmas dragon, he said. If Santa rode around with this instead of all those reindeer I think it’d put real teeth in the naughty-or-nice thing.
Circle Game
The children sat in a circle around him & he said, I don’t believe in life anymore & no one said anything for a while because he was older than they were & maybe knew something they didn’t, but then someone said, let’s play a game & someone said, Spy & someone else said, Chase & soon there was no one there but the man sitting alone
Child Proof
We forgot to child proof our life, she said to me & I knew exactly what she meant. It had been a long day.
Bunch of Bones
You know why kids like skeletons? he said & I said I didn’t &
he said it was because it didn’t matter if you were good or bad, you
ended up a bunch of bones & he stopped for a second & then he added,
but you don’t have to worry, I’ll still be good.
Buttons
You don’t get to use buttons until you get to be pretty old, I heard him tell his brother,
but you’ll be slower then & it won’t be so much of a problem.
Calculated Risk
Are we your real children? they said & I said we had our pick of all the children in the world & we took a few home to try out & though we tried to return them later, it was more trouble than it was worth, so we kept them & loved them & taught them all the stuff they’d need to know when it came time for them to choose, so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes we did & later I heard one of them say they didn’t know about being a parent if it was as risky as all that.
Born Again
If I get born again, my son said, do they give me different parents?
& I said no & he shook his head & said they didn’t use their
brains on that one, did they?
Breakfast Perspective
you can bet that if oatmeal was bigger than us, he said,
we’d be breakfast cereal in a minute
Breakfast of Champions
Breakfast is not a competition, she said, but they were gone already &
both of them thought they’d won
Blue Squares
We lay there & looked up at the night sky &
she told me about stars called blue squares & red swirls &
I told her I’d never heard of them. Of course not, she said,
the really important stuff they never tell you.
You have to imagine it on your own.