JULIA: Mama? Do you think I'm going to be scared of the Skekses when I'm trying to go to sleep tonight?
ME: Nah. You won't be scared. Don't worry.
JULIA: Well, I'm ALREADY feeling kind of scared about them.
ME: Well, you don't need to. They're just puppets.
JULIA: I know Mama, but everything else in the movie just looks so REAL, I kind of FEEL like Skekses are real.
ME: Well, even if they WERE real, they're from another world, right? There were no humans in "The Dark Crystal," so Skekses don't live in the world we live in.
JULIA: But Mama, I feel like, when they MOVE in "The Dark Crystal," like they ARE real.
ME: Okay, but they're not a part of the world we live in. The movie says this was all a long, long time ago. It's like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs once lived in our world, but now they're gone. You're not scared of dinosaurs when you lay in your bed at night, are you?
JULIA: (troubled look crossing her face) Well, I'm KIND OF scared of a T-REX.
ME: Okay. But you don't lay awake at night thinking that a dinosaur is in your room, right?
JULIA: (glancing around the living room nervously) Well, Mama. NOW I'm feeling scared of them.
For. Goodness. Sake.
Apparently I only added a NEW fear to her plate. Why not? Let's just pile on all the fears at once and then get them over with. Mummies, Skekses, dinosaurs, what else can we throw in there?
Madeleine's bedtime conversation with me was scary in a whole different way. Most of you blog-readers are also on facebook, so you may have read about this already, but just in case not, here is a transcript of our conversation about sharks...and much, much more:
(Added bonus of reading this blog: I will include more of the conversation, which I cut out for the sake of not making my facebook status too long)
MADELEINE: Mama? Why do sharks sometimes EAT a human?
ME: Well, some sharks will eat most any type of meat.
MADELEINE: But Mama! Humans are not MEAT!
ME: Sure we are. We're made of meat all over our body.
MADELEINE: (sniffing her arm) Well, it doesn't SMELL like meat.
ME: That's because you're not cooked. When we eat meat from animals, we cook it. We don't just eat a whole chicken just as it is. We take the meat that comes from a chicken, and we cook it.
MADELEINE: But why do we cook it?
ME: Well, because that kills a lot of the germs that are in raw meat. But humans DON'T eat other humans.
MADELEINE: Because that would be SILLY! (thoughtful) But Mama? WHY don't humans eat other humans?
ME: Well, that's just not something that humans do. Humans love each other and make friends with each other, they don't eat each other.
MADELEINE: Well Mama, I want to eat YOU and have you be inside my belly!
ME: But wouldn't you be sad if you ate me all up and then there was no more mommy?
MADELEINE: (brightly) Well Mama. Daddy would still be around to take care of me!
ME: I know, but would you really want to eat up Mommy and have me be gone for good?
MADELEINE: Well, Daddy can take me to places! And Mama, I want you to COME BACK ALIVE inside my tummy and start TALKING to me!
ME: Well, it doesn't work that way. When you eat chicken, does the chicken come back alive inside you and start saying, "Bwock, bwock!"
MADELEINE: (giggling) NOOOO!
ME: And when you eat a turkey burger, does the turkey come back alive and say "Gobble Gobble!"
MADELEINE: (suddenly annoyed) Mama! Can you just STOP saying what the ANIMALS talk inside my TUMMY?
Okay then. Meat-eating/cannibalism discussion over with.
This morning, Madeleine had questions not about sharks, but about her favorite lion.
MADELEINE: Mama? Why when Simba grows up, does he look like his DAD?
ME: Well, a lot of kids grow up to look like their parents, because they have their parents' genes.
ETHAN: (chiming in) Like you girls!
ME: Yeah, Madeleine will probably look like me when she grows up, because she looks a lot like me as a kid right now. And Julia, you look a lot like Daddy. You'll probably grow up to look like a girl version of Daddy.
MADELEINE: Well, she doesn't look like Daddy to ME! Because she doesn't have WHISKERS! (pausing in thought) Maybe she SHAVES them.
Madeleine has truly figured out all the secrets of the world.
Finally, on a different note, we took the kids to the movie theater this afternoon to see the brand new "My Little Pony" movie, "Equestria Girls." We were running late getting there, and because there was no parking available near the theater, Ethan let the kids and I out at the cinema entrance so we could run inside and get seats as quickly as possible. As the girls and I scurried up the escalator and through the corridor to our theater, Madeleine reassuringly announced to me, "Well Mama. I'm holding my poop REALLY QUICKLY!"
We missed the opening scene of the movie, but were able to follow along with the rest of the film regardless. Madeleine, who adamantly insisted she could hold her poop through the movie, wound up sitting in my lap because there were only two free seats together. With each squirm and toot-stench, I would whisper in her ear, "Do you need to poop?" "Uh...not YET!" she would reply confidently. At one point, unable to hear her whispered response, I slid her off my lap and tried to turn her to face me, but of course, she didn't want to take her eyes off the movie, so she kept her head turne,d and with eyes bulging out, attempted to continue viewing the scene.
Thankfully, she really DID hold her poop. I gotta give her credit. She knew how to pull through when it really mattered.
Julia, for her part, ate three-quarters of the bag of popcorn all by herself, and since Madeleine was blocked up due to her need to poop, she wasn't hungry for a snack. Despite the fact that Julia eventually took a break to save some for the rest of us, as soon as we were in the car heading home from the movie, she piped up with, "We could use a little popcorn back here!"
And, of course, the moment we walked in the door to our house, Madeleine asked cheerfully, "Mama? Can you put on a MOVIE?"
Because I guess the feature-length film at the movie theater just wasn't enough.
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