More Conversations

Walking to the car after free swim at the pool today, I noticed Madeleine engaging in her icky habit of sucking on her hair.




MADELEINE: (sucking on her pigtail as we walked to the car)
ME: Get your hair out of your mouth, honey.
MADELEINE: (still sucking on her hair, staring at me blankly)
ME: Hair out of your mouth.  Yuck.
MADELEINE: But why?
ME: Well, for one, you have chlorine all over your hair right now, and chlorine is not really great to have inside your body.
MADELEINE: Hmm.  Maybe THAT'S why it wasn't tasting very good.
ME: Well, it shouldn't ever taste good.  Why do you like to suck on your hair?  It's gross.
MADELEINE: Well, I think it doesn't taste good because I didn't shower yet.  After I shower, it tastes all smooth and fresh and WARM...

Ew.  I just don't get it.

And speaking of not getting it, here was our conversation on the drive home:


MADELEINE: Mommy?  What do the numbers on peoples' houses mean?
ME: That's their address.
MADELEINE: Oh.
JULIA: You know how, like, we're number 9?
MADELEINE: But I still don't understand.  When someone calls us, they don't just dial nine...
ME: That's different, honey.  When people call us, they dial our phone number.  Our address is the number of the house we live at.  It's what number the house is on our street.
MADELEINE: But I still don't get it.  Then why don't we have the same number as our neighbors?
ME: We have the same street name, but not the same number.  We all need different numbers so that if the postal worker is delivering mail, or if someone is coming over to a play-date, they know which house on our street is our house.  Each house has its own number.
MADELEINE: (brow wrinkled in thought) Wait a minute.  Let me see if I understand this.  Does every house on our street have a different ANGLE of facing NORTH?

Oh boy.  Way to make a pretty uncomplicated concept way over complicated.  To top it all off, after I re-explained what the number of our house means, Madeleine dismissed the whole topic by saying, "Ugh.  Never mind.  It's too confusing for me."

From number 9 angle facing north, this is Courtney signing off.