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From the mouths of babes

How to horrify Dad.

While walking through Walmart, Amy (3) says, "He’s black."
We continue walking as Dad processes Amy continues, "I want him to be like us."
Dad thinking he misheard the conversation asks, "what?"
Amy declares, "I want him to be white."

A thousand thoughts rush through my head most questioning how I could possibly be teaching bigotry to my children. Let’s see. No racial jokes. Hmm. We don’t have many friends from other races and cultures right now but for the most part our schedules and economics have alienated ourselves from everyone so we don’t really see many people outside of the family. I do like the theme song to All In The Family but I don’t think that would do it. Finally I land on the conclusion that it is simply the naivety of a child’s world.

Dad, the Meathead that he is, flubs with "that’s not nice. We like people just the way they are."
Mom upon hearing the story soars in on angelic wings and artfully delivers this wonderful metaphor of crayons to people and how boring our pictures would be if the only color in our box was white.

Both ladies left Dad’s chin on the ground today!

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9 year old brain?

The nine year old stares intently into the microwave containing the stash of glazed doughnuts scavenged from Krispy Kreme last night. Krispy Kreme gives one free glazed doughtnut for every A on a report card (limit 6) K through 8. They used to give any free doughtnut of choice but some nimrod, whiney parents brought an end to that but I’ll save the rant for another time. Noah scored a full half dozen. Sarah got 2 but received 4. Tommy aged out. The hot doughtnut sign was on and to keep peace in the house I bought another dozen which if divided evenly between Mom, Amy, Dad and Tommy would give each of the non-qualified eaters 3 doughtnuts.

Let’s return to the nine year old staring into the microwave as if he’d discovered the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything (amz). Upon inquiry he reveals that he is trying to decide between eating out of the large box or his box. "That way once all those doughnuts are gone I still have these." I am taken back by the selfishness but amused at the ingenuity of the thought process. A quick math discussion, along with a definition of "staleness," and Noah makes the right decision.