A few more true-life incidents involving my kids:
Children will do things that an adult would never do in a million years.
My kids and I were walking through a department store when suddenly my youngest son, then maybe five years old, suddenly said, "Oh look, gum!" There was a piece of gum lying on the floor that had obviously been chewed, spit out, and stepped on a few times. Before I could react he bent down, picked it up, and stuck it in his mouth.
He was quite unhappy when I pried his jaws open to get it out.
My daughter fell asleep in church during the sermon. As the pastor built up to his main point, he got louder and louder. Suddenly my daughter jumped up, stood up on the pew, and pointing a finger at the pastor said very loudly, "That man woke me up!"
As I sank down in my seat amidst the laughter, I consoled myself with the thought that lots of other people were probably thinking the same thing. They just didn't say it.
My kids and I were looking at some family pictures. We came to a picture of my brother, and I commented, "You know, people say that Uncle Mike and I look a lot alike, and from this picture, I think we do. Except that he's going bald."
At which point my teenage daughter said slowly and carefully, "Daddy, you look exactly like Uncle Mike."
As a single father, I often worry how my daughter will learn what it means to be a mature woman. With no female role model in the house, where will she learn it?
But my fears were largely alleviated one day when we were chatting and she started to make fun of me for some mistake I'd made. "Hey, that was months ago," I protested. "Why are you picking on me for that now?"
She replied, "I have to practice for when I get married."
Baffled, I asked what she meant by that.
"I have to learn to remember every mistake a man's ever made," she explained, "So when I get married I can bring them all up in an argument."
I figure one of the women at church must be mentoring her.
© 2008 by Jay Johansen
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