Once again, breakfast conversation is my inspiration. Another morning, another newspaper, this one with a picture of fighting, bloodied men on the front page. I try to skip it, but Soren catches sight of it and says, "What are those people doing?"
It's way too early in the morning, and in life, to tell him what's really going on, so I tell him they're talking.
"That man saying hi. How you doing, mans? They saying, 'I'm pretty good.' Right, Mama?"
Maybe it's just the hormones, but this makes me want to cry.
I don't want him to know about violence and meanness. I even have trouble with that song about the baby bumblebee, you know, the one that goes "I'm picking up the baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me.... ouch, he stung me!"? Well, the second verse goes, "I'm smushing up the baby bumblebee..." and I'm too wimpy to sing to my little boy about smushing baby insects. So I change the words to things like, "I'm dressing up the baby bumblebee.... he likes to wear sweaters!" Or "I'm cooking for the baby bumblebee... he likes mashed potatoes!" Pathetic. And yet... the thought of putting that idea into his head, where one can go around smushing baby bumblebees... it's so sad.
It's just a song, and it's not like I don't go around smushing disgusting creepy spiders, infant and adult, that defile my home, and eventually Soren will learn that people smush bugs, and hurt other people on purpose, and the men on the front page aren't asking each other how they're doing. It'll just be so hard to watch my little boy learn these things. In the end, though, there's no avoiding it, and I can only hope that knowledge and awareness will make him a better person, one who will take action to help mankind and generally be more philanthropic than I am, or at least one who will be able to keep it together enough to pick the spiders up and put them outside.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Innocent
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7 comments:
This is coming from the girl who tormented me with the idea she used to play 'snail baseball' as a child...
- Mel
You're afraid of spiders?
I knew the memory of snail baseball would bring Mel out of the woodwork. Snails are basically plants that move. I have no regrets. I also eat raw oysters, which are alive. And SO TASTY.
Greg: yes. I think I can predict the manner of my death: I will be driving on the freeway, and will suddenly notice a spider on me. Thus will the spiders have their revenge.
This is a lovely post. (Snail baseball aside.)
Kelly Ann still wants a puppy...How do I tell her that
puppies are dirty things that pee everywhere and I will not be picking up poop from the livingroom carpet?
I'd rather have a spider!
How about instead of learning about the inevitable cruelty of life we run deep into the woods and start a commune? Sounds good to me.
it wasnt untill graduation that i became painfully aware of what we were really teaching our kids with the bumlebee song. maybe its because i recently started shedding tears when i killed an insect of any kind (yet i still do, not so premeditated - it just kinda happens) or maybe i was just ultra sensitive around that time. i think i too will change the words from now on though.
oh and how i miss the converstion when i returned to the toddler room from lunch break to find Soren awake and talking without fail:
"hi Miss Lauren"
"Hi Soren"
"im pretty good!"
"oh well thats awesome Soren, im...um...pretty good too...."
never ever got old...
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