I am glad Marianna has posted on the blog again. I have been busy too, but also, I think I’ve felt less inspired lately. Neither of my kids says that many cute things these days. Not like at 3 and 4. My younger one is two and a half, which means that relating to him is much like trying to keep a dictator out of power. A rather silly, sometimes sweet dictator, but still, you’ve got to keep up your guard.
And then my older one is six, which means that he’s much more philosophical than he was just a year ago. Heck, six months ago. I will transcribe some of this evening’s conversation, to try to illustrate:
(Background information: we just found a new apartment, where we’ll move in April.)
A few minutes after dinner:
“Mom, what is a landlord?”
“If you rent your apartment, like this one, or our new one, it’s the person who is in charge. The person you pay the rent to, and who has to fix it if something is wrong.”
“Oh.”
About ten minutes later:
“Mom, where did people live if they never had a house before? The first time?”
“Well, do you mean homeless people?”
“No, wait. I mean, like, before there were any houses, how did people know where to live?”
“Like in the caveman days?”
“No, like now, but before there were houses.”
“There were houses even in the caveman days. People always made houses out of what was available. Caves, trees.”
“Oh.” (pause, furrows brow)
“Do you mean, what happened before there were all these houses, how do we know that people have their houses in different places? Like why we can stay here, someone else over there?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“Well, that is a good question. People decided to make it that way. I pay money, and then the rules say that we can use this place and nobody else can come in here unless we say so.”
“Oh, okay.”
“That is why some people are homeless. They don’t have any money to pay for a place to live. We are lucky because we could always go live with Bapa or something, but imagine if you didn’t have any family.”
“Yeah, that would be sad.”
About ten minutes later:
(Sad face, sigh)
“What’s wrong, Gus?”
“I’m just feeling sad. For the people in Haiti and”
“And the homeless people?”
“Yeah, the ones in Haiti.”
(And about ten minutes later, playing with the couch cushions, along with his brother.)
(Brother) “Gus, give me that pillow.”
Gus: ”No, I am using it.”
“Give me that pillow! I need it! It will hide me.”
“No, Sam, you have all the other pillows.”
“It’s not fa-yeeerr! Give me that pillow, I want that pillow!”
“No, Sam, I am using it.”
“It’s not fair! It’s not fair! It’s not fa-yeeerr!”
(Gus, half asleep.) “Life is not fair, Sam. You can’t have everything you want.”
The dictator didn’t like to hear that.
