Life Has Made Me Smart & Stuff

I'm old. 30. But don't tell. I don't look a day over 29 1/2. I've learned things along the way. Now I'm wise too.

Why, just today I was standing there, watching the gang of kindergarten girls that Alana belongs to, they've dubbed themselves the Sparkle Girls. As of this morning anyway, they may change their name tomorrow. As I watched the Sparkle Girls who kindly included Ava, I learned a fact: girls do not properly honor the rules of Ring Around the Rosie. When it is muddy, they do not all fall down. Instead, they all crouch, just a little, so they don't get muddy sand on their sparkly pants. It is not planned, it is girl instinct. They should just change the words. We all crouch down slightly but never actually fall cause then we'd get dirty.

Kindergarteners have their own rules for life, and their own sense of humor. Things that my many years of life have made unfunny are hilarious to a 5 year old. Cause they think farts and dumb boy stuff are funny, and I don't. It's probably because I'm old. So I don't get it.

Back in my day we didn't tell fart jokes. Instead we just walked to the bus stop, uphill both ways, in the rain. I did actually walk to the bus stop, for 6 years. So that's only a mild exaggeration. When I was a kid....well you know how that story starts out. I tell my kids something that I did not have when I was younger that they cannot imagine their lives without. Like smart phones. What? You mean you couldn't get on the internet wherever you were? You didn't have the internet cause it hadn't been invented yet? You couldn't rewind live TV, instead you had to get up to change the channel on your wood console TV that was not nearly as fancy as that 50 inch flat screen sitting in our living room? I predict some eye rolling in the future, mostly when these types of stories are told. Only it will be done by my kids, not by me, eyeroller of past stories told by my parents/grandparents.

Now that I'm 30, still keeping that on the down low, my grandpa is fond of telling me that when he turned 30 he felt old. He's in his 80s, but turning 30 made him feel old. Complaining about the lack of quality TV programming on these days and the cost of prescription medicine doesn't make him feel old, but turning 30 did. That makes me feel great. So do David's jokes about crows feet.

Eleven weeks of having a boy have taught me that no matter what I do I'm occasionally going to get peed and pooped on. I've changed my fair share of diapers, I'm no slacker, but this boy has still managed to pee and/or poop on me at least 4 times. He's a wild card, unpredictable, a real rebel. He heard that ladies like that.

Being home with only 2 kids during most of the day has been strangely quiet. Then when I pick up Alana from school at the end of the day my fight-breaking-up skills are rusty. Ava has no one to argue with during the day, she instead just tells me I told you so a bunch of times. So when Alana comes home and there is conflict I want to invest in earplugs. You would think they could manage to get along since they're not together all day. At least I would think that, other people probably think that children defy logic.

I suppose my kids defy logic. Logical people don't take giant bites of plain brown rice at dinner and they say they don't like the rest of the food because of it. Logical people actually eat their dinner, even if its not macaroni and cheese or something they can dip in ranch. But kids aren't logical, they rely on other people's logic. Like mine, and I have an abundance of it. I'm wise beyond my years, or so I keep telling myself. Just ask me, I'll tell you how smart I am.