Monday, December 17, 2012

Reports of Her Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Theo is very curious about death. Initially, we told him that people and animals who die "go up to the stars." That satisfied him for a while, but then he wanted to know more. One thing he wondered about was how old people are when they die. Not wanting to get into tragedies and the sadness of people dying young, I simply told him that people die "when they're around 100 or so." I figured that we don't know anyone near 100, so he wouldn't be concerned about someone he knows dying soon.

The other day, Chris took Theo and Sam to the hardware store, and Theo got to talking about his great-grandmother.

Theo: Dad, how old is Great-Grandma Norma?
Chris: She's 89.
Theo (with a look of great worry): Oh no--that's dead!

Chris assured him that she was definitely not dead, and all was well. But then today, when I got him off the school bus, our elderly neighbor was outside. She cheerfully said hello to Theo, who replied, "How old is our neighbor?" I quickly said, "Theo, that's not polite to ask..." and she said, "Oh, does he want to know how old I am?" I smiled and said he did, and she replied, "Well, honey, I'm probably about 100." (She's actually in her eighties...)

Theo looked at her and said, "Are you going up to the stars soon?"

Mortified, I started to giggle as I said, "NO, honey, she's fine!" And Mary (our neighbor) said, "I couldn't hear him! What did he say?" I tried to put her off, but she was persistent, so I finally explained that he thinks people die when they're 100. She started laughing and said, "Oh no--and I told him I'm 100!"

Meanwhile (because I needed to be more embarrassed), Theo was standing behind me singing a forbidden song that he sort of made up (he embellished a song he's heard on YouTube). The lyrics?

"Dead things to find--so many dead things to find!"

Oh dear...

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Christmas Wishes

I had an interesting conversation with Theo about his Christmas list today:

Theo: Mom, I want a really, really loud drum set for Christmas. With cymbals. That would make me really happy, Mom.
Me: I'm sure it would. Though I'm not so sure it'd make me too happy....
Theo: And an electric guitar, Mom. Can I have an electric guitar for Christmas?
Me: We'll see what Santa brings you.... Is there anything else you want? [I was curious to see whether he'd include anything not related to music, since his other requests have been a CD player and CDs.]
Theo: Um, yes. I'd like a crock pot.
Me: A crock pot?? Why??
Theo (matter-of-factly): Because I don't have one.
Me: That's true. But what do you want to do with a crock pot?
Theo: Make things, Mom. Like cereal and tofu.
Me: Oh, okay.
Theo: I also want a coffeemaker, Mom.
Me: A coffeemaker? But you can't drink coffee yet! What are you going to do with it?
Theo: Make coffee and drink it, Mom.

Of course. Because all four-year-olds should drink coffee and eat slow-cooked tofu while jamming on their really loud drum sets and electric guitars....

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Crime and Punishment

Some weeks ago, I made the mistake of introducing the concept of jail to Theo. We were riding on the BART train for the first time, he wasn't behaving terribly well, and when I told him for the umpteenth time not to get out of his seat and he shot back, "What happens if I do?" I sarcastically replied, "They'll throw you in jail."

Yes, yes, I know--not my finest parenting moment. Believe me, I'm paying the price, as Theo wants to know everything about jail now. Our initial conversation about it went like this:

Theo: What's jail, Mom?
Me: It's a place where you go for a very, very long time out when you've been misbehaving.
Theo: What kind of time out?
Me: Not a fun one. You stay in a little room all of the time and don't get to do fun stuff. You don't want to go there.
Theo: Do they have elevators at jail?
Me: I don't think so. Probably stairs. [He loves elevators--the lack of them would be a drawback to him.]
Theo (starting to get nervous): Do kids go to jail?
Me: No, no! Don't worry, honey--you can't go to jail unless you're 18. And you have to do something really bad to go, anyway. You're a good boy--you won't go to jail. Don't worry about it.

Eventually I fielded all of the questions, and I figured the subject was more or less closed. (Well, as closed as any subject is with Theo.) Alas, that was not the case. His teacher wrote me a note and said she was laughing because some other kid brought a toy police car in for sharing, and Theo piped up with, "Police cars take you to jail! You can go to jail when you're 18!" And then later that week, I went to pick him up for his social skills class, and his teacher said, "We had a visit from Buster the Bus today, and Theo really liked that! Theo, do you remember what Buster told us about riding the bus?"

Theo replied very matter-of-factly, "You use a quiet voice on the bus. You don't yell and scare the driver. Otherwise you'll go to jail."

Um, no--Buster didn't tell them they'd go to jail. Theo added that part. :-)

And the last few days, his favorite song, which we've heard over and over and over? "Jailhouse Rock." He even asked to watch the video--and I obliged, as there's nothing questionable in it. But now I realized that the video makes jail look pretty darn fun, with people dancing everywhere. Uh oh--I hope he doesn't aspire to go to jail now!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The Dangers of YouTube

Theo loves to watch videos on YouTube. And for a while, he kept managing to find "inappwopwiate" videos, so I took YouTube off the iPad--but the smart little turkey figured out how to access YouTube on a Web browser, so I was foiled. And by then he was old enough to usually realize when something is "inappwopwiate," and he will turn it off and announce it to me loudly. So, I relented and put YouTube back on.

One thing he likes on YouTube is a little video of a song called "Cool Things to Find." I think it's a kids' song about exploring and finding neat treasures or some such thing. Harmless. Except that he stumbled upon a parody of it called "Cool Ways to Die." The song sounds exactly the same, so it took a couple of times of hearing it before I realized what it was and put an end to him watching it. But by then, the damage was done. He's now fascinated by it and keeps talking about it. He wanders around singing, "Dead things to find...so many dead things to find!" which sounds like some sort of serial-killer theme song!!

But worse, it has brought about the dreaded, "Mom, what does 'die' mean?" question. I answered, "It means to go up to the stars, honey," because a while back we talked about people and animals going up to the stars when they get very, very old. (My dad isn't living, my Mom's dog passed away, and Chris's parents' cat passed away...so we had to come up with something, as Theo wondered about his grandfather and these pets.)

So yesterday, in typical abrupt Theo fashion, he announced out of the blue, "Mom, if there's fire coming out of your head, you need to go up to the stars." This delivered with absolutely no emotion--just as if stating fact. I started to laugh and then realized he was serious and said, "Oh! Yes. If there was fire coming out of your head, you would probably go up to the stars." And I realized that the lovely "Cool Ways to Die" parody has a shot of someone whose head is on fire.

Thank you, YouTube...

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Theo Feliciano

Theo loves the song "Feliz Navidad." For the past several days, he's been watching a video of Jose Feliciano performing it live. Chris told him yesterday that Jose Feliciano can't see. And so this is the rendition of "Feliz Navidad" Theo treated us to this morning. We tried really, really hard not to laugh!