Me, asking my son this question:
“So has Sokka figured out that he’s a member now, since the master gave him the tile with the white lotus?”
What is this foreign language I’m speaking? Why do I know so much about all things boy in the 2000s? And if you know what I’m talking about, you or your kids are way cool.
It still amazes me how my life turned out to be something completely different than I ever expected it would be. And how much I’m really OK with it.
Another interesting comment overheard in my house recently: “I hate it when the adults get all upset about something stupid that makes us look useless.”
Um, that’s what I spend my whole life doing?
Luckily my son wasn’t referring to me, but a woman at the elementary school open house who was furious that there’s only one bathroom in the basement, and the kids have to go up and down two flights of stairs to get there.
My now middle-schooler reminisced, “That was our favorite part of going to the bathroom! Wandering around the school for a while!”
And I said it explained why we have so much obesity, if our children can’t walk up two flights of stairs.
And my husband told us both to lay off.
However my son’s comment served as one of those painful reminders that I’m not always right. I have to check with my kids first and find out their opinion of their life, not just my idea of what it should be. I think we’re just a wee bit obsessed with that notion in our parenting culture du jour. Wouldn’t you say?
My mystery quote about the white lotus was referring to Avatar the Last Airbender. Sokka is a teenager who travels the world, fights bad guys, makes his own sword out of a meteorite, rescues his father from prison, and basically plays a huge role in saving the world from the fire lord.
I want us to give our kids that kind of confidence instead of telling them that two flights of stairs is too many.
And those are just some random thoughts from a day in a life of total unpredictability.
