Rosetta, What?

Parenting is undeniably hard.  It is a tiring, thankless task, and many mothers lose sleep worrying about keeping their kids healthy, helping them do well in school, or how to afford college.  But for me, the most difficult part is figuring out what the heck my kids are talking about.

Cael usually manages to make sense, but all of his interests are foreign to me.  He's into dragons and monsters, occasionally dinosaurs, and all things Pokemon.  Despite repeated efforts to explain the rules of a Pokemon battle to me, my understanding is still limited to the following:

1) Choose a card.  I'll take this one, he's on fire and wearing a green three-piece suit.
2) Attempt to read the name of the character.  What is his name?  Miconazole?  Isn't that yeast infection cream?
3) Lose the battle.  Wait.. what happened here?

But as confusing as interacting with Cael can be, this post is about Graham.  My sweet boy has so much to tell me each day, and while his swapped-letter speech problems make his words a little hard to decipher, I find that the subject matter is just as elusive.

"Mom, you know the world?"

"What about it?"

"Well, you know all of the stuff in the world?"

"Yeah..."

"I think it's cool that there's this stuff-- all the stuff in the world with chairs and plates and stuff, and we don't even know about some of the other things because there are so much.  And that's what God thinks about all of us if we want to go to heaven.  Because that's how things are.  You know?"

I really, really don't.

Incidentally, Graham might be competing in the Miss Teen USA pageant.  He'd kill the interview segment.



The first few times he spewed this kind of nonsense,  I was a little concerned, but now I think his brain is just moving a mile a minute and his mouth can't keep up.  And if his biggest problem is an occasional monologue of what, huh?, that's not so bad.  Maybe someday there will even be a Rosetta Stone for communicating with kids.

Because in this world, there are things that just happen.  And those things, like with talking and thinking, are just how they are for you and me.  Both of us have things, like secrets and carpet and sandwiches that are just like that, and that's okay.  We all know how that feels for all people.  We just can't let people change how things are, because that's not how the world is for children.  You know?

Now who wants to battle...