Thursday
the 27th. Ben recovered fine from his dental work, once he finally
woke up. He was even able to go to our friend Megan's
very fun birthday party Tuesday evening and enjoy lots of soft foods and ice cream. I
can't believe Megan is ten already.
Below are a few things I've been meaning to post for posterity...
Ben calls umbrellas rainbrellas, which makes perfect since if you ask me.
Following a Saturday morning cartoon that had vampires in it, Jackson asked me to look in the mirror to prove that I wasn't one. After showing him my reflection, I told him that vampires don't really exist, that they are just something people made up so that they could tell scary stories about them. He asked me how I knew they didn't really exist. I said "I just do." He said "but how do you know?" This went back and forth until I said "Well, I've never seen one, that's how I know." He said "Well, have you been everywhere in the world?" I replied "No" to which he countered "Well if you haven't been everywhere, then you haven't seen everything, and if you haven't seen everything, then you don't really have any proof do you?" He won, I had to say that "no, I guess I don't have any proof that vampires don't exist. Are you afraid of vampires?" "No," he answered, "all you need to beat a vampire is an onion and I know where mommy keeps those in the kitchen." The lesson here is that it's hard to scare a five year old with anything that you can defeat with a vegetable. (and yes I know that it's really garlic, but Jackson doesn't)
I'm a very political person that sits politically on the left.
It's very important to Amy and I that our children grow up with a strong understanding of
social justice and human rights. We try to instill that understanding through both
example and discussion. When Jackson wanted to know about America, I told
him about the migration of Europeans and what happened to the Native Americans
that were already here. We talked about the reasons for the Revolutionary
War and why we started our own country. He wanted to know what made our
country different. So I gave him a quick lesson in the different types of
governments, about freedom and the lack of freedoms. We talked about how
our government is supposed to be a representation of the people and that the
president essentially works for us (of course if our president really worked
for me I would have fired him a long time ago). I explained a little about checks and
balances. We talked about other types of governments too, including
dictatorships, where a single person can make all the laws and force the
people of his country to do whatever he wants. Once the
conversation was over, Jackson sat back for a minute reflecting on all that I
had said. He then jumped up and said "When I grow
up, I want to be
a dictator!"