Thursday, September 04, 2008

Comments heard during the week

Ever have one of those weeks when everyone manages to say something silly? Usually, it's just me saying things I shouldn't. This week everyone else joined my "ooohhh-shouldn't-have-said-that" party.

Event #1: Grandma Discourages Tiny
You would think that Grandmothers would know better but not ours. Oh no, Grandma started the week off right with a bang.
Grandma: You can’t read.
Tiny: Yes, I can!
Grandma: No you can’t.
Luckily it ended there because I was about kill Grandma. The problem is, while Tiny can’t read, she’s really interested in books. She likes to hold them and pretend to read them. With all the other media around, I feel it’s important to instill a love of books and reading early. I want all my kids to be readers in life and not watchers. What ever possessed Grandma to “discourage” Tiny and tell her she couldn’t do something is beyond me.

Event #2: Boy Crushes Girl.
I don't know what started this, but with one simple sentence Boy absolutely crushed Girl at the dinner table one night.
Boy: You must really be upset that your friend is going to be better at cartwheels than you are.
It’s a long convoluted story but Girl is taking a tap and ballet dance class and not the “acro” class. The acro, or acrobatic, class teaches kids how to do tumbles, cartwheels, etc. It’s a complete waste of money. But, some of Girl’s little friends are doing that instead of more dance lessons. While logically Girl understands that dance lessons are better, and she will be ahead in the long run, she was still having trouble with the decision emotionally. Boy did a great job of helping her forget that she was leaving friends behind.

Needless to say, Dad stepped in quickly. “WHAT are you trying to say?" and not even giving him a chance to dig a deeper hole I went straight to. "That’s not nice at all!”

Event #3:
Dad gets in the act.
Finally, unable to resist the temptation to say something I shouldn't, I joined the crowd.

It started when Grandma stopped by my office. She, myself and a couple of the older ladies were discussing current affairs, the grandkids, and Grandpa, when one of the ladies asked Grandma: “Why haven’t you retired yet?

Grandma proceeded to give some weak excuses which amounted to “I’m a Baby Boomer and I feel the need to work until I’m 100.”
Completely dissatisfied with her answer because there is no reason for her to still be working, I managed to blurt out, You know, if you were to.. you know… suddenly pass away then I could retire at least 10 years earlier than I am planning to. Then at least one of us could enjoy retirement.

Yep. Grandma hasn't stopped by the office since. In fact, only recently has she started using sentences when talking to me. That's a marked improvement from the past weekend. Hey - serves her right for being mean to Tiny.

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