Just last week she announced, “I want to try crab legs. My teacher thinks I would like them.”
Oh. Okay. Except we don’t eat seafood in our house and we don’t go out for it either. Like ever. And I’m not taking her to Red Lobster and ordering a $19 + tax platter of crab legs just so she can try them because no one else would eat them and there goes $19 + tax into the garbage.
Lucky for Miss O, my mom loves all things from the sea and will take her adoring granddaughter out for crab legs at her earliest convenience.
Just last week I got home from work and Olivia was waiting at the door for me to come in from the garage. She didn’t even wait for me to take my coat off before informing me, “Did you know they make Legos for girls!?!”
I feigned surprise, “They do?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “My teacher told me they make Legos for girls and we need to get me some so I can play with them.”
Well, then, I guess I needed to add an item to my shopping list for Saturday.
See, Olivia listens to everything going on around her and she gets all these ideas. She hears her teachers talking, she hears me talking to Tom and my mom and she takes it all in. She figures out when we’re talking about her or her sister and really tunes us in. She’s like a sponge; a sponge soaking up very expensive ideas.
But yeah, we got her some Legos last weekend. As we were browsing the toy aisle she found a box with a mom, a baby, a stroller and some blocks to make trees and benches and, well, other stuff.
She wanted it.
The box was labeled for 2-5 years old. The blocks were a little bigger than your typical Legos. I figured if she’d play with it, it wasn’t money wasted and she loves things like baby strollers and wheel chairs and wagons. So we got it.
When we got home, she opened her new toy and looked at the package asking,” What does the two and five mean?”
I saw Alyssa perk up, her eyes on me as she waited for me to explain myself. I could almost see the glee bubbling up in her as she waited to see if this would be a mom-fail situation. Brat.
I didn’t take too much time to think about it because Olivia can tell when I’m trying to concoct something to fool her. I kept pretty close to the truth. I told her, “The two means that kids under two years old shouldn’t play with these toys because they’re small toys and babies who aren’t even two might choke.”
She nodded wisely and then asked, “But what about the five?”
“Well, the five means that even kids over five years old will like this toy. You’re eight and you like it, right?”
Alyssa started to roll her eyes and I gave her such a mom-glare. She gave me a blank look. I continued, “Even Alyssa who is twelve, played with this toy-“
“I stole it,” Alyssa interjected.
“She PLAYED with it,” I told Olivia, again giving Alyssa a pointed look. “And that means that anyone who is at least two years old and even over five years old can play with and have fun with this toy.
Olivia accepted my explanation of the 2-5 rating on the Lego box and went about playing with her toys, enjoying making trees out the blocks, making the mom push the baby (who looks like a boy but Olivia insists is a girl because the stroller is pink) around in the stroller and rescuing random blocks from Alyssa who
Speaking of waiting for me at the door when I get home (I mentioned it several paragraphs up) O did that again yesterday (she does it most days) and as I walked in the door she told me, “Today, this afternoon, at school, the FFA people brought cherry pie and ice cream to the classrooms. Do you think they brought the cherry pie and ice cream for the teachers and the students or just the teachers.”
From the way she asked the question, I could guess the answer but I could tell she wanted the satisfaction of telling me herself so I replied, “I don’t know. Who did the bring the pie and ice cream for?”
She put her hands on her hips and declared, “They brought the cherry pie and ice cream for the teachers and NOT for the students.”
She was stunned by the unfairness of it all. How dare those future farmers of America bring CHERRY pie and ice cream to the teachers and not bring some for the students too? It was criminally unfair and all involved should have been prosecuted.
She asked me later if we had any pie. We didn’t. She asked if I could maybe pick up some pie when I was at work today.
I asked her if she wanted cherry pie, thinking she’d say yes because she’d been denied cherry pie at school that day. She requested apple, because it’s her favorite and as much as she’d have liked to have the FFA students bring enough cherry pie and ice cream for everyone (everyone knows that if you’re bringing a treat into a classroom, you bring enough for EVERYONE or you don’t bring any at all, duh!) if I was taking requests, she’s prefer apple, thanks so much.
So yes, I’ve already picked up an apple pie to take home to my pie-deprived first grader.
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