A Brief Paleontology Lesson

I just spent the last two hours doing a fact-checking test, so I'm not going to stun you with anything original tonight. Instead I'm going to stun you with a more or less verbatim transcription of what SillyBilly told me tonight about dinosaur bones, one of his favorite topics:

Land dinosaurs were thirsty so they went to a pool to drink, but they went in too far and drowned. Their bones were so heavy that they sank into the sand. Over the years the sand turned into dirt, and the dirt into rock, and so did the bones. That's why dinosaur bones are very valuable if they're on the surface of the ground, because it's very rare to see them up there.

Do you wonder why we call her Napoleona?

Heard said after we came in from playing one afternoon:
Napoleona: "I took off my hat. My hair is too beautiful to cover up with a hat."

Also...
Napoleona: "I want to be a princess for Halloween!"
Papa: "Really?"
Napoleona: "Of course, I'm a princess all the time."

Out of the Mouths of Babes, VIII

SillyBilly: Are Hansel and Gretel real?
Mama: (dodging and weaving like #42) That depends on what you mean by "real."
SillyBilly: Real means real!! (He said this as if he'd already reached the stage where I am a complete idiot. Five going on fifteen, that's my boy.)
Mama: Remember our conversation about thoughts and feelings being real even though you can't see or touch them?
Papa: When you feel hungry, is that real?
SillyBilly: YES!!! (As real as our grocery bill. I'm waiting for the day it exceeds our rent. By then I'm sure the owner of our local Chinese food buffet will have made enough off us to buy that vacation house in the Bahamas.)
Mama: But you can't see your hunger, right?
Papa: So stories are real in the same kind of way. But if you're asking if there were people named Hansel and Gretel who had an adventure with a witch, then...we don't know.
SillyBilly: When we die and go up to heaven, we can find out what's real.

This conversation happened the day after I chose to read the kids Hansel and Gretel while waiting in a doctor's office. It was really too scary for them: the mother was dead? the stepmother wanted to leave the kids in the forest? the witch wanted to cook the kids and eat them? It's really a story for ages 6 and up (according to wise Waldorf kindergarten teachers).

But we just couldn't resist getting all philosophical about "real." Don't get me started on The Velveteen Rabbit.

Ed.: I just realized that I had a previous conversation written down that would explain how we had already talked about "real":

SillyBilly: What's reality?
(Papa hands off to Mama, even though he's the philosopher in the family.)
Mama: Some people say that reality is things that we can touch or see, and things like stories and pretending aren't real.
Papa: But other things like thoughts and feelings are real.
Mama: Some people believe that God is real even though we don't see him or touch him.
Napoleona: God is a spirit!
SillyBilly: God is the biggest spirit of all.

We were being bad Waldorf parents, using lots of words and abstractions with preschoolers who are more in movement and the will. But on the other hand, we were meeting SillyBilly where he is now. How to balance that?!

Out of the Mouths of Babes, VII

Tonight at dinner I said something about bread, and SillyBilly made a joke about cows being bred (can't remember what exactly -- must keep my Moleskine notebook at hand!). I told him that was a synonym, and explained that means two different words that mean the same, or almost the same, thing.

We have talked about antonyms before: hot/cold, dry/wet, in/out. And homonyms: sale/sail, meet/meat, pale/pail. But synonyms were new.

Then Napoleona pipes up: "Like plate/dish!"

Napoleona is 3 years old, and she can spontaneously think of a synonym.

Then SillyBilly said, "Mama, I want to do copy editing just like you do!"

We are in serious trouble.

Out of the Mouths of Babes, VI

Overheard while SillyBilly was getting his jammies on with Papa:

Papa, what color is a soul?

Papa, what shape is a soul?

In the car driving home from the mall (I know, Easter Sunday, but it was too cold to play outside and we HAD to get out of the house) we discussed how Jesus and Buddha said some of the same things (be nice to everyone):

SillyBilly: Mama, when I grow up I want to be like Jesus, or Buddha.
Napoleona: Me too!!

Back at home, after a lengthy discussion about Jesus, Mama gives one more example of how Jesus said we should be nice to everyone:

Mama: ..and one time a lady who had done bad things washed Jesus' feet and dried them with her own hair, and even though other people didn't like her, Jesus said that because she wanted to be nice and she was sorry, that he liked her.

SillyBilly: Mama, what bad things did she do?

Grammy: Let's see how she gets out of this one!

(Needless to say, I just left it at "bad things, I'm not going to tell you what exactly." I was not going to explain theologians' arguments about her being a prostitute.)

Out of the Mouths of Babes, V

SillyBilly: I want to go into space. To look at the moon and find moon rocks, and look at meteroids and shooting stars.

And I want to go camping on the big trail. [Papa had told him about the Appalachian Trail.]

I would get into a rocket in a big hole in the desert, and burn off into space: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, HKHEEOOHH!!!!

Napoleona: And I want to go too!!

***

So we're sitting in a Starbucks in lower Manhattan, having a snack after going to the Status of Liberty. The following conversation occurred after seeing a tour bus with an ad for the Bodies exhibit, and having discussed Egyptian mummies recently:

SillyBilly: Mama, is that a mummy?
Mama: No, it's a body preserved with chemicals.
SillyBilly: Did they use oil?
Mama: No, they don't use oil and resin anymore.
SillyBilly: What's resin?
Mama: Sticky stuff from trees, like on pine cones. Remember how at Christmas the Three Kings bring gold, frankincense and myrrh? Frankincense is a special resin they used to use. [Now that I read up on it, it was myrrh they used in embalming. Oh well.]
SillyBilly: Maybe they used that on King Tut.
Mama: Yes, that was a long time ago.
SillyBilly: Was that before God made the world?
Mama: No, there wasn't anything before God made the world.
SillyBilly: Does God die?
Mama: No. But some people like Hindus think that the world is created, then lives, and then is destroyed. And some people say God is dead.
SillyBilly: Who?
Mama: Nietsche.
SillyBilly: Who's he?
Mama: A philosopher.
SillyBilly: A philosoraptor?
Duncan thinks for a while about all this....
SillyBilly: Frankenstein is a special resin.

Out of the Mouths of Babes, IV

SillyBillyspeak

Mama, I'm full up of love from YOU! (Smooch, hug, cuddle, etc.)

Driving home from the grocery store:
Mama, how come all those people are at Dairy Queen....and we're not?

SillyBilly: Mama, I want to have wings like a bird.
Mama: Why?
SillyBilly: So I can fly in the sky.
Mama: What kind of bird would you be?
SillyBilly: A vulture!
Mama: Why a vulture?
SillyBilly: Because they're big, and I like big.

SillyBilly: Mama, can you take the airport shuttle into space?
Mama: No honey, it's not the space shuttle.

(He had recently watched a video of a space shuttle launch on Papa's computer. He's obsessed with space right now. He has eagle eyes and spied the airplane symbol on a sign for a shuttle stop, so I was explaining about the airport shuttle.)

Out of the Mouths of Babes, III

At the dinner table after Mama and Papa have been talking about work...

Napoleona: I'm going to have my workbooks to help my students.
Mama: You mean like Papa helps students? (Papa is the Registrar of Sunbridge College.)
Napoleona: Yeah.
Mama: Do you work at Papa's work?
Napoleona: No, at Grammy and Grampa's house.
Mama: You work at Grammy and Grampa's?
Napoleona: Next to their house.
Mama: You work at the Holderness School? (They live near this school in Plymouth, NH.)
Napoleona: Yes, the doors are wide open for me there. (Holding her arms out to the sides, wide open.)

Evidently Napoleona sees a bright future for herself in the education field.

Update: The Huntlings and I are going to visit the West Coast grandparents for the next two weeks while Papa works on his Master's degree. Postings may be sparse until we return.

Out of the Mouths of Babes, II

A conversation as we are driving home from running an errand:

SillyBilly: Mama, a lot of people have statues of Jesus and Mary in their yards.
Mama: Yes, sweetie, they do.
SillyBilly: Why do they do that?
Mama: Well, (thinking fast) they love Jesus and Mary and want something to remind them of it, and to make their yards pretty.
SillyBilly: I want a Jesus statue, Mama.
Mama: Why's that?
SillyBilly: Because I love Jesus so much.
Mama: Why do you love him?
SillyBilly: Because I'm grateful for the food.

Editorial note: I realize that's 3 or 4 pictures of Jesus and/or Mary on this blog. I'm not Catholic, I'm actually Jewish by birth and not anything formal by practice.

However, Mary and Jesus are an archetype of familial love and I am teaching my children about their story. Just as I tell them about Buddha and the Dalai Lama. Plus religious artwork is beautiful.

I also tell my children about their guardian angels and that they go up to visit heaven every time they sleep. I also tell them that when we die, we go to heaven for a while, and then after a nice rest up there we come back for another life down here.

We say or sing a different grace for each meal and then say "thank you for our meal" afterwards. We are trying to help our children learn about gratitude. Sometimes during the meal we talk about all the people and work involved in producing our food, just as we talk about what plants and animals provide our food. So, that's probably the source of this conversation.

Out of the mouths of babes

SillyBilly's vocabulary list

1) Cilantula (trying to say cilantro): A hairy green spider, good in salsa.


2) A hassle of kids: What you get when all the neighbors get together to play.

3) Microscopity teeny tiny eeny weeny bite: describing his last bite of dinner (SillyBilly subscribes to the Zeno's dichotomy paradox method of eating his last bite).

Stories

SillyBilly: Mama, I'm the strongest person in the world.
Mama: Why's that?
SillyBilly: I can do things no one else can do.
Mama: Like what?
SillyBilly: I can crack stones. I can crack blocks. I can crack the world.

Napoleona's story, told to us after dinner tonight:

Once upon a time, there was a lion, an elephant and a tiger. They were walking through a deep, dark forest, and they found a cave. There was a light in the cave, and a monster came out. The monster bounced up and down. So the animals said "RRRAAAHHH" and the monster went back in the cave. Then the animals went to their own Africa and climbed up a tree, and they lived happily ever after.