The Quotable Henry Part II

1. The other day while playing with "guys", I asked Henry, "Are your guys going to blast off to Mars?"
"No, just to Dallas," he told me. "They need a place to live, not just a place to go, so they need'a go to Dallas."
"Oh, okay." Totally understandable; I'd much prefer Dallas to Mars.
"Dallas is a really beautiful country, Mom. And it has plenty of love and good people. All the bad love and bad people live in Vacaville, like the villains of Vacaville, but the good people and good love are in Dallas. (*background: I always tell him stories about The Villains of Vacaville - I'm afraid that place will always be associated with hucksters and thieves).

All my favorite good people are in Dallas, I know that. And there's plenty of good love in this house.

2. A few days ago, Henry came and sat down by me on the couch, a pack of gum clenched in his fist. "Whacha doin' with that gum?" I asked.
"Well, I was in your room and I just saw this gum sittin' all alone up on the bookshelf. And it had a sad face, like this (*makes a frowny face*) so I thought I better bring it out here."

*Pause*

"So...maybe we could have a piece?"
I couldn't say no!

3. "Mom, am I a great boy?"
"You are a great boy"
"But am I like the rootin' tootinest boy around, or what?"
"Yep the rootin' tootinest boy in Texas!"

4. The other day I vaguely mentioned a grown man who had made some very poor choices - like there aren't many choices worse than the ones this man was making. I, of course, did not go into any detail about the nature of the choices, all that was said was that there were bad choices made; that was enough to make Henry very curious.

"Did he make a really bad choice, like did he take 2 pieces of gum when his mom told him to only get one? Or did he sneak 2 vitamins?"

And a few hours later, "Did he not share? Is that what his bad choice was? If he made these bad choices, I bet Santa Claus didn't bring him any presents. (*pause for reflection, shoulder shrugg and a little smacking sound effect with his mouth...) That's too bad."

I just think it's so amusing the way children project their paradigm onto every situation. Little Henry's mind just can't imagine many choices worse than sneaking too much gum or too many vitamins. Funny.

5. The other day after T-ball practice, I was dusting some dry grass off of Henry's tall, blue socks, "Mom! Don't worry about it," he insisted. "Don't you know that half the fun of baseball is getting dirty?"

Sometimes I wish I didn't have to intervene so much in my children's lives. I wish I could just take fly-on-the-wall status and observe their unfiltered creativity all day long. I love the sights and sounds of their play when they don't know they're being watched. I eavesdrop and spy on them at least once daily. This is what I see:





I wish I had a sound-byte too.