A Recent Exchange

So here's the ride home with The Babe from Preschool...

Me: "How was your day?"
TB: "Good."
Me: "What did you do?"*
TB: "Nothing."
Me: "Really? Didn't you do SOMETHING?"
TB: "We didn't do ANYTHING."
Me: "NOTHING at all?"
TB: "Nope."
Me: "So you mean to tell me you got there and sat around the classroom and just stared at all the other kids all morning long?"
TB: "MOOMMMM. No. We talked."
Me: "About...."
TB: "Nothing."
Me: "So you sat around, said nothing and didn't talk about anything?"***
TB: "We talked about stuff."
Me: "Did you talk about letters or numbers or the calendar?"
TB: "No. The weather."****
Me: "What did you decide about the weather?"
TB: "The snowman had to wear his coat because it was cold outside."
Me: "Well that was smart."*****
TB: "Yeah. Oh. And we didn't go to the playground."
Me: "What did you do instead?"
TB: "Nothing."

Me (thinking): "Didn't this freakin' conversation START with the word 'nothing'? And, if that's the case, maybe I should just let this go."

But, apparently the second NOTHING in a conversation with a four-year-old is the magical key that unlocks their little tongues because for the next FIFTEEN MINUTES I hear: "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH."

All the sudden he's a fountain of information! It's like the last rock holding Hoover Dam together suddently burst from its position and the whole dang thing started spewing. That was my child. Spewing. On and on. About Legos and Star Wars and a friend from Preschool.

Which got me wondering "If the key to turn on is two 'nothings', where's the magic off switch?"

I still haven't figured that one out. I figure further that it's tied up in someting about nothing.

Or something like that.


*Yes, I should know better than to ask this lame question, especially after three kids. And, doubly especially, because they are all boys.

**Does this comment stink like bait or what? It's waht I would expect to smell if I boarded a boat looking to caputre a great white shark and they stuck my head in the chum bucket.

***Ten points if you can guess "who's on first?"

****HOW LAME IS THAT? Really. At four you can't come up with anything better to talk about than the stinkin' weather? GEEZ. At your age, kid, we had long conversations about Barbie and Ken getting married and how cute puppies and kitties are and how Santa was bringing the Barbie house. The weather.....?

*****All logic aside, we'd hate to have the SNOWMAN from Dallas get too cold because he didn't wear his coat.