Beauty and Truth, Truth Beauty?

On our way home from Greta's classmate's DOG's birthday party (Beauty is 13), I listened to them philosophize about an issue of great importance--Truth.

It began on our way to the dog-party with their eagerness to finally see the dog-owner's home to determine if she had told the Truth about owning a twenty-story jumping house with a gumball machine on the top floor. Perhaps she was lying. This "lying" business carries great weight with kindergarteners. A lie, fully revealed, is capable of evoking great feelings of injustice and anger, along with discussions of consequences. And, since I was realtively certain that we, in fact, would not find a twenty-story jumping house, I thought it would be best for me to intervene, lest we accost our sweet hostess in the first minutes of her party.

What to do? I taught the girls about hyperbole. Luckily, they listened with great interest, repeated the term, and thankfully "bought" the idea that sometime people exaggerate a great deal because they want to share a feeling of excitement. They concluded that it would be fine if there a mere place to jump and gum was somewhere on the premises.

As it often happens, their new understanding turned out to be less than permanent. On the way home, an hour later, Greta's brother was the offender against Truth. He told them that, "One time I actually rode on a dolohin standing up with a penguin on back."

Three authoritative voices chimed in with, "That's not true."

"I don't think you're telling the truth, Graham."

And the big one: "Graham, you are lying."

I interjected, "Well, it depends on your defintion of truth."

huh? There was silence in the car. Was Greta's mother actually going to defend a bald-faced lie?

I needed to continue before I got a call from another parent about why I said that it was OK to lie.

"You know, Graham probably imagined riding a dolphin, so in his imagination it is true. And, imaginations are great things. That's how we get great stories to read and listen to."

Greta didn't skip a beat, "Well, in my imagination the truth is that the boy (I wonder who?) was riding a dolphin, but he was really mean and he kept tightening a string around the dolphin's neck and he was killing the dolphin. But then a beautiful mermaid came and knocked the boy off and a shark was going to get the boy, but then the boy started getting the mermaid. And then he was hurting the mermaid, but the dolphin came to rescue the mermaid. The dolphin got the boy over to the shark and the shark ate the boy and the mermaid and dolphin met a unicorn who came down to give them flowers and stuff and took them on her back to her home and they lived with the unicorn and they lived happily ever after."

Moral? Lie if you want to, but make it good or the sharks will get you in the end.

The slowers and the fasters

Graham has a new personality theory, a la Greta's circle head theory of intelligence.

After losing a race at putting on pajamas to his sister for the upteenth time, he sat in his room moping.

She had gotten her nightgown on, put away her clothes, and brushed her teeth all in the time that the Moose had taken to take his socks off and look for his pajamas. Of course, she did not hold back in relaying all of her efficiency to her brother despite his disappointment. The bitter irony was that the race had been Graham's idea.

After the victor had left him in his spoils, Graham looked at me near tears and said, "I'm a slower." Although, it came out as, "swower," so I had to ask him to repeat himself.

"You know, a slower. Not a faster. Greta's a faster."

I wasn't sure what to say, but busted out with something about how racing is not always fun. At least it never was for me.

He ignored me and added, "Mom, you're a slower too, right." (Oh, how right he is.)

I took him on my lap, feeling very Atticus Finch at the moment, and said, "Yeah Graham. I'm a slower too." Then I had to know, "What do you think Daddy is?"

"He's a faster like Greta."

He may not do it quickly, but he gets it.

astrication

Graham is not confined by the facts. At all. Today while waiting for Greta to finish gymnastics he approached another three-year-old boy and asked him if he wanted to see his really cool new car, a convertible mini-Cooper. I heard the woman reading next to them guffaw and could not resist blowing his cover. No, he does not have a convertible matchbox, let alone a convertible mini-cooper. He and the boy discovered, however, that when you throw matchbox cars into a brick wall at a certain gymnasium, thus cracking their frames, that they can become "convertibles." I'm not sure how to get a mini-cooper.

Tonight we read a preschool-oriented science story featuring the cast of Winnie the Pooh, entitled, Are Things Getting Smaller? In the book, little Roo becomes less little and is convinced that the things in the Hundred Acre Wood are becoming smaller. The author peppers the book with references to other baby animals growing and getting bigger, so I thought maybe Graham would pick up on the less than subtle hints. I asked him if he knew what was happening. He replied, "I sure don't, but I really want to find out." Sweet.

Then, he continued. "Actually, I know what it is. Do you know about astrication?"

"Asstrication?" I was going through all of the possible words that he might be mispronouncing and coming up with nothing.

"Yes."

"No, I don't know about asstrication, Graham. Tell me what that is."

"Asstrication is when they put electricity into things and they get a little bit smaller."

Grahamisms

A question: Mommy, do you think that Socks would like some lipstick on him? (I am grateful that he took my answer as definitive truth: cats do NOT like lipstick.)