The Pokey Doggie Doodle Dosh

If I do one thing right as a parent I hope I can avoid squelching Kate’s amazing imagination. I mean, the things she comes up with make your wildest drug trips seem mundane. That is, if you were someone who were to ever have had a wild drug trip.

Sometimes in the middle of dinner she’ll bust out something like this, which she said the other night, “When I was a big girl I had a witch with a tiny tiny tiny skateboard and she lived under the dining room table in such a silly place. It was SO silly!”

But more often it’s when she’s the teacher and Paige, or Mark, or I–or all three of us–are the students. There’s a lot of homeschoolin’ going on around here, thanks to Kate. Aside from compulsively covering babies with blanket after blanket all over the house, Kate’s second favorite thing to do is to be the teacher. And God help you if you don’t want to be the student.

Sometimes it starts with her singing the circle song from preschool which is how they wrangle the kids together every morning. It seems to be some global concept since every toddler I know in a wide variety of school settings has their own version of circle time.

And if it’s not circle time you’re needing to take part in it’s “I read you a book, then I change you diaper.” Or “then we play outside.” Generally followed by a patronizing tilt of the head and a soft-spoken, “Okay? Okay!” If you’re ever here and this happens and you need all your concentration because you’re performing a complex surgery or something, still just say “okay” since she really doesn’t require your active participation to plow forward in this game.

The other day Kate was “reading” a book to me, and the first few pages were mind-blowingly wacky and funny. Sometimes she says each word really slowly while she’s thinking up what to say next. Mark and I are often on tenterhooks awaiting what weirdness will come. It’s kind of like playing that add a-word-and-built-a-sentence game, but with just one person.

So since she was on a roll, I asked her to hold on while I found a pen and a piece of paper. I’m not sure how much awareness she had of my taking dictation–since the story did get a bit more subdued at that point–at any rate, here it is. Imagine her turning the pages and reading to me in a sing-songy patronizing voice.

The book was called Frederick, about a mouse:
The sun came up and I was eating some corn.
Some mouses went to a place called OSH.
Then a SoBe comb came. [I drink SoBe drinks, but have no idea what a "SoBe comb" is.]
And when I was SoBe comb I was a nice SoBe comb.
[Flips to the front to read an inscription, though there is none.] By Aunt Ellen. I love Kate.
I cleaned up all the cheese.
I ate up all the cheese.
They fell.
“Then we ate potatoes and falled asleep,” said the mouse.
They say, “Oh!” Can I fall asleep?”
“Yes,” said Omar.

Next she read 101 Dalmations:

[announcing title] All My Baby’s Changers
All my baby’s changers.
I go to my home and licked my baby’s changers hand. [When asked what a
changer is, "A kind of woman who knocks you down."]
D at changer goes, “Woo!”
That’s what she says.
I was a good doggie.
“Oh!” they say to my old grandmother. “Oh! I can come here.”
Then the pokey doggie doodle dosh.
I hope I was good.
I go to my home and wash my hode. [I double-checked this, and she did say "hode."]
I’m not going to go out of my hode. I’m going to stay at my hode.
I’m going to rush out the door.
Then Cinderella said, “Oh! I can come here!”
Then Cinderella placed a change to my home.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.

Story time is now over. The library will be closing in five minutes.