Choices

Miranda announced at dinner the other day, "I think Sam should come over for a sleepover for seven days."

"Um, Miranda, seven days is a long time for a sleepover, and, generally society frowns on mixed-gender sleepovers, at least at your age." It is too early to explain to her the ins and outs of grown-up culture, and it is too soon for me to think of my five-year-old as having "sleep-overs with boys." Instead, I suggested, "How about we have Jane over for a sleep-over."

Miranda took a deep breath. "Mom, it is always good to make new friends, and some of those new friends are going to be boys. And if you make friends, it is important that you have sleepovers with them, even if they are boys, because blahblahblah..." A veritable speech -- and clearly well thought out -- for a little girl who often gets distracted mid-sentence (a trait in my family :) .)

The answer was still no.

Then she started talking about marriage. "Mom, I can't decide if I am going to marry Mike, Sam, or Shaun. Right now I am thinking Sam, but I'm not sure. It is hard to decide."

"Well, you have a few years to figure that out."

My mind wandered as Miranda continued to rattle on ... it is hard to focus on everything she says, especially when every meal is punctuated with, "Xavier, we don't play with trains at the table," and "Xavier, drink your juice," and "Xavier, get your feet off the table," and "Xavier, get that rice off your nose." When Miranda said something about "tongue shakes," it pretty much washed right over me until she added, "Of course, we had to be careful to keep the teachers from catching us."

"What?" I asked, suddenly alert. "Tongue shakes ... that doesn't mean touching tongues with someone else, does it?"

She nodded happily. And this from the girl who worries incessantly about dirty hands! We had a little discussion about germs on that one ...

On the Xavier front, he was eating sherbet last night for dessert, and my husband looked over and saw that Xavier's face was covered from nose to chin in green sherbert, almost as if he had dipped his whole face in it.

"Xavier, what are you doing?" my husband asked.

Xavier looked up, nonplussed. "What?" he asked. Then, a few moments later, "Am I a clown to you?"