Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Insights of a 5-Year-Old

If you haven't heard this song (King of Anything by Sarah Barielles) and have a minute, listen to it before you read this entry and pay attention to it:  (and there is an ad before the song starts).
So, it's been a crappy week so far...highs, lows, all that crap.  Shelby is very perceptive...she gets things no matter how much I try to hide it from her, to the point that it is extremely frightening what she picks up on.  The following conversations are not word for word because my memory sucks, but they are in no way embellished:
Last night we were on our way to have dinner with my mom and Shelby asked why we couldn't move to "Las Beggis wif Wayne".  I explained to her that I have a job that I love here, and all of her grandmas and grandpas and her school is here, and reminded her she would be starting kindergarten in the fall.  She immediately burst into tears and yelled "But I don't want kindergarten shots, I want to move to Las Beggis!  So I explained to her that even if we move to Las Beggis, she would have to go to kindergarten and she would have to have kindergarten shots.  She pondered this for a while and said "Well how about this...I move to Las Beggis with Wayne and you stay here with the grandmas and grandpas so they don't get sad.  Yeah.  That will work.  Oh, but I'm going to need a ride, but you can drive me there with a trailer wif all my stuff in it, like Wayne and drive back home.  Do they have pet stores that sell guinea pigs there?"
So later, we got home and she was absolutely wild.  She wanted to listen to her favorite song and watch the video, (which is mentioned above).  She watched it about 10 times, and I am pretty sure my neighbors were incredibly thrilled.  At one point I was singing along and she came up to me with her finger to her lips and said "Only I sound like her.  You sound like Duffy."  When she was finally done, she took my hand and pulled me to my bedroom and said we needed to talk about "sum-fing important".  She kicked the dog out of the room and closed the door and sat down against the headboard and invited me to sit down.  I sat, and tried to stare solemnly at her and ignore the bright pink lipstick that she had applied mostly to one side of her upper lip causing her to look like a bee sting victim.  She took a deep breath, let it out, and said "You are not letting Wayne be the king of any-fing."  To which I replied, "Uh no, I am definately NOT letting Wayne be the king of anything because he isn't.  Why are you saying this?"  And she replied..........."I don't think it is fair because you let everyone and everything else be the king of every-fing in your life but not Wayne."  I sat and pondered this for a minute, slightly confused and said "Well, I kind of feel like we should be the king of our own selves and make our own choices and decide what is right."  And then, my dear, tiny, insightful, scary, eerily astute daughter said "But you don't make your own choices and you don't do whatever you want.  You do whatever everyone else wants you to do.  Well, 'cept Wayne and that's not fair because he is nice to you and thinks you are perfect.  Like that part of the song that says "I've tried to make everybody happy while I hurt."  And you hurt now, and now you hurt Wayne."
Shelby doesn't understand jobs and leases and independence and security and decisions that are made in favor of her stability.  Shelby does understand that it doesn't snow in Las Beggis and that they do have stores that sell Guinea Pigs in Las Beggis and in knowing that, she is sold.  But...as for the rest of what she said...just wow.

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