The Spider Story

-
"... It's so spiders don't get inside..."

It's the story I give my daughter when I cannot explain something in 5-year old terms.  

It is the story I give my daughter when I am tired.

It is the story I give when I want my daughter to avoid danger. 

It is the story I give my daughter when I am quietly praying there won't be a follow-up question.

But there always is. 

Today it was the absorbency pack inside the jar of multivitamins.

On another day or time perhaps I would have been able to explain the molecular reasoning behind why these little packs wind up in everything from multivitamins to sneakers.



Perhaps I would have been able to anticipate the follow-up questions and calmly and patiently explain every detail. The amazing version of myself would even include a T-Chart or Pie Chart or a compare and contrast analysis. 

I would have been able to break-down, exactly, why you are never to eat those pesky packs or leave them lying around for when baby sister crawls and invariably finds everything marked "PELIGRO".

But today I was wiped out by 1 pm and I couldn't muster a more thorough and honest answer than "it's so spiders don't get inside..."

Admittedly, there are other excuses, reasons, half-truths and erroneous explanations I give my daughter on occasion. 

Tall tales like the frequently used "it's closed right now..."

(I wonder at what point my daughter will realize that parks don't close)

When will she catch on that when I say something is broken it's not necessarily so? 

Because trying to explain everything lends itself to more questions and,  more often, intense negotiations.  

I have dubbed her "Priceline" because she is such a negotiator.

I am not sure how awful a parent it makes me to be so tired at times I will say just about anything to make the inquisitions halt... The rapid-fire lines of questioning from a curious little girl that make my mind spin... The calling me out on my errors when I explain something that doesn't quite make sense. 

Perhaps someday when she is a mom herself she will also need to rely on fictitious tales of parks closing early, everyone at the arcade finally going home to go to bed, and "lost" Happy Meal toys.

Perhaps.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Dear Bobby"

-
Image
"Dear Bobby, I love you. I always look forward to when my husband leaves for work, and you sneak into bed with me. Sometimes, you will wake me up, but usually, you just lie there next to me waiting for my eyes to open." Bobby. You are a cat. But you are the cat of all cats. Unliked some others whose names I will not mention.... you like being a cat. You are my original Obi Kenobi... But you don't like your name and insist I call you "Bobby" or "Bob". You are my predator. You can catch anything- including a rabbit almost twice your size. I remember the time you brought a baby possum into our home. I had just awakened and sleepily headed to use the bathroom when, peering from inside the toilet, was a little possum begging to be released. You cheeky bastard, Bobby. That poor possum. I scolded you and you just turned the other whisker, as if to say "look lady... I am a cat, that's how I do...." The other cats beg for forgiveness when ...
Read More

The Good Dancer: A Dating Story

-
Image
I once dated a really good dancer. That wasn't his only strength. In truth, he was one of thee absolute best dudes I ever made out with.  He was super funny, smart and we clicked right away. But what struck me as odd was that, for the first time before and since, his good dancing skills didn't turn me off.  (For some reason, a man with too much swagger on the floor has always confused and frightened me a little.)  Oh, and I also don't like when they are so involved in their dancing that they forget you are on the floor with them.  Oh, and when they A. crowd you or B. use you as a prop.  Oh, and when they sing along to songs by female artists.  If you know all the lyrics to "I'm a Slave for You", that's both impressive and embarrassing. (I really did have strange deal-breakers with men...) So here was the first guy who I enjoyed dancing with that was actually a really good dancer.  He didn't crowd.  He didn't sweat profusely.  H...
Read More

Degree

-
Image
It was on Friday night. We laughed a lot, perhaps made delirious by the sweet smell of men that were familiar-yet-elusive and desirable. It could have been the wine,  it could have been the great company of old friends and conversations and shared opinions with other women. I disagreed with Ariel more than once, though... "Too sweet" or.... "smells like a jelly bean...." The ones I couldn't put down were the ones that smelled like a man's deodorant, hidden among 75+ samples that scattered in baskets around the coffee table. There we sat around a table full of scents as we sampled the fragrances from a friend's Scentsy collection, eager to fill out our order forms for the smells that would soon promise to envelop our homes. I opted for the "Iced Pine" option, which always reminds me of the home I have not yet lived in and lingered around the fragrances that smelled of citrus and orange peels.  The idea of the smell of "Orange...
Read More