Losing the chin for the sake of the tongue
Posted on May 6th, 2008 in On Children, On Parenting | 4 Comments »
Last night after dinner I treated my family to some ice cream. I do this from time to time just to let the kids know that I still love them and want to spoil them.
As is usually the case I was done with my ice cream first and began washing dishes. As I washed the dishes I listened to my children and their discussions and laughter over bowls of ice cream.
I am still amazed at their ability to have a fully inclusive conversation amongst themselves even though their ages range from two and a half to 12. As they ate and talked they began to finish up and I began to take their bowls from them.
I turned around for a moment to see how they were doing (since I am not facing them when washing dishes) and noticed that Sarah had her face in her bowl and was licking the edges clean. Hmm, I don’t remember teaching any of my kids that this was acceptable table manners. So I asked her to stop doing that and promptly took her bowl from her.
A few minutes after this I heard one of the best comments I have ever heard from my children:
Bekah: “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could cut off your chin?”
Me: “Uh, no. Why would you want to cut your chin off?”
Bekah: “So you could fit your face inside of your bowl to lick the ice cream out.”
Me: “????????”
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first. My daughter wants to be able to cut her chin off so she can get a few milimeters farther into her bowl to lick the remnants of ice cream out of it.
Yeah, I know. I couldn’t believe it either.