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The kid
And so it goes. Six months after our Vancouver kids landed in the County, they’ve found a home and moved into their own digs. They own their first home. It’s close to their workplaces and close to our granddaughter’s new school. All of us were looking forward to this event with a mix of excitement and a roller-coaster of emotions. Here we are, LOML and I had a Sunday breakfast without our sleepy-headed nineyear- old plopping herself down at the table while her parents try to cadge an extra 10 minutes of sleep. This Sunday morning we weren’t treated to a mumbled reply about having slept “okay” and “no” she’s not quite ready to eat breakfast but “yes” she’d like the comics and the weather page from the newspaper to go with the Bathroom Reader and atlas she brought from her bedroom. This morning neither of us had to push the appropriate sections of the paper in her direction and put a glass of milk within her reach. This morning was the Sunday morning when we’d be back to being “just the two of us”. And this morning it just feels a bit weird and strangely quiet without the kid. We got used to having the kid around, along with her parents. We’d heard that a little kid can teach a person a lot about life. We had no idea the impact she would have on ours.
So this morning, while reading the newspaper, drinking coffee and eating breakfast, we realized we had just each other for conversation. We didn’t have to deal with a barrage of questions, meant to develop our minds, hailing forth from the nine-year-old. Weekend brekkie with the kid usually started with her morning edification briefing. She always has a host of “did you know” questions. Some of the more memorable ones were “Did you know you could turn urine into beer?” or “Did you know dogs can smell emotions?” “Did you know the longest time between twins being born was 87 days?” And, the one DYK question that made me snort coffee across the table was, “Did you know female kangaroos have three vaginas?” Often her questions didn’t require much of a verbal response from LOML or I. We were, merely, students at her lectures on life as the nine-year-old saw it, with the help of Uncle John’s book. Thank you Uncle John. Kanga and Roo will never again be the same cute, storybook characters to us.
I suppose LOML and I will have to learn how to be alone with each other and not worry about the things people worry about when guests are in the house. You know what I mean. I know you do. Additionally, we won’t have to worry about the descriptive words we got into the habit of using because we were empty-nesters. After one string of expletives, the kid asked if we knew that really smart people swear a lot and then assured us she probably wouldn’t swear until she was 16 or 17. The Kid even asked if it would be okay to let us know which words she figured were the most common swear words really smart people use. Now how polite can a kid be? So this morning, Sunday, we got to read the newspaper without questions. It was eerily quiet. This morning we didn’t get giggles from the kid’s side of the table, over the folly of a comic strip character. This morning we didn’t get a lesson on high and low pressure systems and how they will affect our day or our week. This morning we didn’t hear about how meteorological events could affect a person’s feelings. Nope, this morning we just took all of the serious news and harrumphed our way through it. This morning we had to deal with the weather without Accu-Kid forecasting. This morning, we both burst out laughing because The Kid once told us about kopi luwak coffee and how it probably doesn’t taste like poop. I think I’ll bake cookies today, just for The Kid.
Did you know, “Those cookies Cookie Monster scarfs down are actually rice cakes with brown dots painted on them.” Me, either.
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