Educating Kamryn

So Kamryn looked at me the other day and said that she didn’t like being brown.

Okay I admit it I panicked.

Not something I was expecting or knew how to face at that moment. Mind is spinning and I’m trying to think of intelligent things to say to bolster her self-confidence and tell her how great it is to be “brown.”

Deep intake of air for Maman who needs to come out sounding cool and casual. Except for the long pregnant pause I think I pulled it off.

So Kamryn, why don’t you want to be brown? What would you rather be?

Black, like granddad (for some reason I’m also “brown” * dunno * Daniel is pink. lol).

Okay – big sigh of relief. MUCH easier to deal with this one. I would have handled it the same way regardless but I worry less with this perspective.

We talked about how everyone is a different colour. That’s just who we are what makes us special. She was quite accepting of this. I think she often just says stuff to provoke conversation. It’s not like it’s really bothering her or anything. She often will ask the same question eighty gazillion times just to provoke conversation and get attention (i.e. if she asks me one more time why she has a “new” (it’s now 4 months old) car seat I might just explode.

I cleaned out my herb garden, which was COMPLETELY over run with mint yesterday. NEVER planting mint again. I planted mint in pots a few years back, which I then stupid buried. The mint escaped the pots and took over the entire 6 by 3 foot plot and has also taken to exploring the rest of the back yard. I thought dill was bad. The mint did make the back yard smell nice but how much mint does one really need?!?

Anyway, Kamryn was “helping.” The mint was a good two feet high (okay so I should have got to this weeks ago!) and very hard to pull up. To make matters worse we have A LOT of spiders in the garden. The tall dark mint made a great haven for bugs of all sorts but especially the gazillion spiders that populate of back yard. Now I’m not a huge fan of spiders but I’m not deathly afraid of them either. These though are icky spiders. For one they seem to be quite fertile (I think it might just be the type of spider but I think not) which grosses me out. Not their fertility, per se, but rather the fact that every second one has a huge white egg sack appended to them – ick!

Lately, Kamryn has been expressing a fear of bugs. I don’t think it’s a real fear but rather a manufactured one and I would like to shake the person who put this idea in her head. Kamryn has a rather bold personality. She’s not afraid of anything except performing on stage. Lol She doesn’t mind the dark and has never demonstrated anything but absolute joy in bugs (Sam well that’s a different story – terrified of bugs.) So I think the “bug fear” is mostly a look at me I can be girly and scared. So I’m trying to be casual about the hoards of spiders and figured I would be a smart mum and educate my child. So I picked a hideous spider and told her about all the little baby spiders in the spider’s “tummy” (hmmm… the birds and the spiders?). Charlotte’s web seemed more romantic than this. Okay so now she wants to know how babies get in the tummies. Yikes.

An aside: Okay I know you’re supposed to use anatomically correct language and I shouldn’t use tummy I should tell her the uterus but good grief – she’s not even three yet! I was told tummy too and eventually figured it out. Hopefully my child isn’t so “simple” that this will scar her for life. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

I really have to get reading – these questions are hard. She wouldn’t accept “God puts them there” as an answer (seemed kind of simplistic to me too though). She wanted to know why God puts them there. She wanted to know why they needed to be there. Okay my fault I must teach her less. Perhaps lock her in the basement, in the dark, tied to the furnace.

We did have a short discussion (she brought it up) about how she was in her birthmom’s tummy not mine. This was prompted by a discussion about where her cousin came from (she remembers him being in her Aunt’s tummy). It’s still all very matter-of-fact for her which I’m grateful for. I don’t know if she doesn’t get it or if it’s just not upsetting for her. I’m hoping the latter but I’m not completely naïve.

It’s kinda fun to have “real” conversations with her. It’s fun to be her mom. :)