Kiddo Update

It's funny how kids' natures come out when and how you least expect it. Both Enthusio and The Mermaid have had this happen recently. (The Muse does a better job than I do in updating the kiddos' lives at her blog at tkbezerra.blogspot.com.)

Last weekend, I was mowing the lawn in the back yard. While mowing, I noticed a praying mantis trying to sprint out of the grass. I stopped to let it get away and it made it up on to the concrete, where it resumed praying. I didn't know if the kids had ever seen such a bug, so I had them come see the cool bug. The Mermaid looked and asked a couple of questions and went back out front to resume her playing. Enthusio, on the other hand and in his way, kept asking me questions and prodding at the mantis gently. We then had the following conversation:

"E: Why does it keep trying to get away?"

"WT: It's afraid of you."

"E: Why is it afraid of me?"

"WT: You're a lot bigger than it, it's afraid that you might crush it."

"E: Why would I do that?"

And there's Enthusio's nature in a nutshell. Enthusiatic enough about the mantis that he took five minutes out of his busy schedule of playing with his friends across the street. (It reminded me of the first time we went to Hawaii when he would intensely poke at and examine little shells in a tidepool to see the little tongues/feet in the shells pull back.) But then kind enough to be unable to even fathom the idea of stepping on a bug that he found to be cool. He's almost seven, it wouldn't be a surprise if he stepped on bugs for the hell of it. But that's not him.

The Mermaid recently knocked The Muse and I over with one of her moments of blunt honesty. Out of the blue, at dinner, we have this conversation:

"Mermaid: I don't like wine."

"Muse: How do you know?"

"Mermaid: I tried some."

"WT: Where did you do that?"

"Mermaid: At Grandma and Grandpa's house."

"WT: When?"

"Mermaid: On Mother's Day."

"WT: Did someone give it to you?"

"Mermaid: No, it was on the counter."

"WT: Was it red or yellow?"

"Mermaid: Yellow."

"WT: Did you like it?"

"Mermaid: No, it tasted yucky."

Sometimes, she just decides that she's going to do things. They aren't always the most sensible things, but then no kid is especially sensible. She's pretty confident about doing things she wants to do, though, even if other kids would look a little crosseyed about it. She does her own thing.

The Mermaid also has been learning how to play the saxophone lately. Her school starts kids with music in the fifth grade and The Mermaid has always wanted to play sax, so she started with it. The Muse said that the first session when The Mermaid started wasn't good because The Mermaid expected to start blowing the sax like John Coltrane (well, The Mermaid probably wasn't thinking Coltrane, but you know) immediately and was very frustrated because she couldn't really get it to make noise. But, once The Mermaid got through that, she started to really pick it up, at least to my undertrained ear. Now she sits down several nights a week, assembles her sax, gets the reed ready and starts playing the notes. She can read the notes and, the last time I heard her practice, she was starting to put notes together so it sounded like music. The thing about it is that the kid can really make the sax blow loud. I mean LOUD. Then, when she's done, she dutifully cleans it.

Given The Mermaid's condition, she almost undoubtedly will always follow the beat of a different drummer. It's nice that, sometimes, this is a good thing. Although I'd prefer she stay out of the liquor.