I Believe Two Things

I gave Sophie a jetBlue Airport Playset for Christmas a few years ago and when she began playing with it again today I joined in. The set includes a catering truck, baggage cart, pushback tug, various cautionary signs and pylons, and of course an airplane — all in jetBlue’s livery.

One can’t help but recall The Phantom Tollbooth, of course:

“THIS PACKAGE CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:
“One (1) genuine turnpike tollbooth to be erected according to directions
“Three (3) precautionary signs to be used in a precautionary fashion
“Assorted coins for use in paying tolls.
“One (1) map, up to date and carefully drawn by master cartographers, depicting natural and man-made features
“One (1) book of rules and traffic regulations, which must not be bent or broken.”

We played for a while in the manner the toy’s creators probably imagined: loading baggage and food at the gate, pushing back, following signs to the runway, and then of course flying around the room.

And then Sophie decided the next time the plane asked for permission to take off she would just say “no”. Even when support vehicles and eventually every toy car in her room lined up waiting to cross the active runway, the “tower” refused to let the plane move. After a while I announced that the passengers had run out of food and the plane had to go back to the gate to get more and the answer still came back enthusiastically “no!”

So I guess the major question we have to ask is: is there something about jetBlue aircraft that encourages controllers (even at age five) to leave them sitting on runways?

Overheard:

Non-Parent Adult: If you want to get that, it will cost $25.

12-Year-Old: Are you serious? That’s two allowances plus a full report card of A’s!

I wish my life worked like that. “Hi, I’ll have a grande mocha and a classic coffee cake, please. Here’s my report card with one A and a C to cover the cost.”

Politicians love to defend the Pledge of Allegiance almost as much as they like to oppose burning our nation’s flag. The wholesome, patriotic, downright American tradition of reciting a pledge of loyalty in schools every morning is the sort of thing only an America-hating terrorist would ever oppose.

Unless, of course, you believe that America stands for theological freedom, and find the phrase “under God” at odds with certain religious beliefs. Or you believe that America stands for political freedom, and find the entire notion of mandating allegiance from citizens a bit… Red.

I always got hung up on the “under God” bit. I’m on the record of being in favor of liberty and justice for all. Rainbows and puppy dogs aren’t half bad either. But then some clown crammed an “under God” in the middle of the thing (nearly 60 years after the pledge was first coined, mind you), and didn’t even add meaningful content with it. Instead, the extra appositive phrase just makes the whole sentence almost impossible to parse to a child who’s still trying to get the hang of correctly conjugating the word “is” on a regular basis.

But apart from the atrocious grammatical implications, the phrase implies a certain basic religion: that God presides over our country. Thus anyone who believes in more or fewer Gods than just the one is unable to faithfully pledge their allegiance to the entire country, if following the scripted pledge.

While this makes for an interesting academic argument (and occasionally affords politicians some good sound bites), and while I still believe it wholeheartedly, it may overlook some important details.

My daughter, now in kindergarten, was playing quietly in the living room this morning when she spontaneously launched into this recitation:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the bepuplic for which it stands: one nation, under God, in-invisible, with ligerty and jujace for all.

So she’s not developing a sense of God watching over us, or of mandatory loyalty to an ineffable and eternal nation. She’s trying to figure out what a bepublic is and what made it invisible.

When I changed the channel to see which episode of The Simpsons was on tonight, Sophie got excited immediately. She leapt up and announced:

It’s Homer Fenster!

Uh oh. That can’t be good.

Sophie has earned her first-ever allowance. Beginning this week, she gets $5 every Monday to spend on anything she wants (that she’s allowed to have).

This strategic amount allows her to buy a few small items immediately, or save it for just one week to get a bigger toy in the $10 range. Being a generally responsible child, she listened patiently to my explanation of how an allowance would work and why she might want to save it, and then tucked the money safely in a wallet she’s apparently had stashed away.

And to celebrate, we took a trip to the Dollar Store. As Sophie browsed and weighed the pros and cons of buying each toy she encountered, Mom reminded her that she might want to save some money, in case she needed to buy anything later in the week. Her response, with the most exasperation I’ve ever heard her use:

Mommy, did you forget? I’ll get more money!

Well, that’s almost what we were hoping to teach.

Tonight began like so:

Sophie: Can we play dolls? Please, please can we play dolls?

No. No, we cannot.

Instead, we took my globe off the bookcase and played the classic “spin it and point to a place” game. When the real globe got boring, we switched to Google Earth, and zoomed into Street View in each of the places Sophie picked. Thus we had a little world geography lesson combined with fancy computer graphics to occupy our imaginations.

Next we switched to my lunar globe and naturally started talking about how people have walked on the moon. This naturally lead to YouTube videos and footage from Apollo 13 of Saturn V liftoffs, men bouncing across an alien surface, and ocean splashdowns.

Tonight ended like so:

Sophie: (running down the hall with a kite in tow) 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… blast off!

Now we’re talkin’.

Sophie, upon waking up from a dream (in a matter-of-fact tone):

Do aliens come at night or in the morning?

Of course, everyone who’s seen the movie Aliens knows the answer. In Newt’s own words, “They mostly come at night… mostly.”

And now, a moment of terror brought to you by Sophie:

Sophie: There’s a butt on Mommy’s head and Daddy’s head!  Run for your lives!  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

(30 seconds of complete silence)

Sophie: (deadpan) That was a close one.

It was like War of the Worlds for the modern era.

When we warned Sophie of her impending bath yesterday, she naturally protested.  Hoping to remind her that clean and conditioned hair is less tangled than dirty hair, this is the debate that ensued:

Sophie: (adamantly) I don’t want to take a bath!

Mommy: Do you want it to owie when I brush your hair tomorrow?

Sophie: (perfect deadpan) Yes.  I love owies.

(long pause while Mommy and I laugh uproariously)

Sophie: Well… maybe not…

It’s really difficult to compete logically with a four-year-old child who understands the power of sarcasm.

Only a child can instill a true feeling of unconditional love.  I had this conversation with Sophie when we woke up this morning:

Sophie: Don’t look at me!

Me: Why not?

Sophie:  Because I don’t love you a lot!  I only love you a little bit.

At least I’m still up for consideration.