Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Dear Santa

Last night after I put Noah to bed I sat down to type an email to a friend. It's not often that I get computer time without Noah in the middle of my lap and I thought I would take advantage of it. Adam followed me into the computer room (he had no time in his tv bank) and needed something to do. His dad had gone out to dinner after work with some friends and since Noah was in bed, I was Adam's sole source of entertainment. He decided to get the globe down and the questions started immediately:


Mom, how deep is the ocean?
Mom, how big is France?
Mom, where is Transylvania?
Mom, how many sharks are in the ocean?
Mom, which ocean has the most sharks?
Mom, it would really hurt if you got bit by a shark, huh?
Mom, how bad would it hurt if you got bit by a shark?
Mom, how many mountains are there in the world?
Mom, how many people are in the world?

(You get the picture - Adam's forte is asking questions that I can't possibly answer. A couple of years ago while we were riding in the car, from out of the blue he asked "How does our food turn into poop?". Once again, I was grateful that his dad was in the car. Phil lauched into a full discussion - in five year old terms - of the human body's digestive system. I probably would have said "Adam, that's gross!" and left it at that.)

I was able to answer the question that was really more of a statement about how a shark bite would really hurt, (My answer? "Yes!!") and if I weren't trying to send a lucid email I may have tackled the Transylvania question with more than "I think it's somewhere near Czechoslovakia"*. I think he finally tired of hearing the same answer to every question - "I'm not sure Adam, but maybe your dad can tell you when he gets home" - so he came over and watched in amazement as I typed. He laughed out loud each time I made a mistake and had to back up. He asked if he could sit on my lap, and from that perch he proceeded to read each word as it appeared on the screen. I only type about 60 words a minute, but Adam was so impressed with the lightning speed that I got my ego boost for the day. Although he's ridiculously skinny, Adam isn't the easiest obstacle to type around so I quickly finished the email and hit send. He then asked if he could type. Sure, I said. Type away. He then declared that he was ready to write his letter to Santa. This is what he came up with - exactly as he wrote it:

Dear santa I want pokemon cards and ugeo cards and bionicle and bakugan and a transformer and I WANT Indeana jones the wii game and the wii

Needless to say, we need to work on the approach. Adam always has been a "get to the point" kind of kid, but I'm thinking some "how are you?" and "thank you for the gifts that you brought to me last year" types of things would be nice additions. Good thing that his mom always delays Christmas shopping so he has a few more weeks to work on it.

*By the way, Transylvania is actually in Romania, not Czechoslovakia. I KNEW that.

3 comments:

Nathan said...

I love how the Wii is an afterthought. He'd like the game ... oh, and the machine it plays in to go with it.

Anonymous said...

I learned through experience to delay Christmas shopping for Kendall as long as I could, because if I rushed right out and bought what he said he wanted the first time, he would usually change his mind at least 6 times before Christmas actually got here. Ahhhh! the joys of having busy smart boys !!

Julie said...

I thought the exact same thing. As I watched him type it, I mentioned that he doesn't even have a Wii to play the game and he said, rather emphatically "I'm not done yet!"