You Are My Sunshine

Monday on the way home from school and amid the many callings of my name “Mo”, I hear Indigo say “Did you know I have an identical twin sister?”

Garbanzo has tried to geekify, I mean, education our children with comic books and the like, so I immediately wonder if she is recalling something where there, in an alternate universe, are our twins. While some people would think ‘imaginary friend’, I jump to the geeky immediately.  It’s kind of like when some people, who shall remain nameless, think of sex versus child rearing when they see the word “spanking”.  (I’m guilty too, so I don’t judge. Your secret is safe with me.)

So, I ask her why she thinks that expecting a long winded story that came from a comic book.

“I don’t think that, I know it. She lives in our attic, and her name is Sunshine.”

“Your identical twin lives in our attic? What does she look like?”

“Mo! She’s my identical twin. Duh! She looks like me?!” Yes, my 6-soon-to-be-7 yr old says that – and rolls her eyes at it too. I’m fucked when she gets older as these have the markings of a little Emmy in the making.  A smart ass and full of sarcasm. Like I said, I’m fucked.

“Why does she live in our attic?”

“Because she doesn’t want you to see her. I give her food and take her clothes that look just like mine – and she comes to school with me.”

I’m thinking we are now talking about an imaginary friend, so I ask, “Is she sitting next to you now?”

“Mo! She is hiding in my backpack! Don’t you know anything?”

No, kid, I clearly do not know anything. I mean, according to her, I gave birth to twins – identical twins, but have allowed the other baby to wander off and live in the attic. I don’t recall having twins. I think I would have remembered that one. 

“So, she goes to school with you?”

“Yes, and she and I switch places so I can play on the playground. And, no one can tell because…. we’re identical. They think she’s Indigo!”  Indigo is extremely excited at their ability to pull the wool over the eyes of all of the adults. And it is clear in her voice.

“Are you going to start blaming Sunshine for when you do something wrong now?”

“Mo, sometimes it IS Sunshine, you just can’t tell.”

Then she started talking about how “easy” is considered a bad word in her class.  I hate the whole “good word” “bad word” thing, but I also bought my kid a t-shirt with the word “stupid” on it, so clearly I am lacking the true understanding of that concept.

“Why is the word ‘easy’ a bad word?” I am mentally adding this to the list of things to talk about at the parent teacher conferences in a couple weeks. 

“Well, we can’t use the ‘e’ word because it will make some people feel bad.”

Indigo gets 2nd grade math and reading in her homework, so I’m wondering if the fear is the kids who are more advanced picking on those who aren’t.  Kind of a “ha-ha, you have the easy homework” situation.

“You see,” she continues, ” some kids have easier homework than other kids. And, sometimes they tease those kids with hard homework by saying ‘ha-ha, you have to do that hard homework – mine is easy!’. So my teacher said no more using the e-word.”

Wow, that story took an unusual twist.

“Does anyone ever tease you for having hard homework?”

“No, duh! My homework IS easy! It takes me like 5 minutes.”

Sadly, I learned that at taekwondo earlier that night.  While DJ was learning her new form and new kicks for her brown belt class, I had Indigo do her homework. Should take her about that length of time.

She handed it to me 5 minutes later.  Being the good parent I am, I was skeptical of how well done the homework was.  I mean, she did 6 pages of math in 5 minutes.

It was almost perfect.  A weeks worth of homework done in 5 minutes.  No wonder she “never has homework”….she gets it done.

Then tonight, we had a rousing discussing about what makes words bad. The show we were watching didn’t bleep out the word “bitch”, and DJ asked why that was a bad word. So I explained it to her. We went through a few other words too.  I’ll save what fuck means for now.

I do have to apologize to Indigo’s teacher tomorrow. She took advantage of the discussion to demonstrate how she can use each of them in a sentence.  Indigo is already good at asking “What the hell are they doing with that damn thing?” and yelling “get down the frickin’ stairs”.  Yeah, tomorrow could be ugly if she asks someone why they have to be an ass about that.  Oh, well, it’ll make the principal feel better. It’s usually his daughter (Indigo’s best friend) who is sent to the office for things like that.  Having the child of another staff member in his office will make him feel like it isn’t just him.

So far, it’s been an interesting week.

Oh, and I did discover how little I have to pay attention to school schedules.  For example, I had no idea that school started at 8:45am.  Good to know.  And, there is no school on Friday for the kids.  Glad I found that one out now and not Friday morning when I try to drop them off. 

9 Comments Add yours

  1. See, I would told her that I knew about Sunshine cause she kept a list of all the bad things Indigo did all week and gave it to me to pass onto Santa. Sowing fear and distrust is a parents job dammit’

  2. Just me... says:

    You are soooo fucked!!!!
    This one is going to cause you great stress and great joy!!! :):)

  3. Vixen says:

    I see you have your hands full…….. 😉

  4. Wow…you are in trouble with this one 🙂

  5. she sounds like a freaking riot!

  6. Secretia says:

    That is super imagination working.

  7. autumn says:

    yeah, you’re fucked. me too. i’ve got my own little 6yr old who is very much like i was as a child (so i hear anyhow). Mo, you are soooo silly for not knowing that sunshine was in the backpack. i mean seriously. 🙂

    cool on the homework. that’s a great thing.

  8. rage says:

    “What the hell are they doing with that damn thing?”

    -LMFAO!!!

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