Common sense

12.28.06

The liquid soap in the bathroom has a panda bear attached to the pump stem.  I have no idea why there’s a panda in the soap, but there it is.  Tonight my daughter pointed to it and said, “That panda lives in China.”  Well, that’s pretty interesting, I thought, and asked, “How come it lives in China?”  The look she gave me was wise and all-knowing as she answered, “Because that’s where pandas live.  In China.”  Dang.  Where does she get this stuff?  And who are those people who say television is a useless brain stuck?  Surely they’re not watching what my kid’s watching.  “Do you live in China?” I ask her.  “Of course not, Mommy, I live in Superior.”

 

Well knock me over and steal my shorts.  Can this be the same kid that doesn’t let me brush her hair?  That puts her palm around the faucet and shoots water all over the bathroom (and her dry pajamas) and then screams that she’s soaked?  The mix of logic and lunacy that makes up the 3 year old brain is stunning.  Especially how the part that contains common sense seems to be completely absent.

 

Even that, I guess, is logical.  Just the term, “common sense” sort of indicates knowledge gained over time and through experience.   So I guess I have a theory:

 

Maybe some things are so much fun that excitement out-processes “experience.”  Like making the sink facet spray the whole room.  Maybe the water shooting with force across the room is an unexpected delight every time it happens, and therefore the realization that the pajamas are soaked only comes well after the fact.  Or the puddle in the driveway beckons with such irresistible shininess that it completely over-rules all memory of cold wet shoes and socks.

 

Sounds logical enough to me.

 

Some things are just Mommy-driven, however.  Like the whole issue with brushing the girl’s hair.  She gets furious with me for needing to brush it, and as soon as I finish (if not before I’m finished) she takes both hands and scrubs at her head to mess it all up again.  I’m frustrated because I can never get a cute photo taken of this little tyke, and because wherever we go it kind of looks like I never brush her hair.  Which isn’t true.  I brush it at least once a day.

 

Yet when she went to the beauty parlor yesterday she was a perfect little angel-client.  Now, admittedly, this is heresy, as I was not a first hand witness to the events at the beauty parlor, but my mother is generally pretty reliable in her reporting.  She said the girl who won’t have her hair brushed at home sat in the hot seat chatting happily away with the gal giving her a haircut.  And not only did she sit still and cooperate for the haircut, she sat like a princess while the beautician put her hair into two beautiful french braids.  Of this I have proof.  I saw them.  And I took pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures.  I haven’t been able to get a clear photograph of this child’s beautiful little face in months.  But I made up for it yesterday.

 

Of course today she went to school with two slept-in french braids, so it still looks like I don’t brush her hair.  Oh well.  It might be an ordeal to undo them.  But I’m pretty used to kid-mommy hair battles at this point.

 

I wonder at what age common sense becomes something you can expect from a kid?  I’m gonna say “no” for 3 year olds.  And, if I remember correctly, 8 year olds do some pretty aggravating things that you think they should know better… and we all know that teenagers don’t have any… so hmm, twenty-five?  Thirty?  Maybe.

 

Sometimes you learn from your mistakes.  Sometimes you have wet pajamas night after night after night.