This is a text messaging string between me and my 15-year old son, Kincade, yesterday, while he was at school:
Cade: Mom! Buy some goldfish food!
Me: Cade, do NOT bring goldfish home.
Cade: Too late. I already have it.
Later that afternoon, I walked into the kitchen to find Kincade and Emma (13) bent over a goldfish bowl, dissecting pieces of lettuce and the skins of orange segments, lowering them into the water and dangling them in front of Mr. Taryn (the goldfish’s name, go figure) to tempt him to eat them. This conversation ensued:
Me: Are you guys sure goldfish eat lettuce?
Emma: Yeah, I googled it and found that out on, like, a million sites.
Me: Stop dripping orange juice on the floor.
Tennyson (age 8, walking in the door from school, beginning to wail): WHY DID YOU BUY CADE A GOLDFISH?! I HAVE BEEN ASKING YOU FOR A GOLDFISH FOREVER!
Me: [explaining that Cade won the darn thing and I didn’t buy it]
Emma (high-fiving her brother): He just ate the orange!
Me: Look at you guys feeding your fish whole foods! I’m sure that will be better than those flakes. I guess what I teach you is sinking in. I’m so proud. I think I’ll blog about this.
Emma: So, see? Aren’t you glad we got a goldfish, then?
Me: No.
And an hour later, I had this conversation driving in the car with my 11-year old daughter, Libby (11). I share it not because it’s relevant to anything at all, but just because it’s funny. I swear I did not make a word of this up:
Libby: I am so sick of this weather! Why can’t it just be sunny and nice ALL THE TIME?
Me: Well, because if we never get rain, we won’t have any plants, or water to drink, and there’d be no life on the planet.
Libby: That’s what sprinklers are for, DUH.
Me, laughing: Where do you think the water in the sprinklers comes from?
Libby: From the ocean!
Me, laughing harder: Do you know how far the ocean is from Utah , darlin’?
Libby: Lake Superior , then?
[Footnote: Apparently this is what my helping found a world-class charter school with outstanding curriculum and some of the highest test scores in the state has yielded.]
Love it!! Hilarious- both stories!
It’s fun to see a sneak peek of your life with kids.. gotta love ‘em.
That goldfish better live to be more than a few months :)
Robyn, this has nothing to do with your post (but cute kids! the goldfish bit made me smile).
I was just wondering, and I’m sure this has been covered on your site before, but bare with me… you eat raw foods with living enzymes to promote life, and that all makes a lot of sense to me. In fact, thanks to your site, I’ve been mostly raw for 3 months. But a question I get a lot, and really have no answer to, is about these living enzymes. Doesn’t the acid in our stomachs kill anything alive? Most people trying to prove me wrong zero right in on this, and I am not sure how to respond. Are they right? Because I see logic in both sides.
Ha ha, yeah that is funny. I’m looking forward to find out how well the goldfish do. And, oh the naivety of kids these days. I just hope I can foster enough curiosity so that my kids know enough about everything they ought to. I don’t want them growing up with closed minds, thinking that the answers are not out there to get…
Not that I think that about you or your kids, I was just reflecting on my hopes for the future.