I really, really have no experience with children.
I was, at one point, a summer camp counselor for four years, but children in a group setting are not children, they are CHILDREN. An entity. You know, like Borg. It’s about managing all of them in relation to each other.
Having no child-skills to speak of, in my limited interactions with wee ones i just do what my mother did – treat them like fully functional small adults who are slightly hard of hearing. I don’t engage in baby-talk, and i don’t engage in tacit little white lies about coal in stockings and Easter Bunnies.
Last night we had a wee pre-Thanksgiving for our friends that happened to include a toddler guest. As Elise and I are both blue state yuppies to the nth degree, dinner was slightly peculiar and entirely vegetarian. Not exactly toddler-friend fare. So, everyone spent the meal coaxing the infinitely cute toddler to try some of the peculiar offerings on his plate.
“Try the creamed corn! It’s like Mac’n’Cheese, but without macaroni. Or cheese.”
Eventually they hit upon the superhero angle. Superheroes definitely ate their food.
“How could the Flash be so fast without eating his fennel?”
They were on the right path, but it still wasn’t quite working. As i had the vastest comic knowledge of all in attendance (and was at this point slightly inebriated on my second or third Rose Martini), i felt the need to chime in.
“You know, Superman doesn’t just eat his vegetables. He eats everything. Superman invented the clean plate club.”
The toddler looked at me, eyes innocent and wide, while the guests regarded me in mute amusement/horror.
“Why,” i posited, “do you think he has so many more powers than all the other superheroes.”
The toddler dubiously lifted up his fork as a tiny part of my soul withered and died.
How the hell do you mommy bloggers do this every day?