My Older Two

Emry: 

There is a story in my family of a trip we took when I was a teenager. I can’t remember where we were headed (probably either to or from Tennessee), and we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner (because on a Sturm trip, a meal at Cracker Barrel was required). When the waitress served the plate of corn muffins and biscuits, she set the plate down near me. One of my younger sisters (whose name shall remain untold), called down to me, “Melissa, can I have some bread?”

“Which one?” I responded, expecting the answer of “corn bread” or “biscuit”, but that is not what my sister said. With a tone of the obvious, she replied:

“The one next to the other one.”

The other day, I felt like I was talking to that sister. Emry is imaginative, but she is usually more down to earth that her unnamed aunt who had an imaginary juggling clown living in our basement when she was 3 or 4. When I ask Emry a question, I usually get a very precise answer. On this particular day, though, she couldn’t find her stuffed elephant. First of all, you should understand that this elephant (made by the unnamed aunt) is nearly two feet in length and bright red. In essence: next to impossible to loose. So, I told her to go look in her room again. Sure enough, she comes back with it.

“Emry, where was your elephant?” I asked, curious to know where a toy of that size and color could possibly hide.

“Where my turtle was,” she answered, speaking of a toy that is all of four inches in length and often gets lost.

“And where was your turtle?” I asked.

Again the obvious tone: “Where my elephant was.”

Duh, Mom!

Ethan:

Truly, you have to love kids. We live in a world full of gray. You wonder if you can believe anything you read. Are the people around you ever sincere? And when I listen to the stations Ed frequents on the radio, I often scoff at how musicians never say what they mean…or, if they do, have next to no common sense. (For instance Ed had oldies on the other day and John Lennon was sounding like a broken record as he belted out, “Why can’t we give peace a try?”, speaking of the Vietnam era. Meanwhile, Ethan and Emry are bickering about something in the backseats. I had to ask out loud: “How can he – and others – possibly think world peace is remotely feasible when a brother and a sister can’t even get along?”) But kids? To them, everything is literal.

So, this week, we were headed somewhere. It was raining, so Ethan begged to hear one of his favorite songs. Entitled “Thunder” by some group with a weird name, it’s something Ed once pulled up on his phone when the kids were talking about thunder and lightning. (Ed does this all the time, pulling up songs from when he was a kid or teenager that I’ve never heard of and I’m glad I’ve never heard of.) In this case, the song has its hidden message, but I’ve yet to fathom all of it and the kids only like it because of the rhythmic chorus, “Thunder, thunder, lightning and the thunder.” But Ethan, sitting in the very back row of the car, was listening to the other words. The singer, using metaphors, talked about how he was in the back seat. And Ethan pipes up:

“I’m in the back seat!” 

Oh, to take things literally again!

Emry:

In the past month, Emry has proven to be quite the artist. She could spend hours with paper and markers, sketching things in her head or pictures she has seen. In fact, she draws better than I do (which is not saying much, but she’s only five). But sometimes her artistic skills are not put to the best use.

Annoyed at Ethan for whatever grief he was currently causing her yesterday, Emry took off to her room. There she grabbed her paper, scissors, tape, and a marker. On this paper, she did a quick sketch of Ethan and wrote his name. She then crossed them both out. Cutting her drawing to size, she taped it to her door. She then informed both Ethan and myself that this meant Ethan was no longer welcome in her room, except for storytime at night.

To be honest, I’m not sure Ethan got the message. 

Ethan:

I cannot take him anywhere these days without him exclaiming at every discovery he wishes to show me (which is just about everything he lays eyes on): “Mama, check it out!”