The Doctor Knows & Santa Ho's

As always, interesting conversations in our household must be blogged. Mostly so I'll remember them years from now.

Here are a couple recent ones.

This first one I'll preface by saying that my kids love their pediatrician. He hams it up with them every time we visit his office. He's a great doctor, and a good Christian man.

Clay: I need to gain 20 pounds.

Mom: You do not need to gain 20 pounds.

Clay: According to the Wii, my BMI is 4.10. I’m underweight.

Mom: Clay, Wii Fit is a game. We see Dr. M often enough, and they weigh you every time we’re there. Dr. M has never said any of you are overweight or underweight. We’re going to take his word for it over a game.

Clay: I bet he doesn’t know how to load computer games.

Mom: I bet he does. He has kids at home. He probably plays computer games with them the same way your dad does with you.

Clay: Really?

Allison: Yeah Clay. He’s been a kid longer than we have. He knows.

I typed up that conversation and sent a copy to Dr. M along with a Christmas card. I think he and his staff will get a kick out of that. (His wife, too. She attends BSF the same time I do, but I admit, I don't know how many kids they have. At least one though.)

This second conversation is just a peep into the life and mind of our third grader.

Clay came home from school the other day to ask me why Santa says "ho, ho, ho" if "ho" is a bad word.

I've blogged about this before... third grade has been a time of learning off-color language for Clay. We've never heard a peep about it before now.

I could knee-jerk react and yank him out of public school and homeschool him again. (He asked me just the other day if I'd homeschool him again for fourth grade, so he'd be fine with that.) But I'd rather deal with this now, when he still comes to me and we can talk about it, than after I've sent him into the real world and he's not under our protective wings.

Again, I explained what the offensive word means. And that Santa doesn't mean anything worse than "ha, ha, ha" or "hee, hee, hee" when he says "ho, ho, ho."

I thought we were finished.

But evidently, Clay has taken a particular shine to this word because he came home the next day and announced: "Christmas time is the only time I can cuss. Ho, ho, ho."

We had another talk. I think he has a better understanding of my views now. "I think" being the main point in that statement.

These babies grow up too fast. Birthdays and holidays always make that more obvious to me.