A Walk Home With T

 (Pictures from Family Friday in T's class)

Picking up Talmage from school is like jumping into a twister that lives in that little boy's mouth. From the moment he high-fives his teacher at 2:50 pm (the official hand-off between school and home) his lips start moving and they don't stop until we walk in our front door a few blocks and about ten minutes later. Who am I joking? That mouth doesn't stop moving until he passes out in bed a little after 7:30. But those ten minutes on our walk home, those are some of the most entertaining, exhausting and enlightening moments of my day because Talmage, he's just such a Talmage sometimes.

Today his saintly teacher let him lead closing circle and share a picture of a Clark's Nutcracker that his Papa and Gigi sent him in the mail. As we walked by the first graders swinging on the monkey bars he told me about how he read the letter they sent, gave the kids rules about touching his print and then fielded questions from the class. "So I told them not to bend it, or crumple it, or rip it because some of those boys Mom, you just never know what they're going to do. Just yesterday they threw Ms. Owl across the circle!" He said, shaking his head in true disgust. Just the image of T playing teacher in front of his peers puts a smile on my face that I can't shake. I was thinking about how mature he was getting when...

"HOT DOG! BLUEBERRY! " T was screaming at the very top of his lungs, but before I could even ask what the heck he was yelling about I saw a superhero backpack with a curly mop of dishwater hair crossing over 70th Street with a huge grin on his face.

"PIZZA!" The little boy yelled.

"FRUIT SNACKS!" T replied.

"Talmage! JUICE BOX!" The boy said again, this time sending both of them into fits of giggles before the walking man invited us to cross the street and even the loudest of screams could not overpower the taxi horns on Broadway.

"Mom, that was Evan. He's in my class Mom. That's just a game we play together. It's so funny!"

"Oh," I said trying to act super impressed with their game. "So...do you guys just yell the foods that you like to eat or something?"

"No Mom. We say foods that sound funny. Like blueberry. Isn't blueberry funny Mom? And hot dog." And then he just fell apart with giggles. And so did Everett for that matter. It must be a boy thing? A little boy thing? The whole situation had me re-thinking the whole "T's so mature" thing!

The giggles led into a discussion about feelings, naturally, so as we passed by the School of the Blessed Sacrament (which is a whole other fabulous story for another day!) T says, "So today we learned about 'I feel' messages, like 'I feel sad or I feel frustrated or I feel angry.' We're doing that because lots of people have been tattling lately. Instead we should talk it out with each other, we can say, "I feel upset when you take my pink baby during dramatic play." And then I was the one giggling. Because there's my little 5-year-old using the phrase "dramatic play"! Does anyone else find that ridiculously funny, or is it just me?

By this part of the conversation we were nearing our apartment and Quinn was squawking in the stroller. It doesn't seem to phase him though, he just talks LOUDER! "First she was a mouse and then she looked like a squirrel. Now I think that Quinn is graduating to pigeon." Yes, that's what he had to say about his sister today.

So there you have it, a walk home with Mr. T.

But one more story for the road:

A few days ago he said, "Mom, you must be so glad I go to school so that I can teach you things, because I know so much more than you do." He wasn't even being rude, just completely earnest. And how am I supposed to respond to something like that? Am I supposed to be all Actually I'm way smarter than you are son? For some reason I don't think that would boost his self-esteem. But really, after spitting out those kind of comments I doubt I need to worry about his confidence. That boy knows everything about everything, just ask him. Except how to say auditorium. In that same conversation he told me, "It was rainy today so we watched a movie in the augidorium." I smiled and didn't correct his cute mispronunciation (not that it would've mattered...I know nothing, remember?) You're still little Talmage, and I'm going to keep you there as long as possible!