Overheard

Here's a few snippets from today...

1. This morning, I helped out in reading groups in Ava's class. At one of the stations, the kids were practicing writing sentences on little whiteboards. One little boy wrote this:
"My dad is big. Why is my mum bigger than my dad?" Hmmm. Some questions are better left unasked, I think.

2. This evening, Nate was going to the bathroom and singing to himself in a cheerful tone, "I not happy! I not happy! I-iiiiii noooooot haaaapppy!!" And Ava, from the other room, shouted to him, "Well do you like puppies? Look in the pantry!"

There are no puppies in the pantry. Or anywhere at our house for that matter. I really have no idea where this conversation came from, but it seemed to make sense to Nate. I think I will use it next time I counsel someone who is feeling down. "Hey friend--do you like puppies? Look in the pantry!" The pantry could be symbolic of something, don't you think? I could work a whole book series out of this!

3. I got some time out to myself this afternoon. So I went to the mall and was trying on bathingsuits. Look, I didn't plan it that way. It just happened. And it didn't turn out to be a good idea. But we're not talking about that right now.

Anyway, in the dressing room right next to me was a woman and, I assume, her adolescent daughter. I couldn't hear anything the daughter was saying--she was whispering, but I could hear the mom's responses. She kept saying things like, "You do not look fat!" and "Well do you want to see how a size 10 feels?" and "Honey, you don't look big in that at all!" It was making me sad. I can remember being that teenage girl.

Then the mom said, in a confiding tone, "White is actually the most slimming color that you can wear." At that point, I wanted to knock on the wall or stick my head under the partition and say to the girl, "I am sure that you look lovely in whatever it is you're wearing, and it is highly improbable that you look fat, but please disregard this last statement of your mother's. White is really not the most slimming color that you can wear."

In my experience, at least. I felt bad for that young girl, though. And for the mom, whom I could tell was desperately trying to reassure her angst-ridden daughter. Don't you sometimes wish you could just tell a younger person, or even your younger self: "Hang in there. You will make it through this and there will come a day that you will like yourself immeasurably more than you do right now." Of course, coming from a strange woman trying on an ill-fitting tankini, this advice might not have hit the mark. Oh well, it's the thought, right?

Have a great day, everyone. And if you have a tough moment or two, look in the pantry! The pantry of your heart. (See? A book deal!)