Self-Centered Interviews of My Kids

Hi! I have vowed not to start this by blogging about blogging, or rather, blogging about not blogging, so now that that's out of the way, let's just dive right back in.

There was a set of questions circulating on Facebook recently among a few of my FB friends. I thought it would catch on more widely, but it seems not to have. The gist of it was that you interview your child, about yourself, and see what awful or adorable truths they come up with in response. I got a kick out of seeing my friends' children's answers and thought I'd give it a whirl, but I decided to record the answers here on the good ol' blog rather than FB.

The instructions were, "Without any prompting, ask your kids these questions." To save you some scrolling back and forth, I'm going to paste the questions in 3 separate times, since I conducted three private interviews.  I've included a few of my own thoughts in brackets; couldn't help myself.     


JUNE
(6 years old)
1. What is something I always say to you?  You either say, "Home sweet home!" or "Alright, here we are," when we pull into the garage.  No!  You always say, "I love you."
2. What makes me happy?  When the house is clean.
3. What makes me sad?  When I get a burn.  [Ed.: True.  June recently burned her hand on a hot skillet.]
4. How do I make you laugh?  By reading the part in the book that says, "My only friend in the whole wide world is a hippo named Boo Boo Butt!"  [Ed.: That's a reference to "The Book With No Pictures" for those of you not in the know.]
5. What was I like as a child?  I don't know!
6. How old am I?  I don't remember.  Something like in the 80's or 70's.  [Ed.: To be clear, she was not speaking of the 1980's or 70's.]  
7. How tall am I?  Half of my stomach and one of my brother and half of my brother.    
8. What is my favorite thing to do? Go have fun.  [So then I asked the follow-up question, "How do I have fun, though?"]  By snuggling. 
9. What do I do when you're not around?  Do stuff on your phone and computer. 
10. What am I really good at?  Yelling.  [Ed.: Ouch.  The truth hurts.]
11. What am I not very good at?  Thinking of stuff to play.  [Ed.: It's good to make them think for themselves, right?]
12. What do I do for work?  Be our mom. 
13. What is my favorite food?  Vegetables.   
14. What do you like to do with me?  Go to fun places with you.  And also, make you spend money to take me on rides. (*insert June's cackling maniacal laugh here*)  [Ed.: I think she was specifically referring to a couple of Ferris wheel rides that were quite memorable to her.]

WAYLON
(4 years old)
1. What is something I always say to you?  I love you!
2. What makes me happy?  Cleaning up. 
3. What makes me sad?  I don't know.  That I shoot rockets on to pictures and the pictures fall down... At least I don't actually do that.  [Ed.:  Waylon has been indiscriminately adding the phrase "at least" to at least 80% of his sentences for at least 6 months now.]  
4. How do I make you laugh?  When you say, "Don't smile!"
5. What was I like as a child?  I don't know.
6. How old am I?  Give me a clue.  (It's a number, honey.  You have to pick a number.)  I don't know - 10? 11? 
7. How tall am I?  Very tall.
8. What is my favorite thing to do?  Reading Penderwicks and painting with music. 
9. What do I do when you're not around?  You miss me!
10. What am I really good at?  (HUGE PAUSE...)  (Shakes head...)  Throwing balls up in the air and catching them.  
11. What am I not very good at?  Lifting weights.  [I giggle and say, "How do you know?  How do you know if I'm good or not?]  I just know because your age.    
12. What do I do for work?    
13. What is my favorite food?  That's a hard answer. 
14. What do you like to do with me?   Have mommy days!  [Ed.: "Mommy days" are what we call me pulling preschoolers out of school whenever I want to, to do whatever else we'd rather be doing, simply because we can.  Once they hit public school, we take attendance more seriously, but until then, all bets are off.]     

GEORGIA
(8 years old)
1. What is something I always say to you? I love you.
2. What makes me happy?   Food.
3. What makes me sad?  When we don't pick up our toys. 
4. How do I make you laugh?  By tickling me.  
5. What was I like as a child?  I don't know.  You lived right across the street from your school.  
6. How old am I?  39.  Going on 40.  
7. How tall am I?  5 feet 14 inches.  I think.  
8. What is my favorite thing to do?  Do art with me and June and Waylon.  
9. What do I do when you're not around?  Big mommy projects.  Like organizing drawers.  
10. What am I really good at?  Trumpet, cooking, and soccer.  Mostly cooking because you're a real good cook.  
11. What am I not very good at?  Starting big projects and finishing them.  [Ed.: To be clear, it's not the "starting" part that she's being critical of here...]    
12. What do I do for work?  Take care of your family.
13. What is my favorite food?  That's hard.  You eat a lot of foods when I'm not around.  Sushi maybe? 
14. What do you like to do with me?  Projects.  Like art or sewing.  And cooking.

Whew, domestic much, Kate?  That last answer of Georgia's was influenced by recency I'm afraid.  We had just finished sewing a button on a cloak that she insisted on creating for wearing to a friend's fairy-themed birthday party; however, this project was a rarity.  Most sewing in this house still consists of minor repairs that are delegated to Joe.  

So, there you go.  I'm dipping my toes back into the waters of blogging with an entry that wrote itself.  Baby steps, but I have to blow the rust off somehow.  Thanks to those of you who faintly heard this tumbleweed blowing by and clicked over to read it.  Leave me a comment if you have a moment; the dopamine sensors in my brain have been trained by years of Facebook and Instagram use to expect it.  Grrrr.... (Now there's a meaty topic for a different day.)  

I'm off now to go throw some balls in the air and catch them.  Or maybe start organizing a drawer that I will never finish.