Wisdom and Flamingos

You can’t tell a 4-year old nothin’.  Today we had an argument about if two Matchbox cars were the same or not.  He insisted they were.  I gave him a list of reasons why they were not.  He looked at me and said, “They’re the same” with a look that said that this discussion was over.

Later that day he told me that flamingos walk on one leg.  I corrected him and said they stand on one leg to which he said, “No, they walk on one leg.  Molly said so.”  Then that discussion was also over.

How am I losing arguments to a four year old?  Already I’m the dumb parent that doesn’t know what she’s talking about.  I just want to yell, “I’m older than you and I know stuff.”

I know I’ve been guilty of the same thing as Hudson though.  I remember the day I realized that my grandmother knew 52 more years worth of stuff than me.  It was the day we talked about my grandfather’s death at the age of 61.  I was driving her back home to Kansas when we started talking about it in the car.

“How did you handle it?  How were you able to go on?”  I asked her.

“Because I had to”

She went on to tell me that she had grieved one year and then realized that she was not going to die with him.  Even though she didn’t feel like it, she went out with her friends.  Then she started a club for widows.  Then she traveled the world.  Today she is the most social 5 foot (she will tell you she used to be 5’2 before she shrunk) 85 year old that you ever met.

Maybe wisdom does come with age.  We may not agree on politics or if sweatshirts with sequins are fashionable, but I know she knows things, simply though living, that I have yet to learn. (The other thing I could learn from her-she isn’t afraid to be herself and will proudly tell you “I’m gaudy…I know it).  I hope my son realizes this lesson one day.  Because I’m right about the damn flamingos.