For those of you keeping track, Sam’s latest thing is to ask what you’re doing. This kind of casual conversation making is flattering at first –most people don’t really seem to give a crap what I’m doing, and attempts to educate them usually result annoyed requests to “Put that thing down.” Like many things I’ve come across in life, though, Sam’s interest turned out to be equal parts joy and tedium. A typical conversation goes like this:
“What are you doing, Daddy?”
“I’m washing the dishes!”
“And what are you doing?”
“Uh, still washing the dishes. Different dish now, but the same principle.”
“And what are you doing now?”
“Still washing dishes, Sammy.”
“What are you doing, Daddy?”
“Sam…”
I didn’t get it until one day when I caught her studying the following flow chart:
I wish I knew who gave her that. The only way I’ve found to deal with this is to just throw the question back at her and ask “What are YOU doing, Sammy?” This usually stumps her for a couple of seconds, then she rejoins with “What are you doing, Daddy?” and we’re back at square one. It passes the time, though, and after about half an hour it kind of reaches this zen-like place so I think I may be on to something big here. Somewhere there’s probably a Buddhist monk sitting on a mountain top in search of ultimate enlightenment and chanting “What are you dooooooooing?”
Pictures!
As you can see, we took some time off from asking what we’re doing to blow some bubbles on the patio, which Sam is getting much better at despite her proclivity for inhaling bubbles instead of blowing them. Fortunately there were no inhalation incidents this time around.
So…what are you doing? I have a 3 year old who does the same thing…on the phone, in person. Start making stuff up.
I’ve tried that. It doesn’t seem to matter –truth, fiction, she’ll just keep asking. Of course, making stuff up does make things more fun…
Exactly! I didn’t say it would stop her – it just makes things more interesting for YOU.
I have to tell you that the wonders of surfing the net (sometimes very irritating) do pay off once in a while. I won’t elaborate why because it would be difficult to explain why a 55 year old guy was doing this search:
” Glinda the good witch photos ”
But I hit on jmadigan.net because of your
book review of Wicked—->
… other icons like Dorothy, Glinda the Good Witch, Munchkins, the Lion, the Wizard, … to do a “Pic of the Day” feature, but a new photo every day was hard …www.jmadigan.net/2006/05 – 56k – Cached – More from this site
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Anyway, I started to read your Sam’s Story’s
and have been laughing to tears for an hour!
It brings back some distant memories of my
first born daughter, who at 29, is living with
us again! I am a SW Quality Engineer, and this
flowchart just brought me to tears. I will be
checking our your sight for some nostalgic reminders. Thanks for the child rearing jolt to some old synaptic pathways in my brain! Keep them coming.