Wednesday, October 03, 2007

A Conversation with Charlie (Age 6) About Madonna and an Announcement Concerning Charlie (Age 6)

We're in the car on the way to school, listening as always to Movin' 92.5. La Isla Bonita comes on and with it the lyric "Last night I dreamt of San Pedro"

ME: What do you think that means, that last night she dreamt of some bagels?
HIM: No, she's saying that last night she dreamt of some mangoes.
ME: Ah.
HIM: Are you sure this is Movin' 92.5?
ME: Yeah.
HIM: Hm. Sounds like garbage.









And with that, I announce the retirement of the Conversation with Charlie (Age x) series on this blog. He's nearly seven years old now and reading on his own so I feel kind of weird about quoting him here. He's become not so much a precocious little boy as just this guy I know. He's still eccentric, of course, and in a really good way, but at the rate he's going he'll have a blog of his own soon anyhow. You won't want to read it, though. It will be just full of Garfield.

For posterity's sake, here, I think, is the first of these posts I ever put up:

Conversation At The Toy Store Between Myself And My Son Charlie (Almost Three)

CHARLIE: Dad, I want to tell you something. I had this farm toy when I was a baby. Mom bought it for me. Mom bought it when I was six babies.
ME: What? You were six babies?
CHARLIE: Yes. No. I was eight babies. I was eight babies, Dad.
ME: Really? I don't remember that.
CHARLIE: Dad, do I have pipes inside me?
ME: Uh...what?
CHARLIE: Pipes! Pipes! Do I have them in me?
ME: Well, sort of. I guess.
CHARLIE: Do I have batteries in me?
ME: No. You don't have any batteries in you.
CHARLIE: We need to get some batteries for me.

6 comments:

Scott Chicken said...

It's a sad day, but understandable. One could argue that with Charlie's permission you could continue, but you know that down the road when he's a surly teen and the girl he's crushing on finds the posts he'll be all "Dad, you bastard, you ruined my life!"

Not that he won't say that anyway, but at least you're removing one cause.

dup said...

Understandable, yes but I will mourn the loss of this column. Hopefully my own kid will begin talking early and with equally as hilarious results.

Thank you Charlie! Thank you John!

Anonymous said...

Speaking of pipes...

Ben, my 3 year-old nephew, was in line for the port-a-potty with my sister, and he says to the woman in front of them (a stranger): "I have a pipe in my penis, where my pee comes out. But you don't have to worry because my brain tells the pipe when to open and close, so I won't pee in my pants."
"Oh My," says the woman (to my sister), "he's a big talker."

So I guess maybe kids are interested in the whole human-body pipe system.

Anonymous said...

Nooooooooo!

Will there at least be a couple more years of Kate?

Anonymous said...

I want to see Conversations with Kate pick up where Conversations with Charlie is (sadly) leaving off. She's got a few more years of illiteracy left.

Tom Dougherty said...

I can understand your reservations about posting Charlie's conversations here, but could you set that aside until he's...I dunno, ten, maybe? These are always hilarious and adorable, and what I ask is so wrong about hilarious adorableness?

The kid's a stah!

BTW, an adult friend of mine recently described her stomach as a system of tiny tubes. No toddlers were anywhere near us, so that one's on her.