Six is Sweet

I enjoy talking to five and six year olds. They're old enough to have ideas but young enough to have a warped world view that appeals to me. I love their honesty, their innocence and their enthusiasm.

Ask most six year olds what a ruffle is--they have no idea although they might make some interesting guesses. A ruffle could be a sock, for instance, or a type of tree. Plaid is another foreign concept. The words are familiar--they just don't have an image to hang on it yet. It's pretty cute.

Their little minds are kinda like Silly Putty--flexible and plastic and easy to mold. They make me realize how alike "b", "d", "p", and "q" are. And that numbers look pretty much the same whether you make them backwards or forwards. Six year olds don't think outside the box, they don't even know there is a box! If they accidentally start writing their name on the right side of the page they'll just write their whole name backwards, i.e., in mirror writing. If they begin their signature on the left, it'll be perfectly formed. Just try writing your name in mirror writing. (So sorry, but your brain is now hard-wired and you couldn't do it as fast as a kindergartner with a big pencil and his tongue out as he works on putting those lower case letters where they belong.)

I like sharing simple ideas with them. Other grownups don't care to have conversations about vegetables, SpongeBob or princesses. Last week I told a little girl that I thought broccoli looked like trees and that I called them broccoli trees. She first thought I was teasing her, then decided that maybe broccoli did grow on trees (city kids)! I couldn't let my silliness continue to confuse her so I told her that broccoli didn't grow on trees, it just looked kinda like a tree. She seriously told me that "yeah, broccoli doesn't grow on trees...money does." I laughed and whole-heartedly told her that it certainly did!

I'm  hoping to put one in my backyard this Spring.