She Said the Darndest Things

For the long weekend, we had a great visit from Grandpa and Grandma Dixon, Uncle Ben, and Aunt Stacy. We also had lots of time with Uncle Mike and Aunt Emily, who live here close to us. On Sunday night, we were all together and it was time for the kids to go to bed. As we do just about every night, we read a few verses from the Book of Mormon. We're currently in Mosiah 11 where it talks about the "riotous living" of wicked King Noah, which includes having "many wives and concubines". I think I stopped and asked a question to make sure the kids were listening, like "Did you hear that? He had lots of what?" They answered the question and then Emily asked in amazement:

"How did he do it with so many!?"

Of course you can probably guess what all of us grown-ups thought of when we heard that and it took all that was in us to not bust up laughing. I think I finally came up with "He was probably a really busy guy." I assumed Emily wondered how Noah faired in general having so many women around, but then she asked a follow-up question that let me know what she was really wondering about. She asked, "Did he marry them all at the same time?" I think with her initial question she was trying to understand how he did the actual ceremony itself with so many women to marry. Either way, she gave us all something to laugh about the rest of the weekend.

Here's another Emily story. I've been hearing a LOT about some boy in her class named Quinn, initially that he was a kid that sits behind her on the rug and is always playing with her hair. Every day she reports he played with her hair. Okay, fine. Recently she informed me that he also rides her bus. And even more recently she's expressed desire to sit with him on the bus. Well, today she gets home and says, "Mom, Quinn has this song he sang to me. It goes 'Quinn and Emily sitting in a tree....'" She said she couldn't remember the rest. Well I know how that one goes! I said, "Oh, it goes like this: "K-I-S-S-I-N-G." She got a big smile and says, "Yeah, that's it." I asked if she knows what that spells and, as I suspected, she didn't. I said, "It spells 'kissing'." She smiled. In a nutshell I advised her not to be kissing Quinn or anybody till she's a grown-up. Daddy even said till after she gets back from her mission. After what I thought was a convincing argument, she said, "Well, I will kiss Quinn." Hello!! Are we in the teenage years already?? What happened to boys having cooties till 6th grade?? I'm sure this whole Quinn thing is nothing and having a crush on someone in kindergarten is as common as going to kindergarten itself. But for a girl who didn't kiss anybody till college, this all does not sit terribly well with me. We'll see what happens. I'm just hoping I can get into that class as a parent volunteer and see who this Quinn character is. Until then, I guess I'll have to keep persuading her against it, all the while listening to Emily sing that darn song. She only sang it 15 times this afternoon. Maybe our next Home Evening lesson should be from "The Strength of Youth" on dating standards. Sheesh.

*An addendum to yesterday's post. This morning (Thursday) after Emily sang that song a couple of times and expressed her hopes that Quinn kisses her, she revealed that they've been holding hands from the bus to the playground. Am I overreacting in my being concerned? Any advice from you seasoned moms of elementary school kids?

**Another addendum. Today (Friday) after school I asked Emily if there was any kissing going on today. She said no, but that Quinn kissed her on the cheek on the bus this afternoon. She said, "He slimed me." I asked for clarification and she said it was very wet. Oh, and he likes to lay on her lap on the bus too, even though she asks him not to. I can't take much more of this! I told Emily to kindly tell that silly boy that he's welcome to sit by her and play with her as long as he listens to what she asks. I told her to ask him to please stop kissing her and laying on her lap, that she doesn't want to kiss any boys till she's a grown-up. We'll see if it gets through to him.