Sweet memory lane

I found myself in n “old-time” lolly shop a few days ago and got very nostalgic  as I looked through what they had on offer – Big Boss Cigars, Martian Gum, Sherbert Fountains, Pop Rocks and so on. There were even the candy cigarettes that we used to love as kids – although, sadly, not the chocolate ones that looked like real cigarettes. We used to stand outside the shop, pretending to smoke and when old ladies came past we’d ask, “Gotta light, luv?” and think we were very funny and sophisticated.

So I bought a couple of Big Boss Cigars and a few packets of Pop Rocks and took them home to my 5 year old daughter. The look on her face when she first tried the Pop Rocks was amazing – as was the amount of laughter that accompanied it all. She immediately had to run through the house and share them with every one.

I guess that’s one of the best things about kids – being able to re-live some of the great events of childhood. Like the first time you ate Pop Rocks, or when you first cleared that jump on your BMX, or the great dam you made in the creek at the park.

I love watching my daughter when she’s making cubby-houses in the lounge, dressing up, or throwing mud pies against the side of the house. Or her enthusiasm recently when she first manaaged to get all the way along the monkeybars in one go. And since she’s only five and the boy’s only 5 months, I guess I’ve got a lot of this sort of thing ahead of me.

Are mermaids real – part 2

I find it amazing how people, especially kids, can hold to completely contradictory ideas in their minds and believe both of them utterly. My daughter knows that Father Christmas isn’t real, that mummy and daddy “help” him with the presents, that the Father Christmases you see in the shopping centres are not the real Father Christmas, and so on. And yet, she does still believe in him and wonders how he knows what she wants for Christmas.

She knows the Easter Bunny isn’t real – but is quite terrified by the idea that he might come into the house to leave the Easter eggs.

She loves fairies, leaves things out for them in the backyard. But the other day she announces to me, “Fairies aren’t real you know, dad.”

I wonder how they day it. What wonderful, elastic minds they must have.

Are mermaids real?

So, tonight, while in the bath, my daughter, five, asks, “Daddy? Are mermaids real?” Now, I don’t want to lie to her, but I don’t want to bust her bubble of belief in fantasy.

So I say, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real – there are lots of things that I’ve never seen but that are real.”

“Like what, daddy?”

“Well, I’ve never seen a humpback whale, or a boa constrictor, or a grizzly bear. But they all exist.”

“Oh, OK then.”

Nothing like discussing philosophical issues with a five-year-old.