At some point, children lose their innocence. Sometimes it happens in a horrifying instant for the unfortunate who find themselves in peril at the hands of evil. Hopefully, more often, children will lose their innocence in gradual increments - through conversations with peers on the playground, in a classroom setting with a teacher, at home in a discussion with a parent. Soon, they will learn the secondary meaning of the "birds and the bees", and the taboo connotations of seemingly bland words.
Already, at age eight, we're seeing that Devlin is starting to become more aware as many of his school friends have older siblings. The clearest example being, of course, his questioning of Santa Claus' existence.
Ceilidh still has her feet planted in the land of fairy tales, pink cotton candy, unicorns and happiness. She still believes that Justin Bieber is very cute, although One Direction could be the "best band ever". Her jokes are still silly and makes very little sense, except to her.
On the way to school this morning, she told me she wanted to share her new song. It was a variation on the song Alice The Camel. Her twist? "Alvin the Chipmunk has five nuts", she sang loudly. The child in me delighted in her singing, knowing she meant acorns or walnuts. But the parent in me had to shush her, and probe whether or not she learned this from her friends at school (nope, she made it up herself) and what she knew about "nuts" (nothing, it turns out). Then I gently tried to steer her towards a more appropriate or sillier version of the song that wouldn't get a note sent home from school.
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