nuggets of childhood

years ago, when i was looking out at my future life & the things that i expected it to hold, i saw myself with a few kids & in a neighborhood where the kids all roamed free like a pack of friendly dogs. eating lunch at this house one day or swimming in that backyard another day. i guess i imagined that it would look like my life when i was growing up. i'm one of 4 kids & our family always lived in neighborhoods where there were a lot of kids & activities.

i was homeschooled, starting in 5th grade and i had a little bit of a complex about being the weird kid since homeschooling kind of hadn't been invented yet. the average person had never heard of it and we were questioned about it frequently. along the way, we eventually met a few other homeschooled kids, but they were total freaks, in my mind. they were the kids who's mom never wore a bra and they wore tacky clothes and bad shoes. they didn't know who the popular musicians were and had never been to a movie theatre. i considered myself to be way cooler than them, even though i knew i wasn't terribly high up on the cool ladder when it came to the rest of the world.

because of this, i feel like i need to keep brooke informed about things and teach her all the stuff that kids usually learn from each other. she's my only one, there are no kids in our neighborhood and she's homeschooled. i've got a pretty tight reign on who her social contacts are, which i generally think is a good thing since i can let her wait until she's ready to learn about stuff rather than some kid showing her porn on the bus on the way to school & now she knows what intercourse is.

but i think it's fun to tell her the stupid crap that kids say to each other that generally parents tsk-tsk about, so that she won't be clueless when she runs into it down the road. stuff like "i know you are, but what am i?" or "i'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me & sticks to you." it's like i have license to return to my childhood & dig into those old ridiculous things kids say and sing, in the interest of keeping her normal. we taught her the lyrics to "on top of old smokey" and of course the "beans, beans, the musical fruit" poem.  ooo, and i just remembered another one that i need to teach her tomorrow- "great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts, mutilated monkey meat, itty bitty birdies' feet. great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts, and me without my spoon."

i've sung her the old songs that we used when jumping rope or skipping or doing those hand clappy games. and not long ago, i taught her the classic, "there's a place in france where the naked ladies dance. there's a hole in the wall so that i can see them all."  and we can't forget the always creepy, but fun toilet ditty, "i see your hiney, so bright and shiny. you better hide it, before i bite it."

i'm sure there are plenty more that i've forgotten or somehow missed during my own childhood & i'd like to make a plea, to you, my bloggy friends, to help my child have a full and well rounded childhood. share with us your wisdom or your folly, but educate us in the ways of children everywhere so that brooke won't feel like she's missed out any of the colorful little nuggets that must be passed on to each and every child.