One day last week, the neighbor girl was over playing with Alice. At ten years old, she is an official “big kid,” and Alice positively adores her. As they played in the garden, Alice and Big Kid started talking about the solar system. Of course. I mean, what else would they have chosen to talk about?
I caught only bits and pieces of the conversation. Star this, moon that… but my ears perked up when Alice began to describe her favorite planet. I confess I had no idea she had a favorite planet. What criterion might push a four-year-old to favor a particular planet, I wondered? Red color? Being surrounded by rings? A silly pronunciation? I anxiously awaited her explanation.
“My favorite planet is Earth. It holds us down so we don’t float around in the sky. That’s why Earth is my favorite planet.”
Nice, Alice! So practical and thoroughly considered. Good work.
kidlingville 
I’m also quite fond of the gravitational properties of Earth, at once strong enough to keep us firmly attached to the ground, yet not so strong as to squish us like pancakes.
Indeed, Moishe. The perfect strength. Ahhhhhhh, Earth.
Me, too. The earth is pretty darn wonderful.
I couldn’t agree more, Marie! I hope I can do my part to be its steward. For Alice’s sake. And her buddies, of course. 🙂
I’ve never asked my two kids which planet is their favorite, but if I had to take a guess I’d say it’s Uranus because they can never say it without giggling.
Of course they can’t say it without laughing, Linda! Who am I kidding: neither can I. I have no doubt Alice would consider the pun-factor if she were a bit older.
I love that Alice’s imagination can float around the sky while her feet remain firmly planted in the garden..:-)
Me too, Mimi. Me too.
That’s quite logical. Every time I think I’ve got Alice’s future profession pegged down, she surprises me.
Logic. Um, not typically, but I think you are right on this one. And she’s going to be an engineer. She doesn’t really like toys all that much. All she ever does is build and connect random objects to create bigger and better things. It is pretty fabulous, really. And cheap. Thank god.
You’ve blown it now. You’re supposed to let other people predict what your kid will do with her life, but never say what you actually think. As soon as she finds out you think she’s going to be an engineer, she’ll want to be an actress. Maybe she’ll become a chemist and invent a lipgloss that you aren’t allergic to.
Sunuvagun, I didn’t know there were rules! So I should start predicting wildly disappointing things and hope the reverse psychology thing starts young?
And you know, I could really get on board with the products for my poor, tender face. I might work that angle.
Yep, start telling her now that you think she should become either an exotic dancer or an actress and you’ll end up with either an engineer or The President.
I’m not buying it, Cristy. How about if you try that tactic on your cats and let me know how it goes? The Kidling just tries too hard to be good. If I told her she should be an exotic dancer, she would work her tail off to ensure it happened.