As we get more mature, we seem to have some issues that we didn’t have before. And yet, I’m beginning to remember that even toddlers had those same issues.

My youngest daughter was the queen of misunderstandings, or she couldn’t hear. The first day she came home from kindergarten, she was happy and enthusiastic.

“Mommy! Mommy!” she cried so elated, “I want to be a cupcake! I want to be a cupcake!”

“A cupcake, sweetie?” Of course, I jump right into mommy-mode: “Oh, honey, do you mean we need to make cupcakes for school? Okay, we can do that.”

“NO, Mommy,  no, no, no. I want to BE a cupcake!”

“I don’t know what you mean, honey. ”

“Mom,” her older sister chimes in with the voice of a condescending eight-year old to her elderly mother who is already so uncool, “she wants to be a Brownie.”

Ooops.

A bit before that, she came into the kitchen one dark, cold winter night from helping Dad take out the trash claiming, “Mommy, Mommy, I just saw O’Brien!”

I looked at her quizzically. “Who is O’Brien and what is he doing in our driveway at night?”

“No, Mommy, I saw O’Brien!” I have no idea what this child is talking about. We have no neighbors named O’Brien. We don’t really even have neighbors, certainly none close enough to be in our driveway at night for no known reason.

My husband comes in just at the tail end of her accusatory tone indicating that I’m not the smartest Mommy like she thought I was.

“Cathy, I showed her the constellation, Orion.” Oh.

So when my husband says to me while we’re watching Jeopardy, “What’s for dinner?” and I say: “How do I know who the winner is, it’s not over yet!”

Or I’m conversing with my daughter on the phone as she walks through the streets of New York City and she’s telling me about her date:

“And then he got a swan and we shared it.”

“A swan? Why would you share a swan? What does that even mean? Do you keep the swan on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday? Where is it now in your bathtub?”

“MOM…a flan…. F-L-A-N…flan!”

Oh, that’s nice.

I think, well this isn’t age, it’s just a misunderstanding. Anyone, even a toddler could make that mistake.

Oh and I laughed so hard, I peed a little, which a toddler would do too. So…I’m feeling younger every day, as I walk past the Pampers aisle to inspect the Lisa Rinna Always Sexy Underpants.

“You Just have to Laugh….”

©2017 Cathy Sikorski