"Tell Me Something

I don’t know about you” is a game I play with my kids. I don’t feel like I ever see enough of them and I know I miss out on so much. I want to know every little detail. Or at least what they can remember to tell me.

A few things I learned this past week:

Devon hates high school except for journalism club.
Alex loves her math class because her teacher rocks.
Ty didn’t know that pickles were made from cukes.
Anthony doesn’t like Jade anymore.

“Mom. Tell us something we don’t know about you.” asks Alex.
And just when I begin formulating something to say, Ty interrupts with, “Who was your first kiss? How old were you?” And Tony asks, ‘And who was your first boyfriend that you went on a date-date with?” And Devon asks, “And when was the first time you slow danced? *Really* slow danced?”

All of a sudden I realized the danger that this game holds when you have the liberty to ask pointed questions. I would have preferred to tell them something they didn’t know like, “I had cereal every single morning last week.” or “I’ve discovered that the Oxy cleaning product really does get the whites whiter.”

Instead, I told them, “My first real kiss was with a boy named Todd who was two years older than me and two inches shorter. He had lots of curly blond hair and he told me my eyelashes were as long as butterfly wings. He cleaned up at the slaughter house so he smelled sickly like warm, fresh beef and was the brother of one of my best friends. I was in 8th grade. We didn’t talk to each other for a few weeks after the kiss and then became good friends again.” That answer seemed to please them immensely.