The other day i was driving in the car with two kids I was babysitting. The four year old pipes up and starts playing I spy with my little eye to herself. As she is sitting there in the backseat quietly looking around and saying this or that. My mind starts to wander to when I was a child and how we used to love that game and would try to trick each other by making it as hard as we could so that the other person couldn’t figure out what we were spying. Just thinking about all the road trips that my sisters and I took seeking out all of the unique things to spy and tried to stump each other.
As I’m lost in my own world reminiscing on the good old days with my siblings. I hear this little voice in the back that says Sarina I spy ……… and thus i am brought into her game of eye spy.
So here we are driving along and we start picking different things that we see. Now when you’re playing with a four-year-old, guesses of clouds the sky, the road, the car all became very, very, very repetitive guesses with over exaggerated cheers at the end of the guess when one gets it right.
It was now her turn, she sits there quietly, and I am wondering if she has decided that this repetitive eye spy game is over. It was then that we drive past the Harbour and she pipes up saying and I quote “ I spy with my little eye a bird flapping his wings that looks like a Seagull.”
Yup you read that right. So now i’m put into the position of trying to figure out how to respond, with my breath getting heavy, sweat starting to get on my palms I fret. What do I do? Do I make something up? Or do I state the obvious? do I creat a huge story to make her giggle and say nooooo Sarina. I just don’t know, this one is a hard one!
As I’m thinking and fretting more and more, i hear a little voice in the back say Sarina? So with a wipe of the palms and taking a deep breath, I turn my head to look at her to see if stating the obvious is the correct thing to do. I build up the courage against this four-year-old I bravely say “is it a seagull?……………”there’s a moment of silence I hold my breath. Preparing for either end so of a reaction. Her little eyes light up and got as big as saucers, she flairs her arm with excitement, displaying a massive smile on her face saying “THAT’S RIGHT! HOW DID YOU GUESS THAT?”
I love kids…