Pass the Mountain Dew Please

My husband is in a local rock-and-roll band. One recent weekend, he was playing at a bar in Cary. I went, so my two girls stayed with a babysitter.

"Mommy, why can't I go?" My 6-year-old asked.

"Because it’s a bar," I said dismissively as I scoured my closet for a clean pair of jeans.

"Soooooooo," she said in her I've-watched-too-much-Disney-Channel tone.

"You can't go to a bar because it is against the law," I said, incredulously wondering why I was defending my night out to a first grader. "Besides, they serve alcohol."

She put her little hands on her hips and pursed her lips into a pout.

"Mama, I've had Mountain Dew before, you know," she said rolling her big blue eyes like a fed up teenager.

I had to stifle a laugh. Clearly, she had no idea what alcohol was, but she did know it was something bad. Since I don't let her drink Mountain Dew (no caffeine needed for my little energizer bunny), she assumed alcohol and Mountain Dew were one and the same.

These misunderstandings, or maybe more appropriately, these well-founded efforts of children to make sense of the world around them is what I love about parenting. I love watching how my daughter’s thought process evolves from one stage to the next. I never know what she is going to say, and am constantly amazed and amused by what she comes up with.

Instead of trying to correct her, I just smiled and teasingly scolded her for drinking Mountain Dew behind my back.

The next morning as I was preparing coffee in a fog before church she said, "Mama, you look tired."