Strangers, Tales, Homonymns, Politics, Race & Green

First. In Simon's dresser there is a mini-closet. I don't know what you would really call this and I'm sure there's an adequate descriptor out there, but for the life of me I can't come up with the right singular word to help me out right now. So just picture a little space that a small (or medium) sized human can fit into. We usually store sweaters there, but more often it is used as a fun hiding spot. Also, Simon's light is controlled with a remote.

Second. A few weeks ago my sisters, niece, nephews and my own children were at my parent's house (my parents were not, ironically enough). This was right before the big election and there was a young man who came to the door. For some reason, my older sister said, "Quick, let's hide! There's someone coming to the door!" It was a spit second decision, designed to keep the kids quiet for a minute and to just plain have fun. We knew it was someone peddling for Obama or Romney and figured we'd just let him move onto the next house. The kids were all a little confused, but seemed to be having fun with us. This all sounds bizarre, which it kind of was, but it was all good, innocent fun. I promise.

This is everything you need to know to make sense of my conversation in the car with Simon today...

Simon - I'm going to take my remote and hide in my sweater closet so when the strangers come in they won't be able to see me.

Me - Why do you think a stranger is going to come into our house?

S - Because a stranger is going to come in and go upstairs and look into all of the bedrooms and I'll be hiding so they won't see me.

M - Where did you get this idea from? Why do you think someone is going to look in our rooms?

S - Because Goldilocks did it in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She went into all of their bedrooms and she was a stranger.

M - Well, I guess you're right about Goldilocks, but that was just a story.

S - And that guy came to gramma's house and we had to hide and he was going to come in.

M - No, buddy, he was just at the door wanting to know who we were going to vote for.

S - Oh. Well who should we vote for?

M - Voting is over now. Obama won.

S - What about Obama two?

M - No, Obama was the winner. He won.

S - Oh, Obama has black skin.

M - Well, yeah, Obama has brown skin. Lots of people have brown skin, just like someone else we really love, right?

S - Yup, like Cecie!

M - We love people with every skin color, right?

S - Yeah, I even like purple and green. I really like green because I like the grass and chives and everything that's green....

And that is how we went from hiding from strangers in a cabinet (cabinet! the word just came to me!!) to discussing fairy tales to talking politics to homonyms to race and to everything green in a five minute car ride.

God, I love four year olds.