Last Saturday Ellie, our neighbor came over. Her twin’s dance class started up again and the class only allows one parent and no siblings to go, in order to keep the number of people small. We have been allowing the kids to play together cautiously during our seclusion, mostly outside. But we are in the triple digits of summer heat, so they are playing indoors.
The fact that Carter is 12 and Ellie is 6 does not seem to matter. They have been fast friends for about three years, since Ellie’s family moved in next door to us. Ellie’s mom and I have discussed how sad it will be when one of them or the other will not want to play with the other due to their age difference. I am beginning to wonder (and have hope) that that day may never come.
As I walked past Carter’s bedroom door, I caught a peek of them on the floor, Carter reading a Winnie the Pooh book to Ellie.
He then moved on to a Catwad book, less endearing and timeless, but a book nonetheless. Here is an excerpt taken from Amazon if you are blissfully ignorant of Catwad and don’t know what I am talking about.
Apparently one of the characters in the book was slicing up pizza and there was a conversation surrounding the number of slices. If it was cut into 6 slices, the character could eat it all, but if it were to be cut into 8 slices, then that would be way too much pizza for him to eat. I have not read this riveting book, but based on the excerpt above, I would guess that this was Blurmp’s opinion. Carter found it funny that Ellie agreed with this, funny enough to come and tell me. I explained to him that Ellie, who just finished kindergarten, has not yet learned about fractions and I asked him to explain it to her. Carter informed me that he had already done so, “It is still just one pizza, it doesn’t matter how many slices it is cut into.” Go Carter! (And now that I have typed this, I think this would be a great introduction into fractions for my third graders next year…)
Fractions were set aside and before they got bored and decided to go swimming, I overheard this tidbit of conversation.
carter – If you could be any animal what would you be? Remember, you would have to be it for the rest of your life. The words “rest of your life” were dramatically emphasized. There was a slight pause, followed by a disdaining : And don’t you dare say mermaid!
ellie – There was about ten seconds of what I can only imagine were deeply filled thoughts before she had her answer. Cheetah!
carter: I would beeee, an owl! No, a hawk.
With that most important question out of the way, they decided to go swimming.
Shoes On The Wrong Feet 
That’s so sweet. Fingers crossed the friendship continues when puberty strikes.
As for an animal…. I’d want to be the woodchuck that lived under our barn. I feed that little devil well.
I would pretty much be content being any animal that comes to visit your house. You feed them well! I would be concerned, however, if I was the woodchuck as the expectations for woodchucking seem pretty great.
And yet our chucks don’t chuck. Must be too full from all the treats.
I think I might need to use Catwad logic for Pizza. And probably cake now I think about it…
Pizza, for sure! It is a handy form of logic in times of treats and sweets. I could easily eat two pieces of pizza, but a whole pizza, no way. 😉
Friendship is so important for our kids especially nowadays . Love the story of Carter and Ellie. Makes me smile and remember when my son was younger. He is now 14. Thank you for sharing joy and positivity. Take care and best regards to your family. Thanks for the comment . I have not written for years till COVID-19 lockdown . Writing it helped me make sense of the uncertainty, the fear, the hope.
I agree, friendship, especially in this most strange of times, is of great importance. I hope you and your family are doing well. I have been very spotty at best at blogging, recently back after many months off, so I was pleased to see your post. It is nice to reconnect with people. I am glad writing is a help for you. I still struggle to write about the bigger, heavier topics. Sometimes words come rushing at me and I must write about the difficult topics, but more often than not, they don’t. I tend to focus on the little moments in life.