Categories 
Sep
14
2006
Age Five
The best thing a child could possibly say to me in response to the question, What kinds of things do you like to do?
“One thing I’m really into right now is fire.”
Until he’s yours, and you spend your days waiting for your house to burn down. But given that I am neither a mother, nor with child yet, I find it as fabulously amusing as you do.
AWESOME!
Let’s hope he sticks with it!
Yeah, except I just finished punishing my 8 and 9 year olds for that exact thing just today. Not good, no, not good at all…
Thankfully he’s not yours!
On the positive side, having someone else light the fireworks on the 4th while you sit back with a cocktail is a great thing!
Please tell me they didn’t go ahead and name the kid Beavis.
Maggie,
Your Google Ads are getting gross, and highly amusing.(Fishy vaginal odor,anyone?)
I remember thinking how great Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) was…smart, creative, spirited. It’s nice in theory and then, when that very child comes to live with you full time – well, not quite as entertaining.
Hmmm. Never know when you’ll need a future arsonist, do you?
oh dear god.
At first I misread “fire” as “five,” which I though was even more interesting in a “Budding Higher-Order Mathmatician” kind of way.
Hi Maggie,
That is a very cute quote.
I ordered your book and can’t wait for my autographed copy.
Take care and congrats on your pregnancy. My son and his fiance’ are expecting Mar. 1st. I’m so excited.
Kathy
Hello there
Have been reading you for ages. Incidentally I just did a pregnancy test totally hoping it was negative, which it was, so I will not freak out now. I will not!
Anyway having a blonde moment. Just ordered your book. Twice, by accident. I realised I’d sent the first one to the wrong address (ie. my old halls of residence at university where numerous lush (!) and amazon orders have gone). Wanted book enough to order another!
But is there anything I can bloody well do? Or is it dooomed?
Thanks!
Billygean
I just had to stop by and let you know I have read your site for a while, and was redirected again to your blog through Dooce. It was amazing, because just today I told a friend that I would LOVE a book that gave ideas for blogging, and visited a Waldenbooks at lunch to see if they had anything. Alas, they had nothing (they mustn’t be carrying your book yet), but I found your book on Dooce’s entry today. I just ordered it, and can’t wait!
The way the answer is stated ['One thing I'm really into...] is hilarious in itself. And that it’s FIRE?! The kid knows how to keep an audience.
I have a five year old…she told me the other day that she had called my lawyer.
I don’t even have a lawyer!
Also last week, my other daughter (12) told her that she was getting a big vocabulary…the little one thinks about that for a couple of seconds, then responds, “Well…I didn’t fart if that’s what you mean!”
She keeps me pretty entertained!
My son is 5.5
He draws fire all the time.
But he also draws the firefighters.
Frightening.
But even more frightening is the coexistence, on your front page, of ads for a book on seduction and for getting rid of both mold and urine smell in your household.
Ew.
Fire is pretty cool
I’m still into fire, I just don’t burn as much as I used to.
Plastic = toxic.
My little one isn’t even a year yet (and she does love fire), but my friend’s daughter is the most awesome kid ever. At four years old she uses words like capable, and can look at me like a 16 year old when told she can’t borrow the car. I fear teenagers more than arsonists.
I had dinner a few weeks ago with a cool almost-five-year-old named Ben. During dinner, his mom asked him what they should get him for his birthday the next month.
He said, “Well, you know I like weapons.”
Working in the child advocacy arena as I do, it warps you for funny little moments like these. I find that sad. All I find myself thinking is, “I hope he grows out of that.”
Then again, I was a bit of a pyro when I was younger and I’ve yet to burn my house down so I need to not go to the bad place.
One of my twin daughters blurted out “I have a vagina!” quite loudly at dinner the other night. Unfortunately, our guest was someone still quite on the fence about motherhood. I’m not sure this will help or hurt that cause.