A couple of days ago, we riding in the car somewhere when Maggie brought up Max (our recently deceased dog). We did the usual stuff, talking about the stuff we remember about her, when she piped up with "John-Austin said he'll see his dog again after he dies".
Blurg. Theological discussions with a 3 year-old. I repeat, blurg.
Well, I think I handled it rather well. I said that while John-Austin doesn't really know that he'll see his dog again, there is one thing you can know for sure. As long as you remember the things about Max that you liked, and you don't forget how she made you feel, then there'll always be a little bit of her with you.
She seemed okay with that and we spent the rest of the trip talking about the things we liked about Max. Maggie's favorite was apparently "when you rub her hears, her tail would wag", which was cute.
She does want a new dog, though. Specifically "a big dog".
The kiddo's getting an early start with geography at her new school. She's rather fascinated with maps (mainly because of Dora), so we got a couple of maps to hang up in her room. They've also got lots of map-puzzles at Clariden that she likes to put together with her pals. The teacher makes a point of explaining about whatever they're putting together. She still doesn't quite have a handle about how she can live in Southlake and Texas at the same time, but that'll happen.
What she does know about the world. . .
- We are in Texas (check)
- We went to California, and California is west (both true)
- Florida is where Mickey Mouse lives (I suppose so)
- The arctic is cold (yep)
- Asia is a planet (umm. . .)
- Pretty-much any land-mass she cannot identify is Egypt
She's definitely doing very well at school. A couple of days ago, she explained to me the difference between up, down, left, right, north, south, east, west, forward, and backward, and she got it all right. She likes it when the sun goes down because that's her best measure for west, and she then gets a chance to point out the other three directions (which my wife still doesn't do all that well).
So having a precocious little monkey has its rewards I guess.
