Conversations At Random.

Random conversations abound in our house. The Youngest, being three, has a particular talent for seizing the random ball, and running with it.

This morning while eating her toast, she suddenly said out of nowhere:
'Elephants can't jump'.
Me (bleary eyed, scarecrow haired, and mumbling - stayed up far too late last night 'working' on blog):
'Yep, you're definitely onto something there. Don't think elephants can jump.'
'But they can splash'
'Yes. No doubt, they do a fair bit of splashing.'
'Not like kangaroos.'
'Hmm, no. Kangaroos don't splash much I think, but they can jump.'

Now don't get me wrong. Biased as I am, I believe my daughter, for the age of three, to be a fine conversationalist and raconteur. But there was a time I'm sure, when I had conversations about things like The-State-Of-The-World-Today, and what I planned to do about it when I became the hugely celebrated, Benevolent-Dictator-Of-The-Universe.

These days I must content myself with being the (mostly) benevolent centre of my childrens universe. I say 'content'. In fact it doesn't always sit comfortably with me at all. I fret over the concept of absolute power corrupting absolutely, and tend to feel a tinge of secret admiration (along with the sheer frustration) when my children refuse to comply with my wishes. Parental power I believe, can be so easily abused. Surely it's necessary, and a good thing, for our children to kick against it occasionally on their way up.

I worry sometimes about my daughter falling victim to a society that often still expects women to put up and shut up. But I find random conversations can do an awful lot to assuage your fears. When I told her that kangaroos did, in fact, excel at jumping; she gave me what can only be described as a withering look of contempt:
'No', she said. 'That's frogs'.