The line forms to the left ...

Pookie is a wonderfully smart child. She learned to read at age 3, not just memorizing the stories, but actually reading. She was in a very good private school, very advanced, until we moved when she was in 2nd grade. She was here for the second semester of 2nd grade and her teacher decided she should be in gifted classes .. and she has been since. On their West Testing every year, she scores "Above Mastery" in all subjects across the board. She has a love of everything science related and for history as well.

This sounds suspiciously like I'm going to brag about how great my kid is all through this post, doesn't it? I assure you, I'm not. She is a smart girl, very smart. Too much for her own good sometimes. She reminds me of someone .. oh .. yes, it would be her mother that she reminds me of ;)

With one exception.

Sense. Of the common variety. She has none. Not. One. Lick.

I'm not saying I have loads of it. I know I flake out on a kinda regular basis, but .. still.

I'm not sure where she was when they called out, "The line for common sense forms to the left."

She was most likely off to the right, wandering aimlessly, chasing a butterfly, examining her toes, or some such.

I tell her to turn the lights off in the kitchen at night because, really, we don't need the house to be lit up like a Christmas tree 24 hours a day. Her response? "I can't. It gets too dark and I can't see to get back."

Seriously?

There are at least 592 other lights in the house. When the light is turned off in the kitchen, there is a neon clock that glows in there. There is the porch light that shines into the dining room, there is a nightlight in the living room, and if she leaves the light on in her room, it will light her path back. Or, she could even turn on her bedroom light, the living room light, the dining room light on her way to the kitchen and turn them all off in reverse on the way back.

Did she think of that? No.

Did she had a surprised look on her face like I was the smartest person on the planet when I told her all of that and she realized it was all true? Yes.



I tell her to put the hose away and close the garage. The hose reel sits just outside the garage door, the extension to the hose reel lays along the side of the garage and the door closes on top of it.

She comes to tell me the garage won't close. The hose extension is too fat. Because it's full of water. I tell her that perhaps if the water were somehow drained from the hose .....

She just stares at me. Clueless.


She doesn't finish the dishes or wipe the counters down in the kitchen, because there was no room in the dishwasher for all the dishes.

I tell her that if she unloads the dishwasher when it's done that there will be room then for the other dishes. That it is possible that said dishwasher -will- run a second time if there are enough spares to fill it again. It's not a rule that it can only run once or anything. It's also possible to wipe down the counters if she puts all the spare dishes in the sink while waiting for the dishwasher to be finished.

She had no clue.


My favorite this week? I gave her very specific instructions, as I always do, because I know my daughter. If I don't spell it out for her, letter by letter, she won't figure it out.

Instructions: Take this trash bag, empty the cat box. (This is easy, we have an automatic one .. all she has to do is take the receptacle out and put it in the bag). Put a new receptacle in the box .. where it belongs. Take the bag out to the car and put the little bag of trash that is in the back seat into the big bag you are holding. Tie up the big bag, put it with the other trash, in the can. In the garage. Then, get your camp stuff out of the car and bring it inside.

I then returned to work.

45 minutes later, I began to wonder what might have happened to my daughter. Had she gotten lost between the house and the garage? I thought she was safe enough. The garage is attached to the house .. the outside garage door was shut .. so she wouldn't be wandering aimlessly in the yard, chasing fireflies.

I went to see what she was doing.

I passed the litter box, which had not been emptied. I opened the door to the garage.

She was sitting in the back seat of the car.

With the empty trash bag.

Against my better judgment, I asked.

DC: What are you doing?

P: Um .. sitting here?

DC: Why?

P: I got sidetracked.

DC: Between the living room and the garage?

P: I guess.

DC: There are only 3 rooms between there and here.

P: Oh.

DC: You've been just sitting there for 45 minutes.

P: Really?

DC: *tries again, speaking slowly* What was so interesting that you got sidetracked?

P: I don't know.


*bangs head on wall*