Carpools with Camilo

My brood carpools to school with a former classmate of Kathryn's. He is also in first grade and every day he and Kathryn argue like an old married couple for the entire 6-minute car trip. They will argue about anything, but they mostly stick to elementary school topics: who is older (he is), who's dad has the bigger car (I do), who can cross the monkey bars faster (he can), who's baby sisters or brother can say the most words (hers can). But this young man, whom we'll call Camilo because that's his name, has a secret weapon he employs to win every argument, sort of a trump card if you will. Here's the exact transcript of an argument that the two had last winter:

Kathryn said, "I'm taking ice skating lessons."

Camilo, always the optimist, replied, "If you fall on the ice, you'll break your knee."

"No, I won't."

"Yes, you will. My friend's mom fell on the ice and she broke her knee. She had to go to the hospital and get a new knee."

"I won't break my knee."

"If I fall on the ice, I would break the ice, not my knee." Camilo is such a boy.

"You can't break the ice when you fall, Camilo."

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't."

For brevity and flow, I will not include all of the yes-I-cans and no-you-can'ts that followed. There were probably around forty or fifty of them before I finally intervened.

"The ice at a skating rink is pretty thick. I don't think anyone can break it by falling."

At this point, you might think Kathryn has won the argument, right? Wrong. Camilo plays his trump card.

"Jesus can."

Jesus ends almost every argument between these two. According to Camilo, Jesus has the biggest car and the most brothers and sisters, he can jump the highest, and do the monkey bars fifty times in a row. Jesus can jump over the school and run across the gym faster than even the PE teacher. Kathryn, of course, has no answer to this, but it never seems to bother her. In fact, it almost seems like the only reason they argue so incessantly is to discover new and exciting facts about the Son of God.

Camilo's dad, the only other stay-at-home dad I know, claims he has no idea where Camilo gets these views about Jesus, but I don't believe him. I think every day as I drive up, he hands Camilo his backpack and tells his son something like, "Okay, Camilo, have a good day at school. And remember that Jesus' lawn mower is bigger than Kathryn's dad's lawn mower." Then he kisses Camilo on the head and sends him out to my car to spread the good word.

Update: Before I posted this, I forwarded this to Camilo's dad for approval. He wrote me back and said Yes, I could post it, but I should remember that Jesus' blog is bigger than my blog.

Comments

[katie]

Dear Stay At Home Possibly Hot Dad,

I was trying not to fall for this blog but I have thanks to this post. It's weird that I can relate to both your children AND you. I believe it's because I'm in the middle when it comes to age. Also I have a lot of memories of my childhood which I seem to forget until I read this blog and I remember all these things happening to me.

"Okay, Camilo, have a good day at school. And remember that Jesus' lawn mower is bigger than Kathryn's dad's lawn mower."

That was the best part.

Sincerely,
Going to College Girl

[Anne Prince]

I love it!!