Luke, our nephew, came for a hike with us last weekend. I am SO entertained by the sayings that come out of his little 7-year-old mouth! This was a hike on a preserve where there are also mountain bike riders as well as people on horseback pounding the trails with us pedestrians. Nora and Luke were hiking a bit ahead of my husband and I, when we noticed that they stopped and were analyzing something on the trail that lay between them. As we approached, we saw the it was horse poop. I asked, “What in the world is that?” Luke answered right away, “It’s poop from a cow.” We have never seen cows on the hills behind our house! Ever! And we’ve seen the horses getting in and out of their trailers at the trail head. It made me laugh. Obviously a city-fied boy…. once you’ve seen a cow pie, you could hardly mistake them for horse droppings!
A half hour later, we had come to a T in the path and turned west, having never gone that way previously. My husband suggested that we take a picture of the trail map (from the trail head) when we get back so we could figure out where we had hiked. I remarked that the trails are probably on a state website and we could just look them up on the computer. Luke chimed in stating the obvious that I had obviously missed, “Auntie Linda, there aren’t any computers out here!” As if to say DUH!
Last year when Luke was in kindergarten, every time I saw him I would ask him if he went to school that day (even on holidays and weekends.) Did his teacher show up? Did she teach him anything he didn’t already know? And I tried with great effort to get him to raise his hand in class and ask, “When are you going to teach me something I don’t already know.” I coached him. I prodded. I modeled. But he never asked. Smart kid.
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