Monday, January 05, 2009


THE FOOTHILLS OF REASON


Noticed this morning by the crunches underfoot, and in the clarity of sunlight, the impressive quantity of senbei chunks and nori flakes littering certain areas of the floor around the kitchen table, indicating that someone yesterday had been sitting at said table scarfing said items in some quantity-- in fact two someones, judging by the area of rampant and heedless chunkification - someones who were below the Age of Senbei, as I dubbed it during my own parenthood.

The Age of Senbei comes at about the same time as the old Catholic workhorse the Age of Reason, at which age one is qualified to go to hell. (Or heaven, the much less likely option in my case at the time-- and even now, I expect.) As you can see, I've based my age classification on more immediately useful parameters. The Age of Senbei comes a couple of years after the Age of Restaurantability-- the age at which you can take children to a restaurant without them grabbing all the condiments on the table for an essential series of physical tests.

At the Age of Senbei, which is about the age of 7, a child can eat senbei without leaving a physical record of the act all over the vicinity. If Hansel and Gretel had been pre-Senbei, they would have been found at once. Mitsuki and Miasa just turned 5, so that seat there and that seat there is where they sat, as you can easily see. Over there is where Kaya, who just turned 8, was sitting. It is clear by the floor that she is of an age.

If they were here right now, I'd have them clean it up, perhaps accelerate their growth a bit, but kids make great getaways, as the crumbs of yesterday attest. And though the trio is coming to visit in an hour or so, since this is the last day they'll be here - and anyway I trust that the twins will reach the Age of Senbei as certainly and fully as Kaya has - I will say nothing to them of the morning crunches underfoot, I'll just clean it up myself and let them be who they are at the moment, under a life system way older than history.

Which is not to say I won't eyeball M&M if they launch into any senbei-- I have reached the Foothills of Reason, after all.

4 comments:

Chancy said...

I know you are willing to put up with the messes the little ones make because you know they grow up,up and away far too quickly.

My local grands are now 12, 10, 10 and 8 years old and they are slipping away from us with school activities,sports, friends, sleep overs and all the other stuff that fills their days.

Where did the time go?

Happy New Year, Robert.

Anonymous said...

A lovely post, Robert; as always when you speak of your grandchildren.

Happy and Healthy New Year!

Tabor said...

Oops. It appears I am married to someone who is below the Age of Senbei!

Anonymous said...

Ahhhhhh...I love your grandpa posts.

I, being a Waldorf early childhood teacher, also believe in the age of reason, but view it as that place in time where the child has both feet on the earth from the spiritual world from which they came...

Happy New year to you and yours!