More Conversations With a Kindergartener

Setting: The school's playground
Time: 3:15 p.m., a few minutes after the final bell

Enter Public School Dad and the kiddo. She climbs a ladder and scrambles to the top of a slide. PSD stands below her but is almost at eye-level with her feet. The previous evening, she had a super soccer game, and by super, we mean she scored five goals (and not just cheap little goals where she barely had to kick the ball because it was right on the line; these were goals that she led breakaways and outran the other team and booted the ball from AT LEAST eight feet away and zipped it into the net the way a fastball thumps a catcher's mitt . . . you get the idea).

PSD: So, did you tell your teacher about your soccer game last night?

Kiddo: No. [her voice is calm; she's sizing up the slide]

PSD: Well, did you tell your friends?

Kiddo: No.

PSD: Why not?

Kiddo: Because it's a secret.

PSD: Grandmom thinks you don't want to brag, but it's not bragging. I mean, not really.

Kiddo: Well, there's this girl in class, and she told everybody that she's a basketball player, and now everyone wants her autograph.

PSD: Uh-huh. [clearly puzzled]

Kiddo: Daddy, I just don't want everyone asking me for my autograph all the time.