Getting Lawyered By My 5 Year Old

It's common knowledge around here that my daughter thinks I'm an idiot.  


Well, that may be harsh, but she seriously can not believe that her father and I know how to maneuver through daily life on our own.  


I think she gets this from my dad.  He lived in Virginia and we lived during the school year with our mom in Minnesota.  But we saw him all the time and he made numerous trips to Minnesota to see us.  


Even though he was the one visiting, our conversations would go like this: 


Exiting the apartment complex that I lived in while driving to my school....


Doodle Bug, turn left here.  


Dad, seriously?  I live here.  I drive to high school each day, I know where I am going.


OK.  So, what time should I pick you up from school....wait, honey, you have to turn left up here.


Dad, I LIVE HERE.  I go to school here daily.  I get here on my own.


Oh, I know honey.  Just pull up here because the school is on the right.  Make sure you don't park there, that's handicap parking.

DAD!!!


A few things you need to know to understand why my dad assuming I needed his guidance in that situation was so maddening:


 1.)  My dad one time washed his hair for the entire duration of his stay using the tiny lotion bottle in his hotel room.  By the end of the weekend, if you needed to WD-40 something you could have just rubbed his head on it instead.
2.)  He one time gulped down the tiny crab that my brother was keeping in his bathroom by the sink, because he walked into the bathroom and saw water in a cup and felt thirsty.  My brother watched in horror and then informed my dad that he was currently digesting something pulled from a local murky pond.
3.)  The last time my sister and I vacationed with him,  our Dad walked up to to the DVD player, gazed at it for awhile, then turned to my sister and I and said, "What is this?  Can you get me on to the internet with it?"


He's also the smartest person I've ever known.  He's a physician and the mayor of his town.  I just think sometimes super intelligent people have a seriously ridiculous side to them.


So, anyhoodles, I think my daughter may get this trait of trying to direct me from him.  This is how our conversation went yesterday while driving:


Mom, this isn't how we usually go.


I know honey, I'm taking a different route.


Exasperated sigh from Nora lets me know she feels my intellectual capabilities do not allow me to veer from the norm.


She was quiet for a moment, and then pointed at the electrical wires above our heads that peppered the road we were driving on.  


Mom, is that how Jesus controls the cars?


No honey, Jesus doesn't really control us.  I mean we have to make our own choices.  Those wires bring electricity to different things.  


It looks like my strawberry shortcake car, that has a wire that goes to the car and I control it that way.  


That's different, honey.  


Do you know that Jesus isn't controlling us that way?  Can you tell me how you know for sure Jesus is not controlling us by those wires?  Because you said we don't always understand how Jesus works.


Well, I.....I mean...I don't....Jesus.....


See mom, it's probably how he controls us.  


 *Exasperated sigh indicating that she's tired of having to teach me all these things*


Nora moves on to looking at her book, satisfied in her knowledge.


I sit wide eyed in the front, staring up at the wires and considering the possibilities of how Jesus works, completely uncertain about my own knowledge.





Oh, and just so you know how maddening it is that Nora thinks I'm a moron, here's a picture I took of her strawberry shortcake car when it got STUCK IN HER HAIR.