Colors

It is early morning and I’ve already hit the snooze button three times. As I lay there trying to find my will to face the day, I hear my daughter burst into my bedroom and pad her way across the carpet to stand before me. I open one eye to look at her and can’t help but smile, as she is beaming at me.

“Is it get up time yet?”

I close my eye and mumble, “Mmm-hmm” in assent.

“Yes? OK. What two colors make another color?”

Huh? I blink my eyes open to make sure I am not dreaming, and do my best to register where the first of today’s sure to be one of many morning inquisitions is headed. She’s not even four years old and she’s asking me what happens when you blend colors? At least our day-care is on their game.

I make an initial attempt to reverse the conversation by asking her to tell me what she’s learned, but all I get is the predictable, “No, you tell me.”

I have no strength to start the “no, you tell me” game, so I cave. OK. Shake off the cobwebs and think about primary colors. Thinking…blank. Oh, I’ve got one! Yellow and blue make green. Thank you Ziploc!

I pass on this wealth of knowledge, which is promptly accepted by an immediate press for more. I blurt out without much thought that red and yellow make purple. She again accepts this without argument, until I hear a muffled correction from my husband beneath his pillows: “No, red and blue make purple.”

Dang. I’m torn between appreciation for the save and aggravation that he’s right. Slowly, as I search my brain for the basics it all comes back to me. Oh yes, red and yellow make orange. Great, I’m a 35 year old college graduate with a fairly technical occupation, and I would fail at finger painting.

So much of what I learned as a child is hidden away under inches of dust, stored in a file cabinet somewhere down a deep and dark corridor of my brain. As I prepare myself to participate in the education of my children, I wonder how difficult it will be for me to remember a fraction of what I once knew. Ugh, fractions.

I wonder if I can pay off my daughter’s future educators for copies of their Teacher Editions. You know, just to brush up on my skills.