Conversations with a Four Year Old

Christopher likes to watch Noggin, and there is a Laurie Berkner song he's learned from Jack's Big Music Show. It's called I'm Not Perfect:

I'm not perfect, no, I'm not.
I'm not perfect but I've got what I got.
I do my very best, do my very best, do my very best each day,
But I'm not perfect and I hope you like me that way.

It continues with another verse for We and concludes with a verse for You, with the ending line "And you know I love you that way." It's a very very sweet song and Christopher loves to sing it. Sometimes, he asks us to sing it with him (we sometimes sing in the car on the ride home). The only problem--he is very particular about the words as he knows them. If Tom or I sing the wrong word, Christopher will shout, "No! That's not it!"

I sometimes forget that he's a little too young for sarcasm. One night, he asked me to sing with him, then yelled because I used a wrong word. I immediately replied, "I think you've missed the message of the song, buddy."

"What do you mean, Mommy?"

"Do you know what "not perfect" means?"

"No."

"It means that we don't always do everything correctly. We're humans, and we make mistakes, and we will mess up sometimes even when we do our best, but that's OK."

"Oooooh," he says, then falls silent. I turn my head, and he has a pensive look on his face, and I think maybe this is one of those impactful life-lesson moments, then he straightens in his seat and declares, "*I'm* perfect!"

Tom and I answer in unison, "No, you're not!" then laugh.

*****

We often listen to the classic rock station since it's the only one that doesn't drive me to change stations with every other song. I've noticed some more recent songs creeping onto their playlists, and I am gobsmacked that The Joshua Tree apparently qualifies as classic rock now, but I'll try not to rail about that.

At 6pm, they play the 6 o'clock Stoner, a block of 4 Rolling Stones songs. I'm sorry to say that we often catch this during the commute home. Three times in two weeks, we caught "You Can't Always Get What You Want" in the block, and Christopher was entranced with the choir and the acoustic guitar.

A few nights ago, he asked, "Can you play my song, 'You Can't Always Get What You Want'?"

"I'm sorry, honey," I told him, "but I don't have that on CD."

"Can you make it play on the radio?"

"No, I can't make it play. We have to wait for the station to play it."

"But I want to hear 'You Can't Always Get What You Want'."

"I know, but sometimes, you *can't* always get what you want."

"But I *want* it!"

I wanted to tell him that if they play it, maybe he should really listen to it, then I remembered about the sarcasm thing and said nothing.