All in the Family

When children come in my office they chat about everything. When it comes to describing their families, the little ones can often get very creative in their descriptions. This morning first thing I looked in my doorway and there were three first grade boys, Johnny, Thomas and Benjamin. A quick look at Johnny's knee told me this was a minor scratch that needed a bandaid and the other two were just along for support.

"Come on over here, Johnny." I said, "What happened to your knee?"

"I scwatched it on the way to school, " he said looking like he was about to burst into tears.

Knowing the exact cure for his ailment, I put a bandaid on and finished it off with a bright blue smiley face sticker. "There you go, that should fix you right up"

Johnny's face immediately brightened up as he looked at his new sticker, the scratch was forgotten. The other 2 boys however, were watching intently and now looked up at me looking very much like Johnny did just a minute ago. "Ok, guys, " I said calling them over. "Since you helped Johnny out, you can each pick out a sticker too"

This was all the encouragement that was needed as Thomas dashed over and immediately picked a green smiley face. "I want the green one because it looks like my brother". Benjamin not to be outdone quickly picked out the red sticker. "This one is the color of my brother", he exclaimed as his pasted it to the back of his hand. Johnny chirped in gleefully, "I like the blue one you gave me, Nurse. It is the color of my mother's bird !"

I looked at the three of them smiling to myself; green brothers, red brothers and blue birds. "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I asked.

Thomas, the little boy with the green brother immediately spoke up. "I have one brother and he is 70 years old and my sister is 11 and I’m only 6." He paused for a moment, concentrating very hard, finally he said, "and I think my Mom is 22 and my Dad is 87 or 89 and my grandma is really really old. She is over 100."

As they headed back to class still comparing their stickers, a quick thought crossed my mind, I wondered how they described me to their parents. Was I purple or green? Was I 20 or 100 years old? I smiled at the thought, hoping for 30 years old and a nice shade of pink.