Hailey Shorts #2

back to updates soon, but here is a little bit about Hailey nowa-days.

Haiti has been bugging her.

She loves to watch the news with me while I make dinner (the two celebrities she can identify just by voice are Barack Obama and Brian Williams and hums the nightly news jingle regularly) but I always get a little uncomfortable when they show natural disasters.

The stories don't seem to scare her or trouble her at any other time during the day, but she gets perplexed and angry about there not being enough food, water, and doctors.

Those are hard questions to answer, and looking back, maybe that was my job as a parent to not let her wonder those things at such an early age. I probably should just turn off the TV, but I let her watch and try to answer those questions as best as I can.

I helped her do some jobs to earn a quick $10 and I let her text a donation on my phone, and I think that helped a little bit.

One of the many nights of Haiti coverage, I was making dinner with the TV on, and she was sitting at the table coloring. After the news was done she said, "I want to show you the picture I colored. And I wrote a poem too!"

Here they are:



The picture is of a soldier and a little Haitian boy. If you can't read Hailey-write, here's the translation:

Oh please, oh please
all the people help Haiti.
Do something.
I think we all should
help Haiti.

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For the record we really don't watch American Idol, and adult evening programming is almost never on in our house when the kids are awake. But for some reason, American Idol was on one night, and Hailey was drinking it up.

Later on, as I was driving with her to Activities Days, and she had a few questions for me.

"Mom, when you're on American Idol, do you have to choose a song that everyone knows, or can you make up your own?"

WAIT WAIT. A little more back-story here. Hailey thinks that I have been on American Idol, because she asked me one night if I had, and I teased her and and told her I was, and that everyone hated my singing, and she had big, wide eyes while I told her this, and then even after I told her that I was just joking and that it wasn't true, the only parts of that conversation that stuck in her brain was that 1) Simon was mean because he made fun of her mom, and 2) that I have inside knowledge of American Idol. Careless parenting.

So back to the story:

"Mom, when you're on American Idol, do you have to choose a song that everyone knows, or can you make up your own?"

"Um, I think you can sing whatever you want, but your chance seems to be best when you choose a song that everyone knows."

She nods her head and thinks about this.

"So you can sing a song you make up."

"Yes."

"And now, when they say 'You're going to Hollywood,' does that mean that they won a vacation to Hollywood, or that they have to do more singing when they get there?"

"They have to do more singing when they get there."

"Oh. . . . . Is Hollywood far away?"

"Very."

"Hmmm. I think when I'm on American Idol, I will take the yellow paper and just come home instead of going to Hollywood."

"Hailey, would you like to be on American Idol?"

"Yes mommy. When I'm seven I think I will go."

"Would you like some singing lessons, then?"

"Oh, I don't need singing lessons, mom. I already sing really well. I just don't like singing in front of people."

"Did you know that's what you do if you are the American Idol?"

"You do?"

"Yes."

long pause.

"Then maybe I will just sing at home. I will be the 'Home Idol.'"

And She Is.

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and she's growing up way WAY too fast.