Badminton, Hula hoops, Are you alive?

My wife is an advocate of as well as a frequenter of Dollar Stores. I am not sure it really saves us money since we buy things there that are disposable in the strictest sense of the word. Lately she has been trying to get “boy” things since we are watching the three brothers. Because everyone knows that no self-respecting boy wants to paddle around the pool in a Princess or Dora the explorer float. And since we had only the little girl for quite some time that was all we had.
Her latest purchases have included Styrofoam light-up swords that make the kind of noise that makes us say “Outside with those!” every time the button is pressed, and badminton rackets with “birdies”. I cautioned her about the rackets. The swords are made for the purpose of hitting each other, the rackets are not, and to watch these boys swing at the birdies with those rackets makes me wonder how we are going to get it off of the third story roof at our apartments. The saving grace is that the birdies are not exactly aerodynamic - and they rarely make contact with the birdie or each other.
I had to talk her out of the hula hoops. But it might have been worth it to hear the little one laugh the way she did when either my wife or I tried to show them how it was supposed to work. Neither of us is in hula hoop shape and they were small and poorly weighted so we did not succeed for more than one half revolution of the hoop. And I suppose to watch it fall to our feet as we gyrated was almost more than the little girl could handle. We settled for hand puppets and a baby doll since these would be easier on our backs.
My daughter in Florida goes to a church that is a baby factory. All of her good friends have young ones the same ages – from newborns to five years old. One particular friend told my daughter that she was breast-feeding her several months old and her four-year-old became very curious. It is always a slightly uncomfortable moment to be watched as intently as a child is apt to do while feeding a baby in this way.
But she was particularly intrigued by the look of somewhere between shock and wonder on the older sons face, but like a good Mommy is wont to do, she waited for the question. It was one for which she was not ready.
“Mommy,” he asked, “Are you alive?”
Taken aback by the question, she answered wide-eyed, “What, honey?”
“Are you alive while he’s eating you?”
(Only in the mind of a child could such a question be considered.)