the almost- 8 year old

My daughter is in grade 2.  She is almost 8 and if there's one thing I know about this age is that they are all drama queens - boys and girls alike.  They are picking up on all sorts of adult themes and words, and all sorts of strange things come out of their mouths.


Take, for example the other day; my big girl was "performing surgery" on her little brother when we suddenly heard her say, "Oh! I think I gave you herbees!"  Her dad and I look at each other with dropped jaws.  Where did that come from?  It's not a general topic of discussion around here, I guess I can blame it on TV commercials about medicines - you know the ones - "we will control your herpes outbreaks, but in exchange for heart attacks, rashes, high blood pressure, and itchy palms."


Or there was the other day when I was doing my business on the toilet - always a great place to talk, right?  She comes in and sits on the edge of the bathtub.  "Mom, my friend says that brothers and sisters can't get married."


"Sigh," I don't want to go there! "No, they can't."
"Why" she pushes.
"Weeellllllll.......when people get married they often want to have babies." (I am getting into touchy ground indeed.) "If a brother and a sister have babies they might have problems, or deformities."
"What are deformities?"
Thank GOD she chose to ask THAT question and not about the baby making.  That conversation seemed to go on and on...


Then, of course, there was yesterday's drama. It left me in silent laughter (I try not to laugh at the things they say so they will keep telling me what's on their mind.  Must take your kids seriously, at least to their faces!!)


Here are the facts as I know them:  A few people took it upon themselves to be jackasses and ride their dirt bikes through the school ground at lunch hour.


The facts as I heard from my daughter, with contributions from 3 of her friends:


"Omigosh mom!  It was CRAZY!  5 guys on black motorcycles wearing black robber's masks drove around the school! They almost KILLED my friend's sister, but she saved her and pushed her out of the way JUST IN TIME!  Some kids said that people were KILLED, but I don't believe them.  I think by the size of them they were 17 years old."
"Nooo!" A friend chimes in, "Jon said it was his GRANDPA!"
"They had BB guns!  But they weren't shooting them!"
"What is a BB gun?"
"One guy had a back pack that was FULL of money!  You could see it spilling out!"
"The principal called the POLICE!"
"I bet they are in jail now!"


And on and on it went.  I wanted to roll on the floor laughing, but I didn't!  My daughter took out a piece of paper and started documenting all the "facts", an incident report of sorts.  


Later that day she says to me, "Mom, what an UNUSUAL day!"


"You don't say," I reply.


"Mom," she says.


"Yup?"


"What does unusual mean?"