lecturing

Last week was crazy for me. By early Friday afternoon, I began to have a severe headache and my brain basically refused to do anything for me. For the first time since we left NU, I found myself missing Evanston--the lake, the wind along the lake shore and those ice-cream stores. Soon, I decided to take my kids and go get some ice cream. We ended up in a so-so ice cream store and had a very good time. Later on the way to library, we had to wait for some time at an intersection because a train pulled in the station. It was at that time that Yaya decided to give me another "routine test".

Yaya: Mommy, what should you do if there's a fire on the train?
Me: Well, (not sure what she is testing me about), I should try open the door and get off..
Yaya:(before I can finish, she began to yell) How can you forget again? I told you "you need to touch the door to feel whether if it is hot or not... I told you" stop-drop and crawl or stop-drop and roll", how can you forget again?

At this moment, I realized that it was the "fire week" at school. (Damn, my brain seemed really not working at all!)
Me: Sorry, mommy forgot. I did not remember..
Yaya: HENG! You can never remember! You only remember what daddy told you, you never remember what I told you...
Me: (completely lost at that point) ?? "Really?"(I asked myself over and over again in mind.)

Just for record, some of Yaya's lectures(tests) last week.
Yaya: Mommy, why it is dark at night, but when it is daytime, light comes out?
Me: Mmmmm...(hell, what should I say?) Maybe because at night we want to sleep, in the day...
Yaya: No, it is not that, it is because the stars want to shine at night....
Me: (What??? I thought) Oh yeah?(I said)
Later Lei told me that I should have explained the rotation of the sun and the earth, the real principle of day and night time. I doubt it would have satisfied Yaya even if I did so.

Yaya: mommy, what is the biggest number? billion? million? what?
Me: (Oh, please someone help me, I thought) Emmm, actually, no number like the biggest..
Yaya: what? You are a grown-up, you don't even know what is the biggest number?

Yaya: Mommy, why girls don't vacum? why girls don't do the lawn?
Me: What do you mean?
Yaya: Why daddy is the one who always vacums our house? Why we never saw girls using the lawn mower.
Me: well, maybe because they are too heavy and it is hard work, and men like daddy have a lot of strength, but women don't.
Yaya: No, that is not true. I have stronger muscle than daddy.
Me: OK, from now on, you can do the vacumming in our house.
Yaya: No, I was only talking about my toy vacum and lawn mower.
Me: (I thought, what is the point????) (no, I did not say anything, I was glad she dropped this subject.)