A couple of months ago, the universe was directing us to switch all of our light bulbs over to compact fluorescents: first they were on sale for 99¢ at Freddie’s, then Phil Higgs [0] wrote about what an easy and effective change it is, and then when we ordered pizza from Hot Lips [1] (delivered in groovy electric cars!) it came with a complimentary CFL. Really!
“What’s that?” Georgia wanted to know.
“It’s a different kind of light bulb. It came with the pizza!”
“It’s silly!” which is pre-school speak for “neat” or “scary” depending on the context. “Why did they give us a light bulb?”
“Well, Hot Lips really cares about the earth, and they try to do things that help the earth out. And this kind of light bulb uses a lot less electricity.”
“Why?”
I suddenly realized my knowledge of electricity and how it gets from the Bonneville Hydroelectric Power Plant [2] through those tiny little wires is as basic as a 3rd grader’s. Actually I’m sure third graders today know a lot more than I do about electricity. I don’t know a DAM thing about how water becomes power.
So I mumbled through an explanation about how making electricity uses the earth’s resources, and we should try to save the earth’s resources as much as we can.
She puzzled this through before asking, precociously, “What are resources again?” (She really wanted to know—she’s Vocabulary Girl.)
“Things like trees, and oil, and water and things that take a lot of work for the earth to produce. We might not have those things forever, so we can’t waste them.”
I see this is once again getting a little “too silly” for her 3½-year-old mind. I don’t want to scare her, but in a way I do. I’m scared about what’s happening to the world, and I want her to know it’s serious. And I want her to believe she can do something about it.
I reassured her, “But you’re great! You do things to help the earth all the time, like using less toilet paper and using your handkersniff when you have a cold, those things save trees. And when we walk instead of taking the car — that really helps the earth by not using gas for the car. And not letting the water just run and run when you brush your teeth, that’s a great thing!”
“I guess the earth just loves me!” she beamed.
We went through the house replacing light bulbs, saving the incandescents for the groovy old fixture with the dimmer switch. But when it came to actually putting the "silly" things in her reading lamp and the overhead light in her room, she grew skeptical, and angry.
“It’s not enough light!”
It was considerably dimmer, mostly because I didn’t replace all three bulbs in the overhead. She’s got a huge west-facing window in her room, and rarely needs that light on anyway, but I think she was bugged by the fact that it didn’t come on instantly; there is a little lag from switch to light. I knew she’d get used to it in time. But Miss Contrary was not having it.
“NO! I want MORE light,” she screeched. “I WANT MORE LIGHT!”
I explained again, the earth, the resources. No dice.
I thought of the only parenting technique that seems to work in situations like these: distraction.
“Hey, let’s take a break from all this hard work. Should we go downstairs and read? How about The Lorax [3]?” Well, that’s what I wish I would have said.
Or, “OK, let’s go see if we can find any more worms for our compost [3] bin!”
But no, I was desperate and I still had three more parenting hours before Hova got home from work...
“Wanna watch TV [3]?”
The next time we went in her room, I made sure the lamp was already on so she wouldn’t notice the lag. She hasn’t said a word — was it the power of Oobi [4], or did my words sink in? I guess she probably just forgot about it, but we’ve made the switch and we’re on to the next challenge: mastering the monkey bars.