Summertime -- Time to Learn Life Lessons

Summer vacation begins in less than a month, and it’s time to assess whether your kid has learned all the lessons appropriate to his or her age.

With the pre-schoolers, can they blow bubbles? Yes, it’s great that they’re going to robotics camp and curing cancer by the end of August but if they can’t take a hard piece of bubble gum, chew it into submission and then blow a monster bubble that gets on their glasses, they’re behind. Buy a bag of bubble gum and get them on it.

Pre-schoolers should also be learning to make fart noises with their hands under their armpits. The truly talented will also figure out how to make fart noises with their hands at the back of their knees and my son, I am proud to say, can make fart noises with just his hand and his ear. (He taught himself this one day during a particularly long time out.)

Can they whistle? Pre-schoolers and early elementary school kids definitely need to learn to whistle a tune. The big payback for you will come months later when you hear your daughter washing dishes or cleaning her room, cheerfully whistling the whole time. Pure joy.

Early elementary schoolers should also learn how to do “pull my finger,” you know when horrifying uncles ask a kid to pull their finger and then they pass gas just as the finger is pulled. Unless your kid is an only child, they’re going to be an aunt or uncle and every aunt or uncle needs to be able to disgust their nieces and nephews with “pull my finger.”

It’s harder than it seems to time the release of the fart with the tug on the finger. It’s also hilarious to watch kids working so hard to learn something so absurd. My daughter got it instantly but my son was in the slow “pull my finger” class. He got it eventually, however. Practice makes perfect.

On to bicycles, our kids always wear helmets and are so completely safe that nobody rides “no hands” anymore. What’s up with that? When I was a kid, one hot summer day I rode “no hands” around my block 10 times. I could have gone all day. When was the last time a kid rode “no hands” in Takoma? Time to get on it.

I’m telling my kids -- who are late elementary school -- that if they can ride around the block without touching the handlebars that I will buy them ice cream. It’s a momma-mandated summer goal.

My son, also in late elementary school, has recently been having girl problems. He apparently wants to “go solo” but two fifth grade girls want to be his girlfriend. One also wants to be the girlfriend of one of his friends who says he’s okay to share her. (This makes me think that monogamy is learned behavior but I digress.) The issue is that my son doesn’t want to be her boyfriend but agreed to avoid hurting her feelings.

Ladies -- anyone out there think that’s a good idea?

So, he and I are talking about the need to politely tell a girl or woman who is romantically interested in you that you don’t reciprocate her feelings. It’s just another life lesson, and only a little more complicated than blowing a bubble.