For those of you back in Florida who are missing your daily dose of Ender, I have a few tidbits for you, Ender-isms if you will, zingers that only Ender can come up with.
1. “I didn’t want to go to that party. Why did you make me go? I told you I didn’t want to go. I KNEW that I couldn’t behave if I was there, and I would get into trouble, I just didn’t tell you that!” -told to me while I was disciplining him for misbehavior at the party.
2. “Mom, this meal is good! No, its not good…its supercallafragilistic great. Its a 10 star meal!” -said to me the night I made sauteed shrimp over noodles, as easy and simple as a meal can get.
3. “Mom, what are you making?” Ender asks, as I am carelessly sprinkling spices into a bowl. “I’m making perogies,” I reply. “Mom, how did you find out how to make them?” he inquires. “I found a recipe on the internet”, I say. “Oh”, he replies, “Did that recipe tell you to sprinkle the spices all over the counter and outside of the bowl like you are doing??”
4. “Mom, I don’t like my art teacher. He’s mean He’s always grumpy, and he makes us outline our pictures in black and he ruins all our pictures. I make a nice picture and he comes over and says ‘outline it in black’! Black must be his favorite color or something, but it just wrecks all my pictures!”
He’s right. Outlining your picture in black makes it look like a coloring book.
I think his picture represents the fact that he wants to grow an apple tree and a pear tree. He is obsessed with it, though I tell him that it would take years for them to bear fruit. We have apple and pear seeds sitting on the counter just waiting to be planted.
Ender is so ready to create his own sitcom about how it feels to inhabit the body of a six year but have the mind of a teenager. His objection to the art teacher’s insistence on outlining everything in black reminds me of the Harry Chapen song, Flowers are Red…..and the little boy said….. Perhaps his class was painting in the style of Paul Gauguin who used this technique in his work.