Liam and Brendan know who the president and vice president are, and who the first president was. At the beginning of the State of the Union Address a week or two ago, I was finishing up class and Eric was doing something and so Liam and Brendan were the first ones to watch the tv. Then Liam started to excitedly announce, "George Washington is saying Barack Obama is there!" So I went over to see what he was talking about, and sure enough I saw an older man who was announcing the president. So I told Liam, oh that's not George Washington and went on to explain how he lived a long time ago blah blah blah. But I thought we'd already covered this before. Anyway it's sort of come up a few other times and then after a while Liam seemed to accept that GW doesn't live nowadays, but he seemed to wrestle with it. Then this morning the source of his confusion became clear to me. He said, "You know what, Mom. When George Washington got into that helicopter and flew away, I think he flew up into heaven, and that's why he's not around anymore." Wha-? Oh! Oh I get it now! You are thinking of George Bush, from the inauguration! That's a different person than George Washington, though he was also our president. Just not our first president. And you're right, he still is alive now.
It's no use explaining, parents just don't understand.
