The Strongest

"I'm so hungry." Shao said in the car on  the way to his violin lesson.
"Why didn't you eat all your lunch?" Mommy asked.
"Yeah."
"All of it?"
Noah paused for a while and then said, "No."
"Why not?"
"I was talking."
"What was so important that you couldn't finish your lunch?"
"I had to say something." said Noah.
Who were you talking too?"
"Maia."
"What were you talking about?"
"I can't tell you it's top secret."

Some time passed. And in that time, Noah realized that he wanted to listen to Kidz PLace live on the radio.

"You want Kidz PLace live?" Mommy asked.

Noah nodded.

"You need to tell me what you were talking about with Maia."

Noah closed his lips.

"Were you talking about Kiran?"

"No."

"Were you talking about Miss Shea."


"Ummmm it's not about a person."

"C'mon Kids PLace live. Hamster song."

Apparently Noah told Maia that he was the strongest person in the class and that Arthur and Alexander were not really that strong. And he even told this to Alexander and Arthur in a not nice way.

"And that's why you didn't get to eat lunch?"

I had been in the classroom and while I was there (a month ago) Arthur was telling everyone that he was strongest. "We both can be strong," Alexander suggested.
"No, don't you know what strong is? I am strong or you are strong we can't both be strong."

Well Noah is actually small for his age and this was a month ago. So now I guess Noah is starting his own campaign about whose the strongest. Which seems like it is probably all talk.

"Strongest" was not a thing that I knew about in my classes as a kid. In fact as far as I can remember there were kids who were just obviously stronger to the point of know question because they were two or three times the size of everyone else. I never got into a fight with them because I pretty much got along with them. People would fight all around me and I wouldn't be touched because it was so clear that I was not in this campaign. I think the Campaigns when I was a kid were about who was more thug or gangsta and although I once bought a Kris Kross tape, I mainly listened to Disney songs, and didn't understand why words were mispelled on real adult tapes and CDS.

My mother tol dme a story about being in Catholic school, and how a girl said to her, "Say I'm stronger or I'll beat you up."
"You're stronger." My mother said. And she didn't fight in school until she was kicked down the stairs by a girl. At which point she blacked out or "went bezerk" coming to with the girls hair clenched in her fist after she had rammed her the girl's head into the concrete several times with  blood flowing.

Well it seems like Noah thinks he wants to talk about being strong now even sacrificing his meals just to say this. Maybe it's time to share my mother's story with him about what talking about being strong can get you and that you shouldn't care about useless titles like that, especially if you are sacrificing actual important things... like meals.