The "Magic" of Childhood

On St.Patrick's Day two years ago,  my youngest sister, a.k.a. Super Aunt, planned an assortment of exciting activities for my older three children to celebrate the holiday.  I'm not entirely sure of the specifics of everything they did.  I believe they made leprechaun traps, and did some kind of treasure hunt.  As part of the fun there were stories involved.  Something along the lines of capturing a leprechaun, taking his gold and then giving it back in exchange for magic....I probably have that all wrong.  The kids have corrected me several times on this.  Anyway, it involves a leprechaun, gold, and the end result of having magical powers.

What my wonderful sister could not possibly have anticipated, was that her fun-filled activity would create an obsession.   I don't know if anyone could have anticipated the degree to which my children would become fixated with this concept.

EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. since then at least one of my children has mentioned capturing a leprechaun, having magic, or what they would do if they had magic at least once, and more often several several times.  I'm not even exaggerating.  Seriously. 

The vast majority of the conversations about magic start with, "If I had magic, I would say alacadabra, alakezam make [insert magical fantasy here]."  It started off fairly innocently.  They would make a lot of toys, or candy all day long, or make the house self-cleaning.

I have to say, this created a bit of a quandary for me.  I have quite a bit of inner conflict over being a realist with my kids and letting them enjoy the "magic of childhood".  We do the whole Santa thing at Christmas, and the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy visits our house (albeit a few days late at times).  But then when I least expect it, my kids will get me all confused with what seem like trick questions that I struggle to answer.

It will start off with a fairly benign question that quickly morphs into a trap:

Kids:  Mom, is magic real?

Me: No.

Kids: Can a person really go through walls?

Me: No.

Kids: Why?

Me:  It's simply not possible.  Try walking through that wall over there...see, you can't, you just bump into it.  You have a physical solid body and the wall is physical and solid.  You can't go through it without either harming yourself or the wall or both.

Kids: Oh yeah?  Well then how does Santa get into houses without chimneys?

Me: Oh...ummm...I don't know how he does that....he keeps all those kinds of things pretty secret.

Kids: Well, then you're wrong, magic must be real.

Me: Oh, hmmm, I don't know.

Kids: *annoyed at my obvious lack of logical reasoning*

So, therein lies my struggle.  I want to let them enjoy the "magic of childhood", but I have a really hard time agreeing with or supporting such impossibilities.  Whenever possible I try to answer my children's questions clearly and succinctly, but when the topic of all-things-magical come up, I turn in to an ambiguous bumbling idiot.

However this leprechaun thing has really gotten out of hand.  Now it's, "If I had magic, I would say alacadabra alakazam, make all of your toys be mine."  Which is quickly followed by, "Oh yeah, if I had magic I would say alacadabra alakazam, make all YOUR toys be MINE!"  Which then leads to, "If I had magic, I would say alacadabra aladazam, make you not have magic anymore!"  Followed promptly by, "MOOOOOM, he said he would take my magic away if he had magic, could he really do that??"

Most recently, Isaak told Sebastian that if he had magic he would make himself turn into Sebastian and Sebastian turn into Isaak so that Sebastian wouldn't get to go to his friend's birthday party that only he was invited to.  Sebastian came to us in tears about how mean that was.  We reassured him that since Isaak does NOT in fact have magic, he really has nothing to worry about.  He stormed off, and moments later Isaak came running up to us upset: "Mom, Dad, did you really tell Sebastian that if I used magic to turn me into him and him into me that I would be in really big trouble??"  We assured him that since neither of them were magical there was nothing to worry about, and furthermore, we absolutely refused to speculate on hypothetical parenting decisions that might take place in an alternate reality in which they used magic to plague each other. 

I have to say, initially I was quite impressed by my older boys ability to roll "alacadabra alakazam" off of their tongues so quickly and clearly considering how speech delayed they were and how many words they still have trouble pronouncing.  At this point I'm over it, and would be happy never to hear it again. 

If I had magic, I would say, "Alacadabra alakazam, make my kids never talk about what they would do if they had magic again."