Eat Your Heart Out, Alanis; Gabe Gets "Ironic" Better Than You Did! Or Does He???

A couple days ago Gabe asked me what "ironic" meant, because a character in his book mentioned it. Have you ever tried to explain irony to a second grader? I'm an English teacher, and I could only look at Jim. Jim gave him a couple of examples, which Gabe, in turn (and predictably I might add) understood in very concrete terms. Jim and I both gave up. Fast forward to today...

Gabe: OH! I think I understand what ironic is now.

Me: Really? (In a not very convincing tone.)

Gabe: Well, I can't really explain it, but I think it would be ironic if you decided you needed a bunch of candles to make the house look nice, so you went out and bought a bunch of pretty ones. Then, later that day, when you lit them they burnt the house down.

WOW! I am feeling all kinds of proud of him, until I relay the conversation to Will. Will promptly informs me Gabe saw that on The Family Guy, which he has on his iPod, thanks to sharing a computer with his middle school-aged brothers! Hmm...I guess I can still be proud he made a connection, but the pride will be shrouded in shame that my son is plagiarizing Seth McFarlane at the tender age of eight! Ugh! Time to go investigate what else is in Gabe's iTunes account!