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Took the Kid out candlepin bowling, I won the first game by one point, he beat me by 4 points the second game. I took it easy on him, but not by much, he's got a wicked bank shot off those gutter-bumpers. Grabbing food at Wendy's afterwords he snags a French Fry and says "Hey this looks like the Grim Reaper's scythe" and I'm not sure what to say to that. This kid's eight years old, is it normal for an eight year old to know who the Grim Reaper is, and how to pronounce "scythe"? I don't spend time around kids so I have no frame of reference for this. I'm taking him to the ICA for their Family Day performance of STREB vs Gravity I tell him it's a dance performance and he asks "Is it interpretive dance"? When I was that little I'm pretty sure I didn't use words like "interpretive". I am beginning to suspect that when his mom says he's bored in school because everything's way too easy for him, and when he says he's read every book in the classroom, that all that may be literally true.
You know where I really wanna take him? Fuckin Kaiju, man. The show next week is at Avalon tho and I don't think they let kids in. Dammit. Next time they do an all ages gig I swear nothing's gonna stop me from taking the kid.
One interesting cuz of this Big Brother thing, came up after I took the Kid rock climbing. I was making extra-sure he was secure in the harness; triple checking, quadruple checking, quintuple checking the ropes; taking up every inch of slack on belay until both his feet were planted firmly back on the deck; I was totally nervous the whole time - oh my god what if something happens, what if something goes wrong, what if he gets hurt. I was thinking about this a few weeks later and I realized that, my whole life, whenever I'd tell my mom about stuff I was doing - traveling, rock climbing, driving in the snow, whatever - she'd always be nagging me to be careful, and I'd always get kind of annoyed, roll my eyes and go of course I'm careful mom, don't worry about me, I can take care of myself. I never even brought up the bungee jumping or skydiving cuz I knew she'd freak, geez, mom, you want me to never do anything fun? After taking the Kid out, I realized that's not it at all. It's not that mom doesn't trust me to take care of myself, it's not that she wants me to not do stuff, it's just that she thinks about me and sometimes she worries and she wants me to know that. Telling me to Be Careful, it's not like she thinks I will then be more careful than if she hadn't reminded me, she knows there's really nothing she can do to make me more careful or capable than I am. It's just something she has to say. So I called my mom up and told her about climbing with the Kid and I specifically apologized for all the times over the years when I seemed bitchy or annoyed at her worrying about me. I think I kinda know what it's like now, mom. I'm sorry. And, thanks.
You know where I really wanna take him? Fuckin Kaiju, man. The show next week is at Avalon tho and I don't think they let kids in. Dammit. Next time they do an all ages gig I swear nothing's gonna stop me from taking the kid.
One interesting cuz of this Big Brother thing, came up after I took the Kid rock climbing. I was making extra-sure he was secure in the harness; triple checking, quadruple checking, quintuple checking the ropes; taking up every inch of slack on belay until both his feet were planted firmly back on the deck; I was totally nervous the whole time - oh my god what if something happens, what if something goes wrong, what if he gets hurt. I was thinking about this a few weeks later and I realized that, my whole life, whenever I'd tell my mom about stuff I was doing - traveling, rock climbing, driving in the snow, whatever - she'd always be nagging me to be careful, and I'd always get kind of annoyed, roll my eyes and go of course I'm careful mom, don't worry about me, I can take care of myself. I never even brought up the bungee jumping or skydiving cuz I knew she'd freak, geez, mom, you want me to never do anything fun? After taking the Kid out, I realized that's not it at all. It's not that mom doesn't trust me to take care of myself, it's not that she wants me to not do stuff, it's just that she thinks about me and sometimes she worries and she wants me to know that. Telling me to Be Careful, it's not like she thinks I will then be more careful than if she hadn't reminded me, she knows there's really nothing she can do to make me more careful or capable than I am. It's just something she has to say. So I called my mom up and told her about climbing with the Kid and I specifically apologized for all the times over the years when I seemed bitchy or annoyed at her worrying about me. I think I kinda know what it's like now, mom. I'm sorry. And, thanks.
