You Know What, Son? You’re Right

I feel like all these songs are only saying ‘Just do it!’, and that’s not always helpful.

– My son after hearing yet another “Don’t give up!” song in class today

Groan All You Want, I’m Proud Of That One

And to start the week, one of my jokes:

The other night we were having penne for dinner, and L’s Mother asked him what he thought of it.

“It’s good,” he said.

“It’s the last from that bulk mix of pastas I bought a while back,” she told him.  “Since you like it, I’ll be sure to buy more.”

“In other words,” I interjected.  “In for a penne, in for a pound.”

I Walked Into That One So Hard My Nose STILL Hurts

And to wrap up the week, a quick joke from my son:

We were going over some of his classwork earlier this week, and I made the mistake of telling him that something was the “same principle” as something else.

“Of course it’s the same principle!” he said with a grin.  “Every school only has one principal, you know.”

“Yes, I Mean It.” (Part Three)

Amazingly enough, that was the turning point of the whole trip, so in the final hours of our last day, we braved the heat and the crowd to see a Stormtrooper procession, stood in two more long lines to meet other Star Wars characters, and there was no significant complaining from my son.  (He’s still six, after all, but he complained less than I would have been if I was verbalizing my internal monologue, so I definitely call that a win.)

More importantly, he had fun!  I didn’t . . . but there’s always next time.

“Next time?” I hear some of you asking.  “You mean you’ll actually be going back?”

That’s the plan.

“Yes, I Mean It.” (Part Two)

Suddenly my son wanted to stay, so after stressing the importance/requirement of him being on his best behavior and, more importantly, no more griping, I asked him what he wanted to do next.

He wanted to see BB-8.

Once I figuratively picked myself up off the floor, I asked him if he understood that the line for that was easily thirty minutes long (i.e., two to three times longer than the lines he’d been complaining about).

He said he did.

So with enthusiasm equal to a man asked to pick the color of guillotine he wanted for his upcoming execution, as a test of my son’s commitment, I agreed to go stand in line with him to see BB-8, and all the while I’m thinking, “There’s no way he’s going to pull this off.”

But he did.

“Yes, I Mean It.” (Part One)

As I mentioned yesterday, my family’s Disney World experience was . . . less than ideal.  To give you just a sampling of my son’s complaints:  “It’s too hot!” (It was definitely warm.); “It’s too crowded!” (I’ve seen worse . . . a lot worse, but I’ll admit that he hadn’t.); “The lines are too long!” (We had limited time, so we only stood in lines we could get FastPasses for, so . . . do the math yourself on that one.); and so on and so on.

You get the idea.

Even understanding that much of this was new to him, by the second day when we’d made a special trip so he could see the various Star Wars related attractions and he still wasn’t impressed, I was ready to call it.  A fair shot had been given, but if he didn’t want to be there, I was never one for “mandatory fun time” anyway, so we could pack it up, go home, and never come back.

The “never come back” part, however, inexplicably gave him pause where nothing else had.

I Did, For One

Some of what I posted last week may show more cohesive context with the understanding that last week my family and I went to Disney World.

It was NOT an ideal experience.

This is not a customer complaint, but a parental one.  It turns out not every kid likes Disney World after all.

Who knew?

Today’s Unfriendly Warning

It’s always risky opening a shut door when you know someone is working on the other side, but it gets even riskier to do so after someone has said “I need some time to figure out what I’m going to write today.”  The risk factor goes off the chart, however, if after that you open the door anyway and say, “Oh!  I see you’re not working at all right now!”

If you ever do this, just run, and do not attempt to initiate conversation in any way whatsoever!  Close family members and children will probably survive this encounter, albeit not necessarily completely unscathed; there is precisely zero guarantee of anyone else being so fortunate.

Right?

I can’t possibly be the only person that notices how few smiles there actually are at supposedly “happy family” places and events.

He Got It In One

Long day today (story for another time), but at one point someone commented on my son’s Darth Vader shirt and asked him if he was dark side.  L’s mother was quick to assure him that while we weren’t Jedi, we were light side, just working with our own traditions.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, “so you’re innovators!”

“Well . . .” I replied, “for obvious reasons we try not to call ourselves ‘Inno-Vaders’  . . .”