Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Lest I Forget

My mom keeps warning me that if I don't write things down, I'll forget. She's right, of course, so amusing to people who aren't Nathan's parents or not, here it is.

We don't normally allow Nathan to stay up late enough to watch the beginning of Dancing With the Stars, but I'm not really going to defend myself on that or anything else below. If you have the time to judge, then I won't begrudge you something to do. In fact, my life would probably keep you very busy, so read on.

But late it was and he was awake and Dancing With the Stars came on. Before I shuffled him off to bed, we watched one routine, where the scantily-clad pro led whatever star she was escorting around the dance floor. Nathan stared in wide-eyed wonder and pronounced, "Mommy! I want to dream about HER tonight!"
He's three. Lord help me, I don't even know what to say to that.

~~~

The kids don't listen to a lot of kid music. I just can't take most of it. I mean, we'll sing "Twinkle Twinkle" once every month or so. They Might Be Giants has a great album called "Here Comes Science" that we like, and sometimes I remember to TRY to be age appropriate, but in general, he just listens to whatever we listen to. His current favorite songs, in order, are below:

1. She is Beautiful
2. TNT (by AC/DC)
3. Jake and the Neverland Pirates theme song (SCORE! A real kid's song!)
4. Rumour Has It
5. Anything by Louis Armstrong (Another score, because Louis is always appropriate)

Anyway. He was requesting "She is Beautiful" the other day, so we listened to it. The music video is kinda weird for a three year old, so we only ever listen, instead of watch it. Plus Andrew W. K. sticks the mic in the waistband of his jeans to make a smoothie in the middle of the video and, let's face it, Nate doesn't need any encouragement to hide things in his pants. It's already an issue in our house. Regardless, it's a good song. It's sort of how I imagine Nate will sing a love song when he's older. Super intense and full of yelling. He may never get a girlfriend, but he'll have fun trying. As the song ended, Nate informed me that when he grows up, he wants to be "Andrew double-K" (Andrew W.K.).

Ooops. We're forming role models. Time to listen to Bach. The early eighteenth century was pretty appropriate.

~~~

Coffee is an acquired taste, true. But the time it takes to acquire a taste is variable. Nathan's average is once. One sip. When he was little, he chewed on the rim of beer bottles and, therefore, Jon let him have a tiny sip (judge away, ye judgers), with the idea that, since beer is bitter, he'd stop wanting to chew on the rim if it tasted bad. Instead, he licked his lips and lunged for more. Fail. Same with coffee, which, despite his desire, he has been banned from drinking.

He ran into the room the other day from the kitchen, with a full mouth. I asked him what he was drinking and he smiled (awkwardly, because his mouth was full) with an evil twinkle in his eye. Daddy's iced coffee is what he'd been drinking. When asked why (NOTE: the only real "why" question to ask is why on earth parents of preschoolers think asking them "why" is going to come to a logical end), he answered that it was because he wanted hair on his chest and belly, like daddy... and mommy. Say WHAT?!

I set him straight. OH. I set him straight.

~~~

Some children have trouble paying attention for an entire two minutes. That's why things like this happen:

Driving home from Bible study, I asked Nathan what he learned in his class.

"God died."
"Oh... you mean Jesus died on the cross? Yeah, He did. Then what happened?"
"Oh, then we had a CRAFT!"
"Uh, yeah, but then what happened in the story? After Jesus died?"

He didn't know. He didn't pay attention that far in. There were goldfish crackers to eat. So I enlightened him and emphasized to Nietzsche Jr. that God isn't dead, he rose again and is alive and that's why we can pray to Him, etc.

The next week, when he got into the car, I asked what he'd learned and it started much the same, "Jesus died."
"Then what happened?"
"His friends couldn't find Him and some mans pushed the big rock away."
Oh! This is pretty accurate! I got excited, "Yes! His friends couldn't find Him and the angels pushed the rock away from the tomb. Why couldn't they find Him?"
"Because His stomach was missing. Somebody took His stomach and nobody could find it."

Try as I might, Nathan still never caught the end of the story, so I re-enlightened him. 

Boy, is he going to be surprised at Easter.