Party of Two: January 2012

Questions
When you are with a 9 year old, you can expect a wide variety of questions in rapid succession all of the time, most of which you will not know the answer to. No topic is too extreme.

"If the sun went out for four days, would we all die?"

"What is the biggest human turd ever?"

"If you shoot a gas tank will it explode?"

"How much comet cleaner would you have to eat before you had to have your stomach pumped?"

"Is herpes real?"

"What was that rocket-shaped squishy pink thing under your roommate's bed?"

"How come you can say fuck and I can't?"

"If you got stuck sneezing over and over again for the rest of your life, would it kill you?"

"Do you think if that car came driving at me doing 50 miles an hour, I could jump up on the hood before it hit me?"

"How come I can't watch House of 1000 Corpses?"

"Why do farts smell so bad?"

"Is Jesus made-up like the tooth fairy?"

If you still have your wits about you after the initial shock of the question AND you can actually ANSWER the question, you will be informed that he already knew that, he was just seeing if you did.

On Going to the Greenbelt
When I go to the greenbelt with my sister's dog, this is the route I usually take:

It ends up being about 3.9 miles. Sometimes I jog. Sometimes I just walk. Knowing what benefits are enjoyed from being outside and doing exercise, and also how much pent-up energy nine-year-olds have, I decided that it would be a good idea to take the nine-year-old to the greenbelt with me. What a genius idea, I thought to myself. We'll take my usual route and when we're done, he'll be worn out and quiet and just watch TV when we get home.
This, is of course, the stupidest idea of all time. Here is the route Angus took:

In addition to running in spastic loops around the path, he also jumped up onto every stump, bench, log, and rock and also hit every tree, log, trash can, stump, and rock with a stick and a rock. For a short time, he just shot down the path at breakneck speed, trying to break as many branches as he could with another branch. The red star represents the point at which he had already gone the 3.9 miles. Note that I followed my usual path, but forewent all the aforementioned spastic activity. I had gone approximately 0.33 miles and did not get enough exercise to burn off the latte I had to drink to get psyched up for the walk to begin with.
When we reached the red star, he informed me that he was tired and probably couldn't get back to the car on his own if we went any further. When I attempted to use reverse psychology to get him to continue by asking if he was too big of a weenie to make it to the turnaround spot, he informed me that I was dumb for wanting to take him on a walk on a Friday because Friday is tackle football day at school so he was already worn out and also had sore legs. When I balked at the fact that he is allowed to play tackle football at recess, he informed me that things are a lot different now than when I was in elementary school.

On Having Fun
When you are nine, there is absolutely no excuse to not be having fun every second of the day. Not only must you suck every drop of fun out of the day, you must also do as MANY fun things as possible. This includes, but is not limited to, kicking the soccer ball around the alley, riding his bike up and down the alley doing tricks while you watch, playing Playstation 2, playing Playstation 3, playing Atari, Playing Wii, playing darts, and watching Spongebob Squarepants while playing Uno at the same time. You should devote no more than 7 minutes to each of these activities because you might take time away from some other fun activity you will be doing next. Also, you- the adult- are expected to be present and participating in all activities. If you do not provide the nine-year-old with this opportunity, you are being neglectful of his needs. When he was at my house last week and I said we could not go to Pojo's to play games because I had to pay some bills and make dinner and finish the laundry and clean up after one of the cats, and sort the garbage, he became tearful and informed me that he "just wanted to have one good day" because he "hasn't had a good day in like a week."

On Coats
Nine-year-old children do not wear coats. Coats are for dorks. If it is snowing outside, too cold to snow outside, pouring rain, or if there is a wind chill factor of -24 degrees outside, the child will not wear a coat. Furthermore, all reasoning about the merits of coat wearing shall fall upon deaf ears. If you try to explain that the other kids are the dorks for NOT wearing their coats when it is freezing outside and that he looks silly suffering in the cold with nothing on but a t-shirt, he will simply tell you through blue lips and chattering teeth that he is not even cold, he is just shaking because he is hyper and doesn't have anything to do. Trying to make the child wear the coat by exerting your authority as an adult will simply result in the coat being "accidentally" left at school, in someone's car, at the movies, in the restaurant, or at a friend's house. Recently, when asked if he would like a different coat better, perhaps as a Christmas gift, he informed me that he would only wear a coat if it matched his backpack exactly, which he knows is impossible, as they did not make a matching coat for that backpack.

On Strangers
Last night, I was telling sister, father, Angus, and husband over dinner about an incident where I ran into someone I knew at the Winco and despite liking this person just fine, I turned and quickly ran to the opposite side of the store to avoid a conversation. This is because I am socially retarded. At this point, Angus piped up and informed us that he agrees, that he does the same thing when he sees his friends at the store (total lie), and also that he doesn't like having to socialize with strangers in the grocery store either, which is why he protests so violently when he must go to the grocery store. When we asked if he often has strangers talk to him, he said that people are always saying hi to cute little kids and he finds it annoying. I asked jokingly if he has ever been offered free candy by a stranger, to which he replied, "Yeah, right! I take the free candy and next thing you know, I'm high."

On Snowshoeing
Husband and I recently took the 9-year-old on a snowshoeing excursion. He came over that morning with his new snowshoes, bundled up and eager to learn to snowshoe. We headed out of town toward Idaho City. At Lucky Peak, he asked if we were there yet. I replied by asking him if he saw any snow around and if not, then I guessed we had further to go. He answered, "Great. I guess we'll be in the car for like another five hours." When we reached our destination, we geared up and took off up the trail.  Approximately a quarter of a mile later, he turned to us with a puzzled face and asked "Is this all we do?" Apparently, he imagined snowshoeing being more like jumping out of a helicopter and less like walking around in the snow.

I tried to make it fun for him by speculating about possible wildlife encounters and pointing out how cool the woods were. This worked for a short time before he grew bored.  In order to make things interesting for himself, he resorted to the following distractions:

-  Racing down the trail at a dead sprint, then falling on purpose and feigning injury

- Leaving the trail and climbing straight up the steep hillside, then throwing himself straight back down, rolling to the bottom at breakneck speed and feigning injury at the bottom

- Throwing snow chunks at me

- Falling really far behind and when I came back to check on him, throwing snow chunks at me, then sprinting out ahead of me and falling down on purpose, feigning injury

-Jumping up onto logs and stumps, then leaping off and falling down on purpose, feigning injury

Finally, when we were almost back to the car, he began to slow down, moping and sighing and walking as if he had been carrying a very large load for miles and miles. Husband and I took this to mean that he was not enjoying snowshoeing as we'd hoped, considering we had to do everything but drag him to get him to keep up with us. When we began to unload our gear into the car, he looked at us puzzled and asked "Are we done already?"

On Pets
When asked by my friend Rick how my arthritic 18-year-old cat is doing, Angus piped up, telling me that sooner or later Moe was going to run out of pills and I was going to run out of money, so I should probably just put him to sleep.

When I mentioned that we have to find a new home for our cat Trooper because she is incapable of living with other cats, Angus informed me that we cannot do that because we saved her when she was a baby and that makes her our responsibility. He also informed me that when she crouches low to the ground and runs from the other cat with her tail in the air, she looks like a go-kart with a flag sticking out the back.

Pages

Friday, January 13, 2012

The Party of Two Will Be Right Back........

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

9 Year Old Wisdom