The other night at dinner we were having one of our all-too-common dinner altercations. You know, Isaac whirling his napkin over his head like some kind of warrior or perhaps sports fan, refusing to eat, running laps around the table, and generally disturbing the peace. We were struggling with him, trying to get him to a) leave the room or b) behave in a civilized manner. In the heat of the moment, Isaac suddenly yelled: "I'm not affiliated with you!" Although (or because) he said this in sincere anger, this went a long way towards lightening the mood.
But sadly, he IS affiliated with us, whether he likes it or not. A recent conversation:
Father: What was the last battle of the Revolutionary War?
Son: Yorktown!
They slap five.
(At age four, he knows much more about the Revolutionary War than I do. I'd never even HEARD of the battle of Cowpens until just a few weeks ago. Hello? South High? You failed me.)
This sort of thing happens in our house a lot. That is, Isaac shares our interests, can't help but. Thus he's a pint-sized history buff and a decent amateur birder. He's happy to compare funnel webs and orb webs of spiders, and can identify quite an array of founder father types ("It's John Jay! He has quite a schnoz!") He's taken to correcting my dinosaur pronunciations. "It's not parasaura-LO-phus, Mama! It's parasaur-OL-ofphus!"
And our flaws… sigh. Between the two of us, we have most of the deadly sins covered.
I've been trying to engender more SLOTH in him lately. I used to worry about his watching too many videos, and to fret over whether what he watched was enriching enough. But since I've had the baby I've found myself so desperate, I'm basically BEGGING him, "Watch Super Friends! Please!" It's pathetic! Over the last several weeks I've asked Ben several times to bring something home that he will WATCH. I mean really have long-term eye-bonding with. But Ben keeps coming up with "the history of the London Underground" and things like that. Finally I broke down myself and got Superfriends AND the Incredibles. And yes, Superfriends worked. You mean– ALL the Superheroes, TOGETHER? Like… Batman, Robin AND Superman?? And all these other ones, like the Green Lantern and the Flash? What could be better? Well… I could wish for some basic attempt to make the dialogue half way decent, some semblance of plot and character building, less than atrocious animation, but that's just me.
Another recent conversation:
Father: Hawkman is boring.
Son: Hawkman is NOT boring! He can fly!
vigorous debate ensues…
Isaac has been making a lot of plans lately about this "Batman Flyer" he's going to have one day soon. I was telling him about the death of Princess Diana, because there's this major exhibit here with a big poster of her that we drive by twice a day. (We're going to go see her beautiful dress.. Isaac picked up a brochure about this the other day and has been carrying it around and seeming to read it with great interest.) He listened to the whole tale of her drunk driver and the paparazzi and the high-speed chase, and then replied, "I'd just get my Batman flyer, come over there. Boom. Stop them in time!" Last night he made a very impressive sketch of it. It's sort of like a hang glider. Amazingly, it doesn't need an engine of any kind. It just needs "buttons" on your arm to control it.
When I saw what he was talking about I loaded up a bunch of hang glider video from the internet and this pleased him greatly. Now he plans to be a glider bum as soon as he's old enough to have a scraggly goatee and a Peruvian hat and jump off cliffs in Utah. I don't think that Ben and I would ever go in for that sort of thing. He's affiliated with us, but he's still his own man.