My 10-year-old son Aidan and I were routing through the multitude of women's clothing racks at a big box store which shall remain nameless but sounds like Mal-Cart.
I was on the hunt for a pink t-shirt to wear for the office "Get in the Pink" fund raiser in support of the Canadian Breast Cancer Society.
Aidan was "helping" me look by picking out other t-shirts he thought were cool/funny/interesting that I should get. None of which were pink.
Aidan: "Hey mum, you should get this one!"
I turned around, and do you know what I saw? This...
Me [in a pretending to be shocked voice and trying not to laugh]: "What?!?"
Aidan [laughing]: "Or this one."
Me: "Ha. Ha." Ok this isn't funny anymore.
Aidan: "Maybe they have a "Little Miss Beautiful" t-shirt you could get."
Awwww. Now that's more like it.
If you're a divorced parent who's dating, there's very few moments that will make you hold your breath and pray like the introduction of your date to your child/ren (except perhaps for said child/ren waking up through the night, and quietly sneaking into your room at a therapy-causing moment).
Paul came over last Friday evening for some pizza and Game Cube to meet my 10-year-old son Aidan. Paul brought some books he thought Aidan would like (in Paul's words, he's not above bribing).
They bonded. Talked about Gladius. I pretended to know what they were talking about. Aidan explained game rules and strategy. I said, "Hey, how come you never told me any of that!" Aidan just laughed. This is going really good I thought. And then...
It's hard to put into vowels and consonants the sound of a "boy fart." Naturally, that is the only kind of farting sound because as we've already discussed, girls do not fart.
Ofcourse I shot Aidan "the mommy look" as in "Oh my god I can't believe you just did that" look. To his credit, he did say excuse me. So I figured, ok...that's that. Moving on. Back to the game. And then...
He did it again! Only this time he laughed after saying "excuse me." Time to take action.
Me: "Aidan, if you're going to do that, please leave the room and then come back."
Aidan: "You don't make me do that any other time."
At this point I'm trying to see if I'm small enough to roll under his twin sized bed and hide.
Each time, Aidan thought it was funnier than the last. I think I stopped counting at this point. It was almost as if Aidan was trying to impress Paul in some only-boys-understand way.
Paul, to his credit, was very understanding. And said, "Wait until you meet [name of his daughter]. " Eep.
After our game we drove Aidan to meet my ex-husband in a near-by "drop off point" city. I made it a point to talk to Aidan when I picked him up on Sunday. We discussed the importance of manners. And we discussed the possibility of sending him to military school if he doesn't learn some.
This morning while getting ready for work, I heard my son (age 10) singing from the comforts of his bedroom across the hall.
It wasn't so much the singing that bothered me. It was what he was singing. Beyonce. "I'll be your naughty girl..." in a voice two octaves above his normal 10-year-old-boy range.
Never one to panic (or over react)...for the duration of our morning commute I blasted ACDC's "TNT" which he also sang along to. I encouraged some slight head banging and a rock-on hand gesture. I did stop short of pulling over the car for him to beat up a neighborhood kid jumping rope.
I'll make a man out of him yet.
