Saturday, March 21, 2009

Making better friends: Why Eddie is destined for playground heartbreak.

OK, so the on-again, off-again friendship between Eddie and Daniel, the boy next door, has been on-again -- albeit with some disagreements. Today, Eddie took it upon himself to try to teach Daniel to read. This effort was not met with enthusiasm and joy.

Steph explained that while Eddie was trying to do a good thing and is a very good teacher, sometimes when your friend is trying to teach you something like that it can make you embarrassed and unhappy which is why Daniel tore up the paper and yelled. Eddie thought about this and it must have seemed reasonable. The next thing I know he's in the office asking me to help him spell "Daniel." He asked me to write it down and leave the room because he needed to do something (which he obviously didn't want me to see.) I was able to catch a peek later. It was a big heart shape with the words "Eddie hrts Daniel" in the middle. He took it to Daniel, explaining that he was trying to make them better friends. Sigh. How to you explain to a 6-year-old about homophobia on the playground and not actually letting people know you care about them because they will interpret that as weakness and use it to taunt and harrass you?

Saturday, March 07, 2009

The Secret Tunnel

Tonight the boys asked about the word "retired." Actually, they asked what Grandpa's job is and that was the answer. Steph explained that when you work for many years and you get older, you get to (hopefully) stop working. Eddie said he can't wait for Mama to be retired.

This led to me telling them both that when she's retired they (again, hopefully) won't even be living with us. This blew their very-nearly-6-year-old minds. So we told them they could live with us as long as they want (crossing our fingers as we said it) but that they would probably want to start families of their own and make their own homes. Chas thinks that's a fine idea -- as long as he can move into the house next door. Then he elaborated that not only would he move next door, but he would build an addition that would be a hallway that connects to our front door. Later, it was decided a secret tunnel would be better.

Eddie asked if we'll live in this house forever. I told him we'd live here for a long time, but probably if they moved to California, we'd move there as well. This was hysterical to him -- he said he could just imagine getting on an airplane to go to California and his moms would have to get on the next airplane right behind it.

When the time comes, I shall remind them both that this all -- us living next door, with adjoining houses even, us stalking them if they move out of state -- seemed like a fine idea to them at one point. Their wives (or husbands) are just going to have to be understanding.