5/08/2010

A date with a four year old.



So, in the spirit of being the worst Mom ever, I took zj to see Iron Man II today.

Yes, I know he's four.

Yes, I know it's rated PG-13.

Yes, I know he'll probably be irreversibly scared because I let him watch this stuff.

It doesn't really matter, though.  He saw the trailer on tv, and at that point, I knew we had to go.

I expected the excitement, the uncontrollable energy, the zj-ness of it.

What I did not expect was that he was going to treat it like a first date.

He demanded a shower.  He demanded I blow-dry his hair.  He changed clothes 14 times.  He snuck away and used some of RJ's cologne.  He sort of smelled like a whole busload of highschoolers off to their first dance.  He ran outside and picked me some flowers before we left (who did he learn that from????).   He asked me about a dozen times "Mama, do I look handsome?"

And of course, it freaked me out.

Not what he was doing, exactly, just that it sort of dawned on me that it was going to be my responsibility to teach him about this sort of thing for real in a few years.

I am responsible for making sure both he and cj are respectful to the girls they meet.  That they are polite.  That they are gentlemen.  That they open doors and pull out chairs and carry bags and aren't rogue-ish and that they are never, ever, ever referred to as "those hoodlum J boys."

That's a lot of pressure.

Isn't there some sort of guidebook for this stuff?

I know that what they see now, the interactions between me and RJ, the interactions between me and them, will start to form how they behave and believe for the rest of their lives.

No pressure there, right?

Parenting is hard.

1 comment:

  1. Oh -- he looks JUST like you in this picture!! How sweet, that he was so excited about a date with you! You know Iron Man had nothing to do with it! :)

    ReplyDelete

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