Pete

This year Pete started middle school, and Katie Rose started high school. Both have new and larger challenging workloads between homework, band, and sports, and I suggested that we institute a no-TV-on-weeknights policy for the kids to help them balance priorities. Then Debbie had the crazy idea that we should set some kind of “example” and not watch any ourselves, thereby leaving more time to read and (cue ominous music) talk. I reluctantly agreed, and have reluctantly, mostly followed the rule. Given my disinclination to discourse, I have gotten a lot of reading done, albeit sometimes with frequent interruptions. Not coincidental to the interruptions, Debbie started reading, but not enjoying, The Brothers Karamazov.

Some consequences of this change:

1. With the kids going to bed later now, whatever we watch on weekends usually must be PG-13 or thereabouts, which means the DVD of Russell Crowe’s “Robin Hood” has been sitting by the TV for 4 weeks. Thus, we are now paying Netflix about $7.99 (and counting) per DVD with their latest change in pricing. And we are getting less value from the Instant Watching side.
2. I have read three books in the last three weeks (Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett; Submarine, by Joe Dunthorne; Sons of Texas, by Elmer Kelton). All were good, but I liked the Kelton book best.
3. When I went to the library to get the first three books, Pete was with me, and again when I went to return those and get three more yesterday after his soccer practice. Last time I asked if he wanted to get a book, and he declined. This time, unprompted by me, he was at the catalog terminal and asked me how to spell “Fahrenheit.” I asked if he was looking for Fahrenheit 451 [by Ray Bradbury], and he was. So we found it, checked it out, and he started reading it on the way home. To Debbie’s credit, that example idea looks like it is working.

Three neighbor kids came over this morning while I was working from home and watching my daughter on a delayed opening day* for our schools. To give them something to do for 30 minutes until the bus came, I offered one my son’s video game systems, including an Xbox with 4 games or an a joystick with Pac-Man and a few other 1980s games built in. To my surprise, he chose Pac-Man.

Furthermore, my son got two new games for his Xbox for his birthday from my mother. They played one, a Harry Potter 4 game, for a week until his birthday party with his friend the following weekend. Since then, all his video game time has been devoted to playing the assorted 1980s video games. He has not even tried the other Xbox game (Shrek) yet.

*Our school system opens two hours late one Thursday a month to make up for lost teacher workdays under North Carolina’s law that limits the beginning and end of the school year.

Katie Rose and Pete are in Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts, respectively. I have been a den leader for Pete’s 2 years in Cub Scouts, and Debbie has been a troop leader for Katie Rose this year and her initial year in Daisy Scouts.

Katie Rose sometimes gets envious of all the fun things Pete is doing–for example, earning belt loops or going on campouts–when her troop was mainly just doing arts and crafts when she was Pete’s age. Debbie and I have agreed that one thing BSA does differently than GSA is Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts organize in packs/troops over multiple ages, whereas Girl Scout troops are smaller groups of girls all about the same age–equivalent to a single den of Cub Scouts. The Cub Scout pack has the advantage of institutional knowledge handed down Webelos->Bears->Wolves->Tigers (i.e., 4th/5th grades -> 3rd -> 2nd -> 1st grade). However, the Junior Girl Scout troops do not formally associate with the Brownies or the Daisy Scouts, so traditions and methods are not being passed along.

Our kids have cousins who are also in Scouts: a girl 3 years older than Katie Rose, a boy Katie Rose’s age, and another boy 10 months younger than Pete, but who made the cutoff so that he is in Pete’s grade. While we were eating dinner with them one night, the Girl Scout with two younger brothers launched defensively into her assessment of the differences: “Boy Scouts teaches you how to survive when your plane crashes in the middle of nowhere, and you only have your Swiss army knife. Girl Scouts teaches you how to survive the other 99.9% of the time.” To which Pete responded excitedly, “We get to have Swiss army knives?!!!”

Last Friday was Pete’s birthday. We had gotten him a used mountain bike with 24″ wheels for him, which is too big for now but should fit by next summer. It is a Trek, with front suspension and bar extenders, so it looks pretty cool. After coming home from work, I washed the bike while the rest of the family got the house ready for the birthday party. Before the party with his friends, we had Pete open his gifts from us. Inside, and unaware of the bike outside, he opened a 6-pack of “church socks,” a toy NC license plate to put his name on, and a UNC baseball cap. He liked the socks, the license plate was ok, but he loved the hat. He put it on, went to check himself out in the mirror, and came back very happy, smiling a big-toothed, goofy, Pete grin–happy and satisfied with all that he had received.

At that point, I was almost sorry that we were going to raise his expectations by giving him the bike. We walked outside, and he whooped and pumped his fist when he saw the bike. Still, the greater excitement on his part didn’t match the smiling contentment he had with just his UNC cap.