While waiting for an appointment this week, I pulled out my phone and started looking at recent photos.
I often just snap a picture here and there of my kids, put my phone down and don’t think anything of it. The great thing is they are stored for viewing later.
With that in mind, I was looking through some photos of the last week and came upon one that cracked me up because of Carson’s photo bomb in the background.
Pam and Beckett had a date night a few weeks ago and they went to The Freeman Stage for the Melissa Etheridge-Pat Benatar concert. After the show, Beckett wanted some gear so Pam grabbed him a Melissa Etheridge hat, which he wore for two weeks nonstop. The sight of my 8-year-old proudly wearing a Melissa Etheridge hat makes me laugh in and of itself.
Apparently, and I didn’t realize it until this week, he wanted a Pat Benatar cap as well. It turns out they were out of them after the show. That bummed him out to the degree that his mom promised to buy him one online later. The hat came in the mail this week. Unlike the Etheridge hat, which contains a mysterious band logo of some sort, the Benatar hat has nothing but her name across the front and it sits extremely high on his head. It looks weird.
Like the Etheridge hat, he has been wearing it all week. There’s something about my son wearing this black hat with white block letters spelling out Pat Benatar that results in me not being able to contain myself.
Therefore, I took some photos the other night of him wearing it in his room right before bedtime. I didn’t realize it at that time but in the background is a naked Carson wearing a Hulk mask and a Hulk fist jumping on Beckett’s bed.
It’s probably inappropriate but that’s a photo I want in a frame somewhere in the house because it’s the perfect snapshot in time representing the summer and our boys.
When it comes to girls, Beckett is a vault.
Indeed these days one surefire way to quiet our 8-year-old is to ask him questions about a girl. He doesn’t like it one bit.
It’s a tricky situation that we wade through carefully. I have learned to stay away from any sort of questions at all about girls, even if for a school talent show he and a fellow classmate, who happens to be a girl, sang a One Direction song together. Oh to be a fly on the wall for that performance.
When he got in the car this week after camp, he informed me had a homecoming date. I was caught flatfooted on that one because I had no idea at that time it had to do with the theme of the week at his camp.
He didn’t say much about it for a couple days and the night before the so-called big day he decided he didn’t want to dress up because the person he was going with as a friend had a friend who was upset they were going together. I don’t know the entire story about it because he shuts down when more details are sought.
In this case, I truly do think he didn’t understand the whole thing and what transpired. He seemed to take it in stride, reportedly only that he and a bunch of guys were just going to go instead.
After hearing him talk, I had to remind myself this wasn’t middle school. It was an 8-year-old talking about a camp dance but it could easily have been the former.
Each morning there is a battle for who gets to play disc jockey in the car wherever we are going.
Although I could do without the petty brother-on-brother battles that accompany it, I do enjoy the fact my kids love music. They both love grabbing my phone, which is synced to the car stereo, and playing the first minute of every song they like.
Perhaps it’s because they can only pick from songs I have put on my phone, I think they have some great taste. It appears they are old souls when it comes to their music preference.
While they each like songs from mainstream artists like Andy Grammer, Gavin DeGraw, Maroon 5 and Vance Joy, among others, each have a few of their favorites from years gone by.
If Carson is in control, he’s predictable. The first song is always a Bon Jovi song (typically Living on a Prayer) followed half way through by Mickey by Toni Basil and Rock and Roll by Heart. He seems to lean toward harder rock songs as evidenced by his funny dance moves that involve his hands way up in the air.
As far as Beckett goes, he tends to the more current songs, but I recently introduced him to Journey and the classic, Don’t Stop Believin’. He took to it immediately.
The image of him holding my phone, looking out the window in his karate gear and singing the words was awesome.
“Workin’ hard to get my fill, Everybody wants a thrill, Payin’ anything to roll the dice, Just one more time, Some will win, Some will lose, Some were born to sing the blues, Oh, the movie never ends, It goes on and on, and on, and on.”
He may have missed a few words here and there, but he got most of it right.
