Interactions with children are always interesting and I’m thankful to have two sons who always keep life entertaining. Let the following serve as a recap of recent happenings of note.
•Beckett buddies up every beach day with newfound friends, and some are more entertaining than others.
Before Beckett even started a conversation with the boy — who I later learned was 10 — I noticed the boy was having an enthusiastic conversation with the pilots soaring overhead for the Air Show. He was engaged in an imaginary conversation clearly that touched on a number of biographical facts about himself as well as his imaginary friends flying high above.
Beckett, of course, couldn’t resist starting up a conversation with the boy who said his name was Seymour Ufton but I have my suspicions. I know the spelling because Beckett asked him to spell his first and last names since he has never heard either one. The back-and-forth spelling of each other’s names went on for a couple sets of waves in between the roaring Breitling Jets overhead.
All the while I couldn’t help but notice the boy was drinking saltwater. Before I could jump on that, Beckett told his new friend to stop or his stomach will hurt and he will get diarrhea. He then told the boy about how his dog Fletch once drank too much saltwater and had an accident in the car and several more at home for many days. That didn’t deter the boy, who continued to gulp down the water.
As if I wasn’t ready to move on already, Beckett beat me to it, motioning for me to swim up the beach a little to end the weirdness. He had his own reasons for wanting to move away from him, however. He said he didn’t want to be near him when the salt water had the same impact on the boy as it did on Fletch.
•Carson is the helper of the house. He will stop whatever he is doing whenever if you ask him for a hand doing something.
One morning over the weekend, Pam needed some help stuffing bills that carried over from the previous work day. Carson was helping while I was doing something else. All seemed to be going well until Pam came across a couple envelopes with invoices along with a surprise gift from Carson.
Inside a couple envelopes were toy cars from Carson’s collection. Fortunately, they hadn’t been sealed yet, but Carson was so adamant on sending them along that Pam fake sealed them to avoid a meltdown. Hopefully, she remembered to retrieve them.
•Give Carson a baseball or tennis ball and he can’t seem to get much on his throws. I think it has more to do with desire than any sort of physical limitations. He’s just not that interested in a game of catch these days.
However, place him in his car seat in the back of our minivan and watch his arm dazzle with amazing accuracy as well as power.
We took the boys to their first Orioles game last Sunday and on the car ride home the boys got a bit rambunctious. Carson was leading the charge and for a stretch amazed me with his ability to launch toy cars, sunglasses and anything else he could get his hand on with precision accuracy.
At least twice he hit me squarely on the back of the head with an object from his seat in the back of the minivan. He even nailed the steering wheel. I expressed my initial agitation to him over being struck from behind while driving, but I quickly marveled to Pam over his arm.
Before I could even remark what an amazing couple throws he had, I was hit in the head with a balled up napkin. At that point, we had to turn our heads as we laughed so the kids couldn’t see us.
•The other morning I sent Beckett upstairs to get some clothes for the day.
Much to my dismay at that time, he came down wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, despite it being 90-plus degrees outside. It was his way of rebelling I think after having to do something he did not want to do.
I then marched upstairs to pick out something more appropriate because I had to get the day moving along. While I talking to myself in frustration, I heard him holler up in some sort of girl imitation, “don’t pick out anything too fancy, fancy.”
•Two innings — that was all the time we made it in our seats at the Orioles game last Sunday.
Actually, after the first inning, Beckett was asking me in my ear if I wanted to go home and play soccer, and Carson was wreaking havoc on the back of the seat in front of us with kicks. If we were not burning up because it was so hot and humid, we would have made the kids sit through some more of the game out of principle.
The next thing I know we are inside the air-conditioned Dempsey’s restaurant and both boys are playing on electronics and we are watching the game on the big screens.
“This is more like it,” said Beckett as he had lunch with his Kindle.
These are indeed the days.