Monday, July 24, 2006
This afternoon, my 8 1/2 year old son, Ben, decided that he wanted to be a newspaper reporter. He asked me for a notebook, a pen, and then commented on how he didn't have a reporter's hat. I tried to give his a straw fedora that I had sitting around the house, but he said a reporter's hat had to be dark grey and boring. Oh well.
Ready with all of his acutrements, he decided that he needed a story, and I was going to be his victim, er subject. He asked me to tell him about something that happened, something that was absolutely true.
I tried to think about something interesting that had happened recently, and quickly realized that I lead a pretty boring life. The first thing I tried to tell him about was my current marathon training. I thought, this will be pretty cool, and I'll be able to give him lots of little factoids, like a marathon is really 26.2 miles long. It's one of the things that people ask me when I mention that I'm training for a marathon. "How long is that?" followed immediately by "do you really walk the whole thing?" I'm always gracious, even though I'm usually thinking to myself, "yes, it's that long, why do you think it takes me 7 1/2 hours to walk it?" followed by "yes, I'm really going to walk the whole thing. That's why I'm training." Since I'm doing the ING New York Marathon, I figured he'd be pretty interested, as he's wanted to go to New York ever since his father, Gary, and I brought him home a mug with his name on it from the big ToysRUs in Times Square. No, that wasn't interesting, that was boring.
Next I mentioned that I'm helping to bring the children's library back into our synagogue. It's been housed at Brandeis Hillel Day School next door for the past few years. I studied journalism briefly at Indiana University, and I'm thinking "great little human interest piece." Nope, not interesting enough for Ben.
Okay, so the kid's going to be tough. So he wants something interesting, okay, I'll give him something interesting. Something he probably doesn't know about his old mom. So I decide to tell him about the time I went skydiving. I think, this is definitely not boring. Wrong! The only response this illicits from him is the question "how old were you when you did that?" I tell him I was 19, and suddenly it's too long ago to be useful to him. He does leave me with the comment that that sounds too dangerous, and that I shouldn't do that again. Oh my poor little son, he doesn't know me very well.
I'm about all out of interesting, and uninteresting stories, when it finally hit me - the perfect story. So I sit down, and tell him a story that starts like this:
I say "One dark night," and suddenly he's writing as fast as he can. He repeats it back to me, "One dark night." He asks me if there's a comma after that. I tell him there is. So I continue wth the story, "in the middle of the day," and he's writing furiously. I've finally gotten him interested. "What's next?" he asks me. I continue, "two dead boys..." He's writing again, reading it back to me, "One dark night comma in the middle of the day comma two dead boys...what's next?" he asks. "got up to play," I tell him. He's writing as fast as he can, asking this time if there is a period at the end of this sentence. I tell him there is. He reads it back to me, "One dark night comma in the middle of the day comma two dead boys got up to play period." Yes, I tell him, that's right.
"Now what?" he asks. So I tell him, "Back to back," and I wait for him to finish writing, then continue with "they faced each other." "Is there a comma now?" he asks again. So I tell him yes, and am feeling so excited that I've finally found something to interest him. He's so intent on getting down on paper with the correct punctuation. I'm so proud of him. I continue, "drew their swords," and he asks me which their to use. I tell him to use the one that means it belongs to them. He says "T. H. E. I. R." I tell him yes, then ask him if he knows how to spell 'swords' He says, "Yes, 'S' Words." [continued to the next post]
Ready with all of his acutrements, he decided that he needed a story, and I was going to be his victim, er subject. He asked me to tell him about something that happened, something that was absolutely true.
I tried to think about something interesting that had happened recently, and quickly realized that I lead a pretty boring life. The first thing I tried to tell him about was my current marathon training. I thought, this will be pretty cool, and I'll be able to give him lots of little factoids, like a marathon is really 26.2 miles long. It's one of the things that people ask me when I mention that I'm training for a marathon. "How long is that?" followed immediately by "do you really walk the whole thing?" I'm always gracious, even though I'm usually thinking to myself, "yes, it's that long, why do you think it takes me 7 1/2 hours to walk it?" followed by "yes, I'm really going to walk the whole thing. That's why I'm training." Since I'm doing the ING New York Marathon, I figured he'd be pretty interested, as he's wanted to go to New York ever since his father, Gary, and I brought him home a mug with his name on it from the big ToysRUs in Times Square. No, that wasn't interesting, that was boring.
Next I mentioned that I'm helping to bring the children's library back into our synagogue. It's been housed at Brandeis Hillel Day School next door for the past few years. I studied journalism briefly at Indiana University, and I'm thinking "great little human interest piece." Nope, not interesting enough for Ben.
Okay, so the kid's going to be tough. So he wants something interesting, okay, I'll give him something interesting. Something he probably doesn't know about his old mom. So I decide to tell him about the time I went skydiving. I think, this is definitely not boring. Wrong! The only response this illicits from him is the question "how old were you when you did that?" I tell him I was 19, and suddenly it's too long ago to be useful to him. He does leave me with the comment that that sounds too dangerous, and that I shouldn't do that again. Oh my poor little son, he doesn't know me very well.
I'm about all out of interesting, and uninteresting stories, when it finally hit me - the perfect story. So I sit down, and tell him a story that starts like this:
I say "One dark night," and suddenly he's writing as fast as he can. He repeats it back to me, "One dark night." He asks me if there's a comma after that. I tell him there is. So I continue wth the story, "in the middle of the day," and he's writing furiously. I've finally gotten him interested. "What's next?" he asks me. I continue, "two dead boys..." He's writing again, reading it back to me, "One dark night comma in the middle of the day comma two dead boys...what's next?" he asks. "got up to play," I tell him. He's writing as fast as he can, asking this time if there is a period at the end of this sentence. I tell him there is. He reads it back to me, "One dark night comma in the middle of the day comma two dead boys got up to play period." Yes, I tell him, that's right.
"Now what?" he asks. So I tell him, "Back to back," and I wait for him to finish writing, then continue with "they faced each other." "Is there a comma now?" he asks again. So I tell him yes, and am feeling so excited that I've finally found something to interest him. He's so intent on getting down on paper with the correct punctuation. I'm so proud of him. I continue, "drew their swords," and he asks me which their to use. I tell him to use the one that means it belongs to them. He says "T. H. E. I. R." I tell him yes, then ask him if he knows how to spell 'swords' He says, "Yes, 'S' Words." [continued to the next post]
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