After the results of PeeWee hockey tryouts were posted online:
Me: “I wonder who made the B teams? And the C team?”
Him: “Mom, I gotta tell you, you don’t ‘make’ the C team.”
*****
Me: “Hey, you should take a shower. And wash your hair with shampoo.” Then, upon closer inspection, acting like the momma orangutan we all mimic at some point in our parenting lives: “And you should clean your ears. And brush your teeth, too.”
Him: “Mom, I’m going to build a little nest on my shoulder here, right here [he points], so you can sit in it and peck, peck, peck at me all day long.”
*****
Me, just after Christmas: “Hey, do you want to go for a walk with me?”
Him, playing video games in his room: “Naw, I think I’m going to take some time to reflect on all the giving and getting of Christmas.”
Me, feeling awed by his sensitivity, then suspicious: “You just said that so you can stay back and play video games, right?”
Him: “Yeah, pretty much.”
*****
Me, after his first junior high dance: “How was the dance?”
Him: “Good. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Him, about ten minutes after his sister comes home from college: “Megan, I went to our dance and I danced with five girls. All slow dances.”
*****
Him, in the kitchen with his sister: “You’ve been away so you probably don’t know I can make my own macaroni and cheese.”
Him, walking away with plate of uber-orange pasta: “And my own scrambled eggs. And I make toast. And cereal.”
Him, now calling out from the living room: “And grilled cheese. You probably didn’t know that.”
*****
Me, maddened by the rough hands of the returned college kid, after the fifth time our old toilet handle falls off: “I'm off to work. Make a sign, will you, and tell your sister to take it easy on our toilet handle. It keeps flying off after she whacks on it. This thing runs all day when she does that.”
Him, rightly suspecting that it’s not about the toilet at all but about the 2 a.m. late nights and new conflicts in the house, writing on a little sheet of paper now taped above the commode:
“Please flush gently.”
2 comments:
I love these bits of conversation. They make me miss my own twelve-year-olds, who I don't remember being so lovely but hope (trust?) that they were.
I'm sure they were lovely and, best of all, extremely quotable!
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