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Monday, April 04, 2005

Two stories about Jamie

Story one:  As we came out of the gym where he and I swim on the weekends, Jamie decided to take his own gym pass off the front counter.  “You want to hold onto that?” I asked.  “Yes,” he said.  “It’s my card.” “Cool,” I replied, “but it might be easier if you put it in my wallet, so it won’t get lost.” Jamie, you see, likes putting things in his pockets—he likes getting a few bucks or a bunch of quarters for pinball—but he usually forgets about them before too long.  So he agreed, slipping his card into my wallet—and then taking my wallet.  “Well, sweetie,” I said, ”I’ll hold your card for you.  That’s the idea.”

“I can have a wallet,” Jamie replied.  “I’m a teenager.  I’m allowed.”

That snapped me to attention.  “Yes, you are allowed,” I said.  “And that sounds like a good idea, too.  But I need my wallet, you know—see, it has my credit cards.”

“I love credit cards,” Jamie shot back.  “Hey,” he added, finding his school ID tucked behind my AAA card, “that’s my card too.  Gimme my cards, Michael.”

So Janet got him a wallet this weekend, and he’s carrying it to school today for the first time.  In fact, he walked to the bus stop with his hand on his wallet pocket all the way.  With his mind on his wallet and his wallet on his mind.

Story two:  we were watching TV, doing nothing much, and I decided to tell him how good he’d been with the younger kids of some colleagues who’d been to our house recently.  “You really are very good with little kids,” I said.  “You’re very gentle with them, and you play very carefully, and you always try to help them.  You know, you might think about doing that when you’re a big man and you have a job—you might be a good helper someplace where they work with little kids.”

”Michael,” he said with some exasperation, “I’m going to be a Marine.”

“Excuse me?  Did you say a Marine?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where did that come from?  You mean a Marine like a soldier?”

“No,” he said, waving me off, “a marine biologist.” Ah, you always have to wait for the other shoe.  A tall order, this—but he does know the differences between seals and sea lions, and he knows more about sharks than most sixth graders.  And despite his speech delays, he does say “cartilaginous fish” pretty clearly.

Now, if you want to read a really remarkable family story, check out this fine piece of work by Chris Clarke, which I recommend highly even though Chris has seen fit to send me the Infernal Book Meme (which I’ll get to when I get to it).

Posted by Michael on 04/04 at 08:55 AM
Jamie • (35) Comments • (2) Trackbacks • Permalink
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