It's that classic dilemma portrayed by the angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil over the other, each giving advice. My wife has told me before that she really enjoys the blog entries I write where I talk about my kids. I would say that she's a pretty important critic.
On the other hand, I read someone mocking that type of blog, calling it a "mommy blog". I was kind of chuckling about it, and then, like some dumb jock that didn't realize the joke that everyone was laughing at is really about him, stopped mid-chuckle as my face turned red and my hand involuntarily raised to cover my mouth.
Today is Ryan's birthday--he's eight. I remember that the night he was born, I held him and rocked him quietly in the hospital room all night as Fran slept.
He's a great kid--the kind of kid where other parents tell us "I sure wish our kid was as well-behaved as Ryan." How do you answer that?
Not to say that we don't have a lot of challenges with him. He loves to play video games and computer games, and I want to make sure he doesn't end up preferring that to reading, although some of those games are cool. He really likes "take over the world" games like "Age of Empires" and "Rise of Nations". These are pretty complex games where you learn to balance a mini-economy, build a society, and then, basically, go wipe out all other societies. And yes, we've had the discussion of "You know this isn't real, right? That it's wrong to go and overpower other people?"
The main issue that I've seen lately is that he has a hard time staying focused. Seriously, if I tell him to go to his room and get his shoes so we can run to the hardware store. He obediently turns around and heads in that direction. Suddenly, a dog barks in the distance and the next thing you know I find him in front of the TV watching a show, and I believe him when he tells me he forgot all about the shoes, the hardware store, or the fact that I had even spoken to him all day. He genuinely looks surprised.
His teacher reports similar behavior at school, and his grades have dropped slightly in the past month (they were all high A's, so he's okay--I have a hard time criticizing him about his grades when he does his homework each night, plus a little extra work that we do together--I don't want to be an Adolf Hitler parent).
Fran thinks it's just the fact that he's growing at an exponential rate right now. It's getting his mind all muddled, and he'll snap out of it at some point--we should just be patient with him.
On another front, he is being aggressively pursued by lots of girls at school (What is it with kids these days? Just kidding--they were the same way when I was eight.) One girl gave him a huge stuffed teddy bear for Valentine's day, along with a note (which Fran found in the bottom of his backpack) which asked him if he wanted to be her boyfriend (check Yes or No)! Of course, Fran freaked. Ryan was completely embarrassed and didn't want to talk about it. My motivation was more philosophical. I just told him that he didn't do anything wrong, and that it was really nice of Brianna to send him that note. Some kids just like to pretend to be grown-ups (this girl seems to be overly mature for a 2nd-grader). I just asked him to let us know about stuff like that when it comes up in the future.
So, there's my "mommy blog" entry for today--I figured I could indulge myself on Ryan's birthday.
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