Daddy, can we…
My son wakes up so damn early he should have a morning radio show. Maybe he is destined to be a long shore fisherman. Maybe he just smokes meth. Regardless, each day my son expects me and/or my wife to get out of bed and start building Legos when it’s still dark out. One morning at around 5am, my son woke me up by saying, “Daddy, can we play video games?” I tell him, “Sure” and roll over and go back to sleep. As I am drifting off, a thought occurs to me. “What did he mean, ‘WE’?” I panicked and jumped out of bed. I walked into the living room where the video consoles are set up and I can already hear another set of legs and giggles from across the house. When I get to the video game area, I see my son playing Wii tennis with one of the kids from the neighborhood. They were both in their pajamas and they both had hair that stood straight up. They looked EXACTLY like thing one and thing two from The Cat in the Hat. I knew the kid’s face but I couldn’t really place his name to go with it. The sun wasn’t up yet and I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I knew there was no sleep over last night and I woke up to pee at three in the morning and the kid wasn’t there yet. I knew my son must have let his buddy in sometime between 3:30 and 5am. I asked my son, “Who’s your friend?” My son turned to the other kid and asked, “What’s your name again?”
That’s it, everybody OUT! That’s all I need is stranger kids from the neighborhood walking around my house in their pajamas. Chris Hanson is about to walk out into my living room and tell me, “Why don’t you have a seat over there?”
jj
This happened to my parents shortly after they gave us ruffians the NES back in 1985. Great graphics! A light gun! Neat controllers! More awesome than our 2600! And we opened house to about 8 other less fortunate sons and daughters of the block around 5:30 in the morning on a Sunday. Parents woke up to the sounds of a group of kids giggling and screaming. A group who had a glass of chocolate milk and a plate of waffles, without adult supervision. I think that was when they gained their first grey hair. — Looking forward to the book!
Reminds me of the days of getting up early to watch our favorite TV shows especially Saturday morning, because only Pong had been invented at this point, you kids and your fancy toys as my Dad would say, lol. It is so hard to believe that as a little kid I grew up with one fuzzy Color TV reminds me of a church alter, a 13in black and white TV, 5 stations broadcast for the antenna that reminds me of a redneck joke. It can be argued about the amount of change that occurs during a lifetime, but us 30 somethings have to rank up there. Anyway, after Saturday morning cartoons were over we would get kicked out because it was nice out. Thats all I heard my entire childhood, “its too nice to stay inside you need to go outside”
naughty boys and gentle father~ er..I am sorry but can I copy this article for my class discussion? you know, we are going to talk about parenting and my teacher want us to find some interesting scenes of daily life between parents and children. When I saw your story I know I found one. So, would you give me the permission? I promise this article will only used for class discussion just about a father and a son. thank you~
Ha ha, that Chris Hanson is quite the legend! Yeah we get that (minus the strange kid) with my oldest and the wii, computer games, or the xbox. “When did you wake up?” Oh, 3? no 5.