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"Hey Mom, which is bigger? The pizza, or my face?"
I'm crazy about both of my kids, but I don't always feel like Marc and I get to just hang out together like we used to when he was little. For a while, it was just Marc and I. Then I married Mitch, and not long after that Charlotte was born. Maybe I'm spread a little thin sometimes, and it doesn't help that he's at his dad's half of the week also.
Lucky for us, some free time popped open. Mitch took Charlotte to meet up with Gramma so she could spend a few days with her. That left a good couple of hours for Marc and I to be alone before Mitch came home.
"I just want to stay home and do nothing," he said when I asked what he wanted to do.
"We could go to a movie, or go to the mall. We could go to the game shop and get some more Magic cards. We could go to the museum, or we could do anything!" I said. I was excited. Can you tell?
"No," he said. "I just want to stay home." He was playing Minecraft, and if you have a kid who plays Minecraft-- maybe you play Minecraft?-- you know it can be an all-day ordeal.
"We have the whole city at our disposal!" I reminded him. "We live in a major metropolitan! We can go to the top of the Liberty Memorial and look at the entire city! We can see any movie you want to see! We can go out to lunch anywhere you want! We can go to Union Station, or we can go to the arcade, or anything. Anything you want to do!"
"Nah."
Ugh. I was frustrated. Annoyed. Rejected. "Well," I said finally. "I'm hungry. How about I run out and get us some Chinese and bring it back."
"Okay," he said, then returned to his game. He didn't even look at me. He's not even a teenager yet!
Having given up, I finished up a few things I was doing, returned a couple phone calls, then put on my coat and hat. "I'm on my way out," I said. "Do you want to come with?" I asked in what I thought was vain.
"Uh, okay," he said, putting down the controller. I could hardly believe my ears! He was really coming with me! I mean, it was no movie, just Chinese take-out, but I'd take it.
When we got to the car, he said, "You know, I don't really want Chinese. I want something else. I think I want pizza." Pizza, I thought. I didn't really want to get a whole pizza and bring it home. I talked him into sitting down at d'Bronx, my favorite by-the-slice place, with me. "Can we stop at Blockbuster when we're done?" he asked.
"If I can stop for coffee," I said. Thus, an agreement was struck. We popped in for pizza, and I let him have a Coke and cookie, too. Then, we talked. To each other! It was just the two of us. He went on and on about all the cool things he was doing in his video game, and telling me about what he and his friends were into. He asked me what games I played when I was a kid, and I told him. He loves listening to me talk about my own childhood. I challenged him to eat the entire piece of pizza, which was humongous. He didn't meet it.
Then I stopped in for coffee. He was such a patient kid, waiting in the long line of other addicts like myself. We chatted some more, which was something. Usually he's playing games on my phone. Then, we got to Blockbuster, and picked out a game. He told me about Men In Black 3, which he had seen and I had not. He talked me into renting it, and when we got home we watched it together.
Did you read that? We watched it. Together.
Was that a mother-son bonding day, or what? So much for just wanting to stay home and do nothing, huh?
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