Well, I did it. I read Godspeed last night during class, and yes, choked up when I read “God hears amen wherever we are.” Not because I am particularly religious (not at all), but for some reason, that part always gets me. I think it must be because of all the moving my boys and I have done together. I think it was a good choice, though, and it went well.
Then, a guy read a poem about fathers and sons, and that’s when I REALLY choked up. As in, almost leaving the room to have a good cry. It was a sweet poem, and I would have written the name of it down if I had been thinking of anything other than “don’t cry.” It was the last part that really got me, though. It was about how little boys look to their dads to see how to behave, to make sure they’re doing things right. My goodness, if that didn’t hit home for me.
I think about things like that all the damn time. It’s been two years now. Two years when my boys haven’t had their father around, or really any man to look up to. I wonder if I’m enough, if I am doing enough for them. Probably not. Do we ever?
I couldn’t stand the thought of being in the house all day today, so I took the boys to a children’s museum here called Health Works. It was small, but it only cost us $4 each to get in, and we spent about 2 hours there. It was more suited to younger kids, but my boys had a pretty good time, and so did I. There was a rock climbing wall, which was really too easy for Big J:
And some other cool stuff to teach kids about their bodies and bodily functions. I really love this picture:
That face is priceless. It’s also of note that the scrub jacket Big J is wearing had the name “Mary” stitched on it. I told him it was a misprint and the real name was “Marty.”
We even went into the little theater and watched the cheesy video about brain function. The best part was when little nerf balls were shot out at the audience (who didn’t know it was going to happen). We walked through and did everything there was to do, except the one thing that looked the coolest. It was about a 10-foot square pad of lights on the floor, and it had games that the kids could play, like dodgeball or pong. It had sensors, and the ball of light was the “dodgeball” or “tennis ball.” Pretty cool, huh? It had been busy the entire time, but now there was only us and one other family (three kids and a mom) left in the area.
Two of the kids were playing on the thing, and we stood and waited while they played three different games. At this point, (it was obvious we were waiting to use it) I ask the kids if we could have a turn now. They said “yeah” and invited the boys to play with them. The only problem with that was that there wasn’t enough room for all four of them. My boys are pretty big, and these kids weren’t too small. They tried for about five minutes, then said they’d wait until they could have the game to themselves. The mother of the other children was standing there and heard all of this.
So, we did the other things again, coming back every so often to see if the other kids were done. They never were. We kept ourselves occupied for thirty extra minutes, just so that they could try the game, but those little fuckers never left. Now, I ask you, if your kids were playing on a game and you knew that other kids were waiting to use it, wouldn’t you tell your children to let the others have a turn? I know I would. Those kids had control of that game for no less than 45 minutes. We were the only other people in the entire place. There was one point when two of the three were doing something else, but one of them remained on the damn thing. The mother never said a word. Should I have said something else? Maybe. Probably. I didn’t, of course.
We left instead, and I used it as an example to the boys to treat others the way you’d like them to treat you. Hopefully some of it sinks in. Because that family? Total assholes.
They sassed back