Myopic no More

By their very nature, children are myopic. Their purview of the world is from their perspective and they are center of their own universe. And hopefully the center of their parents’ universe and if they are extra lucky the center of their grandparents’ world.

The Mud Puddle continues to amaze me with the moments when he is NOT thinking all about himself.He has always been a sweet, kind fella but his acknowledgement that there are places and time moving without his input always makes me pause.Since he was four or five he has asked me on an almost daily basis how my day was.

When I pick him up from daycare and we are clambering into the car he asks “How was your day?”; which regardless of how my day actually was up until that moment, makes it infinitely better.

I usually give the standard “it was fine” “it sucked” “it was busy” and he will then offer a follow up question about what meetings did I have, who did I eat lunch with, what did I work on.

I suspect he has little idea of what I do for a living (at my previous job he thought I made plastic, which I didn’t. I marketed plastic but marketing is difficult for some adults to understand never mind a kid so forget trying to explain that I market research on markets) but he asks and listens to what I have to say.

This usually happens after I have given him the third degree about this day so perhaps it is payback. But it has the opposite effect on me. I really appreciate him asking the question.

He also has become extremely impressed that I lived a life before him.

I suspect that he believes my life started on that lovely fall Saturday at 3:32 in the afternoon and in some ways it did. But as he learns about whom I was BMP (before Mud Puddle) he is amazed.

We recently stopped at a comic book store to check for some figures called Sky Landers that he has started collecting (he finished the accompanying game in 10 days so I can only assume we are now collecting action figures).

I had told him that when I was in college some of my friends had started a comic book store and I liked to go and help out. I still had some of the comics from those days that I had bought. His reaction:“I had NO IDEA you liked comic books!”

And then asked a bunch of questions about the story.

He then stated “There is so much about you I don’t know. I feel like I am learning more about you every day.”That stopped me in my tracks. I love that he is fascinated that I lived a life before him (a whole 30 years!) and that some of the things I did or liked intrigue him.

Another BMP fun fact he loves is that I was a cheerleader in high school. Flipping channels the other night I paused on the National College Cheerleading Championship, to which he said,“Cheerleaders, you were one of those, right?”Sure I was one of those.

Not that good but I was not about to start a diatribe about elite college athletes and their lesser high school counterparts.

He then asked “Do you remember any of your cheers?”

The answer to which is yes I do. But knowing that would only lead to some embarrassing moves that even the dog didn’t want to see I said no.

He is a big fan of some of my friends who have been in my life for a long time.

My college roommate Jen is a particular standout. We don’t see her often as she lives down south now but when I mention her name he reads me the stats of our relationship:“Miss Jen! You lived with her in college for two years and she was in your sorority and she was your best friend and you would watch scifi movies on Sundays.”

To which I nod and bite my tongue because the next layer of detail beneath that is PG-13 and would start with “OMG we were sssooo drunk!” or the equally slippery slope of “OMG we were sssooo hung over!!”

I will save those stories for his college days I think. It is nice to know that even though my life revolves around him now he knows there were other interesting plot points along the way.