I had an all-day date with a handsome, sweet, gentlemanly 9-year old today. I posted a few weeks ago about a new routine/chore chart thing that I’m doing with the boys. It is going very well thus far. My date with Sidney is a result of his hard work and responsibility.
He requested a day of antique shopping, so we headed up the mountain to Boone. We hit one antique store where Sidney bought an old rusty skeleton key to add to his key collection. Then we ate at the Mellow Mushroom and went to a thrift store. I bought 2 pairs of boys jeans, 1 pair of boys dress pants, 1 nice button-down boys shirt, and 1 pair black pants for Prairie and 2 books for $2.34. Then we wandered through another antique store and finally ended the day at the Marble Slab Creamery for ice cream.
Sidney brought a book to read in the car on our travels but he didn’t read it until the last 5 minutes of our return trip home. He spent most of his time talking to me about the different things he wanted to build. He loves antique things, especially antique cars, and he wants to design and build modern cars that look like antiques. He says the curved lines of antique cars are obviously more beautiful than the straight line and sharp corners of some more modern cars. He also talked about making birdhouses out of gourds and making a mailbox that looks like a birdhouse. Those are just the things that I remember. I’m quite sure he mentioned about 20 other things he has in mind to build. I think the boy might be an engineer.
He also mentioned to me, for the first time, that he would like to go to college. This came as a surprise to me, since Sid and I have been pretty low-key about college. We have explained what college is and why some people go. And we have been quite plain that we don’t care whether he and Lincoln go or not. Our desire is that the boys’ choose a path fairly early on and be working on that path in their teens. If they decide they need college to further themselves, fine. But if they feel they don’t need college and can work and support themselves, even start their own business, that is fine too. Mainly, Sid’s goal is that the boys have the knowledge and ability to support a wife by the time they are 16. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and what the boys are actually doing in their teens. It is so exciting watching them grow and mature.
Speaking of dates, Lincoln got his date with me a week ago. He simply wanted ice cream, so we went to the local ice cream joint that has been around since I was a girl. It is an inconvenient, drive-in style place where you have to actually park your car and get out of the comfort of your vehicle to approach a window to place your order. Once you order 2 scoops of Rocky Road in a cup and 2 scoops of strawberry on a cone, you have to wait . . . . . oh, 10 to 15 minutes for your ice cream. At which point, we return to our car to lick our treats because there is no other available seating. Only nostalgia and no other ice cream competition in town could keep such a place in business. But I do kind of enjoy going there because one of the few memories I have is of Mom and Dad taking me to the same place for ice cream on warm summer evenings. It is kind of a neat thing to repeat a part of my childhood history with my own child.
With our ice cream sitting cold and heavy on our bellies, we went to Staples for those little flip-up pocket notebooks, which Lincoln wanted for his detective agency. While there, we sat in all the office chairs, ooh-ed and aahh-ed over the really comfortable ones, compared prices and felt the pinch of sticker shock, bought some cheap pens for Sid and headed home.
On our way home, we spotted a yard sale and stopped. I came away with $17 worth of clothes for Sidney, Lincoln and me and one remote control Hummer. Lincoln didn’t even ask for it, but as soon as I sent him to get it and put in our pile, he became very excited. On our way home for the second time, with our yard sale booty, Lincoln declared, “I am a lucky boy.”
Prairie Sings 