Tag: Thor

parenting, Thor

Merry, Merry King of the Bush is He

the outside lane

Thor starts camp next week–his first real camp.  Not daycare.  Camp.  He is delighted, as you can well imagine.  Since the camp mascot is a Kookaburra, we have been listening to that Kookaburra song over, and over, and over again.  And over again.  And over again.  The things you do for love, right?

I still really can’t believe how he makes my heart skip a beat.  From the moment Bryan put him in my arms in the hospital…man.  He just takes my breath away.  Even when he is gnawing on my last nerve, I love him with every fiber of my being.  This is very helpful when I have told him seven times to put on his shoes, and he is still sitting in the floor starting at his toenails.

Anyway, the Kookaburra song.  “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree.  Merry, merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburra.  Laugh, Kookaburra.  Gay your life must be.”

Thor asked me what gay meant.  “Happy,” I said.  “Dancing, singing, twirling around because life is so good, happy.”

“I like that,” he nodded.

“Me too,” I agreed.  Then, we sang the song again before he headed to bed, taking with him my old comparative study bible.  I wonder how old he will be when he starts putting two and two together, and asking questions about why the bible’s got a problem with dancing, singing, twirling around because life is so good, happy?  We’ll have to talk about how the bible has problems with his love of crustaceans, too, and maybe that can throw the rest into perspective.  Because that boy loves crab.

Meanwhile, I am anxiously awaiting the new vocabulary that will come with his reading of the King James version of the bible.  And the New American Standard.  And the Amplified.  And the New International Version.  Because that’s going to be spectacular!  And hilarious.  He’s already been reading the notes I wrote in the margins and shouting those out to me with his own added commentary.  Lord.  How am I going to explain concubines?  I’m going to tell him they are a kind of porcupine, and old kings liked to keep them for pets.

I suppose we should censor his reading, but other than that CSB, he hasn’t shown an interest in any books that would alarm me.  I’d rather our bookshelves be open to his whims.  If he has questions, he’ll ask.  And that way, he won’t feel like he needs to hide books he likes (like I hid James Bond.)  Since my CSB was next to a huge collection of Douglas Adams, I’m hoping he’ll pick up the Hitchhiker’s Guide next.  The only thing better than feeling gay, is being a hoopy frood.

 

movies, Reviews

Double Feature

the outside lane

Thor had a movie weekend, getting treated to The Pirates Band of Misfits in 3-D and The Avengers in plain old D.  Grandma and I took him to the former, and the latter was a BFamily outing.  I am happy to say I enjoyed both, though The Avengers has already placed itself as movie of the year for me.

Pirates, coming from the mastermind behind Wallace and Gromit is a good-natured morality tale about the importance of loyalty and friendship.  I adored the daft hero, voiced by Hugh Grant, and loved that the super villain was none other than Queen Victoria herself.  Thor laughed out loud several times, and so did I.  There was plenty of humor for the grown-ups, without breaking the 4th wall as the Shrek movies are wont to do.  We left the theater happy, and happy to talk about what we’d just seen.

We left The Avengers cheering, and Thor has gone to bed talking about what kinds of things he would smash, were he The Hulk.  Y’all, five minutes in and I leaned over to B yodeling, “This is everything I wanted The Hunger Games to be!  Why couldn’t Joss Whedon have directed that?!”

I clapped.  I cheered.  I squealed.  I scrunched up in my seat and said, “oof!”  I found myself sitting forward, hands on my armrests, eyes wide, mouth open, waiting for the next scene to come, and I thought, “I never want this to end!  Ever!”

Since I have nothing bad to say about the movie, I’ll just list my favorite things:

  1. RDJ and Goop have amazing chemistry.  Amazing.  I would pay to watch a movie that was just the two of them flirting with each other.  I would.
  2. RDJ.  75% of what was wonderful about this movie was Tony Stark, and 100% of what is wonderful about Tony Stark is RDJ.
  3. I love The Hulk.  I grew up watching the Bill Bixby tv show, and I was not disappointed by this movie version of the mild scientist you shouldn’t make angry.  And when Hulk smashes?  When Hulk smashed, my heart grew two sizes.
  4. The dialog was snappy and snarky, and just as well done as the engaging CGI.  It isn’t often that an action movie’s dialog can live up to the great action sequences, but you could have taken out the action and had a great movie, and you could have taken out the dialog and had a–  Actually, the dialog built the movie up.
  5. Joss Whedon.
  6. Thor and Loki.  I love everything about Thor and Loki.  Tom Hiddleston is a brilliant villain.  Chris Hemsworth is a brilliant dumb-jock-god.
  7. Everything about The Avengers.  Twice.  And again.

 

parenting, Thor

Tooth Fairy

the outside lane

Thor and the Tooth.

I don’t have a baby any longer.  If there had been any doubt, it was removed along with his first lost tooth tonight.  I didn’t even know he had a loose tooth!  I had no time to prepare myself for the paradigm shift between My Baby and My Gap Toothed Boy.

Tomorrow, he’ll be driving.

I pulled the tooth with thread.  And in case anyone else is googling how to pull a tooth, like I did before employing my mother’s old method, here’s how to do it:

  1. Take a length of thread and double it, then make a slip knot.
  2. Put the slip knot around the loose tooth and tighten it.
  3. Tell the small child you are going to count to 3 and pull
  4. Count 1…2…3 and pull on the count of 2.  If the tooth is loose enough, you’ll have it dangling on the end of the thread by the time you get to 3, and everyone will be happy.
  5. Congratulate your child on being brave, no matter how much they caterwauled.  It is never easy to part with a piece of your body.
  6. Proceed with tooth fairy.
economy, parenting, Politics, Thor

Civics and the Six-Year-Old

the outside lane

Thor loves NPR and the Classical music station, and has since he was old enough to express a preference by screaming his lungs out when I tried to change to the pop channel.  Because he listens to NPR (and I swear to you, he ASKS to listen to NPR–believe me there are days I’d rather be letting the Top 40 fill my work-vacant brain) he hears a lot of talk of politics, and he asks some pretty good questions for a 1st Grader.

Last week, on our 5 minute drive, after a recap of his understanding of the 2-Party System, he asked me, “So what’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans?”

Uh…in a nutshell?  And impartially?  Geez.

I tried to explain that the Ds were usually more liberal socially, preferred for the Government to be very involved in daily life, and were more likely to spend money on people, and that Rs were more conservative socially, preferred small government, and were more likely to spend money on industry and business.  He then asked what was liberal, and what was conservative, and I said liberal socially meant fewer rules about how people should live their private lives (which was ironic, since many liberals like the Government to make more rules) and conservative meant more rules about how people should live their private lives (with the reciprocal irony.)

And then Thor asked, “So what about the money?”

I said, “It’s kind of like this.  Say you have no money.  The Democrats would ask the Government to give you $2 a week forever.”

He interrupted, “I don’t have any money!  They would give me money?!”

“But…  The Republicans would give $5 a week to a business, hoping that business would give you a job.  The job would pay you $3 a week, but the idea is that you can work hard and get a promotion, then make $5 a week, then get another promotion and make $15 a week.  So you would have a shot at improving your life and be more upwardly mobile.”

“Three is more than two,” he calculated.  “But then I have to get a job.”

“Dude, you are going to have to get a job anyway.  No deadbeats.  So, do you understand?”

“Yep.  Which one is better?”

“Neither.  Both sides want the same thing–a strong country where people are happy.  They just have different ideas about how to get there.”

“What are you?”

“Libertarian.”

“And what are they?”

“Ask Daddy.”

“Cool.  Can I have a treat after dinner tonight?”

 

I’m sure I over-simplified or screwed that up majorly somehow, but B is the political mind in the family.  I keep hoping one day Thor will ask me a question that is easy to answer.  Like, “Mama, what kind of corsage should I get my prom date?”

parenting, Religion, Thor

There Goes Santa Claus

the outside lane

 

B and I are pretty honest and open with Thor, and even though we keep things light and on level with his maturity, we don’t really mince words.  So, it’s kind of funny that we’ve played Santa.  And Easter Bunny.  And Birthday Fairy.  Okay, that last one is me entirely.  All that changed tonight, though.

Thor came home from school very excited about a project his class is doing, collecting items for the needy, and very excited about us having chosen a little boy his age from an Angel tree.  He was chirping away in the back seat and said, “Our kid [the Angel tree boy]…I guess he’s the only kid Santa doesn’t care about?”  I asked him what he meant, thinking about the movie trailer we’d seen prior to the Muppet Movie (which is greatness!  go see it now!)  He said, “You know, Santa doesn’t care about him because he’s poor, so he can’t have presents.”

It was one of those moments I couldn’t have prepared for–who would expect that?!

I assured him that poverty had nothing to do with how much Santa cared for children, and he hummed his understanding.  “So Santa won’t bring him any presents because he’s a bad kid.  Is he a bad kid because he’s poor?”

All the logic of the Christmas mythology was suddenly cumbersome.

“No, no, no,” I promised.  “He’s not a bad boy.  No, no, no.”

“Then why isn’t Santa giving him anything?  You said he was on the Angel tree because he might not get any presents?”

And since he’s six, and since we’re honest, and since I didn’t want him thinking that Santa was a 1%’er (remind me to tell you about the talk we had about the difference between Democrats and Republicans the other day), I took a deep breath and said, “Thor, I’m going to tell you a big secret…”

I did, too.  I told my child that Santa is a wonderful character like Finn McMissile or Lightning McQueen, and that we like to tell stories about him to teach people about gift giving, and good cheer, but that he wasn’t a real person, and the reason children ended up on Angel trees was because their parents might be having a hard time finding a job, and the Spirit of Christmas is about sharing what we have with people who are doing without.

We ran into B in the parking lot, right about that time, and B agreed.  Thor said, “Great!  I’ll beat you to the front door!”  And took off.

Tomorrow, we’re going to go see Santa.

Why not?  We can all still pretend and enjoy.