I generally view my kids as idiots. Not that I don’t feel that one day they may grow up and be very happy, successful and possibly quite intelligent members of society, but right now they are kids and I have the upper hand on them smarts-wise, so I think of them as idiots. Maybe this is more a comment on my selfesteem than their intelligence, but that is for the couch not the blog.

However, every once in a while they surprise me with a burst of intelligence: they might listen and actually do what I asked of them the first time around; or they may regurgitate a piece of fairly complex information with skill and ease; or they may ask a question of great value and actually show they listened to the answer by replying with a great thought or question. But generally they are running around the house singing, “I like to move it move it!” or saying things to one another such as, “What if you had to go see a doctor about your butt-hole??” or making up the most nerve grating sound effects for anything and everything which includes misplacing sound effects meant for the bathroom and applying them in the kitchen. Or they are just in general being annoying.

Last night while on the couch with Alban watching WALL-E (fantastic movie, by the way), he had one of the above mentioned moments where I get a glimpse into their intellectual future.  During the scene in which there was a moment of life altering realization for the ship’s captain when he proclaimed “I want to LIVE not SURVIVE!”  Alban asked, “What does survive mean?”  I was really into this movie so I absentmindedly replied, “It means to live.”  Alban thought for a moment and replied, “NO IT DOESN’T!!  IT MEANS THE OPPOSITE!!  IT MEANS TO DIE!!”  I just stared at him in disbelief.  What had I done to deserve this outburst?  He gathered himself together, and said, “Mom, the captain just said ‘I would rather live than survive’ so it has to be the opposite.” 

Soon, very soon, they will pass me by and leave me in the intellectual dust.  I guess I should start treating them better while they are the idiots so I have a fighting chance.

 

This post is for my friend, Brian, who says this woman reminds him of me … in a good way.