Then there was this guy...another 20 something, obviously studying and trying to cram a ton of information into his grey matter. I caught glimpses of him off in thought. Then Clone brought a poetry book over to read aloud. She tired of the book by Mattie Stepanek and ran off to the kids' section to find something else. I got up to toss my cup, and the studying guy said "She reads really well." "Thanks. Not bad for first grade. I suspect it has something to do with my refusal to baby talk to my kids." He asked if Clone was around other kids. I said "she has two teenage brothers and lots of other friends' kids." Then Clone mentioned the one in gestation. I knew she'd never keep that a secret once we told her...geesh. Student said that he didn't have kids, but had 40 nieces and nephews, and that he was one of 10 kids. I think he added the sibling count because my jaw hit the floor at the number of times he's an uncle. I joked that no one was going to harass him to have kids anytime soon. Nope, not Catholic, but a military family that just kept having kids. Because really...after 3, what's one more right? He moved down here from Alaska, to go to Commercial Diving School, learn to weld, get away from the cold, and along with all that get going with a career in deep sea diving work. The welding was additional insurance to keep employment. His course is very accelerated and intense and full of prior service military folks. My daughter then started flirting heavily with this guy, giggling inanely like a school-girl, and saying "Call me". He asked what I was teaching my daughter, which was quickly met with, "She has two teenaged brothers, and attends public school, anything is possible." He talked about traveling with his family as a child between Japan, 10 bases in the lower 48, and finally living in Alaska. I related that my life was rather mundane, high school sweetheart, children, brief stint at Camp Lejune with the husband, back here, interesting but not so much excitement. He said "it is what you make of it" which is very true. Then Clone returned with a 4 inch stack of kid books to read, mindless of the short time we had left to get back to church to retrieve the other kids. She got one book read, which was logged in her reading log for school to count towards her 25 books for the quarter. At which point the guy went back to his studying. We never exchanged names. I can understand why the girl was flirting with the guy. He was easy on the eyes and seemed to have a decent personality. It's nice to find a person with distinct goals and taking action to achieve them. I'd like to think he's a credit to his parents and that they raised him well. I have no idea if he ever behaved like my non-conformist child in his middle teen years. But Student admitted to being too independent minded for the military. It's not entirely a bad thing to be independent, but it's another course of life if you choose to be a disrespectful oaf to everyone around you for the sake of being one. It remains to be seen if my oldest will be an "Independent minded" individual, or if he'll continue to be anti-everything to everyone around him.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Independent or Obnoxious?
Today was one of those days that I got to annoy my oldest, who I think I'll call my NonConformist. It may end up getting abbreviated to NonCon to save keystrokes. I'm a slacker like that. Something he's accessed has generated problems with my computer and the machine was running horrendously slow for days. I'm hoping that I've cleaned it up with the series of scans that took all day today. In the meantime I culled a lot of garbage from around my desk. Apparently I've been neglecting the area. Go figure. The boy hasn't been online and he's having computer withdrawals. I'm such an evil mother like that too. How dare I not allow him to get online to do his schoolwork, because now he's behind in his work for the state's Virtual School. I have no sympathy for him. If he truly did his work in the total time he spends online he'd have much more work banked ahead and missing a day wouldn't be the least bit of an issue. I would have allowed him 2 hours to get as much work done as possible except one of the scans literally took ALL day from 9:30 this morning to sometime after 6 PM tonight. So, I didn't let him on the computer while I was gone to take the younger two kids to to class at church. I didn't want the scan to take even longer than it already was. In the process he's been a royal pain today. Meh. I've developed a poker face, so I haven't let his ranting and rambling bother me. I went with a friend to a bookstore, and Clone was scoping out material while I sat in the coffee shop relaxing. Last week the tables were full. Today they were empty. There were four others there, all male. One teenage-looking young guy, kind of punkish reading something, probably fantasy or anime type of stuff. A 20-something with a couple novels, his cellphone, a motorcycle helmet and a backpack that resembled something for camping or military use. Given his gait and carriage, I'm going with the assumption this guy was affiliated with the military somehow. There was a middle aged, overweight, and balding guy with thick glasses, complete with neoprene straps to keep them from falling off his head. I didn't look at what he was reading, but he had a fair size stack of books. 
Then there was this guy...another 20 something, obviously studying and trying to cram a ton of information into his grey matter. I caught glimpses of him off in thought. Then Clone brought a poetry book over to read aloud. She tired of the book by Mattie Stepanek and ran off to the kids' section to find something else. I got up to toss my cup, and the studying guy said "She reads really well." "Thanks. Not bad for first grade. I suspect it has something to do with my refusal to baby talk to my kids." He asked if Clone was around other kids. I said "she has two teenage brothers and lots of other friends' kids." Then Clone mentioned the one in gestation. I knew she'd never keep that a secret once we told her...geesh. Student said that he didn't have kids, but had 40 nieces and nephews, and that he was one of 10 kids. I think he added the sibling count because my jaw hit the floor at the number of times he's an uncle. I joked that no one was going to harass him to have kids anytime soon. Nope, not Catholic, but a military family that just kept having kids. Because really...after 3, what's one more right? He moved down here from Alaska, to go to Commercial Diving School, learn to weld, get away from the cold, and along with all that get going with a career in deep sea diving work. The welding was additional insurance to keep employment. His course is very accelerated and intense and full of prior service military folks. My daughter then started flirting heavily with this guy, giggling inanely like a school-girl, and saying "Call me". He asked what I was teaching my daughter, which was quickly met with, "She has two teenaged brothers, and attends public school, anything is possible." He talked about traveling with his family as a child between Japan, 10 bases in the lower 48, and finally living in Alaska. I related that my life was rather mundane, high school sweetheart, children, brief stint at Camp Lejune with the husband, back here, interesting but not so much excitement. He said "it is what you make of it" which is very true. Then Clone returned with a 4 inch stack of kid books to read, mindless of the short time we had left to get back to church to retrieve the other kids. She got one book read, which was logged in her reading log for school to count towards her 25 books for the quarter. At which point the guy went back to his studying. We never exchanged names. I can understand why the girl was flirting with the guy. He was easy on the eyes and seemed to have a decent personality. It's nice to find a person with distinct goals and taking action to achieve them. I'd like to think he's a credit to his parents and that they raised him well. I have no idea if he ever behaved like my non-conformist child in his middle teen years. But Student admitted to being too independent minded for the military. It's not entirely a bad thing to be independent, but it's another course of life if you choose to be a disrespectful oaf to everyone around you for the sake of being one. It remains to be seen if my oldest will be an "Independent minded" individual, or if he'll continue to be anti-everything to everyone around him.
Then there was this guy...another 20 something, obviously studying and trying to cram a ton of information into his grey matter. I caught glimpses of him off in thought. Then Clone brought a poetry book over to read aloud. She tired of the book by Mattie Stepanek and ran off to the kids' section to find something else. I got up to toss my cup, and the studying guy said "She reads really well." "Thanks. Not bad for first grade. I suspect it has something to do with my refusal to baby talk to my kids." He asked if Clone was around other kids. I said "she has two teenage brothers and lots of other friends' kids." Then Clone mentioned the one in gestation. I knew she'd never keep that a secret once we told her...geesh. Student said that he didn't have kids, but had 40 nieces and nephews, and that he was one of 10 kids. I think he added the sibling count because my jaw hit the floor at the number of times he's an uncle. I joked that no one was going to harass him to have kids anytime soon. Nope, not Catholic, but a military family that just kept having kids. Because really...after 3, what's one more right? He moved down here from Alaska, to go to Commercial Diving School, learn to weld, get away from the cold, and along with all that get going with a career in deep sea diving work. The welding was additional insurance to keep employment. His course is very accelerated and intense and full of prior service military folks. My daughter then started flirting heavily with this guy, giggling inanely like a school-girl, and saying "Call me". He asked what I was teaching my daughter, which was quickly met with, "She has two teenaged brothers, and attends public school, anything is possible." He talked about traveling with his family as a child between Japan, 10 bases in the lower 48, and finally living in Alaska. I related that my life was rather mundane, high school sweetheart, children, brief stint at Camp Lejune with the husband, back here, interesting but not so much excitement. He said "it is what you make of it" which is very true. Then Clone returned with a 4 inch stack of kid books to read, mindless of the short time we had left to get back to church to retrieve the other kids. She got one book read, which was logged in her reading log for school to count towards her 25 books for the quarter. At which point the guy went back to his studying. We never exchanged names. I can understand why the girl was flirting with the guy. He was easy on the eyes and seemed to have a decent personality. It's nice to find a person with distinct goals and taking action to achieve them. I'd like to think he's a credit to his parents and that they raised him well. I have no idea if he ever behaved like my non-conformist child in his middle teen years. But Student admitted to being too independent minded for the military. It's not entirely a bad thing to be independent, but it's another course of life if you choose to be a disrespectful oaf to everyone around you for the sake of being one. It remains to be seen if my oldest will be an "Independent minded" individual, or if he'll continue to be anti-everything to everyone around him.
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annoying teenager,
coffee,
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3 comments:
The oldest needs military school.
The middle needs a mic and a night at the Comedy Zone to get his career started.
The clone? Well...lets just say that because she looks like her mama there will never be a shortage of boys on the business end of Daddy's gun.
It will be interesting to see the direction the 6 minute belleh will take.
I deleted the comment because it was an advertisement that I do not approve of or endorse, nor did the schmuckatelli ask me if it could be posted. IF I wanted ads on my blog, I'd sign up for adsense.
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