Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Darndest Things

A couple of days ago, I got to spend the bulk of the evening tending my five-year-old nephew Jackson. Spending time with any of my nieces and nephews is always an educational experience, and this was no exception to that rule. Sometimes, they teach me how to take a different look at life from their innocent and unique points-of-view. Many times, they teach me patience and understanding. Almost always, I learn a great appreciation for the great people they are, as well as the people they are becoming.

On this particular Thursday night, I took Jackson to the local McDonald's for dinner, during which he proceeded to burn about 20,000 calories per hour by running and climbing up, down, inside, outside, and around the rocket ship playground. At times, I got exhausted just by watching him.

One of his favorite things to do, and something I had to ask him not to do more than once, was to climb up on the outside of the rocket - the part with no safety net attached to it. I asked him to come down and then talked to him about the dangers of climbing up there.

Five minutes later, I looked back up at the rocket to see he had climbed on the outside yet again.

Me: "Jackson, what did we just talk about?"
Jackson (without missing a beat): "Zombies?"

The funniest part about that response is that is was completely in earnest. You see, Jackson is lately a bit more obsessed with zombies than most five-year-olds. It is a topic that often comes up in his conversations; he's both fascinated and frightened by them.

There's also Uncle Crack.

Uncle Crack is Jackson's imaginary friend. According to Jackson, Uncle Crack is my brother - but also not, somehow, his Dad's (Mike's) brother, as well. He is much like the "Not Me" of the Family Circus comic strips and is usually the one to blame for things that go wrong wherever Jackson goes.

At another point, Jackson approached a little girl playing games on her iTouch and asked if he could have a turn if, he added, "your grandma will let me."

"I'm not her grandmother; I'm her mother," the lady replied defensively.

I also watched with admiration as Jackson instantly made friends with the other kids on the playground - and became the sort of leader of the group. Every few minutes, he could be heard to tell his playmates, "That's my Uncle Paco," and he'd point out where I was sitting to them.

You can learn a lot from a kid. Most of the time, they just want someone to listen to them.

They will want to talk about zombies.

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