Two Anecdotes about Garrett

Taken at the NJ Aquarium last month. I really need to upload pictures off my cameras!

Garrett has officially turned 6 and half years old. He is getting big but yet is still very young is a lot of ways. Parenting gets harder and harder it seems. Why do I think this? Because the child becomes more complex, his world is more complex, and so the problems and challenges are more complex. Garrett and I seem to go through rough patches, more frequently then I want to admit. Some moments I can be so angry or frustrated at him but then the next moment he is very cute and my heart melts. So before I forget any more of these stories, hereare two recent anecdotes about Garrett. (And forget I will as I had planned to write 3 but I can't remember the third one for the life of me.)





A Young Jean Piaget?

I was trying to do school work with Garrett. I was getting frustrated with his behavior. I can't remember exactly what he was doing this time but it typically involves a lot of movement, talking, playing with some toy, and generally not truely paying attention to school work. The following conversation ensued.

Me: Garrett, I'm going to send you to the zoo!
Garrett: What will they feed me?

Me: Hay and grass and fish

Garrett: They are going to feed me what the animals eat?
Me: Yes. I am going to send you to the zoo because you are acting like a wild animal!
Garrett: I'm not acting like an animal. I"m acting like a kid. Kids play!

ummm... Thank you young Jean Piaget for the reminder.  (Over the past several years I often quote "A Child's Work is Play" to Garrett when he wants to watch tv or play video games and I tell him to go play. I guess the message has sunk in. Lets hope he doesn't use it further to wiggle out of school work.)

I find it funny and interesting too that his first question was "what will they feed me."

 A Young Metalhead? 

For some reason we were sitting in the parking lot of our local grocery store eating Arby's Chocolate Turnovers (thank you Arby's for bringing 'em back!) and listening to music on the radio. The Metallica song "Seek and Destroy" came on. This is a heavy metal song and its really long- almost 7 minutes. Well Garrett put down his chocolate turnover and started rocking out to it on his air guitar. It had to be the most elaborate air guitar-ing I have ever seen him do. It was so funny and cute at the same time. And he did it for the whole dang song. After the song was over I explained to him that genre of rock music is called "Heavy Metal" and in the future if he wants to listen to that kind of music he should ask for "heavy metal rock." Then he proceded to observe that the radio station we were listening to is programmed channel #1 in our radio. Then, for over a week, every time we got in the car he would automatically say "Turn it to channel 1. I want the rock." So funny. Gotta love it. We butt heads over it though because I am a major channel surfer when it comes to music and my nerves can not always take heavy rock anymore.

Ever since this little episode I have noticed him really rocking out and dancing to music a lot. (He has always loved to dance and listen to musis. Often if we are having a rough day or just a blah day I will turn on the mp3 player and we dance. That gets him going.) When Aunt Heather, CJ, and Garrett were riding in the car together they pulled up to me all three of them were playing various imaginary instruments to the TSO, the drums, violin, and guitar, and they wouldn't come out of the car until the song was over. (TSO is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, as a side note Brian and I saw them in concert twice- a very good show!) Garrett also has been saying lately, when he hears a song he rally likes, "Do you know who made that song?"  Who? "I did!" 

You should also get a peak at his awesome break-dancing abilities. Its very entertaining. (And I learned that the music he likes to dance to has a name\classification I never knew existed. Its classified to different beats per minute, like 160 BPM. So all the song in that genre can be easily mixed on a turn table, or something like that.)  ;) 

Don't worry. We listen to a lot of different music around here. Mostly because Brian finds it all and he is more culturally diversified them I am, although I am pretty diverse as well.   

ok... I remember another story to share. This one is a tad bit embarrassing for me.  I'm going to use fake names for the other people in this story.

A Young Arms Dealer?

 Garrett was sitting at the table one evening having a snack. He said "mom, I have 8 dollars!!" How do you have 8 dollars Garrett?? (You should know Garrett loves money, love spending money, and loves acquiring money.)  "Benny gave me 5 dollars and I had 3 in my account." Why did Benny give you $5 Garrett??? "He just gave it to me!"  No Garrett, he did not just give you 5 dollars. Ok, what did you guys trade? You know you aren't suppose to do that! (Garrett and Benny will trade toys often and buy toys from each other, something they have both been told not to do, especially since they have little understanding of value and the fact some things belong together.)  Garrett says "umm...I sold him a little parachute man."  Garrett, I don't believe Benny would buy that little toy you got from the dentist for $5. And even if he did, you are giving his money back and you will get your toy back. I think you are lying and I'm going to call his parents. (but I wait about 15 minutes and Garrett still isn't giving me more information.) 

So I called the parents who were at the shopping center getting ready to leave for a Thanksgiving trip. I tell the mom "Garrett has 5 or 8 dollars that Benny gave him for something. He tells me it was for a little man but I don't really doubt it and don't know the whole story." Let me ask Benny says the mom. It took a while for her to come back to the phone..."ohh, it was a fishing knife!"  Oh My Gosh! I knew exactly what knife this was. Its not a pocket knife, but an open, two sided knife storied in sleeve.The blade is several inches long "Umm...we will come back and drop it off!" said the mother. 

First of all, talk about being embarrassing . I very ungracefully said I was sorry this happened, and that I tell the two boys all the time not to trade\buy stuff from each other, and that I know the fishing knife was in Garrett's tackle box which was way up high in his closet where he can't reach it, so one of the bigger boys must have gotten it down. But luckily these neighbors and I are friends and both down to earth and they were not mad about it. Benny confirmed that he gave Garrett $5 and not $8 and the father brought the knife back. 

Now isn't in interesting that Garrett had the street smarts to try and lie about  what he sold to Benny, because he knew that he should not have given him a knife nor been playing with it at all. Yet he wasn't smart enough to just keep his mouth shut about having $8. It goes to show that when we are kids we think we are so smart and then don't understand how our parents always find things out  (and they say "a little birdie told me") but really we just can't think a thing through all the way.

The knife is a knife that was in his little fishing tackle box. Grandpa put the knife in there for when they went fishing together so they could cut lines and stuff. The day before Garrett had re-discovered his tackle box and brought it upstairs while I was in the bathroom or something and then proceeded to show me the knife. He wanted to pretend to fight with it. umm, no son, we don't do that with a real knife! But silly me put it in the closet, on the top shelf on top of a box. There was no way Garrett was going to get it again, but I wasn't thinking about all the bigger boys that come to our house. What Garrett finally admitted was that he told his friends "want to see a knife?" and told them to get the box down. And supposedly Benny liked it and offered to pay for it (but I never believe any of these boys 100%. It could have easily been Garrett who suggested the trade seeing how much he loves money right now.) 

So that is Garrett, a young arms dealer!! (And sadly this isn't the first time a knife escaped our house. Once I happened to go into Garrett's room and found an empty wooden box that held a gift set of a pocket knife, pliers, a small flash light, and other things like that. I immediately went outside and tracked the 4 boys down at another neighbors house and they each forked over an item. They said they were going to wittle or something like that. The items came from a box set that belonged to Brian and was usually in his computer room but we were moving some furniture around. A book case from that room ended up in Garrett's room and the box was in it, and thus they found it.