Said and Heard

It’s a Wednesday afternoon -- the older kids all in school -- when Anders comes waddling up to me, tears streaming down his cheeks, and sobs bellowing out of his mouth.

He is followed closely by Jesse who is nervously patting him on the head in an apologetic sort of way.

“What happened to Anders?” I question.

“I poked him with this,” Jesse says, holding out a miniature metal jet. He then adds some clarification with, “on purpose.”

On purpose.

“Why would you poke Anders with a jet?” I prod.

“Because I thought it would be fun,” Jesse explains; then quickly adds, “but it wasn’t.”

Yes, well, it certainly wasn’t for Anders anyway.

That boy.

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On Saturday we head off to Bear Lake. For reasons I won’t get into (reasons involving four-wheelers and trailers and pickings up and droppings off) Mike and I each drive a separate vehicle to the half-way point (“Grandpa’s farm”).

Abe drives in the truck with me. It’s rare to have time alone with any of my kids, so I try to make the most of this rare bit of personal time with just my oldest by discussing some things of importance. At one point I express to him how terrified I am of drugs and drug addictions.

“You know what I’m terrified of?” Abe interrupts. “Intelligent robots.”

I laugh about this abrupt departure and say, “Would you be more afraid of an attack by aliens or an attack by intelligent robots?

“That depends . . .” Abe begins, but I am already off on a different idea:

“Oh! Wait! Would you be more afraid of zombies or intelligent robots?”

“Zombies don’t exist,” Abe opines.

“Well, neither do intelligent robots,” I shoot back.

“Yeah they do mom; or, if they don’t, they will soon. . . . (pause) . . . The trouble with intelligent robots is they have no heart. They’re merciless. It’s like, ‘Rolly! No! I created you!’ . . .” (Here Abe makes a series of sounds that I can only assume are the sounds of a rogue robot shooting lasers at its one-time master.)

“Did you just say ‘Rolly’?” I ask.

“Yes,” Abe admits.

Well, thank goodness for one-on-one mother and son time. (I’m not convinced about the robot threat though. I just can’t picture anything -- or anyone -- by the name of Rolly posing any real threat to humanity.)

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One more bit of cleverness from Abe:

We are talking a bit about movie versions of books and how, occasionally, the film characters are much different from the ones we’d imagined up while reading the book.

“Yah,” says Abe. “It’s like at our dentist’s office. They have some video game of Harry Potter in the waiting room and Ron is just all big and buff. It’s not how I really picture him.”

“Buff?” Jesse questions.

“Buff means like . . . really muscley,” I explain.

“Unless it’s ‘in the buff’,” Abe smiles.

“Yes,” I agree. “That would mean something different."

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