zen.org Communal Weblog

“Dad, I want to do lots of work.” Patrick announced. “So I can learn some money. So I can buy things.”

“What would you buy?” I asked.

“I need a remote control helicopter,” Patrick replied.

“So you can make it fly up into the sky?”

“No, it might fly up in the house, and then into the lantern—that lantern,” he said. pointing at the light in our livingroom.

“So how much money do you think you’d earn doing this work?” I asked. “Like lots of money or a little money?”

Change of context: he now looks at our wedding picture and says he sees his cousin; the image is much younger than the 12 year-old boy he met this Spring.

“Where was me?”

“You weren’t there yet,” Elana told him.

“I was in your tummy?”

“You weren’t there yet.”

He stared intently at the framed photograph. “I was scared being in there.”

“You remember being scared?”

“I was screaming,” he said matter-of-factly.

“You were screaming in there?”

“Yes. I liked it outside cuz I’d never been outside.”

“So you liked going new places?”

Patrick proclaimed with finality, “Uh huh.” Next topic.

Random conversations are so much fun.