Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The Day of the Parade

It has flurried a bit here, nothing has accumulated. Since we rarely get snow in middle Tennessee this early in the season, it is an anomaly of sorts. The boys were beside themselves with joy at seeing the flakes descend. Which is nice, I’d worried that since their experience with snow two feet deep in PA back in February that the paltry bit that passes for snow in our area would only serve to disappoint them from there on out.


I don’t like cold, not one single bit of it. If I could live in an area that never dropped below 67, I’d be a happy camper. But when snow was falling on the day of our local Christmas parade, I for one became kind of excited. Being in a Christmas parade with snow falling down seemed like it would be a cool experience. WC was to be in the Christmas parade and ride on the float with his scout pack. Then, he asked what it was that he would do in the parade. I explained that he would get to ride on the float with the other boys going down the street in the parade. “Will CJ get to ride too,” he asked.

I had not a clue if non scouts would get to be on the float and I didn’t want to tell him yes and then get there and it’s not true. So I told him that I didn’t think so, but that I wasn’t sure. That’s when he said that he didn’t want to do it. I tried everything in my bag of tricks with this kid. Usually I can garner cooperation by telling him that all he has to do is go try it once, then if he doesn’t like then he never has to do it again. Nope. Nada. Nothing. He wouldn’t even agree to go watch from the sidewalk.

“I don’t want people looking at me,” he argued.

“It’s not like you’ll be by yourself,” I replied. “You’ll be up there with a bunch of other boys from your pack. And you play with the boys from your den.”

“I play with them, but I don’t really know who they are,” he responded. And that pretty much ended the conversation.

What seven year old talks like that?

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