the glory that is wingman.

isn't that the cutest little snake you've ever seen? wingman took this picture the last time we were at the zoo.

anyway, living with wingman, as you might imagine, is quite an adventure. not only is he fully wingman on his own, he has the tendency to memorize things and pull them out at the best possbile moment. with material from others he's even more.....wingmanish.

he's got comedic timing, for sure. but i can also tell when he's od'ing on certain things.

like, for instance, when we were doing history the other day we were learning about the islamic calendar. did you know that their calendar starts in the year that muhammad made his journey from mecca to medina? the hegira, it's called. thus, their calendar is whatever the year is A.H., or After Hegira.

so we are learning this and i say by way of example,

"you know a.h.? like we have b.c. do you remember what b.c. stands for?"

"before comedy!"

too much spongebob i'm guessing.

or just this morning i remarked to the lord of the ring that circuit city is going bankrupt.

to which he replied absentmindedly

"not enough people are spending enough money"

to which wingman replied in a terribly snarky tone

"that's un-AMERICAN!"

too much rachael maddow and keith olberman i'm guessing.

or my favorite from the other night. i was tucking him into bed when he said

"i wish i was a regular kid"

and immmmmmmeeeeeeedddddiately, like any good mother, i started listing off in my head all the horrible wrongs i had foisted on him to cause him to say this. things that i thought would better his person, but really lessened his chance at normalcy, or being a "regular kid."

i looked at the prayer flags that ran the length of his ceiling, the ABC poster that shows, among other items, the word lesbian for the letter L, the stuffed animals tucked in around his shared with his brother room, the fact that i don't force him to cut his hair, that his favorite jammy shirt has a baby in utero inside the sun on it.

that papa and i are always around, that i make him chew omega3 capsules, that we don't shop at wal-mart on principle and he's DYING TO, that he's home schooled, that i nursed him until he was 3, that he didn't talk until 3 1/2, that he co-slept FOREVER and took to tagging the furniture the minute he could write his name.

what did i do!!!!?????!!!!! that made him wish he was a regular kid!!!!!????!!!

"um, what do you mean? what's a 'regular' kid?"

"you know, not brainy. i wish i wasn't so brainy"

um. okay. whaaaat?

"brainy? what do you mean by brainy?"

"duh! like i wish i wasn't so SMART. you know, brainy. i'm brainy"

and then a big old world weary sigh.

oh. indeed.

too much encyclopedia brown i'm guessing (he likes the word "brainy")

and there you have it. really, i must mine this while i can. because i have recently decided that by the age of 12 i will stop writing so much about, and in so much detail about each of my boys. at some point they have to have a reprive from me and my blog and i suppose adolescence is as good a time as any to give them that.

it's funny how at some point your children stop being "your children" and start being actual human beings with ideas and thoughts and desires of their own.

not to mention they stop being "yours" and become "themselves" and gain certain rights to privacy. which sucks because adolescence is probably going to be pretty interesting and i won't get to share it with you or make snarky comments about their behavior!!! what WILL we talk about!!!???

and AND we've only got like 6 more months of the duke so i'm sure hoping wingman can pick up the slack when the time comes!

x.