Time with Arkieboy

If you disregard the reason why Arkieboy and I were together this week, I have to say that this was a very good time. My son is becoming a man. I look at him, and I wonder when did this happen? When did my sweet darling baby start growing up on me? He is almost as tall as me now. I think I may still have 1/2 to 1-inch on him still, but it won't be long before he is taller than me.

About 2-3 months ago, Clint started going to church, and got saved. I'm very happy for him. I've often felt like I was failing as his parent, in that I don't go to church at all anymore, and you could probably count on one hand how many times I took him to church. So I am very glad that he made the decision on his own to attend church. But you know, the newly religious can be quite fervent in their desire to share their new knowledge with you. Clint picked up my bible out of the bookcase, and asked me when was the last time I read it. I honestly answered that I had no idea. My son then proceeded to give me a brief lecture on how I needed to read my bible daily. Based on what I was taught as a Christian, I know he is right, but I'm just not at that place in my life right now. So, I am having to carefully walk the tightrope and not discourage him, because I want him to live a good life, and I do think that having God in your life is important. But I also don't want to be lectured and preached to on a regular basis. We listened to Christian music almost all week.

Clint worked on cleaning out my pantry for me. He was rummaging through it, and asked me if I wanted some hot cocoa. Then he says, ewww! this has an expiration date of (something, something) 2003! So I told him to throw it away. He then started going through a lot of the stuff in there. The oldest item he found (that had a date, anyway) was a bottle of salad dressing that had a best if used by date of 2001. Clint asked if he should throw this stuff away or if I wanted to donate it to a food bank. My view on this is if I won't eat it because I'm concerned it wouldn't be safe, then how could I expect someone else to eat it? Just because a person may need some assistance, doesn't mean they should be expected to take someone's garbage. Clint threw away a tall kitchen-size bag of food. He only worked on one or two of the shelves. I guess I need to finish the job.

I gave Clint a shave while he was up here. He shaves, but doesn't do a very good job of it on his neck. I was telling him he needed to do that, and asked if he wanted me to shave him. His reply was that I don't know how to shave somebody. As I told him, I worked as a nurse's aide in the nursing home for 2 years. So, I did have some experience in shaving men. After the shave, I asked how it felt, and he said it was better than he ever did. I tried to get him to say, "Mom, you're right", but that was just a losing battle. *grin*

I had been putting off going to see the Harry Potter movie, because I was pretty sure that Clint would want to see it. He wanted to see Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Watch, and the Wardrobe instead. However, that movie doesn't open here until the 9th. He decided he wanted to see First Descent, a documentary on snowboarding. I said something about maybe I would go see something else then. He said that was ok, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that he really wanted me to watch the movie with him. I realized that we don't spend enough time with each other, and it was selfish of me to want to go see something else instead of going to the movie with him. I know we wouldn't be able to talk during the movie, but at least we would be spending time with each other. Actually we were able to talk during the movie, because there were only two other people in the theater. Clint and I were at the very top row, and the other two people were down at the bottom of the theater, so we would whisper back and forth about some of the interesting things. The movie wasn't that bad. I wouldn't actually recommend it to anyone, unless they were really into snowboarding and the top names of snowboarding, but it was still cool.

I would dearly love to know what Clint said during his visit with the doctor Friday. After she finished with him, she had me come back for a minute. She made a comment about how Clint's father has not been a very good influence on him, and that Clint has been exposed to things he shouldn't have been. Clint never says a lot about what he and his dad do when they're together, and I try not to push it. He will sometimes just let things out if I just listen, and don't actually question him. I have known that his dad is not a good influence based on some of the advice he has given Clint over the years, but I didn't know he was such a dumbass that I needed to worry about him exposing Clint to whatever he has exposed him to (I'm guessing girly magazines, and probably some porn. Definitely has told him things that he shouldn't.) Some of the fine advice he has given Clint in the past has included: when Clint was having trouble with a kid picking on him in the 3rd grade by knocking his books out of his hands, etc, his dad told him to ask him to stop once, and then if he does it again, "just take him out". I had to have a meeting with the after-school care program director because of that one. Then, when Clint got into this trouble, his dad told him to tell the judge the only reason he admitted to the detectives that he did it, was because he was scared and confused and just told them what he thought they wanted to hear so he could go home. Thankfully, Clint passed that little tidbit on to me and my mom, so I could squash that before Clint appeared before the judge.