The good news: For the last couple of weeks, Bonzo, two weeks short of his 14th birthday, has suddenly started showering every day. My eyes misted sentimentally. “My little boy, all grown up,” I thought. “Some shy young maiden has taken his fancy, and for her, for the Eternal Female Principle embodied in an adolescent 8th grader somewhere, for this child-woman in capri pants and a Gap t-shirt he has foresworn the filth-encrusted sweat sock, the blue jeans that can stand up by themselves, the hair that has its own built-in mousse.”
The good news: He is reading. Books. Actual books, not comic books or wrestling magazines or Pokemon hint magazines. He’s read two books this week. He read his way through the first book of a series, asked (DEMANDED) that I go to the library yesterday and get him Book Two. I went to the used bookstore with wings on my feet, determined to PURCHASE this marvelous tome for my son. “My little boy, at last, becoming a true member of the Goose clan, we of the notable nose-in-a-book-even-when-brushing-our-teeth habits. No longer must I wonder whether I brought the right baby home from the hospital.” The book presented itself, I hurried home with it, as soon as he came home from school, he latched onto it, and had it finished this morning before school. Now he is demanding Books Three and Four. O happiness!
The bad news: I found out yesterday that the reason he’s been showering every day is because he’s short of money for Pokemon cards, and the Better Half, who finds this sort of thing amusing, offered to pay him $20 if he would take 20 showers in 30 days.
The even worse news: The book series that has taken his fancy, that has brought him into the light of literacy, is Harry Potter.
Somebody shoot me.
[sub]going upstairs to look at baby pictures again*