At least she didn’t want a Mitsubishi
- by Pixel
I have a five year old cousin. We call him “Lexus” on the count that his mother kept talking about how she was going to buy a Lexus before she got pregnant then never again afterwards.
Lexus doesn’t have any cousins his age. His best friend is 3 and he can’t keep up. But then, I challenge anyone alive to keep up with this kid’s energy.
Lexus is a maniac. He’s not good at sitting and listening, reading, counting, or anything that doesn’t involve fun. And what’s worse, since he has no obligations, he has nothing to do but have fun… or at least try to.
Yesterday he was over and he kept pressuring me to play Star Wars Monopoly with him. (He doesn’t know how to play Monopoly and, to be honest, he wasn’t too keen on learning. He just wanted to play and this board had space ships.)
I’m a busy guy. There are eight e-mails I have to catch up with, four articles I have to write, dozens of introductions and blurbs to write, a viewspaper to restart, an address book to compile, a blog I must keep updating, friend(s) that keep seeking me out, a journal I have to write my memory in, and a half-dozen other– equally important– things to take care of.
But I made time to play with him. At least I tried. Part of what makes me so busy is my inability to finish projects before I start new ones. So I kept getting interrupted while we played and Lexus kept getting bored and running around, throwing things.
Enter my brother.
My brother is old now, but few people would accuse him of being mature. In fact, I can clearly remember my brother acting exactly the way Lexus acts now… when my brother was twelve.
Lexus throws dice and hits some pieces, knocking them off the board. My brother yells at him. To me this seems to be the utmost of hipocrisy, but it’s not.
My brother is a grown up now. He’s allowed. Sort of.
That’s what I say about adulthood creeping. I can tell Lexus all day about how my brother was exactly like him and how my brother also played around, but Lexus will always see my brother as a grown up who is old, responsible, and mature in the same way I always see my parents as that despite what my uncles say.
If it’s hard for a child to imagine something that seems so obvious to me, it must be torture for a grown up to not be believed in something that is so integral to their present existence.
So now everyone who was a brat when I was a brat is allowed to yell at my little cousin and I’m the only one who swallows his pride and tries to teach/play with the kid. And even I fail at that.
Poor Lexus. Twenty parents and not one sibling.
Related posts:
- Maturity Creeps I remember when I turned 14… I was a sophomore in high school, I had just finished starring in my Drama club play. I was about to write my first viewspaper and have my first...
- An Audience of One I write what I like to read. This is bad for my readers but good for me. To be fair, I mostly write menial things: “can I borrow some superglue, a horse and your stamp...
- 100 I hate cheese. I don’t know why, but the texture and smell has always grossed me out. One exception: pizza. And no, I don’t know why it’s okay with bread and tomato sauce, it just...
Powered by YARPP.
I have a five year old cousin. We call him “Lexus” on the count that his mother kept talking about how she was going to buy a Lexus before she got pregnant then never again afterwards. Lexus doesn’t have any cousins his age. His best friend is 3 and he can’t keep up. But then,…
Candyland. You can stand it if I could.
“Lexus will always see my brother as a grown up who is old, responsible, and mature in the same way I always see my parents as that despite what my uncles say.”
When you get old enough yourself, and if you take the time to cultivate enough of a frame of reference for the time period in which they grew up, you still might not be able to see it, but you might be able to daydream it.
I can kinda identify with Lexus. I have a large number of close family friends, all of whom parented us impartially. I had, and still do, maybe 7 mothers, and 4 fathers, not counting my real parents. I was lucky enough to have a twin, though. I wish Lexus luck, and Pix for working with him!