Boy Meets Girl

Tonight's special time with Mateos was a walk around the condo complex. Almost always, these walks include some interesting conversations about life but also a large set of stock questions along the lines of "what's your favorite *wild* animal?", "if a shark and a rhino fought, which would win?", "would you rather be a ninja or the guy in assasin's creed?", etc.

These are the same questions he asks when he is pooping and can't think of anything else to say but really wants some company. In fairness, he does enjoy some good back and forth on these but after the 100th time, it does leave you a little wanting for just a tad more. But I digress.

Tonight, though, was different. First, when I originally brokered the idea of a walk Mateos was running around in his boxers having somewhat recently come out of the bath. He immediately thought a walk would be great and said he was ready to go. When I pointed out that I expected him to have on a little more than just boxers, he looked down at himself and seemed semi-startled to see that he indeed was just wearing underwear and dashed off to his room to get dressed. I heard him bumping around in the closet and after a minute or so he emerged -- and he looked good! He had picked out a pair of jeans, his airwalk skater-boy sneaks, a shirt with skulls on it and his 'DC' skater hat. Now, I am already so uncool that I don't really know the 'DC' brand but apparently it makes him cool (at least in his own mind.)

Anyhow, we set off for the walk and I questioned him on how his first day at Invention Camp was. He told me a bit about the day's activities, some silly stuff he and Rafa did together there with another boy whose name I hope he was mispronouncing (it sounded like 'Seefuld') and some neat conversations they had about Mars and how difficult it is to land a spaceshuttle on the moon, etc. I then asked about his teacher and what she was like.

And he answered, only slightly bashfully, "well, I felt kind of in love." Really now? Well, this was a bit of the dam breaking apparently because not only had Mateos found his new teacher quite appealing, I also learned he had taken a shine to a girl named Christine in a different class during the school year and had asked her to be his 'girlfriend' over the protestations of his good friend and red-headed pal Shane who had declared over and over that it was a "b-a-d" idea.

The Christine story concluded with Mateos carrying her jacket for her (apparently, girls are shrewd and a tad manipulative already by first grade ;) but the whole thing was a little overwhelming and he 'backed out of it' by later that day.

You never know what you are going to get on these walks, but this was a particularly fun one. Oh, that and the fact that he asked me what "holy shit" was because we overheard that at the skate park the other day. I dodged that one today, but I am pretty sure it will resurface again in the days to come...