You’re ten now, double digits. You joke that you’ll be 18 in 8 years. If you’ve read through these things you’ll notice that there’s a theme of how quickly time passes. Mentioning that it’s a theme could well be a theme at this point. I look back at photos of the Henry of Preschool and Kindergarten and recognize that Henry is gone. With pimples on your cheeks and the stink of onions frequently about you, the Henry that I spent my years working at home with isn’t long for this world either.
You celebrated your birthday with your friend Olivia. Something different this year from the big party approach. Mom took you to the Pottery Place, your sister and I met you guys at Jupiter's, then Mom took you for Boba. I would have liked to have spent the whole day with you, and I planned the events, but it was also important to keep your little sister off your back.
Olivia got you a Valentines Axolotl and some other odds and ends. There was a blind box with a Minecraft Spider, Matchbox Monster trucks. These passages might seem blatantly materialistic, but we’d just had a chance encounter with Monster Trucks the night before at the Texas Roadhouse. Olivia talked about the launcher she had for these kinds of toys at home, and we learned that Monster Trucks were among her interests. You played with them together at the table at Jupiter’s while you watched Young Sheldon and we waited for our Pizza. She’s been going through some things.
You’ve been watching a lot of Young Sheldon lately, your first real sitcom. The show starts in 1989 and spans into the early 90s. Sheldon himself was born the year before me, about two before your mother. Broadly it reflects the world of our childhoods. Though, as you get older, you’ll come to understand that Texas is not Illinois. Religion has played little role in your life.
Back at Christmas you worried that you didn’t ask for enough things. I didn’t get much of my parents' time growing up. That’s probably another thing I talk about a lot. I did get a lot of stuff. Stuff became a surrogate for love as much as it was a real love language. Stuff has been part of how I express love to you and maybe how you’ve come to expect it. I talk about stuff a lot. I mark time with stuff. It seems like maybe your brain is pivoting towards something better though. Last year you bought yourself a blanket, something with practical value, you’ve gotten a lot of use out of it since. This year Brandi got you a sleep cap for Christmas. You got yourself a robe not long after. Some of your favorite things have been a slurry of cozy pajamas you’ve been accumulating since before Thanksgiving. I don’t let you wear them as often as you like. I tell you things like “you need to start acting like a 4th grader”.
I’m sorry. I have this responsibility to try teach you how to be yourself and be bold in this world, but I also know how painful this world can be, too often I error on the side of shaping you into someone who won’t face the taunts and barbs others will have to offer rather than forge you into someone strong enough to weather them. There are times to conform and times to be yourself and I’m still not sure I know which is which. You’re pretty good at sticking to your guns though, yet I worry there are some mistakes I can only make so many times before the consequences are permanent.
You asked to play pretend one night not too long ago too. When you were smaller we pretended so much, then on through COVID when you didn’t get the opportunities to engage in the same kinds of imaginative play with other kids that I did. You got a version of it through Fortnight role play and VR. I’m happy to pick you up from kids plus these days and see you engaging in some of those kinds of games in the gym. There’s one that involves camps and a raptor monster ghost? But you asked to pretend, Scott Pilgrim I think, and I said no. I feel guilty about it. I was tired. You wanted me to be a specific character while you would be an overpowered fanfiction creation. You’d have no idea what would actually happen, relying instead of my imagination to drive things. I couldn’t do it but I still feel guilty. There will only be so many more opportunities like that, and I wasted one.
We did an only child’s back in January. I don’t know how often we’ll be able to repeat it. We celebrated an only child day for you back in January. Grandma and Grandpa watched Rose. We went to Jupiter's and then let you spend your money on cheap but large Valentine’s day plushies. You got to fall asleep in bed with us without your sister there.
During the Pandemic we played a lot of Castle Crashers. You really loved it. The game guest starred the Alien Hominid from a run and gun the studio had previously released. It’s 2024 now, but even back in 2020 we saw that that same studio was working on a sequel to that run and gun. We’ve waited for it ever since and have finally been able to play it together. For my birthday I got a neo retro old school shmup that we’ve played some together too, and together we beat the Scott Pilgrim game, a neo retro beat em up. We watched the movie together and later the Netflix show. The Netflix show was the impetus for our earliest conversations about “sex”. Wallace Wells has a habit of stealing girl’s boyfriends, and Tod the Vegan fell for him hard. These are little things that have brought us together, I hope some of them stick with you as lasting bonds and memories.
You and I read Ninja Turtles together. With your mom you read the Warriors cat books. When we do Math together things can get heated. I could be more patient. I definitely shouldn’t swear. But I hope one day you’ll understand that I wouldn't spend an hour fighting through the material with you if I didn’t love you.
You’ve taken an interest in chess. You’ve beaten me at least once, though I’m far from a chess person, skewing more towards checkers. I think the cliché is strategy vs tactics. I can’t see too many moves ahead, in that way I am not fluid, but I can establish criteria about things that I will and won’t do and operate within those parameters.
A few months ago we went and saw a youth theater performance of Willy Wonka at the Virginia. I think with your penchant for pretending, I was hoping that maybe it’d be something you’d want to get into, another social avenue too, though kids plus seems to have given you a chance to recover some of that play time with peers you lost over the years. You enjoyed the performance. We’ll hopefully do Into the Woods at the end of this month.
For a long time we’ve enjoyed five dollar movies at the theater. Spiderverse Pt 2, Rise of the Beasts, TMNT Mutant Mayhem, Blue Beetle, The Marvels, Migration and most recently The Boy and the Heron. It’s generally something special that we do together, getting dinner and enjoying the film. Depending on how late things go sometimes things get rushed, but it’s often included a trip to Dairy Queen or a meal at Sonic.
We’ve been running together for very nearly a year now. I doughed up at about the same age you did. At the time my folks thought it was because I had had a cyst removed from my throat and suddenly I could eat more. It may have just been a shift in my metabolism. With you, I’ve blamed it on your sister and the pandemic. She was born and we were juggling things, we, more than ever, stuck you in front of a screen so that we could get other things done. The loss of school and interaction made you less active, you ballooned up, and we, never very active people ourselves, and certainly plenty fat in our own right, just let you. It was the easiest thing, shamefully easy. It got harder for you to keep up with your peers. I talked about doing it forever, and then about a year ago we finally did it. At first I think we ran every day. At first you alternated with me, running and walking. We slowly increased the lap numbers. As time went on you would try to weasel out of doing it. I would give you a hard time, insulting you a bit. Out of spite one day you showed me that you could run a half mile straight. Not long after that you were running the full mile. We were doing pretty good there for a while, me never being able to catch up with your endurance. Then I went back to work and we’ve fallen into a routine of running fewer days a week, and then running less when we do. We’re working our way back up though, at least when we get down there. You’re running nine laps again. We’re working a bit on form. Back in November when you did the half mile for school you came in 10th place, beating a lot of kids who are built way different from us. You were so proud of yourself and you have every right to be.
This has been a year of trade offs. Almost exactly a year ago I ate lunch with you at school, part of NAVIDL. Some day you’ll realize my inclusion in that was a bit odd. I’ve got a picture of us together. When mom asked you that day what your favorite part was, you said lunch. Just a couple days ago when I picked you up from kids plus you told me that I missed lunch. I’m so sorry that we can’t do those things any more. I’m so sorry that I didn’t do more of them when I could. It can be so hard to know what the most important thing to do at the moment is. I left my job so you could have a teacher. I made more money at the same time. You went back to school and I worked and worked and worked chasing that dollar, not giving you all of the time I should have. Then the world changed and now I teach again. But they are trade-offs. And I don’t think I’m just fooling myself into seeing silver linings. Kids Plus is giving you a chance to play with other kids and not just sit around the house with your dad. Last summer I finally taught you how to ride a bike, and this year you got to ride your bike to school with grandpa. I do miss you buddy, but I can hope you see the time I’ve still tried to carve out for you. Before the pandemic I was Mr. Hayworth, Joseph Quick and your dad. Then I was just your dad and Joseph Quick. Now I’m Mr. Hayworth and your dad.
You're working on adding and subtracting fractions in school buddy. Ever since the pandemic you've been at least half of who I am.
