Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Thin, White, Duke

The other night as we were sitting around the dinner table (a very rare occurrence), I asked Huey how his crazy hair worked out. It was crazy hair day at the Jr. High, and he had tried sleeping with a hat on to give himself crazy hair, but it didn't work out so well. He was born with perfect hair: parted down the side with lovely waves, and the most gorgeous golden blonde. He rarely has bed head, and when he does, it usually calms down after an hour. I have the same issue. My hair pretty much stays the way I put it too. We can't relate to Harry Potter in this way at all.

The conversation led to DH asking what the next day's theme was, and Huey couldn't remember. We looked it up and it was Music. The kids were supposed to wear a music tshirt. Huey doesn't have any band tshirts, so he had to turn to his parents. DH has a number of Chicago and Steve Martin tshirts, but they would be huge on Huey, not that he would have minded the size, he was just not interested. I mentioned that I have a number of old concert tshirts, maybe one of them would work out?

There was a little discussion about these shirts as far as how did no one know that these existed, and a wager regarding whether or not I could find them. I went straight down to my craft room, moved a couple of boxes, and came upstairs - triumphant. Huey decided to wear my Cult shirt from when I saw them open up for Metallica in 1989.

Two things came out of this:

  1. I got up from the table and said, "I have a ton of old concert shirts downstairs, I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in the Duran Duran ones, but maybe something from INXS, or David Bowie?" Huey said, "Who's David Bowie?" What? How could this happen? How could my child not know who David Bowie is? Where did I go wrong? The Let's Dance album was the first album I ever owned!! I instructed DH to educate him immediately while I ran downstairs to obtain the box of shirts. There were many YouTube videos, I couldn't find my Sound and Vision shirt, and my The Glass Spider Tour was too small, so he went with The Cult.
  2. Huey had one of those moments where he got to get a view of his mother from before she was a mom. I'm pretty open and share lots of stories with my boys, but without evidence, I'm sure they are not very tangible. Plus, now that he's older, he gets it a little more. Watching him look at my shirts in wonder, and seeing his dad's reaction, and observing him soaking everything in was cool. I could see the gears ticking in his head and realizing that I had a life before I was a mom. That I was an actual person, not just someone who made him sandwiches and took every available opportunity to embarrass him. He may have been a little jealous that I had seen so many concerts. I've offered to take him to see concerts, but he's always passed, or his grades have not been up to par.
This reminded me of the time that I realized my mother was cool when she was a teenager. I was in Grade Ten and had just learned the jive in P.E. and was teaching it to my sister in the kitchen. My mum saw us and taught us a couple of moves, and then proceeded to tell us about how she and her brother used to win swing contests all the time when she was a kid. I was in awe, I couldn't believe that she had a life before us! The thing that drove this home for me was when we were at my cousin's wedding and I saw my mum and uncle dancing together like the old days. They were really good. I'd seen my mum dancing before, but never like that.

I just love that I got to blow my kid's mind. He's pretty cocky and thinks he knows everything, so it's very excellent when I show him that I can still show him a thing or two.

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