Seth is a huge Nitro Circus fan. He would really like a dirt bike to practice his own stunts, but he is only allowed to get a dirt bike if he earns the money himself. When he found out they cost around $1,000, he got very excited. He was given some ideas to earn money. For example, sell eggs from our chickens or sell golf balls to golfers passing by. When he found out that he was only going to make a few dollars from each dozen eggs and less than that for a dozen golf balls, he was not happy anymore. Apparently he thought fresh eggs and used golf balls sold for a lot more than they do.
We were camping over Memorial Day weekend when he came up to me on Sunday morning and said, “Dad, isn’t it cool that I now have $60 more toward getting a dirt bike?” I was confused. “What? Where did you find it?” I asked. He replied by saying, “I was just down the dirt road and I saw $60 all folded up in the weeds.” When he was telling me what he had found, I could tell he was hesitant and wondering if telling me was a bad idea that would backfire on him. What Seth didn’t realize was that the day before, I had given his older sister, Kylee, $60 to drive into town for gas. Kylee had folded up the money and put it into her pocket, or so she thought. Just before she drove off, she checked her pocket for the money and found it was gone. We spent and an hour and a half searching for the money. She felt awful and we just decided it was long gone. When Seth told us about the money, I was relieved; Kylee was really relieved. Seth did not want to give the money back and tried to plead his case to us. He said that he found it so it should be his, and it probably was not the money we lost, even though it was still folded exactly the same. In the end he was coerced into doing the right thing and gave the money back to me. He is still earning his bike money one dollar at a time. A couple of weeks ago, on my wife’s birthday, we decided to spend some time at a local furniture and electronics store looking around for home decorating ideas. Seth was happy to be our sidekick for the night. This is one of Seth’s favorite settings — he had the two of us all to himself at a place where he could ask us to buy him almost everything he saw.
This is a fairly new furniture store that is very large. We started in the family/living room area and as we were making our way through, Seth talked and talked. He sat on almost every couch and then told us we should buy it. His happiness at being there with us was amusing. After walking through all the furniture areas we ended up at the electronics. Seth spent time checking out the iPads, laptops, headphones and GoPros. He had to touch everything. He also wanted to know the sizes and differences in all of the large screen TVs. Seth and his mom also made a brief (15-minute) stop at the $5,000 massage chairs, one of which he begged us to buy because it was capable of making him feel as if he were in zero gravity. On our way out we walked through the country or cabin section of the store. They had a rock fountain with stuffed black bears climbing around it. Seth loved it. He kept saying over and over, “Don’t you wish our house looked like this?” To Seth’s disappointment, we left without buying anything, but we had a great time. Taking a child to a store like that is not always pleasant. As my wife says, taking Seth to certain stores can leave you sweating and wishing for a child tranquilizer (it was much worse when he was younger). However, we had an enjoyable evening and loved being there with him. We realized that if we could see things as he does, even something as mundane as a furniture store, life would be a lot more exciting. When Seth was in the third grade, he brought home a school assignment to write about who his hero was. I was helping him with the homework and the first question was, “Who do you admire most?”
I asked him who his choice was, and naturally, I assumed that person would be me. He replied, “No dad, it isn’t you.” I then asked him if it was one of his grandparents, and he said no. I finally asked him, “Well, who do you admire most?” He answered, “Charles Anderson.” Immediately, I thought, Who in the world is Charles Anderson? When I asked Seth who he was and why he chose him, he said, “He is the founder of TNT fireworks.” (Obviously.) I laughed, but was a little disappointed. I think most dads would like to be their son’s hero. However, I was also proud that Seth’s imagination prompted him to find his own dreams. |