His Ninja Training is Complete
And so is his geek initiation. Last night was a pretty typical night in our house. We put the boys in bed by 8:30pm, then my husband G. Grod and I repaired to the basement to watch television, which is about all we feel up to after wrangling the boys (2 and 4) into bed. Earlier this week, SciFi reran a few Doctor Who episodes from Season 1 that introduced Captain Jack Harkness (not yet of Torchwood), as well as references to the phrase that ended last Friday’s US airing of “Turn Left.”
It is not unusual while we’re watching to hear the pitter patter of little feet overhead on our creaky hardwood floors. G. Grod and I take turns to go up and tell 4yo Drake to go back to bed. He’s usually grabbing some toy cars to take upstairs. He calls them his “contestants,” a la PBS’ Fetch with Ruff Ruffman. I’ve learned to search his bed after he’s asleep to remove the cars. More times than I care to count, G. Grod and I have been startled awake in the wee small hours by the sound of a Matchbox car falling out of Drake’s bed onto the hardwood floor.
Last night, though, all was quiet. We watched the two-episodes that ended Season 1 of Dr. Who, and that had some pretty dramatic events. G. and I were discussing them afterwards, when Drake appeared in the hallway of our basement, with a please-don’t-yell-at-me-for-being-awake-because-look-how-cute-I-am! smile on his face. We admonished him for still being awake, when he got a grumpy look on his face, crossed his arms in front and moved them up and down, as if he were in a hip-hop video.
“What,” he enunciated slowly, “was that city flying across the sky?”
G. Grod and I exchanged a look. Drake clarified.
“That building, I mean.”
“How long have you been watching, there?” G. Grod asked with some concern.
A quick interrogation proved he’d watched the entirety of the last, pretty scary episode, and he had many questions.
“What were those things? With bumps?”
“Daleks, Drake.”
“And that thing with one eye, it said it couldn’t die. Hey, I made a rhyme! But, what did it mean?”
“Um, that it thought it would live forever.”
We shooed him up to bed. He fell asleep quickly, I removed the cars from his bed.
I think we’re going to have to get a motion detector in our basement. Dr. Who is one thing, but I’m thinking of renting Apocalypse Now sometime soon. Yikes.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Oh, can I ever relate!!!
Our youngest, Caleb, MUST take at least six cars to bed with him each night (when he’s not in the mood for other things, like a baseball bat for instance). Sometimes he’ll creep into our bed to fall asleep and (after I move him) I have to carefully search to find all the cars before I hop in and land on one.
But my favorite story is the time we were watching some movie or other and suddenly my wife sits up because she hears something. Then I catch it, too — it’s snoring. His little head peeking out around the corner into the kitchen, he’s curled up in a ball and apparently not interested enough to stay awake.
I’m betting Drake and Caleb would get along perfectly!