Let Me Tell You About My Pad ...

JP doesn't like me. Either that, or I'm just not cool enough for him to waste his breath on when it's not absolutely necessary. The latter is something I expected, but not for another seven years or so.

I picked him up from piano today and, as we walked the halls of Downtown Elementary, I asked him about his day, about homework and about piano. His answers were succinct: Good. No. Fine.

Then we went to the computer room to pick C up from computer club and suddenly JP was animated and forthcoming and laughing. Is C cooler than me? I don't think so. I was picking him up from computer club!

This happens all the time. I can't get JP to open up, but when he's around his siblings or friends, he's the life of the party. Can't shut him up, and I've tried.

So what do I do? I eavesdrop. On the drive home he and C were talking about these comic book-journal-sketch pad things they'd recently gotten at a book fair. In it, you could design your dream home and they talked openly to each other about their plans. JP's plan for the master bedroom in his house involves a flat screen television, hot tub and bed that folds up into a couch.

I'm not sure I designed my own dream bedroom at seven-years-old, but I'm pretty sure that if I had, it wouldn't have looked like that. A TV I could see, but I'm not so sure size was an issue. I don't know that I'd dream of a hot tub. A pool, maybe. And a sofa bed? What's the point of that?

Maybe JP doesn't talk to me about these things because I ridicule him. If not to his face, then to the internet. Could he be reading Urf! at school? Did he even wish for a computer in his dream master bedroom? He probably won't answer if I ask him. He doesn't talk to me. But, he chats up his peers, so I would suggest, with his large screen television and hot tub, that you parents out there hide your daughters ... sometime in 2019.