Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A Nice Young Man!

When I walked into day care yesterday afternoon, I saw that Andy was dancing with one of the other toddlers. Music played from a stereo, and Andy held the little girl's hands as they gently swayed back and forth. He saw me enter the room and threw me a smile that seemed to say, "Hi, Mom! Be right with you!" Andy swayed and danced, and when the song ended, he gave the girl a hug and a little kiss on the cheek.

The whole exchange was very respectful and sweet, and I had an image of Prom Night, 2028, in which Andy takes the girl next door (or the girl next door type, at least) to Space High's Prom (theme: A Night To Keep Your Hands To Yourself) and has the kind of evening that begins with a firm, polite shake of the girl's father's hand and ends with a chaste, closed mouth kiss as he drops her off at home thirty minutes before curfew.

It is important to me to raise Andy as a Nice Young Man. Specifically, he should be considerate of others, only date Nice Young Girls (or perhaps other Nice Young Men if that's what he wants), and engage exclusively in appropriate behavior. For future Andy, here is a list of your mother's wishes and expectations.

* Be kind, rewind. This is assuming that VHS tapes make a comeback at some point (here's hoping!).

* Don't ever drive drunk. Seriously. Also, don't offer to drive other drunk people, because the drunker they are, the worse their directions will be, and it'll be hours before you're able to get home. Unless you already know where they live, in which case, I guess you might as well.

* Be VERY respectful of women. Even if the women in question are total bitches.

* Do not experiment with drugs unless you've become a pharmacist and said experiments take place in a laboratory. Also, sidenote, I'm okay with drug testing on animals as long as the animals are older and on the ugly side.

* Study, get good grades, and finish college. If you're not interested in going to college, then my next recommendation would be to take the year long program at the junior college to become an X-ray Tech. I kick myself about once a year over not doing that. You should check out the starting salaries. And, BONUS, you get to play with X-rays! Just don't radiate yourself too much by accident unless you're sure that the radiation will cause you to become a superhero. I'm looking for odds above the five to one range.

* Make it a point to spend time with your family. Even if you've decided by then that we're a bunch of jack-asses.

* Wear a belt on your pants at all times. Remember, Andy, crack kills.

* Practice niceness. Open doors for people, help old ladies cross the street, and lay your jacket across puddles for ladies. Actually, I take all those things back. Opening doors for others just means it will take you longer to get where you're going. Helping old ladies cross the street invites a whole world of litigation into your life should something go terribly wrong in the crosswalk (think speeding SUV and old lady stooping to fix her droopy nylons). And the jacket in the puddle thing is just dumb. The ladies' shoes will still get wet. Your jacket will get ruined. And if your employer sees you doing that, he may assume you're high and immediately order a round of drug testing. But, other than these three things, try to be nice to others.

What a nice young man.
* Don't be a bully. Even though you're more attractive, smarter, and clearly more superior than those around you, never ever be a jerk to others. Get all the hitting and biting out of your system in your toddler years, Andy. I don't want to get a phone call from the principal in thirteen years regarding an incident that requires needing to pull your dental records in order to positively identify the bite marks in someone else's arm. I'm assuming I have better things to do than make an uncomfortable call to the dentist.

* Take a multi-vitamin. Just be careful with the B vitamins, because they'll turn your pee green and you'll be up all night with the jitters. Also, anything that's 1,000 times your daily recommended dosage is way too much. Take it from me.

I have faith that you'll grow up into the Nice Young Man that I want you to be. Or, at least, a suitable approximation. I know you will not be perfect, you will make mistakes, and you will do plenty of things that I don't approve of. All I ask is that you follow the path you're on right now as best as you can. Dance nicely with girls. Give sweet, innocent kisses on the cheek to show your affection and that you want to be friends. And then push them over when they toddle over to your mom and reach her before you do.

It wasn't a HARD push. It was a nice push, a tender push. Seriously, Andy, I'm mostly okay with the push.

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