Learning to Change Your Mind

Originally posted 2/25/09


This evening after I picked Ian up from daycare we went to my brother’s house so he could play with his cousin. His cousin is three days younger than him. We call them Gutterball and Chuckles, they’ll bite your cheek off if you look at ‘em wrong.
Actually they’re the nicest and coolest boys in the state.

We stayed a little late, and Ian was tired and hungry when we left. Tired and hungry is usually a recipe for disaster, but my son is ferociously considerate and well behaved, a little mischievous at times, but always extremely well intentioned. On the way home I told him that he was going to eat and then go to bed. When he finished eating, he told me he was ready for bed, but I told him he could stay up and watch some television if he wanted to.

“We’re you just joking about me having to go to bed, daddy?”
“No, I just changed my mind.”
“So I can stay up?”
“Yeah, sometimes people just change their minds, it doesn't mean they were joking. They just change their mind.”

We turned on the television and the President’s address to Congress was just starting. I got excited and told Ian,
“WE GET TO WATCH PRESIDENT OBAMA!”
I tried to make it sound like the most exciting thing he could possibly imagine.
We sat on the couch and started watching.
It made sense in my head, I wanted to teach him to revere the office of the president, I remember watching the president and feeling some sort of awe when I was around his age, but the chances of me actually sitting all the way through one of his speeches was about nil to nada.

Ian made it an alarming five minutes.
Of course it was about thirty seconds before he became restless – he would delicately pull individual hairs on my arm and try to whisper to me, but I shushed him and continued watching the president. About five minutes into it, he looked at me with big wet eyes, and said.
“Daddy, I want to go to bed.”
“You would rather go to bed instead of watch TV with me?”
“Yes.”
At that point I realized that Ian will be concerned about politics and current events soon enough, he’s four and shouldn’t care about the president or anything remotely serious for as long as possible.
“How ‘bout you go play in your room.”
“Okay.”
It was about five minutes later when he came back downstairs in his batman pajamas.
“ I thought you we’re going to play in your room.”
“I changed my mind. Sometimes I just do that.”


Then he sat down beside me, kissed on my head and rubbed my hair as I sat and watched the president.