A brief, recent, and real exchange with Paxton, age 7 1/2 years.
Pax, while eating his lunch: “In life, you just gotta have a lotta patience.”
Me, half listening: “Hmmmm? Yes, yes, you certainly do.”
Pax, finished his lunch and while leaving the table: “Yup. A lotta patience. You sure do gotta to have it.”
Time skips a beat and I look up from the sink where I had been washing dishes while he ate and watch his little frame retreat from the kitchen and head toward the living room (otherwise known as the Lego Promise Land). Um. Huh? Wait a minute. I realize that I’m really not sure what he was talking about. Was he talking about ME and my life (with kids, house, work, husband, kids, you know, the usual) and in his uniquely Paxton way, gently reminding me to have more patience because he had noticed that lately I was running short on it or was he talking about life and people, in general? Um, what exactly just happened here?
To put it into perspective for you, I will share that when I was seven years old, my biggest revelation was that the Polkaroo was really whichever fella (in a ridiculous costume) who was partnered up with the girl host in that any given episode and not some separate entity and that was why, time and time again, said otherwise happy dude would bemoan “What? Polkaroo was here? And I missed him again?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ3559sOgZo
Well, frig then. Either Pax is wise and deep beyond his years or I was just a total dud at being a seven-year-old. I’m really hoping that it’s the former rather than the latter. Because having to admit that your decline began before your eighth birthday is just sad but bragging that your kid is a philosophy prodigy is just bitchin’.
So, there you have it. Another Paxism and another life lesson on this second day of Spring 2016.
In life, you just gotta have a lot of patience.
Paxton, 7 years 6 Â months.