First grade...

I will never deny that I am every bit as in touch with my inner child as Didgeridoo Boy. That mine is a few years older is beside the point - I relate. I do. Really. Life as a stereotypical grown up is a frightening prospect, full of planned fun (say what?) and talk of financial advisors. So, yes, I eschew that nonsense wholeheartedly, and with the same delight I take in setting fire to things like golf shirts, pleated trousers, and mom jeans. You get the drift, right?

But, as I said, my inner child is the older of our two. For example, while I am down with the fact that the man likes his KoolAid, I am the one who has to make it every single time. Didge can't make KoolAid - just can't. It's one of the damndest things ever, but he honestly and truly *cannot* mix up a pitcher of KoolAid. I have structured his household duties around basic things like toting, emptying, and rolling. (Running the vacuum was recently nixed from his list.) I don't want him to break anything or hurt himself, and he seems quite happy within the established parameters.

The disparity in the ages of our inner children sometimes results in arguments, however. And over the course of those arguments, I've noticed something: As the disagreement progresses, I'll get older, and he'll get younger. I can, in just about two minutes, jot from having the sort of go-round I might have had in the sandbox over who's shovel is the red one, to being the frazzled teacher having to intervene and sort the whole mess out. (I have to make the age transition quickly, before one of us bops the other with the bucket that goes with the shovel in question, or chucks sand in the other one's eyes.) Right when we get to the point at which I am about to put him in time out, he will usually cease insistence in favor of helplessness, with the level of helplessness being determined by how angry he has realized I am. (If it's been an especially dramatic showdown, he will take a nap. I really wish I was exaggerating.)

So, yesterday, after going around and around with me about a couple of things for a couple of days, and watching "Clerks" no less than seven times in succession, Didge accompanied me to the grocery store. On the way there, we were in inner child spat mode, and once in the door, I found it horribly necessary to become the authoritative adult. In a masterful display, he managed to both channel his inner first grader while spookily emulating Jay right by the bagged baby spinach. Let's leave the particulars of what he did alone. He was acutely cooperative the rest of the time we were there, although he insisted on walking *right* beside me - in a way that would have made it very easy for him to trip me - while spouting "Clerks" quotes.

As we were leaving, we had a testy little exchange in the parking lot over how my psychological well being takes a serious hit when his obsessions with particular movies result in his embodying a character for any length of time. Didge recognized this as the "time out" moment - pushing me any further would have had him in his chair without a juice box, so to speak. We got in the car and began the drive home. He started fumbling with trying to open his can of Monster Energy Drink (I bribe him with these - not always successfully), and gave a couple of frustrated little sigh/grunts. I could tell it was coming, that moment of helplessness meant to make himself seem so cute that I couldn't possibly be mad anymore, but I had no idea he would go as freaking low as he wound up going. Handing the can over to me, he said, in the most plaintive voice he has ever mustered, and with precisely this expression on his face:

"Miss Simmons, I need some help with my milk."

Yes, I opened it for him.