Zero to Geek in Just 222 Weeks
In just a few short days my son will be two hundred and twenty-two weeks old. I had planned to track his age in weeks until he reached the age of majority, but like many of my harebrained schemes that plan fell by the wayside somewhere in the past four years.1 It was to be a testament of my geekhood. “How old is your son?” people would ask after he did something incredibly cute and/or precocious. “Oh,” I’d say, in the most casual and off-hand manner possible, “he’ll be a hundred and thirty-seven weeks old tomorrow.”
I’ve made all sorts of geeky plans that I’ve failed to follow up on—when’s the last time I wrote a review for The Great Superhero Movie Project? Anyone? Anyone?—but I don’t feel even mildly disappointed in myself this time. Why? Well, because it’s a gimmick, for starters; it’s contrived and forced and I can do better. I have done better. See, in the last two hundred and twenty-two weeks, instead of keeping track of how many weeks have gone by I’ve been busy creating a walking, talking, blue-eyed, blond-haired testament to my geekhood.
If you’ve read my personal blog over the past couple of years, you’re probably aware that my young apprentice…
- …thinks the Belle (Disney’s Beauty & The Beast) PEZ dispenser my niece gave me is “yellow Princess Leia”.
- …wondered whether the Thanksgiving turkey we bought last year had been frozen in carbonite.
- …can recite the opening voiceover to Knight Rider.2
- …refers to Bane from LEGO Batman as “the wrestler who throws guys to Heaven” and The Evil Mola Ram from LEGO Indiana Jones as “the evil moron.”
He’s also been playing the Xbox since a few months before his third birthday, has his own set of oversized polyhedral dice, has seen the original Indiana Jones trilogy3 and all six Star Wars films multiple times,4 and knows most of the words to Jonathan Coulton’s office zombie song, “Re: Your Brains.”5
I’ll admit to having some mixed feelings about this. The geek in me, already a rather substantial fellow, swells with pride at my son’s burgeoning geekdom; the responsible parent in me6 wonders whether the bulk of the pop culture that defines my own geekdom may be a bit too violent for a four-year-old.
I sometimes hear parents talk about the sorts of movies their six-year-old children are “ready” to watch, and they’re almost invariably some of the same movies my son has been watching since he was three. In some parental circles, Spongebob Squarepants—one of my son’s favorites for well over a year now—is spoken of in a tone of voice and terms one generally reserves for telemarketers and the Anti-Christ.
Last week, my son was racing through the house singing the aforementioned zombie song (which he learned playing Rock Band 2 with my wife and me) and I had a vision of his pre-school—he starts in the Fall—calling to tell us that our son is singing songs about bashing people’s heads open and eating their brains.7 In my head, the conversation plays out something like this:
TEACHER: Mr. Johnson, Kyle is singing songs about killing people and eating their brains.
ME: Has he said anything about eating their eyes?
TEACHER: Wh-what?
ME: Their eyes. Is he going to eat their eyes?
TEACHER: Well…no. No, I believe he said he wouldn’t eat their eyes, but I don’t see how that—
ME: All right, then. That’s not unreasonable, is it? No one’s going to eat anyone’s eyes.
This conversation is, naturally, followed by a frantic search for another pre-school.
“You created that,” Laura said as we both watched him racing around in circles singing about undead office workers. She chuckled when she said it, and that’s how I know it’s going to be all right.
- Probably right around week ten. [↩]
- He now knows The Lord’s Prayer, as well, for those curious as to who “won” that particular exchange. [↩]
- I brought Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull home from the library several months ago, but it was received with something less than enthusiasm. On the other hand, every fedora he sees is instantly declared an “Indiana Jones hat”. [↩]
- The expurgated versions. For example, we don’t watch the defeat of Anakin Skywalker at the lightsaber of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and we skip everything under Pankot palace except the mine car chase in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. [↩]
- Okay, he’s got his own interpretation in some places. For example, “I don’t wanna nitpick, Tom” becomes “I don’t want a knick-knack, Tom”. [↩]
- He’s there, but he’s much, much younger than The Geek. [↩]
- Because we live in Bizarro World, I seem to have no trouble introducing my four-year-old son to the concept of a zombie’s appetite for brains, but I censor the lyric “we’re all busy as hell” to “we’re all busy as heck” every time we sing it together. [↩]
I’m so happy to know you & Laura & Kyle.
We have GOT to get our kids together.
Aidan’s 4 now and has a lot of similarities and I’ve exposed him to a lot of geekdom as well. One of his first words was “Buffy” which my wife did NOT approve of. I also taught him a couple lines of Actionscript so he can make his name appear in my Flash games. He’s never seen Revenge of the Sith though or the Luke/Vader revelation in Empire (saving that for when he’s older) and I cover his eyes during a bunch of AOTC (Jango decapitation, Anakin’s hand). But Revenge of the Sith is a special case though because he A) likes Anakin and B) doesn’t realize Anakin is Vader. All of that started a year ago when he was sick and they were airing an episode of the new Clone Wars cartoons on Cartoon Network. My God are those awesome. He just loves watching them. And my 2 year old, Grant, gets all excited watching them too. One of his first words was “STAR Wars!!!”. Caps added for effect. But back to Anakin/Vader… I can’t ruin that for him. He enjoys it so much without knowing the tragedy involved. Just want him to keep that a little while longer I guess.
And music’s been huge with the kids too. I tried to do the responsible parent thing and play classical music for their developing brains. But, when your driving hours to grandmom’s house and see your kids bobbing their heads like the Roxbury guys from Saturday Night Live spontaeously to a electronica track while laughing their heads off, it’s hard to compare that to their ho hum enjoyment of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. My kids have quite the ecletic background in music as well… Pink Floyd, The Polyphonic Spree, Daft Punk, Blue Man Group. I even caught Aidan banging two sticks against a piece of PVC pipe one time, emulating BMG’s song Drumbone. Terrified to know what his teachers would think if they saw a typical Saturday morning in our household…
But man, it is awesome having those touch points for bonding with my kids. I love it. I love our late night, awkward lightsaber battles in the backyard, our movie nights huddling under a blanket / tent in the living room watching a show or movie and the crazy dancing they do while listening to whatever music.
Now I’m all bummed out at work missing them…
Cathy consistently warns me that, if I answer questions like Calvin’s Dad, I will raise a Calvin.
This is hardly a deterrent.
@Chris — My favorite “Calvin’s dad” strip is the one where he explains (and demonstrates) that the sun is about the size of a quarter.
@Matt — Kyle was less than two months old when I began agonizing over when and how to introduce him to the Star Wars universe. For all the geeky nail-biting I did back then, I’m pretty pleased with how things ultimately unfolded. Kyle is fully aware that Anakin Skywalker is “in” Darth Vader, and the idea that I could somehow vicariously relive the shock and thrill of the “I am your father” moment through him was kind of silly. We enjoy Star Wars together; I’m even glad that he enjoys the prequel trilogy as much as I enjoyed the originals.
Now I’m just waiting for the first time we watch The Lord of the Rings together.
@Nycteris — We’re pretty happy to know you, too.
How long did it take you to have Kyle memorize the Knight Rider opening?
@Chris — I don’t recall exactly how long it was. Several episodes watched over the course of a week or two.
Kris, You’re doing a fine job! Children come up in a variety of environments, with various types of parenting. Both of these factors sound pretty good.
The son of a friend of mine could identify the folk in our local SCA group by the heraldry on our shields before he could read or count. Children adapt to where they are, usually very well.
Explaining the zombie song is going to be all about context.
Good luck with that one.