Rocks and sticks

Raising a boy is weird. I imagine raising a girl is weird too, but what do I know? I do know that raising a boy is weirder than I expected. I'm not sure what I expected exactly, but I know I didn't expect to spend so much time admiring rocks and sticks.

Linus loves him some rocks and sticks. You'd think they're much rarer than they are, given his response. We have a little patch of gravel outside our front door. Whenever we go out he'll stop and pick up a rock. He'll then exclaim excitedly something like, "Look at this AWESOME rock I just found!" Except, not in adult english, or any intelligible language. Then he'll hold it up for me to see. He'll insist on taking it into the stroller, or car, or whatever conveyance we happen to be using. He'll repeatedly examine it, then hold it up and exclaim it's virtues for all to agree. Over and over. Sure, he'll either eventually drop it and forget about it, or chuck it at something. Sometimes when he's getting out of the car, he'll find the rock he dropped at some point during the ride and it's all, "Wow! Look at this awesome rock I just found! Right here in the car of all places! Isn't it great?!"

And if it's not rocks, it's sticks. The bigger the better, of course. There are lots of parks with nature trails all around the edges of town here, and I'm trying to get more exercise and other such crap, so we spend a lot of time walking the trails. Linus will immediately find a stick, carry it for a few feet, then abandon it for another, better stick. He'll eventually settle on the stick, then he starts whacking the shit out of the trail. I'm not kidding. If he's not beating the ground into submission, he's clutching the stick in both hands, pointing it at you while making emphatic, "p-shoo, p-shoo!" sounds. I try and play it off with, "Oh, is that your magic wand? Are you putting magic in my leg?"

Totally bullshit, but what's a parent to do? We don't have guns, or play that way with him. We don't watch violent stuff on TV, though I'm sure he's seen some of that - even watching the evening news you'll see gunplay. It's like the gun gene turned on at 20 months. Wtf?! And it's not like he's old enough for us to have a discussion about the implications. Mostly, I try to play it off. I'm hoping that if I keep acting like he's pretending he has a magic wand he'll eventually be like, "hmmm, maybe this is a magic wand. Awesome!"

But this is what I mean about the weirdness. He's not mean, in fact he's a really sweet, caring kid. But he runs around all day alternating between reciting toddler poetry about the sublime beauty of the common rock, and chucking them at anything that moves. When he's not pretending to shoot you with a stick or a pen, that is.