Earlier
this year, I wrote about how “A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he
arrives precisely when he means to.” The
wizard blog was about my son, Jesse. He
is quite the distinctive individual.
That earlier story was about his arrival into this world. I thought he would never get here. But he arrived at the exact moment he was
ready and not one second earlier – no matter what the doctor’s predicted.
Well
this blog will be a continuation on that same topic. Jesse is kind of a peculiar kid. He is just about to have a birthday in the
next few weeks and will be turning 18 years old . . . an adult. So, I’m sure he is not thrilled about me
rehashing his younger days. However, perhaps
someday he will read this story to his kids and maybe even his grandchildren
and they will get a glimpse into who Jesse was as a child.
~~~
When
Jesse was just five years old, we attended a church picnic at a local park in
Franklin. We had such a fun day. There had to have been 500 of our church
friends altogether sharing a meal on a beautiful, summer’s day. One family brought their dog to the picnic
along with four new puppies. I was able
to successfully avoid them the entire afternoon, but somehow Jesse had found
his way to the big cardboard box along with a dozen or so other kids to pet the
puppies. You guessed it; they were
giving them away to any good home. Jesse
decided we were one of the good homes that should get a puppy and told the
family that we would take one. The
puppies were a mix of Labrador and Rottweiler.
So while the little guy was cute as can be, he was also pretty
aggressive, even as a puppy.
Well,
Jesse really wanted that puppy. We had recently
bought our first home with a yard, so I spoke with my husband and we consented. We now owned our very first family pet.
On
the way home from the picnic, we stopped by a store to get a collar, leash,
water bowl, food bowl, and puppy food.
We figured that there would be more that we would need later, but that
we might get by for a few days on these supplies.
We
got the little guy all set up and the kids just played and played with
him. Our new little puppy was quite cute
and did not seem at all shy or nervous.
He had a great time with kids.
However, we noticed that when he got aggressive he would nip at us. It didn’t really hurt much, but he was
definitely biting.
It
was not too long until the biting got old for Jesse, so he went to his
room. After a while I could not figure
out where he had gone and went looking for him.
His bedroom door was shut, so I knocked.
He said, “Who’s there?” I
answered that I was. He asked, “Is the
puppy with you?” I replied, “No.” He said then that I could come in.
I
found Jesse just sitting on his bed with his legs pulled up onto the bed. I asked what was wrong. He said that nothing was wrong. I remember then that he asked me to shut the
door. I obliged. He never ever just sat in his room doing
nothing, so I pried further.
Finally
he confessed that he did not like the dog.
That it was too “bitey” and that it was all his fault that we had
brought the little puppy home. Jesse
explained his plan to me. Jesse said we
could keep the puppy as part of the family, but that Jesse was just going to
stay in his room from now on with the door shut so the dog could not get in. I
could bring his meals to him in his bedroom. He was willing to give up his place in the
family so that he did not have to deal with the bitey dog. It was all I could do not to laugh. Jesse was as serious as could be.
I
explained to him that if he did not like the puppy that we would find it a new
home. I told him that it was very
important for me to have Jesse in the family and was not worried at all about
keeping the dog. Jesse smiled. I could tell he was so relieved . . . he got
to stay part of our family.
~~~
Another
funny thing about Jesse is that from the time he was old enough to have input
until the age of 12, he hated the restaurant, Applebee’s. I mean absolutely loathed the
restaurant. When he was little, if we
even talked about the possibility of getting lunch or dinner there, he would
get upset. Needless to say, we did not
eat at Applebee’s much.
However,
literally overnight, by the time he was a teenager, something dramatic
changed. I do not have any idea what
prompted the about face, but now Applebee’s is one of Jesse’s favorite
restaurants. We actually eat there
nearly anytime we eat out when we’re not in our little town.
~~~
Another
quirky Jesse story is about his love of individually wrapped American cheese
slices. When he was really little, that
may be one of the only consistent foods that he ate. However, and this is a big issue . . . when
you unwrapped the cheese for him, you could not tear the cheese at all. I cannot emphasize enough how important
careful cheese unwrapping was at our house.
We would have endless tears and complete refusal to eat said cheese
slice if it was injured in any way. It
was a very emotional experience if we were not successful at perfect cheese
unwrapping.
~~~
One
night, before bed, I was reading a book in my room in bed. Jesse came to my door and asked if he could
come in. I said, “Of course.” He walked over and stood at the foot of the
bed. I asked him to climb on up and
cuddle with me for a minute. He
obliged. I set my book down and asked
him about what was on his mind.
At
first he was apprehensive to tell me what was upsetting him. He slinked down until he was almost all the
way under the covers. I could tell he
was upset. I seriously said, “Jesse, I
want you to tell me what is wrong.” He
replied, “Mom, I want to play soccer.”
And then he closed his eyes afraid of my response. I smiled and asked, “Is that it?” He said yes.
I replied, “Well, of course, you can play soccer if you want to. Is it time for sign-ups?” He peeked out from under the covers and
nodded yes. I simply laughed at his cute
little face.
I
made him sit up and talk to me about soccer and why he was anxious about talking
to me about his request. He leaned down
so that I could hold him close and said, “Well mom, I know that we are a
baseball family, you always say that.
And I just want to know if I can stay in our family even if I want to
play soccer?” I burst out laughing and
gave him a big hug. I told him that yes
it was true we were a baseball family; he would always be a member of our
family no matter what sports he played.
Once again, he was relieved.
~~~
I
have many interesting Jesse stories, but I’ll end with this one. Jesse is probably my “book” smartest
kid. He scored in the top 98 percentile
in the U.S. on the EXPLORE Test and in the top 93 percentile on the PLAN
Test. However, by the time he got to
high school, he was distracted. Getting
good grades and being one of the smartest kids in the class held no interest
for him, much to my dismay.
Jesse’s
junior year, he scored really well on the ACT along with 19 other
classmates. Our school principal
actually went to Jesse’s classroom and asked him to step into the hallway for a
minute. Jesse obliged. The principal went on to say that Jesse had
gotten a great score on his ACT test.
Jesse was relieved. The principal
said, “But Jesse, your GPA really does not reflect the strong work you’re
capable of doing.” Jesse replied, “It
sounds like you’ve been talking to my mom.
That’s what she always says.” The
principal laughed and said, “No, I haven’t been, but a 3.45 GPA is just not as
good as I believe you can do.” Jesse did
not disagree. The principal continued,
“Jesse, tell me what your goal is for your last year and a half in high
school.” Jesse was very quick to reply,
“My goal is to be the funniest person in every one of my classes!” Our principal was very surprised by his
immediate and confident response. He
started to laugh. I can only imagine
what he was thinking at this point.
The
principal asked Jesse to consider working harder in his classes to bring up his
GPA. a bit since a high GPA was important to college admissions. Jesse said he would.
~~~
Because
of the fact that Jesse rarely arrives on time, is picky about his cheese, and
he loves soccer more than the rest of our family, he really is a very unique
person. And I do believe that even
though the GPA did not get any higher, Jesse met his primary goal to be the
funniest guy in his class.
(c) 2013 Feeling Good Entertainment, LLC and Diane LeJeune (c) 2013 Tribal Tales
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