Some days Simon has it; other days he adorably does not.
Sunday morning, Matt asked Simon to do something, Simon balked, and Matt pressed the point home with an urgent, annoyed tone. The response?
“Whatever.”
It doesn’t sound like much, but it was delivered with the perfect teenage mix of annoyance, superiority, detachment, and insouciance. It was a perfect adolescent moment that mirrored his father perfectly, maybe a bit too perfectly for Matt’s comfort as he would later tell me. There’s nothing like seeing one of your lesser habits mirrored in your four-year-old to give one pause or launch a resolution.
The very next night, Simon’s sense of nuance was off pitch in a way that made us all feel much better. As I lay in bed with him for the first night in three (I was covered in Deet and stunk on Saturday night; Sunday night he was with Jim and Evie.) I snuggled in close to him and said,
“Oh Simon, I missed you last night. I need to snuggle with you in a bad way.”
“What’s that mean, in a bad way?
“It just means a lot.
“Oh. Well, I really love you in a good way.”
Aaaaahhhh. I’m glad these teenage moments are still fleeting.