i feel...conflicted

[seperis]

Dear Work,

jhiogeijnmoi4geuw98fr.

--Seperis

In other news, late the other night I woke up to--okay, fine, I was awake and getting coffee on Monday night past midnight. Leave me alone. I was busy. And the point is here, I woke up got up and was amused appalled to see the desktop screen's soft, welcoming glow was being blocked by a large head belonging to Child.

Right, I'm a parent, but I've been looking forward to him hitting the internet red light district for years, because I see no reason not to greet the inevitable with the joy of finding new and exciting ways to make fun of him. I want to say this is like, a parenting strategy, but mostly, I just enjoy the twitching and recoding normal words for him into moments of horror because that's just fun.

It was definitely youtube, and he was definitely watching with intent, so I assumed--as one does--this would be a The Moment He Got Caught Watching Internet Porn and it was like Christmas. Because that's ammunition for years. Especially if it's like, bad.

Then I saw the screen. And the desk.

Child was watching an instructional origami video after midnight and making origami boxes. There was a clear progression littering the desk. He looked up at me with wide, startled eyes, but I couldn't take delight in it because my kid broke bedtime to learn origami and what on earth do you do with that? I helplessly took the box he offered, all razor-straight lines and folding open at the top in fragile triangular petals like a flower, while he flipped it to show me he'd colored in a biohazard sign over the bottom before he started, and I went back to bed to stare blearily at the wall and belatedly remember I was supposed to like, send him to bed.

(I think he's kind of good at this? All his boxes look like were folded with a ruler, a really scary ruler.)

This is right up there with the other night, where I caught him (yes!) in his room, in the dark (yes!), sprawled across his futon bed because beds are like, not cool or something, staring darkly into the screen with the emo of a thousand new teenagers (because God loves me and will send me a cliche). I leaned into the doorway to savor the first signs of adolescent drama, because Child is now 5'7"ish and this is getting fun. He was staring expressionlessly into his laptop screen like every emo band in the world was telling him about black crows dying on windowsills and the absence of pain like a razor deep in the belly in the bastard stepchild of blank verse and haiku for dummies when he saw me and frowned.

I grinned at him. "Whatcha watching?"

He sighs, put upon, and flips the screen. Live action sand art.

...do I need to link him or something? What the hell? Sand art? He is no longer ten, I cannot just cuddle him to death for being adorable and so fucking weird and awesome.

In other news, I handed over Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey for him to read, because he's going to cultivate a proper interest in fantasy if I have to force feed it to him. So far, he hates Vanyel's father and does not like his aunt and likes 'Lendel. I'm so not looking forward to the Mage Storm Night of Trauma now. He's all invested and attached.

Comments

[alwayswondered]

Ahahaha, your child is amazing. Maybe he's lulling you into a false sense of security. Really, really weird security.

[feanna]

Well, if he's attached to Vanyel, then you at least can rest assured that the emo is in there somewhere (or will be, by the time he finishes the series) (and the the reappearance because reading all stuff with Vanyel in it ever is important!). So fear not (or fear a lot, whatever).

[miold]

Hahaha your Child is so amazing. Are you collecting information for a memoir/biography to be published when child is old and stodgy? I'd totally buy it!

[dreamatdrew]

We have to wait for Old & Stodgy? *wants now*

[winter_elf]

Sand art!?! *snicker* That's pretty amazing :)

I LOVED Magic's Pawn. Of Lackey's books, that trilogy is my favorite. And since I cared more for Vanyel than 'Lendel... I wasn't tragically broken by the happenings of the 2nd book.

[merrily]

I love reading about your kid. Sekrit!sneaky!origami ! that's amazing.

[scy]

*grimly* Yeah, why is work doing that? *wibbles*

I feel that Vanyel may yet bring out the emo.

And your response sounds a lot like that of my mother. Although she was also prone to crossing herself (she isn't Catholic, btw) or muttering that she could have raised CHICKENS...but for the most part she takes it in stride.

:)

[feanna]

If Vanyel fails she might have to give up hope? I mean personally my emo was very internalized and (I think) not teffibly visible to my parents, that doesn't mean I didn't manage to be a very special snowflake inside.

[rydra_wong]

but I couldn't take delight in it because my kid broke bedtime to learn origami and what on earth do you do with that?

Congratulate yourself, clearly.

Anyway, if it's any consolation, I'm sure he'll find the porn sooner or later. Though possibly it will be really freaky sand origami porn. And ... I don't know what you do then.

[seperis]

Congratulate yourself, clearly.

He wants to youtube his own efforts at origami. Like, instructional. It's unreal.

Anyway, if it's any consolation, I'm sure he'll find the porn sooner or later. Though possibly it will be really freaky sand origami porn. And ... I don't know what you do then.

Pretty sure I saw some on ff.net, come to think. By the minesweeper porn.

[jesse_the_k]

freaky sand origami porn makes me cross my legs at the itchy scratchy crumply thought.

good work on the Child-raising!

[lebannen]

Thanks to Copperbadge, I now know that there is something called Pornogami (link is to a youtube instructional video on the making of an origami penis). So really, all things are possible? Maybe?

[drgaellon]

RULE 34. 'Nuff said.

[minim_calibre]

Wait, we have to stop cuddling them for being adorable and fucking weird and awesome at some point? I AM SO FUCKING SCREWED. Because cuddling is the only thing that makes me go vocal again when she hits those moments where all I can think is "You are the weirdest, most awesome, most adorable thing and how are you made of ME???"

You're a parental inspiration.

[out_there]

but I couldn't take delight in it because my kid broke bedtime to learn origami and what on earth do you do with that?

OMG, how is he still so adorable? Also, such flashbacks to my own childhood of being naughty and breaking bedtime to do incredibly dangerous and rebelling things like read a novel or watch late night screenings of StarTrek.

He is no longer ten, I cannot just cuddle him to death for being adorable and so fucking weird and awesome.

I think you totally can. Awww!

[margrave]

Dear Gods,

Your Child is absolutely precious.

ORIGAMI boxes and SAND ART?! JUST?! OMFG! He is a UNICORN!

You CANNOT make me believe otherwise.

[silverflight8]

Awww. Although I can't fault him for the sand art. It's completely mesmerizing.

[elaran]

I'm just sayin', sand art is pretty ace.

Also that post did not go where I thought it was going to go. I was all geared up for the sympathetic embarrassment I would feel!

Most Awkward Sex-Related Incidents: brother stealthily creeping up behind me to read whatever I was reading on the computer and freaking out when he realised it was very smutty fanfic (admittedly I was 12 at the time and I think he just liked assuming I was going to be young and innocent forever). Also, the time he walked in on me and then bf uh, disrobed. Except I've blocked that from my memory so it doesn't count.

[1001cranes.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD.

That was the most adorable ever.

[epona34.livejournal.com]

Only you could cathc your child learning origami at midnight... Only you...

[akamarykate.livejournal.com]

This is undeniably the best "teenager on the internet" story I have EVER heard.

[skadi.livejournal.com]

Your kid cracks me up

[helene94.livejournal.com]

My one guiding principle as a parent is that the kid is always, always, ALWAYS going to do the thing you are not prepared to handle. You're prepared for sketchy sexual choices and drugs? Kid's going to become a born-again fundamentalist Christian and swear celibacy until marriage.

This example is not me talking out of my ass, as a teenager, my husband ACTUALLY DID THIS to his very liberal, neo hippie parents. As my mother in law puts it "What was I going to say to him--DON'T READ THE BIBLE?" He got better, eventually.

I love how you keep trying to catch him doing teenager stuff and he keeps thwarting you, though. I think he's just far, far sneakier than you think.

[fyrdrakken]

Ooh, Magic's Pawn was the first Lackey book I read. And then on a later trip to the library I found Arrows of the Queen, and things made so much more sense, and I realized that reading books set in the same universe in publication order is a really good idea.

[feanna.livejournal.com]

Heh, the first one I read was "Brightly Burning" (and i still have a soft spot for it today) and it took me YEARS (and a second trip to the USA) to realize that it was a series (like, I was already 16 when I bough the fist one, I think I was 18 when I got ALL THE OTHER ONES, WHERE CAN I FIND MORE???). Then I mostly read them in order, though I can't have bought them all on the trip, because that would've been to heavy to carry back? I don't really remember.

[fyrdrakken]

I found those two at the library, and then wound up buying the others that were out as I could scrape up the funds (um, the entire trilogies, and By the Sword and the Tarma and Kethry pair, and wound up buying Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword & Sorceress anthologies to get hold of the rest of the stories, which hadn't been reprinted in any collections at that point), and then I was just kind of waiting for the books to be published and then getting them from a different library. Been a while since I've reread the older ones, partly since they were in storage where I couldn't get to them for a number of years.

[luminosity]

About six years ago, I stumbled into my office around 4 a.m., only to find my 16-year-old daughter *vidding*. I feel ya.

[eponymousanon.livejournal.com]

Your child cracks me up. For serious. (was it that really cool sand art that won the talent competition in like, Ukraine or someplace like that?)

[mylittlehottie.livejournal.com]

Lol, be careful what you wish for, because getting visited by vice detectives because your 14 yr old son exchanged naked pics with a a 16 yr old girl he" met" online was not in on the list of parenting skills I thought i'd need. ........ I am however looking forward to some fun dinner conversation when he brings home the girl of his dreams..........

[piplover.livejournal.com]

Your child is awesome!

Magic's Pawn traumatized me! But it's still my absolute favorite book of all time.

[jazzy-peaches.livejournal.com]

LOL. awesome.

[cathalin.livejournal.com]

Omg this is the cutest, sweetest story ever. ORIGAMI.

Next it will be something with unicorns! <333

[castlemew]

This is hilarious.

[tiffy190706.livejournal.com]

real life can be fun :))))

[perriotoi.livejournal.com]

Your kid is so, so cute! It's also awesome that your child is getting attached to Magic's Pawn. Aw! That novel (and Mercedes Lackey) was my intro to published gay fiction... and then I got to the end of the book. ;_;

[drgaellon]

I read Magic's Pawn the summer after I came out; it nearly broke me. 'Lendel's death is one of only two literary deaths that have ever reduced me to sobbing hysterics. (The other was McCaffrey's Robinton.)

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

This is the best post about parenting I have ever seen. EVER. I want to cuddle him and stuff, and I don't even really understand teens or children or whatnot. ADORABLE.

[sinclair-furie.livejournal.com]

You have the awesomest son ever.

[tricksterquinn.livejournal.com]

Your son is ABSURD. Say hello to him for me. And remind him that only very small reptiles will fit in origami boxes, unless he folds them VERY LARGE INDEED.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

o god, parenthood is so weird and emotional and unpredictable

[romyra]

ADORABLE...and oh God...The Last Herald Mage series.....I LOVED IT LIKE BURNING!!!! Oh god his poor heart...

[bathsweaver.livejournal.com]

Just so you know: I have been preparing for the day that Child takes over the world ever since he coded (on the fly?) a bypass on this computer in his school's library to let him access the world outside teacher-control filters.

I mean, I always had been, in the back of my mind, but that was the moment I started to prepare in earnest.

[sidara.livejournal.com]

i seriously love your parenting method. it should be taught in all parenting classrooms *firm nod* bc obviously, whatever you're doing, your child is gonna own the world one day.

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

Oh. Child.

There is a WORLD of literary joy in front of him. And yes, the TRAUMA.

[yoiyami.livejournal.com]

Aw, too cute!

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

What a cool kid!

[devon.livejournal.com]

I changed my LJ to greyhat if you want to friend it. You are already friended there. I apologize if you got this message a few months ago and were not interested. best, Devon.

[cerulean-sky.livejournal.com]

Just popping in to say: Your kid sounds awesome. Origami boxes instead of porn. Sand art!

And holy crap, a boy who's reading Magic's Pawn. I am delighted by this prospect. I can only hope that one day my kids will be this awesome.

[celisnebula.livejournal.com]

LOL... a fly by because of Sam.

Your kid sounds adorable and as geeky as mine! (though his kink is breaking bedtime for Naruto).