Peas In A Pod

This holiday season I’ve been struck by new a realization that I should have been struck by a long time ago.

It was the weekend after thanksgiving and I was at Starbucks with my six-year-old son. I was reading aloud to him from Hoot, Carl Hiaasen’s young adult novel. My son and I are both big Carl Hiaasen fans. I read until we were both done with our frappucinos (my son drinks the crème frappuccinos which don’t have coffee in them) and then suggested that we check out the holiday decorations at the neighboring mall. Of course I knew it was one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year but I like those kinds of crowds. No, I don’t want to see people punching each other out over discounted laptops but I do like to see people rushing from shop to shop happily condemning themselves to a lifetime of debt. And I love to see all the new and unique ways retailers have managed to capitalize on the Christmas holiday. I might be somewhat put off by the commercialization of Christmas if I was a religious Christian but since I’m not a Christian the whole thing just feels like a celebration of shopping and I love shopping!

I wasn’t sure what my son would think of the hustle and bustle but I figured we could always leave.

Well as it turns out he loved the craziness of it all as much as I did; so much so that we decided to assume the roles of holiday decoration judges. We got ourselves a couple of pencils and small notepads, drove to several of the biggest shopping centers in the Bay Area and rated their attempts at decorating on a scale of 1 to 10.

My son’s school talent show was a little over a week later. When it was his turn to perform he climbed onto the auditorium’s stage, grabbed the microphone and belted out Eye Of The Tiger, complete with break-dancing moves that he had choreographed himself. He didn’t experience the slightest bit of trepidation. In fact when the song was over my son was so reluctant to step out of the spotlight that the event’s MC had to literally pry the mic out of his hands.

And that’s when it hit me: my son is just like me…but more so. I was a sensitive kid but my child’s sensitivity makes me look callous. My intense love of performing has always outweighed my stage fright. My son doesn’t know the meaning of the term stage fright. I like to go to Starbucks several times a week. If my son had his way I’d take him there several times a day. We both love books, learning, traveling and metropolitan cities.

Of course when two people are too much alike they are destine to drive each other crazy and God knows my son and I manage to push each other to the brink of insanity on a somewhat regular basis but we also understand each other (usually). The other day when I asked if he wanted me to take him to the park he shook his head dismissively. “Let’s do something more your style," he suggested.

“Such as?” I asked.

“Well…we could go to Starbucks and then go walking around San Francisco or maybe we could go to Monterey, maybe we could even visit a Borders or something! You know, the kind of stuff we like to do.

Are we a good match or what?

Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
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