This past weekend Aiden had a friend over and as I was driving his friend along with Parker back from Green Lake he asked me what an orgy was. I was half tempted to tell him it meant party but I’m glad I didn’t because it likely would have resulted in him using it completely out of context. For example I could see him sitting in his fourth grade class, yes he’s in fourth grade despite his advanced knowledge of sex and everything that goes along with it, and blurting out to the entire class thinking he was being funny “Who wants to orgy?” Instead I asked him where he had heard that word. He claimed it was from one of his mom’s shows which could easily be the case since she is really into Bridgerton. Unfortunately the inappropriate talk did not end there. His friend, we will just refer to him as C-Rad, blurted out that his mom and her boyfriend have sex on his sister’s bed. I know I shouldn’t have but I just couldn’t resist asking why they would do that when they have their own bed to have sex on. He claimed that their bed was too small which is an explanation that makes no sense at all. Earlier that week Aiden had asked Shirley what a sex toy was. I knew we should have kept the kids in Christian school, although C-Rad still attends NPC.

We had friends over on Saturday night and were speculating as to where the kids were picking this stuff up and the consensus was that it was on the bus. Growing up I never rode the bus unless I was going to a friend’s house after school. Back then it was like Sodom and Gomorrah and I was thankful I lived within walking distance of school my entire scholastic career. Needless to say, I can’t imagine with the advent of Youtube and the increasing popularity and access my kids have to the internet, the bus has become a more kid friendly place. Fortunately, this will all be over for Aiden next year due to the fact that it is the fifth graders, at least according to my kids, who are the bad apples on the bus. Next year he will be in fifth grade but the Caledonia School system is sending fifth graders to a different campus so Aiden will actually be the youngest kid riding the bus and will be traveling to school with kids ranging from fifth grade to high school. The kid is afraid of going to the other side of the house by himself, I can’t imagine him riding the bus with kids who are on the wrong side of puberty is going to be a positive experience for him.

The couple that came over this weekend brought their daughter who is actually going to be in the same school as Aiden next year, she’s ten and is the starting pitcher on her softball team comprised primarily of 12 year olds. Needless to say, she is the opposite of Aiden, popular, athletic, and normal. Before they arrived Shirley and I instructed him to try to act normal basically telling him not to be a fucking dork. It had zero impact on him and he was his usual awkward inappropriate self. Fortunately B to the Rook is really nice and tolerated his behavior and was willing to hang out with him and Parker. However, his interactions with B to the Rook made me quite confident that he will be the last person in his peer group, if he has one, to get laid. I kind of think this is a good thing since teenage pregnancy is the wrong way to get a family started. If he is the other half of an unplanned and likely unwanted pregnancy, at least he will be in his 30’s and hopefully no longer living in our basement.

And then there is Parker. It’s hard to believe they are brothers. Parker wants to play football and Parker seems to be popular. He’s good at stuff and this morning said to me as I was trying to get all my stuff packed in my truck, “dad I need to show you something” I was somewhat preoccupied wanting to make sure I didn’t forget anything I needed for my tennis match that was set up for later in the day but asked him what it was. Turns out it was his standardized test scores that he took at school. I don’t want to brag, but the kid kicked ass in everything. Sadly, so did I when I was a kid and I ended up being a criminal defense attorney. However, I am hoping Parker has a little more drive than I did when I was going through school. That is what Aiden has on Parker at this moment, when Aiden gets home he goes directly to his homework and gets it done, Parker is more like me and doesn’t really seem to get the concept of homework.

While the kids being separated by a grade has probably been a good thing, Aiden going into fifth and Parker into Third, it became problematic this week when I was looking for a summer camp to send them to. As usual I was not on the ball and was looking for camps within an hour of Grand Rapids, there weren’t any so I had to broaden my search. I located a camp near sleeping bear dunes and checked with Shirley to make sure it was acceptable. She hesitated until she watched 30 seconds of the camp video and gave me the go ahead. This place has everything and it made me want to be a kid again, although that would do me no good because my parents would have never shelled out the coin it takes to attend this camp. Is it a fair amount of money? Yes, but would I pay 10 times more to have both my kids gone for an entire week, the same week? Of course I would. The only problem was that instead of asking for the kid’s ages on the application form it asked for what grade they were going into. The cutoff was fourth. I couldn’t let this dream die due to a minor technicality so I put that Parker was going into fourth grade. When I got home that night I asked Shirley if she told the kids about the camp, she hadn’t. At first Parker didn’t want to go until I showed him the video, when he realized they had paintball he was all in. This was when I decided it was best to spill the beans about the fourth grade thing and Parker possibly being forced to lie so he doesn’t get sent home. Shirley wasn’t down with it since she is what you would call a rule follower. I am what you would call not a rule follower and my kids seem to be taking after me. On top of it all, it’s a Christian camp. Shirley has since asked me if I will contact the camp to make sure Parker is ok to go even though he’s only going into third grade. I figure if I keep ignoring her requests she will just forget about it.