Take Me Fishing

So the boy had mentioned a few times that he wanted to go fishing. God knows where he got the idea. Suffice to say my wife and I are definitely more gatherers than hunters. But when we went to get worms at the local bait shop for my wife's garden, we stopped to look at the water and the boy asked again. Now look at this face and imagine him asking, "Daddy, can you take me fishing?"

So I did what any couch potato would do, we turned around and marched back into the bait shop and bought a Spider-man fishing pole ($15) and picked up a guide so I could start studying. Yesterday we went back to buy a tackle box ($18), a license ($35), and a bag of cookies ($1, the boy wanted cookies). So know we are $69 into this venture, I have studied seasons, limits, maps, and weather reports for a week, and essentially I still know not a damned thing about how to fish.

This morning we were up and at 'em by 6:30 and we went to a local park/beach. It was windy, which probably should have been common sense to me if you look at the landscape behind the boy, and the temperature was cool. Surprisingly, the boy made it through two juice boxes, one lost lure and bobber, and an hour of fishing and had this smile on his face when we were done. We probably have no future as bass fishermen, but we had fun and no one was harmed but the rubber lures. I'm hooked.

Subversive Parenting

So naturally my wife and I want the boy to be happy. Sincerely, I could wish and hope and pray for him to enter any number of careers or avoid any number of choices but really all we want is for him to be happy. That being said, is it so wrong to try and maybe steer him towards the things that we enjoy? I mean really if he hates it fine, he can always watch the Little Einsteins until he's 30.

So anyway, my subversive plot is to have the boy enjoy baseball. After all my wife cooks with him all the time. We have taken him to a couple of his little buddy's baseball games and today my wife and I got him a little T and T-ball bat. He had fun with it for about five minutes, but really he doesn't spend much more than five minutes with most of his toys. and I didn't force it on him, he picked up the bat and swung it a few times, and I am wise enough that when he got bored we moved on. Later he had a great time with his cousin "Miggy." They should spend more time together they both seemed to have a great time. The only downside is it is closing in on 9:30 and the boy is still talking to himself in his room. Oh well.