this woman’s work

I love Noah

Sep 28, 2004 Parenting

I haven’t bragged on Noah lately so I thought what the hell — why not? Forgive me for gushing.

I love this kid. He’s so bright and funny. I know, seven year olds are bright and funny (and also mouthy and moody but I digress) but since he’s my own particular seven year old, I find him awfully charming.

Recently Noah checked out the book-on-tape of Frindle, which is about a boy who invents a new word. Noah was very excited about the idea of it and we talked a bit about the way language is created. I asked Noah if he ever wanted to invent a word and he said no, absolutely not.

“The boy gets talked to by reporters and gets on television,” he told me. “I would hate that kind of a fuss.”

“You are someone who likes to fly under the radar,” I told him.

“And you like flying over the radar!” he said. How true. But Noah takes after his lovely yet retiring Daddy that way. (Although at one point Brett did try to start a new trend by using “Toblerone” as an expression of excitement/admiration. As in, “Hey, your new bike is toblerone!” This was in his early 20s when I first met him. My father still buys him a Toblerone candybar every year for Christmas.)

Then we bought Noah new shoes that were really expensive. We had a long talk about why I won’t pay more than $1 for a shirt at the thrift store but will drop sixty bucks on a good pair of shoes. I pointed out that buying cheap clothes allows us to afford important things like good winter coats and high-quality shoes. He’s becoming a master at thrifting and when we go out together, he minds the sale tags and looks carefully for holes. Smart boy.

Anyway, I told him his new shoes were “cool” and he informed me that he doesn’t want to be cool, he would rather be ordinary. Under the radar, indeed.

Noah is pretty popular in our social circles, in part I think because he’s so uninterested in the spotlight. He’s the peacemaker of the group. Once a bunch of the kids — I think there were six or seven there — got in an argument about God. One of the little girls is an atheist, being raised in an atheist family and then another little boy is very passionate about his spirituality, which goes beyond his Jewish upbringing.

“It’s wrong not to believe in God!” he told the little girl tearfully. She was adamant that there was no god.

Noah said, “Hey, guys, you know how people say God is in everything? That means he’s in that chair and you’re sitting on him!”

Later he told me that he was trying to make everyone laugh so they would quit fighting; it worked.

His interests are often very “boyish” — he can hold his own in Pokemon discussions, for example. But many of my friend’s daughters are planning to marry him and their mothers say that it’s because he’s so gentle. He is equally happy attending a tea party as he is playing Ninja at the park.

I adore him. This weekend he set up a desk area for Madison to use in two years (he says that he will share it with younger visitors until then). He added a little chair to the side, “So I can help her with math,” he told me. “She’ll probably like that.”

Ok, I’m gonna go hug on him a bunch before Madison wakes up.

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