Special Interests.

I guess we all respond to change in different ways. My youngest child has responded to all this lockdown shenanigans in his own particular style. The boy's response is to become deeply nestled into, what is euphemistically known, as a special interest.

A while back and as I remember, there was a time I feared I would never have a conversation with my youngest child. It was a volatile  combination - a mother with the attention span of a gnat and a child who could monologue a million times over about the intricacies of camera angles in the film Jaws.  It was never enough to robotically, ummm and nod and yeah because, sporadically there would be a multiple choice question thrown in to ensure your attention.

But, like many things that seem so significant at a time, things change and somewhere along the line he started to converse as if the audience mattered, at least partially.  At the same time he developed a rather lewd sense of humour- which, perhaps would have been quashed earlier-  only we were so relieved to laugh at something that we could understand and who doesn't love a willy joke? The 'special interests' became more background and part of a wider repertoire -  involving pratt falls and the occasional pun - that's my boy. All going well, until the 'lock down':

He's awake before us and already thigh-high in a Doctor Who episode from the 70s. By the time I have had my obligatory cuppa from the Mr Roseytinted the boy has computed the characters/camera angles, script and asked me at least 30 times if the 'effects were good for the time'. After we prise him away from the Doctor Who episode - we try some semblance of homeschooling, luckily we ordered 'Doctor Who: The Auton invasion', a book version of the Doctor Who episode; otherwise our hopes of getting the boy to read would be in the same league as  asking Kim Kardashian to 'step away from the selfie'. I have already answered 3 multiple choice questions about who my favourite Doctor is before he moves swiftly into pressing me about making a decision regarding companions (my heart will always be with Ace).  Art is going well. He has decided to make a collection of shop fronts based on the episode 'Spearhead from Space'. His mental well-being is soothed by rearranging his already burgeoning collection and is then crushed by watching YouTubes of older nerdfolk who have sooooo many more figures than he has. 'Is it OK, if I collect the same characters with only slight differences?' he asks eagerly. 'That's what collectors do'. 'Yep' I answer, non-committedly,  knowing that this will not be a phase... knowing that this could be my boy's future.

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