It’s Saturday morning and Noah and I have to run to the bookstore to pick up a gift for a friend. I hop in the car; he hops in the passenger seat… with his Nintendo DS and turns it on.
Me: Put that thing back in the house.
Noah: Why?
Me: It’s an eight minute car ride.
Noah: MOM! I have nothing to do! I’m soooo bored.
Me: You can talk to me. We never have the chance to have a real conversation. Think about how nice that would be.
Noah: I really don’t have anything to talk about.
Me: We can talk about your Bar Mitzvah! I have some questions for you.
Noah: Fine. (He huffs back into the house to put away the DS. Returns to car.) Sigh.
Me: OK. Great! I need to know what colors you are thinking about for the recption room. Your choice.
Noah: How many colors do I get?
Me: No more than three. We don’t want the rainbow.
Noah: Okay. Blue, silver, gold. Wait! GREEN, silver, gold.
Me: Great. That works. (Then, I think: Will the room look like a Notre Dame alumni function?)
Noah: Wait! I’m not sure green, silver and gold works for my band. (As in HIS band of 12 years old musicians and a 10 year old drummer who can’t get through a single practice without infighting, Guitar Hero and snack time.)
Me: I think it will work fine for the band. You know, if you want the band to play a song for the Bar Mitzvah, the band is going to have to be able to actually play a song all the way through. (Read: stage parent pushing kid towards solo career.)
Noah: Mom, we are going to play a bunch of songs. Like maybe a set or something — right in the middle.
Me: Well, Noah, the Bar Mitzvah reception is kind of a dance party, remember? The DJ is going to play the songs. We are all going to dance.
Noah: But the band will play too. And another thing – no Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber, or Lady Gaga.
Me: No Gaga??
Noah: Absolutely not. I’ll leave my Bar Mitzvah if the DJ plays Lady Gaga.
Me: THAT would be unfortunate. Okay so what songs do you like?
Noah: I don’t know. Anything by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Green Day. Aerosmith. Stevie Ray Vaughan. You know. Classic rock.
Me: Yeah okay – you so can’t dance to any of those artists.
Noah: Uh, you can totally dance to Sweet Home Alabama. Mom! It’s my Bar Mitzvah. What if we just want to listen to cool music?
Me: (thinking of the grandparents chillin’ out to Lynyrd Skynyrd and wondering if we should play Freebird before or after Havana Gila). Well we have to have some acceptable dance music.
Noah: Well, I get to choose no matter what. Okay? Mom? Okay? Hellooooo? Hey, Mom where are you going? Why are you turning around?
Me: I made a mistake. We left something at home.
Noah: What?
Me: Your DS.
