Marching to the Beat of a Different Drummer

While they were lining up kids at the pool last week to take swim team pictures, a few moms kept yelling to one of the little girls to stand up straight and be still.  She was jumping around shaking her goggles and acting silly.  I heard another mom say “Oh, that’s Suzy.  She marches to the beat of a different drummer.”  Wait a minute…..that’s my kid!  Well, not Suzy, but, in general, that’s my kid.  Marcus marches to the beat of a different drummer.  Sometimes I’m not even sure what band. 

He’s not your average kid.  He’s quirky.  He’s sometimes kooky.  Sometimes I have to explain his thought process.  I see the other boys running around the baseball field trying to hit each other with balls or playing chicken in the pool.  Marcus is more likely pretending to look like a frog jumping off the high dive while plugging his nose.  He likes to watch the History channel and can’t read enough books on extreme weather.  I wouldn’t buy him a cell phone or a wii, so he made a phone and a wii remote out of Legos…..just to practice for when he gets one.  He’ll be practicing a while.

He can tell you all of the vegetables growing in my garden….and eats most of them.  Swiss chard is his favorite. 

For Halloween he sported an old white butcher coat and wore big round brown glasses fashioned out of pipe cleaners.  Can you guess who he was?  No, he was not Harry Potter.  That’s what everyone thought.  Then they thought he was a mad scientist.  Well, that guess did make him mad, but no, he was just a plain old scientist. 

Maybe he will be a ninja this year.  How do you like his costume? 

That’s underwear on his head.  Design by Marcus.  He outfitted his younger brother and sister in the same attire.  Some how I don’t think a ninja with one green moose sock and one red crab sock is very threatening.  I’m guessing the little girl ninja with Minnie Mouse panties on her head is not too scary either.

Anyway, that’s my kid.  Ok, I guess I should just give it up and say kidsssss.  They are silly and creative.  They are free spirited and don’t always color in the lines.  They don’t always want to stand still in lines either.  When the other kids are signing up for t-ball and soccer, they will probably be gearing up for Lego League or drawing homemade comics to sell to unsuspecting family members.  They are marching to the beat of a different drummer.  But, I wouldn’t have it any other way.