Charles and the sad, proud, wrong, and grateful mother.

I watched the other day as a group of children played tag together at the park near our house. Charlie was one of them. They played "hot lava"-style tag for a while, but I became aware the game had changed when I heard one girl say, "No, you have to squat down while you say it. Like this." I couldn't hear what was being said.

Then I began to hear and I began to know. As the person who was "it" approached, each child hurriedly squatted down and called out the name of a television show.

Now I had to keep watching. I knew that Charlie was at an obvious disadvantage here because, as you know, we don't have tv. By this I mean to say that if you turn our television on, you will not be able to watch anything unless you've put a dvd into our dvd player. We receive no channels for free, and simply because we are cheapskates, we are unwilling to pay anyone for the privilege of wasting our time looking for something to watch on that very old box. (I admit we pay plenty of other folks plenty of money for the privilege of wasting our time.)

So we just don't have tv. You know I am not saying that we don't waste any of our time. And you know I am not saying that all tv watching is a waste of time.

This is all not to say that we never watch anything. I regularly take the kids to this place called the library. For the small fee of $0.00, I can borrow up to 5 dvds at a time on each library card (we have two). And not only do they put movies on dvds these days, but they also put tv shows on them. So my kids watch movies and tv shows on dvd.

But not like other kids. Oh, my kids watch plenty. Too much. But they don't watch what's on. They don't know what's on. And they never see commercials for those other shows. I'm pretty stingy with what I let them watch, figuring it won't hurt them to be limited to mostly pbs stuff. So if you think for one minute that just because Charlie is extremely bright it might mean he could keep up with these kids on naming tv shows, you are wrong.

After a few successful squats, I saw Charlie running away from the boy who was "it" and yelling, "I don't know any!" A moment later, Charlie "it."

So what happened after that. What would you do in a situation like that? Oh, and pretend you are 6, almost 7, and that you're playing this game with kids who are older than you are--2nd through 5th graders.

He ran. He ran hard until he tagged some pre-squat child.

The game went on. He was "it" a few more times, more than he wanted to be. And once, as the tagger approached him, he squatted and said, "Dora the explorer!" But eventually the other kids did run out of tv shows and the game again shifted.

Later as we walked home, I told Charlie that I'd like what I'd seen, that I thought his behavior showed he was a really good sport. He didn't complain against me at this point--me, the reason for his lack of tv knowledge. He simply shared with me that he had wanted to avoid having to say that last one. He'd had fun, but, he said, "Mom, I had to say Dora the explorer."

I'm hoping that the story mostly speaks for itself. I want to say, though, that I needed to see this. A parent needs these glimpses of the strength inside her children. Maybe it's nothing to you, but for me it's evidence against that thought I'm sometimes plagued with. You know, the horrible idea that he will be only as good as what I can manage to put into him. Yes, this mother is grateful to be proven wrong by a little game of tv tag.