This Ain't My First Rodeo, Ya Know!

Well, actually it was. The first one I ever attended and the first for Y, too. Can't believe I've been in Houston over 11 years and never once went to the Rodeo. Of course, I got the standard, "Mama, I no go, I stay home and play on computer," for the week leading up to our "rodeo day." So I enlisted the help of E, she called Y just before noon on Sunday and they had a little conversation. When they hung up (er, when she hung up on him), Y said, "Okay, I go shower now," with a smarmy little grin on his face. It turns out E chewed him out for wanting to stay home: "What is more important, your computer or your friends!!!" - click! Y insists he went becuase I told him he could stay up late a few nights to "make up" the time lost from playing on his computer, but I know he went because he's terrified of E being mad at him. She even punched his arm, hard, when we finally got down to the rodeo and found our friends.

There's a huge carnival outside, and the kids had a good time riding till they ran out of tickets while the adults sat down and chatted. It was tough finding something relatively healthy to eat, but I ended up with a grilled shrimp sandwich, and Y ate most of my french fries. I even talked Y into getting his picture taken at the rodeo, and he talked M into getting into the picture, too. They decided to dress up as Frank and Jesse James, and their sepia toned photo looks awesome. I'm scared just looking at their scowls. Five minutes and $50 later we had a copy of the photo for each of them. Y said the guns were real, but they weren't loaded and wouldn't shoot anyway. If I can get the photo scanned in, I'll post it at a later date.

The actual rodeo takes place at Reliant Stadium. Being a Texans season ticket holder, I have a relatively good knowledge of the place. It makes a pretty good rodeo, too. We saw bronc busting, bull riding, barrel racing, chuckwagon racing, steer rasslin, calf roping and my favorite, the mutton races. That's where 5-6 year old kids put on helmets, grab the coat of a sheep and hold on for dear life for about 75 feet or so. I'm sure in 10-15 years some of those kids will be the ones riding the bulls. Then they drug the stage out, turned out the lights and we got to hear some music from a gal named Debbie Lovato and then some little group of boys called The Jonas Brothers? Anybody heard of them before?

Those girls were going nuts down low when the lead singer ran over to the edge of the stadium, climbed up on the rails and sang half the song to them. I bet a few of them fainted, too. The Jonas Brothers are not really Y's cup of tea, so we left after about three songs. As we were walking out, all Y could think about was asking me to buy him an "Icee." I reminded him that they were not Icees that he saw at the football game, they were Margaritas, and Hell had not yet frozen over. He kept at it, and I told him I did not want to get arrested for buying him alcohol. Y insisted that it was okay, "In America, you my mother, you can buy me - is okay - I tell you!" Well, there were two cops standing up ahead, so I walked right up to them and asked them to tell my son that I would get in trouble if I bought him alcohol. Imagine my surprise, when the first question the cop asked me, "Are you his mother?" I replied, "Yes," and the cop said, "Well, then legally you could buy it and give it to him and there's nothing I could do as long as he isn't driving home."

Well, you could've bowled me over with a feather! Hello! Legal to give a child alcohol as long as you're their parent! I knew Texas was stupid about stuff, but I didn't realize how stupid. I said to the cop, "Well, you could've lied to me with my 15yr old standing right next to me! Thanks for making my drive home so unbearable now." And then began the litany of, "Okay, you buy me Margarita now. Policeman say is okay, Mama! Why you no buy me?" RRRRRRRRR.....

Y was so relentless with his questioning on the way back to the car, that I said something that should've been left unsaid, or at least approached in a different manner at a different time. "Y, your parents are alcoholics, so I worry that you have that same thing in your brain that makes you want more and more alcohol as soon as you've had your first drink." Well, then came the very emphatic reply, "My father no alcoholic! Why you say he alcoholic? I no say bad things about you family!" I reminded him that he told me there was always money for vodka, but not always money for food. Anyone who buys alcohol first and food for their child second is an alcoholic. Y was so angry at me, that I told him maybe I was wrong when I thought he was talking about his birth father, maybe he meant his stepdad when he said that. He barely spoke to me for the rest of the trip home. However, about 20 minutes after we got home, he wanted help with something on his computer, so he broke his silence and all has been well, since.

Y did stay up two hours later than normal last night. He was tired, too, but there was no way in heck that he was going to sleep away any extra computer time he was granted. He gave me no problems getting up this morning, and was very chipper after school. He took his ticket in for a little show and tell, and came home with the news that one of the 14 year old girls at the school was pregnant. Specifically, he said, "Because she do something and now she have baby in her belly." I said, "You mean she had sex and now she's pregnant." Y - "Yes."

Oy. 'That' something. Guess we're going to have 'that talk' pretty soon. I'm not 100% sure that he makes the connection between sex and babies yet. I'm pretty sure he knows what sex is, but not necessarily the science of it all. I did tell him, though, that having a baby at 14 wasn't necessarily a good thing. I told him he needed to do some more work on how to be a good son before he starts thinking about being a good father.

Natalie
TX