February 01, 2010

Bonding

When Boy in Black was younger, I drove him to music lessons every week. He’s the least chatty of my children, and my attempts to engage him in conversation usually resulted in one-word answers, or maybe two words if I was lucky. He was smart enough to know that I was trying to get him to talk, so the one-word answers came with a grin.

Me: How was school today?
Boy in Black: All right.
Me: How was your music lesson?
Boy in Black: Good.

This morning, he and I drove to campus together — he's in his senior year of college — and I figured that I’d take advantage of the car ride to promote some mother/son bonding, some deep and meaningful conversation.

Me: How are your classes going?
Boy in Black: Okay.
Me: So you’re meeting with a professor about the research you’re doing?
Boy in Black: Yeah.
Me: How’s that going?
Boy in Black: Good.
Me: So you’re writing a computer program?
Boy in Black: Yeah.
Me: What’s it do?
Boy in Black: It’s a program to calculate the fractal dimension of minimal spanning clusters on a square lattice in up to 6 dimensions.
Me: Um, yeah. How’s that going?
Boy in Black: Good.

13 comments:

Yankee, Transferred said...

Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.

Donna's chitchat said...

bahahaha... now that is a mouthful. geesh, I bet your glad you asked!

Unknown said...

:-)

Rev Dr Mom said...

LOL

jodi said...

That sounds like one of my conversations with my oldest son who will graduate in may with a major in physics/minor in astronomy. I'm impressed that you could remember exactly what he said. My eyes just glaze over after about the second word. I just nod my head a lot!

landismom said...

I'm pretty sure that I understand all those words on an individual basis. In that sentence? Not at all.

YourFireAnt said...

That'll teach ya to hanker after multi-verbal sentences from a oner like BinB.

Elias Alfred McQuaid IV said...

I think with a y is the least talkative, at least with me.

nimiecat said...

Apparently, you've been asking the wrong questions all these years ;)

jo(e) said...

Elias: With-a-Why doesn't talk to many people outside the family, but he's very talkative with me if we're alone in the car.

AF said...

Hah! I've been reading your blog since the day you started it, and this is the funniest post ever.

Magpie said...

So when he talks, he talks in paragraphs. :)

lizardek said...

I bet that one came with a HUGE grin :D