What about Bob?
VIEWPOINT
By RALPH HARDIN
Evening Times Editor
So, my son and his wife are just about a month away from the due date for their first child, which will also be my and my wife’s first grandchild. We’re pretty excited.
Last night, my wife and I went to their house for dinner and we got to reminiscing about when my son was little. He was one of those Ask-a-Millon-Questions kids, so we had a lot of conversations about a lot of things. He went on to be class valedictorian at West Memphis High School, a National Merit Scholar, and get a law degree from the University of Arkansas, so I guess asking all those questions paid off.
Anyway, he would ask anything from , “Do I see the color blue the same way you do?” to “Why is your back so hairy?” So you never knew what you were going to get with him.
So, one day, we’re all riding along in the family car. He had to have been maybe six to seven years old. At the time, it was me, my wife, my oldest son and his younger brother. I don’t recall if there was any conversation leading up to this, but at one point he chimed in with a question.
The following is, at least as best as I can recall now, some 20 years later, a full and faithful transcript of that conversaton…
See VIEWPOINT, page A9 VIEWPOINT
From page A4
“Hey, Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think y’all will have anymore babies?”
“Hmm… maybe.” (I am fully convinced this is the exact moment that planted the seed that would ultimately lead to my daughter being born a few years later because at that point in time, I’m pretty sure that we had both decided four people in the family was a nice round number) “How many more babies do you want?”
“I don’t know. I do like babies, though!”
He pauses… “What if you had five more babies?”
“Oh, that’s a lot of babies, but I would love them all! We might need to get a bigger car. Maybe a bus!”
“What if you had a million babies?!?”
“Oh… I think I would run away!”
“You would run off and leave me?
“Oh, no, I would take you with me!”
“But… what about Bob?”
“Bob? Who’s Bob?
“Umm, Mom… if you had a million babies, at least one of them would be named Bob!”
Now, I can’t tell you if he had that planned from the beginning or if it was just how the mind of a curious 7-year-old works, but I still chuckle just thinking about it. I also like that his concern about being abandoned was for this imaginary Bob and not, you know, his actual brother sitting next to him.
In any event, I still get a kick out of the stuff my kids said when they were little, and I can’t wait to see what my kid’s kid comes up with!
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