Can't help but laugh!

[gfuertes]

My 11-year-old son just returned from a weekend Scouting camp-out in freezing temperatures, in tents.  He's in his 6th year of Scouting and is reasonably well-informed by now about the proper ways of doing things, and he takes it all pretty seriously.

He is talking on the phone to his dad, my narcissistic soon-to-be-ex-husband, who's roughly halfway through a 4-year prison sentence for fraud.  For better or worse, my son prefers conducting all calls on speaker.

Our divorce has remained (knock on wood) amicable,  but I've been bothered by him "love-bombing" me since I told him I wanted the divorce; and seeming to lay groundwork for convincing our son and other people in our lives that he's a great guy who didn't want to get divorced, and that I only want it because I'm weak and disloyal, not because there's anything undesirable about him.

So, I hear my husband almost immediately shift the focus from our son's experiences this weekend, to reminiscing about the time my husband and I camped in the cold before our son was born.  This is the actual story:  we were in a pop-up camper, but still pretty cold.  Instead of getting in the sleeping bags with me and waiting for our body heat to warm us up, my husband (who detests the cold.  I don't.)  insisted on keeping our Coleman (oil) lantern lit inside the camper "for heat".  He also insisted on tying it to a bar on the roof of the camper, so it hung from the ceiling near the bed like an overhead light.  I knew this wasn't wise, but he was always right.  Back then he was also charming, so the fact that he was being unwise and that I was doubting my instincts and finding excuses not to argue with him didn't resonate with me, as much as my willingness to trust that surely if he seemed so confident about this, he would tie it carefully and everything would be OK.  I was awakened a bit later by him moving suddenly.  The lamp - still burning - came untied and fell, and he reached out seemingly instinctively and caught it with his hand, burning himself.  Had it crashed on the floor, it might well have caught the camper on fire.

Notably, my husband's rendition of this story for our son was that he'd "had to" keep the lantern lit, to keep me warm; and that I'd gushed, and called him a "hero" when he caught it.  (I'd certainly been impressed.  I don't remember calling him a hero.)  To ensure I was involved in the reminiscing, my husband told our son to call out and ask me if I remembered when he'd "saved my life" in the camper.  Knowing he could hear me on the speaker phone, I said playfully - but I meant it - "Remind your dad he also endangered my life by keeping that lantern lit, hanging from the ceiling while we were sleeping."

Then he told our son "Your mom was the one who tied that knot that came undone.  I've never had one of my knots come untied."  Well, isn't that a nice microcosm of life with him?  He broadcasts his heroism, but ascribes his mistake to me.  He addressed his own desires (hating the cold), but depicted it as altruism (keeping me warm).  He got to save the day by handling a dangerous and stressful situation he himself created, by being incautious.

But now he was trying to sell this story to a Boy Scout.  Our son wasn't having any of it.  He wasn't rude.  He just called his dad on everything he heard that didn't compute.  Why would you keep a lit lantern inside your camper while you were sleeping?  That's dangerous.  No, you don't need a lantern to survive the cold.  He (our son) just spent all weekend in below-freezing temperatures, in a tent.  How could an oil lantern heat a whole camper, anyway?  And why would his dad have left it to his mom to tie the lantern to the ceiling?  Wasn't Dad the taller one?  And didn't he know all the knots, like our son does now?  And even if you were going to leave your lantern on, why did it need to hang from the ceiling?  Heat rises.  If you were using it for heat, keeping it at the highest point in your camper wasn't going to help anything.

So my husband switched the topic to his knitting.  I found this all quite amusing, to be honest.

[Poison Ivy]

Your son is smart and wise.  Good for you for raising him well!

[looloo]

Your son is awesome!!!