The Upside Of Flesh-Eating Primates

The head fell off my seven-year-old’s sock monkey stuffed animal the other day. When I was his age, if one of my toys broke, I would have been hysterical. Maybe not hysterical, but at least very angry. I would have wanted somebody to fix it immediately or receive a promise that we would go get a new one as soon as possible.

That’s not what he did.

These sock monkeys have magnets in them. The magnets are placed at their hands, feet, tail and the top of their head so they can sometimes where a hat that they came with.

My eldest son took the disembodied sock monkey head and attached it via magnet to its own hand. Then he held it up proudly to show us and announced that he had just created a sock monkey zombie.

Moments like this make me realize what fun it is to see two different people’s traits displayed together in one person. The way my boys figure out how things work and which parts are where comes from me. It’s how my eldest son knew immediately which magnets were where and how they would work. This is a small scale example, but he was working the DVD player before he was school age and I trust him now with the Blu Ray. He’s also been building Lego sets on his own and creating some impressive custom creations. He definitely doesn’t get these things from his mother.

However, the ability to take toy destruction in stride and see if it could lead to something else fun, he gets from my wife. If he were all me, he would have cried because he didn’t know of a way to fix the sock monkey himself yet. His lack of sewing skills or the fact that he wasn’t in possession of a roll of duct tape at the moment would have crippled him emotionally. But, since he’s fifty percent my wife, he said, “Oh well,” and found a way to make the pieces that he had fun anyway.

I think my wife and I have done things like this for one another too. She’s taught me to laugh at myself more. She’s made me more spontaneous. We’ve each taught each other to be more confident in our strengths. I’ve helped her appreciate beauty in small, everyday things. I’ve gotten her to eat more red meat. These are all things I’m very proud of.

I’m so proud of the way we and our boys have tried to help one another build and nurture our strengths and overcome our weaknesses together that there is now a monument to this mutual growth around the rearview mirror of our family minivan. It’s a sock monkey, hanging upside down from his legs, holding his severed zombie head in his hand.

There’s still a big smile on its face.