faejilly:

like

to go back to the 11yo rather than my coffee problem

he is really such an awesome kid

like somehow he is never embarrassed

not by things that even his 6yo little brother has internalized as too girly for boys 

or things that he might be “too old for” (he still has his plush animal collection and sees nothing wrong with that … like I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but you know. 11yo boy + society.)

or by things the average 11yo might know so expressing ignorance would get you teased at school kind of stuff, yk?

I mean, he just comes right out with things I never would have had the nerve to admit or express by the time I was, like, six

(I remember being blindingly embarrassed by a perfectly innocuous little kid conversation at about five, honestly. it’s a terrible memory, especially because it is both STILL EMBARRASSING and also it makes me feel stupid because there is NO REASON for the embarrassing in the first place, much less the third or fourth or fiftieth)

I mean

I’m 99% sure this is just how he’s wired

because I am so easily embarrased by, like, breathing in public where someone could see me so it seems unlikely I could have instilled the opposite in someone

but I am just so proud of him

and I hope I don’t screw it up for him with my own neuroses