Sunday, January 6, 2008

Isn't it wovewy?

When Kant discusses beauty he reserves the term exclusively for things which have no obvious function or benefit to us, but which nonetheless please us simply for what they are. I think Jamie discovered the concept in an unexpected location this weekend.

On Saturday night, with Sarah still away, I took the boys to Chuck-E-Cheese. Was it stupidity? Generosity to Jamie, who had been a good boy all day? Masochism? I guess a bit of all of that made me do it. So off we went. It was about as terrible as you would expect and the boys loved it. Connor wants to do everything and can do nothing. He wants to climb on the mini-carousel, but then cries when it moves. My favorite moment was when it was already moving and he started chasing the empty horse around, crying the whole time.

Anyway, Jamie won a few tickets from the games, which can be redeemed for tacky prizes. Jamie spied a brightly colored spinning top that he wanted and even though we didn't really have enough tickets they gave it to us. Jamie was very pleased and gazed adoringly at it, saying over and over on the way out to the car how much he loved it. "Can we put it in the bath?" he asked, and was thrilled to hear that we could. About halfway home, he finally asked me: "What is it?"

1 comment:

Abbott and Mary said...

Lovely story and writing. With a little editing, it could be a Times "End Piece."