When my son was younger, there were times when I wondered if he had never stopped talking about his interests. Detailed stories of his last “Minecraft” session to chatter on his favorite Marvel superheroes, it seemed that there were not enough hours in the day to tell me things. But whoever said that “the days are long but the years are short” was fair, and in the blink of an eye, I found myself in front of my son’s 17th anniversary – his last before becoming technically adult.
My son and I are always talking about a little, whether to discuss horror films or analyze his life with meetings, but between his first part-time job and obtaining his driving license, I see and hear me less these days. For his birthday, I let him plan the route for a trip to California – just him and me.
For almost a week, we hit the universal and Disneyland themed parks, we saw films in historical theaters and ate a lot of cheeseburgers. It was quite incredible, both to spend time dedicated with him and to see him embrace the things that interest him most.
Kiss her interests over the years has helped shape the trip
The author’s son wanted to go to the Bob’s big boy during their trip. With the kind permission of Terra Peters
I learned that the best way to stay close to my children is to kiss what interests them. My son is very interested in the film, so when he told me that he wanted to “go to the David Lynch restaurant has always gone” while we were in Los Angeles, I turned to Google. “Do you mean the big boy of the Bob in Burbank?” I asked.
Lynch, the director behind “Twin Peaks” who died earlier this year, was known to visit the emblematic restaurant for a coffee and a chocolate milk-shake most afternoon, so we did it too. It was an apparently silly stop, but which will be a basic memory for the two of us.
We have always enjoyed going to the themed parks together
They spent a day at Universal Studios Hollywood. With the kind permission of Terra Peters
When my children were younger, we visited the theme parks in the center of Florida almost every weekend. Now they have their own life and their social hours, so we are less frequently. However, when we talked about a trip to California, my son said, “Can we go to Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood?”
It was a reminder that when you create memories with your children when they are small, these things stick. We had a good time on the rides in Disneyland and made a studio backlot tour in Universal, things that we may not have added to our itinerary if we had not gone when it was younger.
He also developed his own interests
The author’s son loves the film, so they saw a lot of films during the trip. With the kind permission of Terra Peters
The biggest request for my son during our trip was to visit as many historical theaters as possible in California. By staying in Disneyland, we went to Santa Ana to visit a film hall in Arthouse which he discovered during the planning of the trip. In Los Angeles, we saw “sinners” at Universal Citywalk in 70 mm IMAX, a style of filming that my son enters the cinema said “was the way he was supposed to be seen” and something that is certainly not offered in our little town in Florida.
The film is the passion of my son, so I was content to follow. Part of the growth is to learn what makes you the happiest, and see my Kid revel in visiting historical theaters and seeing a film every day of our trip made me happy, even if my vacation preferences are more in the direction of the swimming pool and trying distinctive restaurants.
I am proud to have raised such an interesting human being
The author’s son wanted to look for new films for his collection. With the kind permission of Terra Peters
Our trip was not only cinemas and themed parks. My son also asked us to visit the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles and begged to visit stores that sold “physical media” (the term film for paper copies) so that he could add to his Blu-ray 4K collection. He ate 10 cheeseburgers during our a week trip, including two visits to in-n-out Burger, a chain that we love but that we do not have on the east coast. Although I let him have the reins throughout the trip, I ended up spending an incredible moment too.
Our routine has changed over the years, narrative goats and Lego construction competitions to university planning and navigation in adolescence. I am so grateful to have taken the time to listen to when he targeted poetic on video games and comics for hours. Without these moments, he probably did not include me in his interests today, and his interests are quite cool, in my opinion.
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