On Friday, my godchild decided that I am not to help them with their Hebrew or other homework any more because I am their "funny person" and they are not crossing that stream with anything stressful or serious. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selkie and I tried to explain the concept of having fun as well as real talk with the same person, but they were dogmatically having none of it—I admit it may not have helped our case that at one point I laughed hard enough that my iPad fell flat over and their mother called me a dick—so instead we futzed around with our respective Zoom interfaces until I could watch them play through some painterly, open-world version of Zelda on their Nintendo Switch, which was something of a trip since the last time I was around any kind of handheld Nintendo device it was about 1990 and a Game Boy, and they went to bed after shouting "STABBY HORSE!" as is their custom and their mother and I had a serious conversation because irony. And then it only took me about twenty-four hours to realize I was having a minor existential attack over the idea of being someone that my godchild in so many words considers a respite from the hell of remote learning and other rollover of 2020 into 2021. I'm not entirely sure why, since it's not news to me that they love me, but it feels like a slightly different grade of responsibility than just making a change from their parents. They really believe me to be part of their support structure. Last week they sent me a copy of Aaron Freeman and Sharon Rosenzweig's The Comic Torah (2010) because it was too much trouble to try to show me all their favorite pages over Zoom. I have been sending them books since before they were literate or even really verbal, but I think this may be the first time they have reciprocated. I take the gesture seriously. Practicing the v'ahavta with me, though, is still right out.
selkie and I tried to explain the concept of having fun as well as real talk with the same person, but they were dogmatically having none of it—I admit it may not have helped our case that at one point I laughed hard enough that my iPad fell flat over and their mother called me a dick—so instead we futzed around with our respective Zoom interfaces until I could watch them play through some painterly, open-world version of Zelda on their Nintendo Switch, which was something of a trip since the last time I was around any kind of handheld Nintendo device it was about 1990 and a Game Boy, and they went to bed after shouting "STABBY HORSE!" as is their custom and their mother and I had a serious conversation because irony. And then it only took me about twenty-four hours to realize I was having a minor existential attack over the idea of being someone that my godchild in so many words considers a respite from the hell of remote learning and other rollover of 2020 into 2021. I'm not entirely sure why, since it's not news to me that they love me, but it feels like a slightly different grade of responsibility than just making a change from their parents. They really believe me to be part of their support structure. Last week they sent me a copy of Aaron Freeman and Sharon Rosenzweig's The Comic Torah (2010) because it was too much trouble to try to show me all their favorite pages over Zoom. I have been sending them books since before they were literate or even really verbal, but I think this may be the first time they have reciprocated. I take the gesture seriously. Practicing the v'ahavta with me, though, is still right out.
