They Grow Up So Fast

In recent weeks, 4 1/2 year old Owen has gotten his own place AND started a job, thereby going directly from little boy to adult and skipping those annoying teenage years. I was going to say he had moved out of the house, but the truth is he has merely "moved" into an apartment in the basement. When he is in his renter persona, he calls us by our first names ("Michael, when you get a chance, there is a lightbulb burned out in my apartment"), and acts like we are recent acquaintances - asking us to refresh his memory as to the babies names, complimenting us on our taste in furnishings, etc. We usually invite him to eat dinner with us, which he seems to appreciate. We also have been suggesting each night that instead of making the long trip back to his basement apartment, he sleep in our "guest room" (his actual bedroom) upstairs. To date, he has always taken us up on the offer, although he will sometimes head back to the basement to retrieve "his" toothbrush rather than borrow the one upstairs that belongs to "that four year old" who sometimes lives with us. He has furnished the basement with a table, some plastic food and dishes, and a chair and makeshift desk where he "can sit and relax." As of today, he appears to have constructed a fireplace down there out of cardboard bricks, complete with some hand drawn pictures on the mantle.

As of last week, he also started a new job as an auto-mechanic out on the driveway, where he spends part of each day tinkering with the three plastic foot-powered cars we recently acquired. At first we just had one, but the primeval grunting, pushing and anguished screaming matches between the non-talking twins over the use of it was such that we decided to acquire a second off of Craig's List (a stylish teal and yellow garage-kept model from a far-Western suburb). The third came when my in-laws dropped off a convertible that they acquired second-hand. Anyway, Owen announced one morning last week that he was starting a new job as a mechanic and did not have much time for breakfast as he did not want to be late for his first day. He has a plastic gas pump and various plastic tools which he uses on the job. His boss appears to be a little demanding, as Owen was slated to work yesterday on Labor Day. I offered to talk to his boss about how he should have Labor Day off so we could do things as a family; an offer he briefly considered before announcing that he had been mixed up and did not have to work after all. Now I just hope his boss is understanding of the fact that he is headed off to pre-school part-time tomorrow. Is it too much to hope that his employer offers some sort of tuition reimbursement program?