Boskone

Last weekend, Eddie went to his first sci-fi con: Boskone 51.

He got a name badge to wear, and a cool ribbon attached which says "My First Boskone." He was a big fan of that. After a few minutes staring solemnly at the woman who gave it to him, he poked at the stack with the rest of them. She said "Oh, honey, we need to keep those for other people at their first Boskone!" and he was like "Ok" and took his hand back. Oh man he is so cute when he is being shy and well-behaved!

First we visited the art show, which had a bunch of paintings and sculptures he liked to look at. One painting had the face of the Grim Reaper. Eddie laughed and said "Funny!" I was a little taken aback, and said "That's Death." This didn't make a big impression, so I tried "That's a skeleton." Eddie said "Ha ha. Funny skeleton!" So there you have it: Eddie laughs in the face of death.

Then we went to a filk show (ie, music) for kids. There were a few kids running around and a man playing a guitar and singing. Eddie just stared at this for a long time, not sure what to make of it. I gave him his milk and he guzzled that for a while. Then he said "Away! Away!" Pretty soon he started off and I had to ask him to wait for me.

We wandered around the Hucksters' room, which has merchants selling books, toys, food, etc. Eddie found a couple stalls with stuffed animals, and glommed on to some crocheted octopi. He's been talking about octopi a lot lately, and had even conveyed, earlier, that he wanted a toy one, so I decided to get him one. I asked him to choose which color he wanted: he chose the black one, which was the only one that has fangs, for some reason. (He was quite definite about it.)

After that, he hugged his octopus close as he wandered around. We went by the Dragonslair—the kiddie zone where the music was—again, and I asked if he wanted to go and dance with his octopus. He said "Away!" and kept going. But after a minute he slowed down and looked at his octopus and said "Octopus dance." So we went back to the music room, where Eddie danced with his octopus. He looked like he was gamely having a good time for the octopus's sake.

Soon it was time to head home for his nap. On our way out, someone tripped on the escalator and swore in German ("Scheiße!") and Eddie picked up on it right away. He repeated it several times on our way home.

He had occasion to, since there were patches of snow and ice on the sidewalk. Eddie is not a fan of these (although he's gotten better at it over this week.) At one patch near home, he got really upset and cried and wouldn't proceed. I borrowed a tactic I've heard work with Eddie's friend Luke, and asked "Are you tough?" Eddie said, still crying, "That's Luke!" Silly Papa. But he found some resolve and kept going. There were more patches, and I encouraged him to keep going to see Mommy, and asked if he was tough. "I'm tough," he said. "See Mommy."

When we finally got home, the first thing he did was show Mommy his octopus. The next thing was to report his story: "Ice," he said. "I'm tough."