D Bros.

A and Jules Casey

V went out of town for a school week leaving me alone with Alex for 6 days. Since the work week is crazy hectic and I didn't want Alex to have to stay at school every night until 6 PM, my Mom offered to come stay a couple of nights to help out.

When the weekend finally. arrived, we took her out to a thank you dinner at my favorite, family owned restaurant near her house, DeVivo Bros Eatery. They describe their menu as "rustic comfort food". I'm not sure why I like it so much...but it is delicious.

They were doing live music that night and a super cute girl was singing acoustic covers of all of our favorite pop songs post the early 2000s...One Direction, Taylor Swift, Maroon Five, etc. She had Alex at Shake it Off. It took him a minute to realize it was Taylor Swift, but then he was like, "I know this song!"
Her voice was good...more country western with her raspy tone and she performed her original songs as well.

JULESCASEY.COM...maybe we'll see her on The Voice.

I gave Alex $5 to put in her tip jar after she finished her set. He started waving it at her in the air like she was a stripper or something. It was adorably embarrassing.


Then there was this sweet couple on a date before a homecoming dance.

Alex is in this 'pointing at people and saying things about them in very close proximity' phase. He kept pointing at them and saying, "Look."
Look at what? I kept asking as I put his pointer finger down.
"They are a boy and a girl."
All of this in ear shot as they were in the table right next to us.
Later, he was pointing out people in line at the counter, providing us with much detail about what he was observing...
Earlier this month, he pointed at a couple next to us at a different restaurant and said, "They're old."

I realize that I straight up creeper-style took this picture, which probably says a lot about where he is getting all of this, but I wanted to pose a question to the blog and it was important to have a photo.

How do you teach a child politeness about not pointing and knowing what to say without killing their sense of curiosity and observation? I don't want him to feel ashamed for seeing these things, but how did we learn to know what was appropriate and not appropriate to share out loud? I get the pointing thing. I point things out to him all the time. Why wouldn't he point?
I'm sure this is a parenting thing that I am failing to perform.

The cute teenage girl was skeleton thin. She hardly ate any of her dinner. When they got up to leave, it looked like most of her food was still there. I wish I had that kind of self control when I dated...or now, because I really didn't date...

I think I know where Alex is getting all of this from...