{"id":3974,"date":"2013-07-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=3974"},"modified":"2014-02-19T15:24:35","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T23:24:35","slug":"spring-break-with-java-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=3974","title":{"rendered":"Spring Break With Java Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by by Belovodchenko Anton<\/p><\/div>\n

Ah, that rich, strong aroma of coffee. Its anticipation is the only thing that makes getting out of bed worthwhile most of the time. I understand the attraction to coffee and why some might call it an addiction. I really do. Not that I’m addicted. I can quit anytime I want to. I quit when I was pregnant and I could do it again anytime–if I happened to go crazy and wanted to quit.<\/p>\n

But how do you keep coffee away from an eight-year-old boy once he’s had a taste of the good stuff?<\/p>\n

It all started so innocently. It was Spring Break<\/a>, which I suppose is a time when many a vice makes its first appearance. Ah tradition!<\/p>\n

We were at a Starbucks somewhere near Hoover Dam<\/a> when my son asked for a sip of my latte. Why not? I handed it over naively, expecting him to reject it as quickly as he did when he tried tuna casserole, peanut M & M’s or key lime pie. Anticipating that I would have my coffee back immediately, I held out my hand and was dumbfounded when he took a gigantic gulp. He finally came up for air with a huge cat-that-ate-the-canary grin on his face, only to chug the rest of my liter-sized latte down without even taking another breath.<\/p>\n

The look on the boy’s face was so buzzed and stupidly proud, for a second I thought I was back at a college frat party, with drunken freshman pledges yelling at each other to “drink, drink, drink.” His telltale milk moustache even looked just like beer foam.<\/p>\n

Uh oh. The big red mother’s warning flag went up in my head. Danger zone. This kid–who doesn’t really sleep all that much to begin with–really likes coffee.<\/p>\n

This can’t be good.<\/p>\n

It definitely wasn’t.<\/p>\n

Normally a bit hyper, he spent the next 9 hours in hyper-drive mode, bouncing off the walls–of our car.<\/p>\n

This definitely wasn’t good.<\/p>\n

He is normally kind of a physical kid, but now he was in hyper-touch mode, constantly hugging and wrestling anyone who came near him. The frat party visions came back again.<\/p>\n

This was not good.<\/p>\n

Finally the caffeine wore off. We all crashed hard.<\/p>\n

For the rest of our trip, every time we came near a java joint we were greeted by pleas of, “Please, can I have a latte?” I have a hard time passing up an opportunity for a coffee fix in the best of circumstances. It didn’t help that on this trip we were guest room hopping and staying in cheap motels, so hubby and I were even more tired and in need of caffeine than usual.<\/p>\n

“May I please have a latte?” replaced “Are we there yet?” as the chorus for the soundtrack of our trip.<\/p>\n

One morning when we were particularly groggy he managed to order himself a latte at breakfast before my ears perked up. “He’s just kidding,” I said to the big-eyed waitress, who couldn’t wait for a cigarette break to share the story about those crazy kooks from California.<\/p>\n

It didn’t help that our friends in Albuquerque allow their children to imbibe in decaf. “May I please have a latte?” now had a companion statement in the reprise. “It’s okay mom. I’ll have a decaf,” The fact that their fifth grade son is the same height as our third grader didn’t seem to deter our child’s desire for the stuff.<\/p>\n

I guess I should just be happy he didn’t ask for a sip of my beer.<\/p>\n

Originally published in the\u00a0Santa Barbara Daily Sound<\/a>\u00a0on April 8, 2008.<\/h6>\n

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