Ashton: People hire me at school to be their body guard.
Me: What? People hire you at school?
Ashton: Yeah, like this kid hired me, and someone tried to make him say something, and so i said, "people have freedom of speech therefor they have freedom of not speech, because they only have to say what they want to say, so they dont have to say what they dont not want to say, and they can say whatever they want or don't want to."
Then the people stand there trying to figure it out for a long time. Then they go away.
Me: What do you get for being a body guard?
Ashton: I get to confuse people, and it is fun.
Me: So there is no contract signed, or payment in money or candy, this is just to be an annoyance to others?
One of the apps Ashton has on his phone is called Instagram. It allows you to enhance your photos with different filters and post them for friends. He is a fan, but rarely uses it, or checks it.
Having an Instagram account myself, two days ago I noticed a spike in his picture posting. Then it happened. GIRLS from school were liking his photos, and he was liking theirs.
I try to never tease him about liking girls, because I want him to know it is okay, and that he can talk to us about it, so I casually asked him about it in the car:
"So, Ashton, I saw you have some new friends on your Instagram."
"Yeah."
"Are the girls in your class?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know. Do you know this person? Her name is her Instagram user name, and she has posted about 45 pictures of herself."
"I guess."
I dropped it, even though I could have went on that there are only 360 kids in the entire school. I'm pretty sure everyone knows everyone in their same grade, and probably also in their combined grade. Or at least well enough to recognize one of the 45 close up pictures of this girls face. He half way shares things with us. I don't want to mess that up. He still wants to hide the fact that he likes girls. I'll take it!
So instead of asking directly, I went to the source. Since we pay for his phone, we get to look through it to keep tabs on what he is doing. After he went to bed, I spent a while looking at all the pictures of his new friends, who are also all friends of each other, and who obviously go to school with him. All are harmless, but for goodness sakes girls, keep your tongue in your mouth. It isn't cute when Miley Cyrus does it, and it isn't cute when you do it either.
But the realization is still there. The liking girls thing became very obvious almost over night. I can't deal, but seriously, what is not to like about a kid with this voice:
