Big Plans

There is a very funny picture book called Big Plans by Bob Shea (illustrated by the guy who did the Stinky Cheese Man). In the book, the protagonist boy gets in sent to the corner and the whole time he is making BIG PLANS! That background to say that I have a 5th grader who is this boy to the letter. I will call him Big Plans because of his big plans. Every day he tells me some story about something that he is going to do and every time these plans are so extravagant and well...big. Today we were riding to Balboa Park and he was telling Budachris (a later story) about how they were going to go to Colorado for Christmas. Not only were they going to go to the snow but they weren't going to go in a car they were going to get a RV. In the past few weeks he has told me about how they (Budachris and him) were going scuba diving, not snorkeling, but diving to catch sharks with knives. They are going to move to Temecula to get a fresh start (apparently 10 is the age at which you need a fresh start). They are going to go to Hawaii and live with a long-lost relatives. They are going to refurbish a abandoned trailer and make it a clubhouse in which they can put their PSP and DS. They are going to move into a dorm room with one of their brothers and go to parties at State. You get the idea...these elaborate stories sometimes annoy me but I began thinking today that these plans may be the only thing that keep these boys going. The community that I work in is pretty hopeless and maybe I should embrace the hope instead of shaking my head in disbelief. Maybe next time I should say, "Tell me about these big plans". Hopefully one day, a lifetime away from now, I will come across Big Plans and he can tell me about how the made all of these things happen...I believe he will because after all he has BIG PLANS!