A new Little Brother

After nearly five years in the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program in Seattle, I decided to get involved with the local program here in San Diego. This week I got matched up with an 11 year-old boy from nearby La Mesa named Jonathan (or John, as he prefers). He lives at home with his mom and his older brother, who is also matched up with a Big Brother.

Yesterday was our first outing together, and it was very much a learning experience for me. After picking him up, we headed down to the Bahia Hotel near Mission Beach, where his Mom has a sailboat at the marina. We played around in the exercise room and video game room for a while before he showed me the boat (an older Catalina 27). Originally, I was planning to take him to Rubio's for some fish tacos for lunch, but he convinced me to go to both Rubio's (where we each had two tacos) AND Jack In The Box, where he proceeded to order a bacon cheeseburger combo with milkshake and curly fries. Though he didn't finish it, I was amazed at how much food he put down. In retrospect, I shouldn't have let him eat that much, but, being our first outing, I was trying to learn his limits before imposing my rules on him (Big Brothers aren't supposed to play the role of surrogate parent). Not surprisingly, he seemed a bit ill on the drive back to his house. I wanted to apologize to his mother, but she wasn't home upon our return.

After having a shy and quiet Little Brother in Seattle, John couldn't be more different. He seems to enjoy talking about everything, and isn't afraid to let me in on details of his personal life. He's very well-spoken, and enjoys playing both the piano and trumpet. He also jumped at the opportunity to run fast on the treadmill -- quite odd for a kid his age! I'm curious to see how this all plays out, since even though I've done this kind of thing before, it's like I'm going through it for the first time...