January 13, 2010
"Of course we had to turn it down."
Not going to win any parenting awards here, but I think I know who will be carrying on the tradition in my twilight years. (Clip art brilliance, I say!)
Posted at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
May 2, 2008
Sleestak
My earliest memory of television is also my scariest. I was born in 1972. Land of the Lost aired on Saturday mornings from 1974 to 1976. It was a remarkable program for the time -- dark for its time slot, ambitious effects, multi-episode story arcs -- I've later learned. But back then I knew only this: the Sleestak scared me to death.
A Sleestak is a cave-dwelling humanoid lizardish creature forever threatening the three hapless humans on the show. Peeling back a few layers of psychological scar tissue I seem to recall that they only ever hissed, though I may simply be unable to remember anything else. (Tell me you wouldn't crap yourself as a four-year-old hearing that. What were my parents thinking letting me watch this show?)
It's funny how deeply fear etches. Thinking back on this traumatic formative period of my life I also recall a restaurant my parents used to take us to. I remember two things. First it was like 100 miles away (Oak Brook to Naperville for you Chicago area folks) and second that a Sleestak lived there.
It was a dark restaurant, themed like a old west mining operation. Lots of antique excavation and railway equipment decorating the walls. On a shelf in the corner was an old railroad signal lantern. It looked something like this.
Obviously, obviously, I could look at nothing else. In the cave-like dark this thing looked exactly like the bulbous eyes of a Sleestak peering down on me and my roast beef au jus. In fact I can't eat a beef dip to this day without hearing a creepy hissing in my head.
Apparently there is a movie adaptation in the works. Have to take my kids to that. Nothing says family bonding like shared childhood terror.
Posted at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
April 8, 2008
Left on my desk with a note from wife: "This should make you proud"
Yes, my love, it certainly does.
By Nathan, Age 6.
This might be just the thing I need to launch my career as a parenting coach.
UPDATE: After extensive, scholarly analysis of the artwork it has been determined that the speech balloon does not saw "Eww" but rather "Flower". An interesting development as it suggests that the whole thing was either (a) a depiction of frolicking in the garden or (b) my son thinks his socks smell like flora.
UPDATE 2: reCAPTCHA lookout. This just gave me a great idea. Is it human or is it a six-year-old?
Posted at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 11, 2008
Chess with verve
Over the holidays my six-year-old son discovered chess. He picked up the basic piece movements remarkably fast and soon became fixated on special moves like castling, en passant, and pawn promotion. So much so that in some early games performing those moves became his sole motivation.
But the best thing about playing chess with my kid is that it is an un-self-consciously emotional affair. He jumps around, screams at the board, and covers his eyes after he makes a questionable move. This is the way chess should be played. Forget about that computer and the four hour matches. Let's spice it up with name-calling, body-checking, and post-game emotional meltdowns!
Reminds me of that classic SNL skit with Jim Belushi as a high school chess coach in the style of Bobby Knight. "You call that castling?! Come on! Why don't you just give him the king?! Give it to him!" (Transcript.)
Isn't there some sport that involves playing a few moves of chess then boxing or something?
Posted at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
December 18, 2007
Undead Yuletide
Last Saturday my six-year-old asked me about the relationship between St. Nicholas and Santa Claus. I said, too quickly, that they were the same person. My son then informed that he learned in school that St. Nick died a long time ago. As I contemplated my options at this conversational juncture, he asked matter-of-factly, "Is Santa a zombie?"
It took every shred of self-restraint not to run with that.
Then, Sunday we encountered the same problem as last year: too many Clauses around to suspend disbelief. I maintain that you cannot call someone who dresses like Santa "Santa's Helper." That's just silly -- and it is what elves are anyway. Either you say it is Santa Claus or you say it is someone dressed like Santa Claus. Or now ... that it is one of Santa's dead relatives back from the grave. Now quit being naughty or he'll feast on your brains!
Posted at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 3, 2007
How you know when your child is watching too many movies
Scrawled in front of our house.
Click to read the side text for a sense of his current obsession.
Tags: chalk, dvd, kids, sidewalk
Posted at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 27, 2007
Water and fire
There was a torrential afternoon downpour yesterday that caught all three of my kids -- which includes my one-year-old baby girl -- and their Ghanaian babysitter in the rain at the park. They got drenched. And they loved it, especially the toddler. Apparently this is good news, for in Ghana it is said that if a baby gets rained on and does not cry it will live a long life. Who knew?
My three-year-old boy, however, has a problem. A few weeks ago we were out for a stroll and we passed the neighborhood fire department just as the engines were preparing to roll. They laid on the sirens and that really loud, low bellow before they left the station. This noise, compounded by the soundboard of the open garage and the fact that we were approximately 20 feet away, scared the daylights out of my kids. My wife and I were startled too. It was like standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier. (Not that I'd know.)
Now, whenever a fire truck blares by -- and this is often as we are on a major route out of the station -- my three-year-old freaks out. Runs amok, hands covering his ears, shaking, scared mindless. It has gotten so bad that if he thinks something sounds even remotely like a siren (which in the city is like background radiation) he loses it or if he thinks there's a likelihood of fire, say, because he sees open flame on the grill, he freaks. Pavlovian, yet heartbreaking. We've offered to bake cookies and head to the firehouse tomorrow to have him meet the nice firefighters and confront his fears. He's less than sure about that.
I don't believe there is any west African folk wisdom for this problem.
Update: Thelovelywife took Andrew to the local firehouse with a platter of cookies to confront his fears.
The firefighters were totally accommodating, letting he and his brother and cousin play in the engine cab and with the hoses. And yet, Andrew had his hands at his ears the whole time -- scared that there's be a fire emergency in the neighborhood at any time. And in fact there was. Engines rolled. Tears flowed.
Tags: baby, fear, ghana, rain, siren
Posted at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
April 1, 2007
My son, Damien
I'm searching for the 666 birthmark on my 3-year-old son's scalp.
Last week, during a moment of attending to our other kids at our neighborhood park my wife turned to find said son throwing rocks at a homeless man. Let that sink in for a moment. Throwing rocks at an indigent citizen. Now, as she explains it, he was merely throwing rocks that she had previously told him to put down and they were going in the direction of the homeless man. (And the man was not in the park but on the sidewalk.) But I think it is more insidious than that. I think my son merely scouted the terrain and assessed the most high-odds target. A person who was, let's say, not moving so quickly and was encumbered with the trappings of someone who lives with what he carries. An easy mark. He was scolded for throwing rocks at any person, but this was beyond reproach. Not that he knows homeless from not. But still. He then had the gall to tell the guy that he looked like Santa Claus. On hearing this story, I resisted every urge to tell my son that this is what Santa does when he's not building toys at the North Pole. Perhaps my dastardly genes have caused this after all.
Then, later in the week, when my sister was over with her son who is potty-training, my son decided to slink off with the plastic training pot and take a crap in it. What the hell, I'm sure he thought. Unknown to anyone, he left his transaction in it (he's fully trained on a regular toilet, mind you) and then proceeded to hide the pot. My wife smelled dung but could not find it until she uncovered the trainer and lifted the lid. Clearly the work of a closet pooper.
The coup de grace came tonight. The whole family was out to dinner at a local bar/restaurant. Son was “playing” a video game (quarterless) when a waitress walked by. He stuck his hand out and grabbed her butt! She turned to us and said “Did you see that?! He grabbed my ass!” I stifled the urge to laugh before making him apologize. Later I asked her if that was the first time that had happened to her. No, of course not; she works Saturday nights. But I am quite sure she's never been fondled by a three-year-old.
What the hell is happening? Where is he learning this stuff? I don't pelt the dispossessed, stash poop, or fondle women who are not my wife. Is it television? If so, Hi-5 has a lot of explaining to do.
Posted at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
December 15, 2006
Independent Claus
The Santa Claus myth is alive and well in our home. Our five-year-old believes and so do his younger sibs. How long this will last is a mystery. We've already identified the schoolmates we think will burst the bubble. (In fact we did this years ago.)
But the real problem may not be an informant friend, we're coming to realize. There are just too many opportunities to see Santa Claus out and about these days. Any half-witted kid will soon realize it isn't possible for Santa to be at the mall, on the L, at the neighborhood party, on TV, and at school all within a week and, somehow, never looking quite the same. Now, you may argue that this wouldn't raise suspicion since children gleefully accept Santa's trans-global physics-defying* gift delivery trip on Christmas Eve. The difference is that the many encounters of Santas throughout the too-long Christmas season are a much more local, tangible phenomenon than the concept of an unseen Santa flitting through the night sky. And kids are uncanny at pattern recognition with local, tangible things.
Now, I'm not about to throw in with the War on Christmas pundits. In some ways this is the opposite: too much Christmas, not enough room for imagination. My wife actually wanted to talk strategy about how we'd answer if my son asked “Is this the real Santa?” at the local neighborhood festival. I didn't think we should say that he wasn't real. Why even plant the seed that there is such a thing as an unreal Santa? We'd just explain that Santa can be in many places quickly, like magic. I've polled some of my friends and I seem to be in the minority with this stance. Some friends call Rent-a-Clauses “Santa's Helpers.” But aren't his helpers elves? And why would a helper dress up exactly like him? Seems a stretch to me.
Parents, how are you dealing with this?
[*] There's a rebuttal to the classic Physics of Santa argument. Of course he uses an ion shield. Duh!
Posted at 3:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
October 1, 2006
TiVo the Tutor
My oldest son has taught himself to read. He takes every opportunity he can to sound out letters into words. Identifying road signs is a favorite pastime, though not without its hazards. Like yesterday when he sounded out the words "Road Closed" and let rip a bloodcurdling "No!" from his car seat that almost caused me to wreck.
But the best exercise he's created for himself by far is to search for his favorite TV shows by spelling out their names in TiVo's "Search by Title" feature. No one showed him how to do this; my wife and I rarely use Search by Title. TiVo is a perfect tutor, actually. He thinks of a show he likes -- Hip Hop Harry, for example -- then starts typing the letters he thinks make up the title. TiVo of course starts displaying what it thinks are matches which my son visually identifies. If he really screws up the spelling TiVo won't show any matches and he'll have to back up. And the reward for a correct spelling is that he gets to record his show. Positive reinforcement!
Gotta figure out how to get the microwave to teach him mathematics and we'll be all set.
Posted at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 17, 2006
Five-year-old philosophy
My oldest one is a deep thinker. Recently as we passed some strangers on the street he asked "What happens to people when you don't see them anymore?" He was hovering around asking whether they ceased to exist, though he never actually said so. We explained that they kept on living their own lives and that we'd probably never see them again. This saddened him a bit, though only slightly less that it puzzled him. I think he's only just realizing that the sum of human experience is a superset of his own. Peg him for an empirical rationalist philosopher when he grows up and for god's sake no one mention Schrödinger's cat.
But he's even more obsessed with names. He simply cannot understand how there can be things that do not have names. He constantly asks about how something can exist if it doesn't have a name. I explain that there are thousands (millions?) of species of animals, mostly small critters, that we suspect exist but have not been discovered and so have not named. Not to mention undiscovered stars, comets, planets and new concepts, future fashion trends, and dance moves. This might all be prompted by the fact that we have spent the last nine months referring to his unborn sibling without precisely naming it. It would also follow from the fact that he likes to name damn near everything, even the most mundane inanimate speck. Like Adam naming stuff in Eden, the power to name is the power to make real for my boy.
Whatever it is, I think the two obsessions here are related. For my son, reality is directly experienced and labelled. If it is not directly experienced -- a story, for example -- or explicitly named -- a baby in utero, for example -- it just isn't real.
I'll hold off on introducing him to Second Life for now.
Posted at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
April 22, 2006
Over spilt milk
My almost-five-year-old son passed a real milestone this week. It wasn't what you'd consider a typical development milestone. He laughed at himself. That's all. But not at a stupid joke he told or at an act of preschooler physical comedy. He accidentally tripped over my feet with a full glass of milk and spilled it all over the floor, me, and himself. One look at him sodden with milk made me break out laughing. Usually this sort of thing makes him deeply embarrassed and he usually cries. But this time, despite a touch-and-go moment of upper lip quavering, he actually burst out laughing too. Laughing at himself, at his act. This is huge, I think. Being able to laugh at yourself is critical to self-awareness and coping with life.
Hell, if I couldn't laugh at my own idiocy half my life would be spent weeping.
Posted at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 19, 2006
Let's hear it for the [child of unknown gender]
As my wife begins week 35 of her pregnancy with child #3 I have almost perfected the ability to guess the age and/or social upbringing of any person (typically a woman) who says "Oh, you have two boys? You must be trying for a girl."
Trying for a girl? How about hoping not to have a child with Down's Syndrome? Or hoping not to deliver a baby with the cord wrapped around its neck? How about getting a clue, people? I know that parents sometimes decide to have another child simply because they want a certain gender, but this is perverse. Unless you're centrifuging semen, that's a recipe for disappointment half the time.
Yet, you see this attitude in older people all the time. Have a girl? Oh, you must be trying for a boy. And it is of course worse when you're having a third child. As if no one in their right minds would attempt three without striving for a specific gender. I really don't get it. Oh and I am so looking forward to calling people (including family) from the hospital to announce our new son and receiving a dramatic pause and limp "Oh, wonderful. Will you try for a girl next time?"
Posted at 7:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 5, 2006
What not to say to a pregnant, exhausted Mom at the end of a day of wrangling two young children
Son: "Mom, what planet has a hurricane on it?"
Mom: (Oh shit.) "Um, Saturn?"
Son: "No mom (duh), Jupiter."
Mom: "Who taught you that son?"
Son: "Daddy."
Mom: "Good thing you have such a smart Daddy."
Son: "Mommy, why aren't you smart?"
Mom: [...]
Update: Hold the presses, Saturn does have hurricanes. Mommy really is smart!
Posted at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 27, 2006
Globalization
T+ 1 hour since bedtime. Four-year-old comes tramping down the stairs. Wife asks him why he keeps getting out of bed.
"Because I have things to tell you."
She says, "Please save these things for morning."
Pause. Thinking. He rejoins, "But it's morning in China."
And this is, yet again, why I am not the best at discipline. I crumble in the face of genius or creativity. I'm also ashamed to admit that he probably derived that bit of logic from my morning declarations of "it's happy hour somewhere, glug-glug." (Kidding. I don't drink in the morning. Usually.)
Posted at 7:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 25, 2006
Formula
Like a zoologist giddy with insight after long weeks of observing primates in the jungle, I have had a breakthrough. I will now share with you one of the secrets of parenting.- If the two-year-old is silent he is about to do something bad.
- If he is laughing he is currently doing something bad.
- If he is crying he just finished doing something bad.
Posted at 6:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 17, 2006
Guilt-free flatulence
My oldest son has manners, damnit. The kid is just polite. Bless you, thank you, may I? And when he farts, well, he's quick with a "scoo-me" which is the "excuse me" apology for those with little time for extra syllables. Problem is, he's too polite about it. For some reason he thinks that every part of the fart -- every discrete fart quanta, if you will -- must be separately excused. Imagine if you will (and please pardon the excursion into the vulgar if you don't have kids) a child gatlin-gunning flatulence which bystanders cannot hear while saying "scoo-me scoo-me .... scoo-me" for each occurence. (At least he no longer calls the act "passing gassing". That was just unbearably cute.)
Worse, he thinks he must do it no matter when it happens. He'll be mid-sentence: "I was swinging at -- scoo-me -- the park -- scoo-me scoo-me -- and this kid walked in front -- scoo-me -- of me ..." It is out of control. How out of control? Well, when he's pooping behind a closed bathroom door you will hear the poor Emily Post mutant crooning scoo-me as he actually defecates. That's just wrong. The crapper is sacrosanct. Do what you will in there with no repercussions, son. It is your temporary kingdom.
We have told him this. But he's just so damn polite. Scoo-me.
Posted at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 13, 2006
Putting the kids to bed
Two tips.
- When exploring the novelty of bathing your children in the master bathroom tub -- a novelty because it is a jacuzzi-style tub with jets -- be sure to check the cleanliness of said jets before turning them on. After I had recently finished soaping the boys we thought it was time to churn the water a bit so ... rumble rumble ... up powered the jets. And out spewed chunks of mildew fragments, breaking the surface of the water like so many moldy sub-launched ICBM's and leaving the boys looking like they'd just had a brussel sprouts fight.
- Check the fishtank in the child's bedroom for dead/dying marine life before letting him approach for the nighly feeding. You never know when the mundane task of apathetically flushing another dead fishie down the toilet will become a moment of sobbing emotional catharsis. Enough Nemo- or Bambi-viewings and sooner or later the kid will understand that a dead pet is not coming back. My oldest son dropped to his knees, sopping, bawling, and covered in mildew spew, folded his hands heavenward and immediately began telling his recently-deceased great-grandfather how to take care of Fred the fish. (Who knew the kid had even named it?)
Thank me later.
Posted at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 7, 2006
Stork
Confronted with the double-whammy of having to explain to our sons that there was a new baby coming and that the nanny wouldn't be around as much, we chose the easier of the two. Sat 'em on the couch, pulled up mommy's shirt (my job) and said, "Boys, mommy has a baby in her tummy." Blank stares. "Guys, you are going to have a new brother or sister soon."
"When?" As in, like later today or tomorrow morning? "In May."
"Oh, that's great. Can we see?" Now both are off the couch, poking, prodding the belly. The youngest thinks the belly button is the baby.
Then ... the question. "So, how did it get in there?"
Mommy lunges for her stack of baby books. Index, index -- "Babies, questions on where they come from" -- damnit, where is the index?!
I rock back and start in my best 1950's public service ad narrator's voice, "well, son, when a man and a woman love each other very much --"
OH NO OH NO! I HAVE TO GO POOPY RIGHT NOW! He darts off for the toilet and completely forgets his question.
Saved by a crap attack. Isn't it wonderful?
Posted at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
December 4, 2005
$$$
"Daddy, why do you work?"
"Um, so we can have money." Thinking, crap, I should have said something more meaningful like "well, son, I work to make the world a better place." Ah well, better roll with it.
"But money comes from the machine."
"Yes, but work puts it in the machine."
My son thinks about this for a very long time, then walks off without saying anything. I'm pretty sure he thinks my job is to actually load money into ATM's.
Eh. As long as he's proud of me.
Posted at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 9, 2005
The always-ending story
My two-year-old refers to books as "the end". Sing-songy, up-down. "The end." If he wants a book he will point to it and say "the end". Walking down the aisles of a bookstore a few weekends ago was an endless parade of "the end, the end, the end."
In addition to being cute, this is also useful since ending a story -- and being able to say "the end" -- is the best part for him. So you never have to worry if you're not up for reading a longish story. Just quickly proceed to "the end."
However, I'm not sure he'll be as interested in the looping, sometimes endless hypertext fiction as I am.
The end.
Posted at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 24, 2005
Osiris, meet Jesus. Jesus, Osiris.
Yesterday I was a guest speaker at my son's school. Each week a new student becomes The Chosen One, he/she whose ego shall be inflated by week's end. This was my son's special week, so I volunteered to come talk to the class about my job, specifically about my work in Egypt. I figured that'd be more interesting to four-year-olds than, say, XML or Gantt charts.
Now, I've given presentations to CEO's and government officials, to audiences skeptical and outright hostile, but I gotta say prepping for the preschoolers ranks right up there in terms of pre-show jitters. I mean, blowing a pitch to a client is one thing. Embarrassing your child the very first time you get a chance in front of his peers, that scars for life.
I now realize that talking about Ancient Egypt to a group of kids who don't understand the concept of death is extremely difficult. How to explain the mummy? ("The wrappings keep the Egyptians cool when they take forever-naps.") I did get a bit of a kick out of introducing the class to some of the Egyptian pantheon of gods, especially as this is a Catholic school. I had visions of the tots explaining to their parents that they learned about Osiris, Lord of the Dead, at school. Multiculturalism, kids. Teach the controversy.
At one point I introduced a finger puppet of a pharaoh. I explained that he was the leader of Egypt, that he wore a headdress that made him feel powerful like a lion, and that he ruled everything he could see with absolute power. At this point one of my son's friends exclaimed "Just like President Bush!" No, I'm not kidding. I only wondered if he meant the puppet part or the absolute power part.
"More than you know, kid, more than you."
Posted at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005
Proud of my little pantheist
"Mommy, what is god's job?"
"Um." A silence pregnant with panic.
"What does he do?"
"Well, he created the world and now he watches over it."
"Oh, that's good. So we could all be god then couldn't we?"
"Eat your lunch, son."
Posted at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 18, 2005
Nature's vs. nurture's call
Currently my four-year-old son's most requested song is "Mongoloid" by Devo, specifically this a capella version. His constant requesting of it can't be good in the long term, especially since his uncle has Down's Syndrome. The upside is that I guarantee he is the only preschooler who knows that the condition is chromosomal.
Recently he announced "You know, Dad, everybody poops ... except Mommy." This is curious because neither I nor my wife has ever told him that she is a non-pooper. (Oh, and also it is untrue.) I've never seen a reference to immaculately crapless mothers on any kids' TV show and I can't imagine this is a point of discussion at school. Are little boys born incapable of believing their mothers could be dirty in the way that their fathers clearly are?
Speaking of ingrained behaviors, the older boy actually leaps for joy -- there is no other way to describe the ecstatic dance he does -- when he hears the 20th Century Fox fanfare that precedes their movies. You know, the martial drums and horns? This is because this is how Star Wars movies begin and forever the two shall be linked in his mind. This of course is a terrible setup for disappointment before the several hundred Fox flicks that aren't followed by a yellow text crawl into the distance.
Posted at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 14, 2005
Sausage fest
We're all about penises today.
Wife: "Son, why are you holding your penis?"
Me: "Why not?"
Wife: [disapproving glare flashed my way]
Son: "Because it likes me."
Me: [laughing into pillow]
Then, later, the same son spotted mommy in the bathroom.
Son: "Hey, you don't have a penis."
Wife: "That's right. Boys have penises. Girls don't. Mommy's a girl."
Son: "Well then you can't live here. This is a boy penis house. But you can live next door so I can come outside and see you."
Brilliant.
Posted at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 3, 2005
Window to my world
Some choice morsels from the last twenty-four hours in my household.
My newly four-year-old son is hell-bent on being able to wipe his own butt these days. So I'm showering, he's pooping, same bathroom. He wipes with enough paper to cover a house in a John Hughes movie. Proceeds to bend over to the ground, ass aloft, and smashes his rump against the shower door glass. He asks me to check to see that he is clean. Let me tell you, this kind of scatological evaluation is not easy from the other side of a steamy shower door. I tell him I think he should wipe again. So he loads up with toilet paper again and proceeds to run out of the bathroom. He comes back about five minutes later and explains that he had to go to his room so that he could wipe in the mirror. I still don't know exactly how he accomplished this. Best guess is that he was bent over looking through his legs backwards at the mirror. OK can we stop talking about this?
Today same son looked outside as dusk approached and said, "Mommy, its nighttime. When does the babysitter come?" Nice Pavlovian reaction to the end of the day, son. We don't go out that much.
The youngest son was napless and ornery at the restaurant tonight. We had to scoot his high chair away from the table so he had nothing within banging distance. Mama offered him some crunchy chip thing. He took it, stared her right in the face with a completely emotionless expression, and crushed it into dust with his hand still outstretched, like a Hollywood villian pulverizing the hero's antivenom as he sits in a snake pit. This is when you ask for the bill before your food arrives.
Posted at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
June 29, 2005
Like a caterpillar
"Daddy, I'm not going to take a bath until you let me smell the maggots one more time."
What's most wrong with this statement?
(1) child giving parent an ultimatum
(2) presence of maggots somewhere in our home
(3) implication that he doesn't need to bathe unless exposed to maggots
(4) suggestion that I let him smell the maggot-pile in the first place
(5) that he needs another hit of rot-waft
Posted at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
June 21, 2005
Nailed
My son crawled out of bed tonight and announced to us that he needed his toenails clipped. I thought this was the funniest thing I had ever heard -- at least a very creative excuse not to go to sleep (what if a long nail caught on the comforter?!) -- but I immediately knew that laughing would not be received well by thelovelywife. I stifled my laughter in my elbow pit.
Without looking up from her magazine my wife dryly replied, "Son, we do not trim toenails every night. Go back to bed." Which he promptly did.
See, I would have blown that exchange in any myriad of ways.
Posted at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 26, 2005
Sibling stance
In Ghana if a young child bends over to look through his or her legs it is a sign that the child's mother will soon be pregnant. The bent-over youngster, according to West African tradition, is looking for a sibling. Interestingly, this idea must have currency in other cultures such as Louisiana French, because my wife's grandmother also knows of it. My youngest son conks his head on the ground to look backwards all the time and whenever he does it sets off a flurry of giggling Twi, the dialect that our Ghanaian nanny and all her neighborhood pals speak. If translated I believe they would be saying: "job security".
Posted at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 17, 2005
Zoo Illogical
So the Lincoln Park Zoo is in a world of hurt, having decremented their animal count by eight and not by sending 'em back to the bush. I don't know what's going on there, exactly, but I can speak for much of Chicago in saying that we really really really want to give you the benefit of the doubt, LPZoo. You are one of the only free zoos left in the country and such a gem in the middle of the park. There is absolutely nothing better than a stroll on the lake with a quick duck in to see the animals. But, jeez! What's going on?
Today I chaperoned my son's class on a field trip to the zoo. Somehow all the 3-4 year-olds knew that the elephants had died. I know I didn't tell them and I suspect the teachers didn't either. Meme's get around, I guess. It was all they could talk about. They don't even know what death is. Problem is that at midday most of the animals are lounging in the shade, motionless, which of course prompted incessant questioning: Is the hippo dead? Are the coyotes dead? And my favorite, because it was was looking right at us: Is the tiger dead?
Suggestion for the LPZoo. In addition to your press relations effort regarding the deaths at the zoo how about you position a smart staffer at every one of the exhibits that used to house the now-deceased. Make it a point to discuss things openly with children who come by. Don't remove the elephant signage and not expect kids (or adults) to notice. We know the zoo like our backyard. Be overt and forthcoming. Explain disease, explain the stress of captivity, explain that sometimes we don't know why animals die. This will win the day eventually and will benefit the kids ultimately. Animals don't just disappear.
Posted at 8:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 1, 2005
Act of volition, act of contrition
"Mommy, I accidentally hit Andrew on purpose." Sobbing, sobbing.
The conflicted emotions of a rambunctious 3½-year-old.
Posted at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
March 31, 2005
The Force is strong with this one
Hmmm, could be my son is watching too much Star Wars.
Today he was sternly reprimanded for smacking his little brother in the face while he demonstrated his light saber tactics.
Later, while crapping, he noted that his staccato farting sounded like laser blasts.
Then, he announced that he needed to go to Alabama because his imaginary friend's sister Janey was being attacked by AT-AT Imperial Walkers there. (The fact that he knows Alabama being the most troubling part of that exchange.)
Back to Mary Poppins?
Posted at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
February 28, 2005
Snowy sleet
My three-year-old son today exclaimed "Look Mommy it's snowing and raining at the same time."
If I were there I would have informed him that this meteorological phenomenon is known as "sneet" or, more simply, late winter in Chicago.
Posted at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
February 16, 2005
By any other name
The NameVoyager over at Baby Name Wizard is just wonderful. The interactive graph plots the top 1000 baby names over the past century. The beauty of the interaction mode is that, as with search engines that start looking before you finish typing, NameVoyager dynamically re-draws itself with each letter of the name you input, allowing you to see variants and related name-forms morph through time.
This chart shows the popularity of names starting with 'D'. Is there some cultural trend that can explain why the initial 'D' sound was so valued at mid-century but has been on the skids ever since? Whatever it is might explain why why mother and all four of her siblings (born in the later 1940's and early 1950's) all have names beginning with 'D'. Or perhaps my grandparents -- also with 'D' names -- were just nutty about alliteration? And as long as we are searching for answers, what the f*** is going on with "F" names?
I was thinking about names today after I asked my son what the name of the "dog" he made out of Legos was. It occurred to me that I always ask him the name of things he creates or takes new possession of (like, say, a stuffed animal). He stops, recalls with some surprise that he has not named the thing, umms, and then usually produces a slight variant of the nearest tangible noun he spots. "Glass-y," "Ball-oo," "Rug-a." Makes for some spontaneous, if un-memorable, names.
Posted at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
January 7, 2005
Poetic license
My son calls headphones "headmuffs." I find that hysterical, but if I let him see even a smirk he'd get embarrassed and probably cry, never to utter it again. That's my current parenting dilemma. Correct him or let him go on with his cute and often-funny neologisms? Seems cruel to let him go on, now that I think of it, but there's nothing better than hearing about a "hippo-om-a-puss" when you least expect it. I'll let it go a bit longer ...
Posted at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
December 30, 2004
“Is it over?”
Today we put in Mary Poppins for the first time for our three-year-old son. He immediately asked if it was over. You see, Mary Poppins, like most movies of its period, opens with screen after screen of detailed credits. Today's movies having barely any at all my son naturally figured the movie had ended. I mean, come on, that much text belongs at the end, right?
Posted at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
