Category Archives: Little Weirdos

Don’t let your own spittle get the best of you

Now that my son brushes his teeth by himself, I think nostalgically about what he used to say whenever he reached some developmental milestone. When congratulated upon his accomplishment, his eyes would beam pride and he would say, “I’m getting a big boy.”

The words, “I’m getting a big boy,” always made it sound as if he were heading down to the Big Boy Shelter to pick out a big boy of his very own. If there is truly such a place as the Big Boy Shelter, I would like to know about it, because there are some days when I would like to drop him off there. But he’s had all his shots, he’s good with children, and my wife has grown attached to him, so I guess I’ll keep him.

Of course, he meant, “I’m getting to be a big boy,” but at the time, even the simplest verb in all language, unprocessed by conjugation, thwarted him. It was nothing to be ashamed of; the same simple verb flummoxed Hamlet, and he got to be famous, in spite his inability to come to terms with it.

Hamlet

Contemplating basic verbs. I always do my best pondering when I’m holding my thinking skull. Maybe this guy should get one of those.

My son has since gotten to be a big boy. But big boys still have their troubles. My big boy encounters one of his most vexing troubles occasionally while brushing his teeth. This is the psychological torture caused by a dangling string of spittle.

Nine out of ten times, the boy can rinse and spit without any terrifying results. Yet, every once in a while this process leaves that tenacious thread of spittle hanging from his mouth. This is horrifying to him. He would rather examine the baby’s dirty diapers than touch a thread of saliva from his own mouth. This goes for touching it with his toothbrush as well.

group tooth brushing

“Spittle can’t harm us as long as we stick together. Now, you boys in the back just wait patiently; the girls are almost finished and a toothbrush will come available presently.” (Image: Frank P. Burke)

Whenever his spittle clings to him, as it stretches its disgusting length toward the sink, he freaks. He makes moaning and groaning and whining sounds as he first shakes, then bobs, his head in a frantic effort to free himself of the horrifying link.

Of course I’m laughing, so I’m no help.

My laughter only makes him more furious. How would you feel if there were a rattle snake, hanging by fangs stuck into your lower lip, and your dad just stood there and laughed?

But if his spit is too nasty for him to touch, I’m not getting near it.

platoon tooth brushing

It is never too soon to learn your patriotic duty as an American to stand firm against the spittle hordes.

After about 15 seconds of a full-fledged Irish jig, the strand usually snaps off. By then, the kid is breathless and exhausted, but his mouth is safe to bring his toothbrush near again. That is, unless the strand has the unholy gumption to snap in the middle. Then the terror begins all over again. Only it’s worse now, because it’s going to take longer for this shorter pendulum of swinging spittle to build up enough momentum to break free of him.

He should have continued to leave out simple verbs and just gone and adopted a big boy to do these dangerous tasks for him. It would have been easier that way.

Gentlemen is just a fancy word for girls

My son seems to be testing the hypothesis that he can more easily get what he wants if he expresses his desires in terms that might be used by a 50-year-old diplomat. Unfortunately, four-year-olds don’t always understand the meanings of the words necessary to overwhelm their parents with polite graciousness.

We were playing at the train table in the back room. I had the baby as well. This meant that we could choose to have all of our creations destroyed almost immediately by the continuous tornado of infancy, or we could subject ourselves to constant crying as I held the baby back from his sworn duty to deconstruct any system giving off the odor of intentional design.

I was in favor of letting the whirlwind run amok. Big Brother voted for incessant wailing. Neither choice was a good one, but the final decision was mine. The boy, weighing the balance of power within the room, turned to diplomacy. “I’ve got a great idea,” he said. “Let’s leave the baby with those gentlemen.” He pointed, in his open-handed way, through the kitchen toward the living room.

Hearing my son refer to any people as gentlemen left me befuddled and amused. There were indeed two people in the living room, and for a second I imagined that they were the foreign ministers of Germany and France. In fact, they were my wife and her sister. I was about to tell him, “That’s no gentleman; that’s my wife,” but I realized it wouldn’t be funny to him, or to anyone else.

Instead, I asked, “Do you know what gentlemen means?”

“Yeah, it means girls.”

Women's League

Maybe these gentlemen can watch the baby. That is, if they are all done pushing Germany and France toward war.

“Listen,” I commanded, as I began to speak slowly. “Gentlemen, gentle . . . men, men. It means boys.”

A true diplomat must have the ability to adapt to a changing situation. He must have the skill to address a new reality without any embarrassment or regret over what no longer obtains.

Before I could even get around to asking him if he understood, my son’s arm was raised again, his open palm indicating the path to the living room. “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s leave the baby with those gentle ladies,” he said.

I’m signing him up to take the Foreign Service Exam. I just hope it doesn’t have a vocabulary section.

 

Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

Our four-year-old had a friend over. I was watching a basketball game while they played nearby. They began discussing their respective lineages. How four-year-olds get into such a discussion, I don’t know. There must be something about toy trains that leads naturally into ancestry.

I let the ballgame fade away as I focused myself upon a little parental eavesdropping. I wanted to know what my son had retained from the things I’d told him about his family.

“My grandfather was a soldier,” he told his friend.

That was very nearly correct. It was his great-grandfather, but that’s all the same to a preschooler.

“He died when he got old,” my son continued.

Correct. He was about 70, which seems ancient when you’re four.

“My grandsister died too. She was sick.”

Grandsister? I don’t know what closet he pulled her out of; I’m sure I’ve never mentioned a sickly grandsister.

“And,” he said, with no more emotion than he’d displayed when recounting the demise of his faceless grandsister, “my father died because somebody shot him.”

What? I’m sitting right here!

Number 1: You’re clearly lying.

Number 2: It’s rude to speak of someone’s grisly death right in front of him.

Number 3: If you’re going to tell people I’m dead, at least act a little cut up over it!

His friend pointed out that I was quite nearby, and although I displayed all the vigor of a declining couch potato, it was clear that I still clung to my low-grade existence. My son dropped the subject and picked up a locomotive engine.

A lot of thoughts go through your head at that moment when your son first begins to tell people that you are dead. Once you eliminate malice as a motive, you are assailed by a Twilight Zone of possible interpretations:

Is he a psychic, unwittingly foretelling my violent demise? Well, he didn’t see a Time Out coming when he threw a tennis ball at the TV screen, so his psychic powers can’t be too polished.

Am I seeing him in the future, when I really am shot and killed? It still wouldn’t hurt him to show a little grief over the event.

Does he see dead people (i.e. me)? Well, if I’m already dead, his friend, his brother, his mother, all my co-workers, and the guy who flipped me off in traffic this morning can see me too, which gives death no advantages over life.

After the shock of my untimely end wore off, I realized the truth. It had nothing more to do with the Twilight Zone than that my boy might have written for the show if he’d been around at the time. The kid is a storyteller. He likes storytelling so much that he blurts out the plot before taking time to review its plausibility. He said I died because he wanted to keep the story going and the word father came to him before he could conjure up a grandbrother.

The boy likes to spin a yarn, and since I have never been one to embellish any story or make any tale taller by a few inches, I can only blame his mother.

drawing of army man

A storyteller and an artist too: This is the boy’s illustration of his great-grandfather. I can only assume that the stain on his uniform is mud and/or coffee. War is dirty business, and, if this soldier was anything like his great-grandchildren, most of his drinks ended up on his clothes.

A boy’s natural biological urge to vacuum

Now that Santa has rewarded her devotion with a new and useful vacuum cleaner, my wife is no longer crippled by inferior equipment and can finally display her vacuumin’ acumen to its fullest potential. Nobody hits a carpet with more gusto than she does.  If vacuums could pick up juice stains, you’d be able to eat off our carpets, as our children often do, juice stains notwithstanding.

I am starting to suspect that our baby has inherited an appreciation for a quality vacuum cleaner from his mother. I don’t know for sure which chromosome carries the Vacuum Cleaner Appreciation Gene, but I’m pretty sure he’s got it, and I’m equally sure he didn’t get it from me.

I haven’t run any experiments on this hypothesis, but I think a lot of babies would be afraid of the vacuum cleaner, or at least be indifferent to it. Our baby chases it. He follows the vacuum cleaner around as if he wants nothing more than to give that glorious dirt buster a giant hug. He is absolutely fascinated by the machine.

boy chasing vacuum

Vacuum wrangling tip #1: Dress appropriately for the job. A proper rodeo clown outfit tells the world that you a serious vacuum chaser.

I recall him following the old, junky vacuum around sometimes, but I don’t think that was for love of the machine. I think he was just looking for the crumbs it turned up and left behind it so he could see how they tasted. There was no better way to discover interesting crumbs in our house than to follow the old vacuum and sift through its tailings.

boy approaching vacuum

Vacuum wrangling tip #2: If you want to catch a moving vacuum in the open, you’ve got to take the right angle to intercept its path.

Even when the new vacuum is not on, the kid can’t stay away. He has to touch its various parts and see how they fit together. It’s a really good vacuum, but I can’t help but think that he is working out some improvements in his head. Maybe he’s trying to figure out why the wheels don’t fall off, because every vacuum he’s ever known before had wheels that fell off.

boy with vacuum cord

Vacuum wrangling tip #3: Get a firm grip on the animal’s tail; he can’t get away if you’ve got his tail.

boy with vacuum attachments

Vacuum wrangling tip #4: Take the bull by the horns. If you can’t find any horns, take it by the upholstery attachment.

Come to think of it, his big brother has a bit of a vacuum fixation too. If he spots a floor sweeper in a restaurant, look out, especially if you are part of the wait staff. He’s tripped a waiter or two in his zeal to make dining room carpets more appealing to customers. It turns out that carpet sweepers don’t pick up juice (or wine, or beer) stains either.

boy reaching out toward vacuum

Vacuum wrangling tip #5: Become one with the beast. Soothe it with gentle caresses or, preferably, a Vulcan mind meld.

Without the benefit of any professional psychological assessments, I’m going to posit that my family’s fascination with vacuum cleaners is a good thing. Yes, it may be a little unusual, but I look at it this way: if these kids are that enthused about the prospect of pushing a vacuum, they have already set themselves upon the slippery slope that leads to mowing the lawn. When the boys discover how much louder, hotter, sharper, and  generally more dangerous lawn mowers are, they’re sure to want to trade up. Call the vacuum a gateway machine; it works for me.