Tag Archives: boys

“I wanna do it!”

Whenever I go outside to do some man work, which hasn’t been often lately, I find an eager huddle of young helpers circling my ankles. You’d think we keep these kids chained in the basement for all their enthusiasm about going outside to dig a hole.

Over the July 4th weekend, I planned on doing one caulking project to ease myself back into the world of the useful. Somehow I was able to complete this project without any of the hindrance known as little boys being helpful. For all the good the project accomplished I might as well have had truckloads of their help.

I meant to relax the rest of the weekend, so as not to lead my wife into the illusion that I would be regularly useful around the house, but we stumbled into a trees and shrubs sale at buzz-kill Home Depot.

hunt and peck

“I wanna do it!” syndrome affects inside jobs as well, like computer work. This one’s helping me write my blog.

For years, we’ve had boxwood, or dogwood, or some horrible wood-suffixed plant growing in front of our living room windows. Whichever [random noun]wood bush smells like cat pee on a summer breeze, that’s the one.

Some half-priced rose bushes were just screaming to take the whateverwood’s place. I, and more importantly, my wife, heard their cries.

On Sunday afternoon, I hitched up my big boy pants and headed out to make the switch. I was followed outside by two boys, who having missed their earlier chance to pitch in, would not be denied this opportunity to help.

The first task was to trim the urinewood so I could get at its roots. The moment I started clipping, Big Brother was all over me. “I wanna do it!” he demanded.

Buster wouldn’t be left out. “I wanna do it!”

housework

“I wanna do it!” love for the vacuum cleaner wears thin as soon as they are actually capable of pushing it.

Big Man had been made to stay in the house, and now he looked out at us through the window screen, giggling and making Dada words that certainly translated into a one-year-old’s version of “I wanna do it!”

When boys say “I wanna do it!” what they mean is: I want to use these tools to do something that is less work and more fun than what you want me to do with them.

As soon as I had instructed them what to do with the tools that their budding reservoirs of testosterone had commanded them to co-opt, they were off cutting bits off every plant in the yard except the one I had pointed them at. That one was too hard to cut. Gladiolus shoots were much easier, and proportionally more fun, to clip.

Fortunately, it only took clipping a few flowers for me to get at the roots of the shrubbery, 15 feet away. The task of picking up and carting off their clippings and mine cured them of their desire to help. Anything that resembles cleaning up will do that for boys. They found their own games to play and I dug three holes, free and clear of the burden of help.

It turned out to be a lovely afternoon.

The new babies have big shoes to fill.

The new babies have big shoes to fill.

Doctor say it bleeding

The boys were a  dream over the weekend. Unusually well-behaved and full of imagination, they provided several snippets worth remembering.

It began Thursday night, at the book release party my wife threw for A Housefly in Autumn. There were other events at the venue, with lots of people in fancy clothes attending them. As he helped push our wagonload of books into the elevator, Big Brother looked up and asked. “Daddy, do all these people know you’re famous?”

“No, I’m pretty sure they don’t,” I replied.

“Why not?”

I changed the subject. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. I should have said, “Someday, they’ll know,” but I didn’t think fast enough. Anyway, it makes me proud and humble enough to know I’m famous to him.

On Saturday, Mommy went away on an overnight visit, bravely leaving her house in the hands of us four men. We didn’t break the house, as far as Mommy knows, and we had lots of fun. Big Brother invented two new jokes.

Q. What does corn call its father?

A. Pop Corn.

Q. What does an apple call his grandmother?

A. Granny Smith.

You can see the pattern he was working on for his comedy that day.

After jokes came wrestling.

blanket lump

When Mommy’s away, two boys and a blanket lump will play.

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Did that blanket just give birth to a Big Man?

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You boys go about your play. Big Man’s on the march.

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Why is he climbing up the stereo?

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Of course! An extension cord will make the perfect addition to the stash of useful objects he keeps in his hole behind the stereo.

 

On Sunday, Big Brother said he was worried. “Mommy hasn’t called or texted or anything!”

I reassured him that she had texted me. He looked disgusted. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Now that I know he’s a worrier, I’ll be sure to keep him in the loop. He’s right to worry about Mommy’s safety, considering that I’m the only parent he has in reserve.

We were low on food, so I got to do one of my favorite things in the world: go grocery shopping with three boys. Before we left, Buster insisted I help him tear off a piece of Scotch tape. He attempted to wrap the tape around a “Boo-boo” on his baby brother’s finger.

“That’s not a Band-Aid,” I said.

He nodded to reassure me. “It is. It is Band-Aid,” he insisted.

I finally convinced him to leave Big Man alone. He contented himself with wrapping the tape around his own finger. In the car, he tried to convince Big Brother his finger was bleeding.

“It’s not bleeding,” Big Brother insisted, because he’s a pathological corrector, even of  three-year-olds with big imaginations.

“It is bleeding!” Buster shouted back. “Doctor say it bleeding.”

For the rest of the ride, Big Brother attempted to pin Buster down as to exactly when he had been to the doctor.

Buster gave up the argument, secure in his own knowledge that he possessed both a bleeding finger and a Band-Aid. Sometimes, you just have to ignore the skeptics.

Big Man slept through most of the supermarket, and the other boys were surprisingly good. We hit almost every aisle and I didn’t have to break into a run once.

We went home and had sloppy joes, corn on the cob, and watermelon. Then Mommy came home and they ran to her as if she were all that could save them from the collapse of society.

I’m still not as famous as Mommy, but all the blood was imaginary, so I guess we did all right.

Always play safe in Thunderdome

The boys’ uncle sent them a trampoline for Christmas. Memorial Day weekend is the perfect time to build outdoor toys. The weather is finally warm enough to play outside; enough months have passed since Christmas to make it seem like a brand new gift; and parents have an extra day to recover from the trauma of assembly.

This trifecta of perfect timing was marred only by my being sick. I had just your garden variety virus, but my throbbing head and weak limbs did not feel like trampoline-building.

This did not stop my wife for a moment. If I couldn’t do it, she would. I begged her to hold off, but she was a woman with a plan, and that plan involved happily bouncing children. All I had to do was bring up the box from the basement.

Rather than stand in the way of a mother’s goals, I did as asked. Then, I entertained Big Man in the sun room as Mommy and the older boys exited to the back yard.

She did a good job building, but a trampoline, with all its required tautness, presents a struggle for any individual builder. By the time two female neighbors had come to check on her, I realized I had to abandon this being sick business.

I’m sure the neighbors saw me moping around in the back room. I’m also sure my wife explained my infirm state to them. But I’ve read enough mommy blogs to know that when a wife tells her friends her husband is sick, she rolls her eyes. I also know the friends take any husband’s illness as code for, “He’s faking so he doesn’t have do any man work.”

I took Big Man out to help Mommy. With two adults working, we finished the job without much trouble. The worst part was keeping track of the two pages of instructions among the 20 pages of safety guidelines. On the plus side, that was 20 pages of booklet we could ignore.

Don't do this at home

If this picture were in the instruction booklet, it would have a giant, red X over it.

I did notice one headline in the safety area. It was accompanied by picture of two stick figures bumping heads, complete with pain lines radiating from the skulls. It was a funny picture, accompanied by a ridiculous admonition: “Only one person should be on the trampoline.” The entire family had a good laugh over this one. Why didn’t they just tell us to take it apart and put it back in the basement? One person at a time? How could that be fun?

Yes, they were likely to bump heads, and yes, that might hurt for a minute, but hadn’t I just risen from my deathbed to make this fun possible?

They went two and three at a time. They crashed into each other in all kinds of hilarious ways, and they all got over it. Because it was fun. Because sometimes fun comes with bumps and bruises. Because we’re not the kind to make trampoline memories; we make Thunderdome memories.

I got next

The next challenger is ready. Just imagine how awesome it will be once we get the chain saws and pikes hung from the sides.

Three boys at play vs. a natural disaster: who can tell the difference?

Back when I was a fresh college graduate, and lived in that special, naïve bubble that only fresh college graduates inhabit, I took my shiny Telecommunications – Emphasis in Video Production degree to Los Angeles. I had done well in school, so I would certainly be directing The Tonight Show within the blink of an eye.

I learned a lot in L.A. I saw things that were an eyeful, and then some, for a callow country boy. But the most important thing I learned was that I was unemployable there in my chosen field. Somebody with the authority to say so was kind of enough to tell me that straight out.

Consequently, I began my post-collegiate career making minimum wage in the mall. A few months later, I landed an office temp job. After the mall, it felt like I had made it to the Big Time.

Lost cause

The plastic furniture of our dinner table. Many a forlorn resume was spawned at this table.

One day, when I still worked at the mall, I pulled my little car into the bank drive-through, no doubt to withdraw my last $10 so I could buy my next supply of peanut butter and bread. My car began throbbing and shaking. Having no money for repairs, I was relieved when it recovered itself. It seemed okay on the way home, allowing me to hope its mysterious ailment could be managed on the cheap.

At home, I turned on the TV and sat on the stack of foam egg crates my roommate and I used as a couch. There was a Special Report on TV about the earthquake the city had just experienced. As I watched footage of smashed pasta sauce jars in a local grocery, I realized what I felt at the bank was an earthquake. I was ecstatic. It wasn’t anything serious, like car trouble; it was only an earthquake.

It was a mild quake by California standards. The “World Series” quake in San Francisco a few weeks later proved that. I felt only minor rumbles during the year it took me to decide to tuck my tail and make the long road trip home.

Now I live where quakes are rare. My Telecommunications – Emphasis in Video Production degree is as useful now as it was then. I’ll never direct The Tonight Show, but that’s okay; I’m where I’m supposed to be. I’ve got three awesome boys, and I get to spend lots of time with them because I’m not cooped up to all hours in production meetings.

And when we have that rare tremor, like we had last Saturday, do I worry about my car? Not at all. After the house thumped and the walls rattled for all of three seconds, I marched into the room where the boys were playing and yelled at them to leave whatever piece of the house they were destroying alone.

Trouble brewing

Most of our earthquakes begin with a little harmless wrestling.

We don’t have earthquakes here. Why wouldn’t I yell at them?

P.S. Sorry I blamed you for the earthquake, boys.