Tag Archives: boys

You can depend on the Tooth Fairy – eventually

Our Tooth Fairy has always been flaky. She was unreliable when she first started calling at our house, and she’s unreliable still.

Poor Big Man had to have a tooth extracted. He took the news better than his big brothers would have. He didn’t cry or have to be dragged kicking and screaming. He was stoic about the entire procedure.

At five years old, I’d have faced such a procedure as impending doom. When I was eight, it took six medical professionals to hold me down to take blood, and that didn’t leave a hole, so at five I would have fought gum and nail over my bad tooth.

Big Man’s courage amazed me. He faced the dentist with aplomb. He even asked to take the extracted tooth home.

He wanted to examine his tooth as soon as he got home. It was saved in a tiny treasure chest, and he revered it like a treasure. Seeing my child’s tooth, complete with roots, not at all resembling the nub that would eventually have fallen out on its own, made me feel guilty for the operation he had endured.

The name of this chest seems a little ironic for the holder of a tooth that couldn’t be saved.

Big Man showed no regrets. He was fascinated by his tooth. He turned it over in his fingers, pointing out interesting features to me. It was all very clinical.

Except it wasn’t, really.

Big Man gets attached to odd things for brief periods. He instantly became attached to his separated tooth. He carried the little chest around the house with him for days. He fretted over losing it. He even wanted to take it to his soccer game.

We talked about selling the tooth to the Tooth Fairy, but he wanted to keep it for a while. He wasn’t ready to give up such an interesting specimen.

Until he was, suddenly and without notice.

Four days after the extraction, when I woke him for school, he reached under his pillow and pulled out his treasure chest. “The Tooth Fairy didn’t give me money,” he announced with disappointment. He was more upset about this than having the tooth pulled in the first place. “I want my money!”

The attachment was over, but our Tooth Fairy didn’t get the memo. “You have to tell your parents when you put your tooth under your pillow,” I told him, “so the Tooth Fairy knows it’s okay to take it. That’s the rule.”

“No it’s not.”

“How do you know? Did you even go to the library and ask for the book of Tooth Fairy rules?”

“No. But that’s not a rule.”

“Let’s test it. Put it under your pillow tonight and the Tooth Fairy will know it’s okay to take it.”

This was far from satisfactory, but it was better than sleeping with a tooth he no longer cherished night after night. He waited another day for our unreliable fairy.

It was a special tooth from a brave boy, so the next night the Tooth Fairy made amends by leaving a little extra.

Hi, I’m Grumpy, and this is my brother, Sleepy – and this is my other brother, Sleepy

I know it’s going to be a difficult morning when I go to wake Buster. Buster is the closest kid we have to a morning person. After one week of school, I’ve formed the habit of getting him up first. I start off easy and work my way up to the hard cases.

It’s Tuesday morning, after the long Labor Day weekend. Last week went all right, but now they’ve had a four-day weekend to consider things and realize they dislike school just as much as they ever did. The new year hasn’t changed the fact that “The Man” is still holding them down with classroom rules and homework.

They’ve gone for the gusto over these four days off, trying to relive the entire summer in a long weekend. It’s time to pay the piper.

Buster (2nd grade) doesn’t sit up when I put my hand on his covers. I try to rub him awake. “I can’t,” he groans. “I’m too tired.” I pull the covers off him. He pulls them back on.

I move three feet below to the lower bunk. I don’t have high hopes for waking Big Man. Big Man (Kindergarten) is sleeping upside down. This isn’t a good sign he’s well-rested and ready to face a new day. He does not respond to any of my gentle attempts to rouse him. The lower bunk is like a bear cave. I contort myself to squeeze under the upper bunk without banging my head (which I’ve already done twice in 3.5 days of school). I grab the cub’s toe and drag him out of his hole.

Leaving Big Man in the bathroom to brush his teeth, at least the front ones, I return to Buster. All the tumult in the bunk below has made it impossible for him to get any rest. His spirit is broken and he allows me to carry him to the bathroom.

It’s now time to tackle the biggest Billy goat. At least Big Brother (6th grade) doesn’t have a bunk bed, so I won’t bruise myself waking him. He is larger though, so I have to pull by booth feet to drag him from the bed.

Downstairs, I offer the little boys breakfast. Buster answers all my overtures with grunts. Big Man says he isn’t hungry, but I don’t want to send them off with empty bellies. Big Man finally condescends to accept some bread and butter. I’ve got to get these kids off and get myself to work, so I don’t have time to negotiate him into a heartier meal.

I give Buster and pad and pen. I tell him to write what he wants to eat. He doesn’t know how to sound out grunts, so he writes Nothing. It’s spelled right.

I hate to send him to school like this, but he might learn a lesson from a hungry morning. Plus, he spelled Nothing right. It’s too early in the morning not to accept the victories these kids hand me.

This one’s all ready to go. Good work, Dad!

Two good reasons why your pizza can’t be pepperoni

Buster (1st grade graduate) and Big Man (preschool graduate) were playing a video game together. From what I overheard, the game allows players to create and name their own pizzas to sell to the customers in the game. Big Man was designing the pizzas and Buster was helping him type the names of them into the iPad.

The first pizza was not at all controversial. Big Man decided to name it “Ham” and Buster typed the name. Everybody is happy, presumably even the virtual customers.

The second pizza was more problematic. Here’s what I overheard about this troublesome pie:

BUSTER: Okay, what do you want to name this pizza?

BIG MAN: Pepperoni.

BUSTER: You can’t name it pepperoni.

BIG MAN: Why not?

BUSTER: Two reasons.

BIG MAN: What?

BUSTER: First of all, it’s not pepperoni. And second of all, I don’t know how to spell pepperoni.

Sorry. Wrong pizza. We’ll just take that one back to the kitchen.

I think they ended up naming it “Apples”. I don’t know if it had apples on it, but Buster, after some mental strain, reached deep back into first grade and remembered he knew how to spell that.

For whom the summer vacations

They should stop calling this thing between school years summer vacation. They should call it “Summer intense non-school-related activity period” or something like that.

I swear, when I was a kid, my mom fed me breakfast and sent me into the woods for the day, armed with only my imagination and a hand-me-down BB gun. Some days I even had a few BBs for it. I spent half my time searching for Iroquois artifacts and the other half playing in the creek. I never found any tomahawk heads, but I got good and wet. I’d wander home when I needed the comfort of a peanut butter sandwich.

We don’t have time to play in the woods now. We had baseball games all day Saturday, and every night this week. Before that, Big Brother went to the TV studio to tape two episodes of a local PBS show where kids do science experiments. On top of that, he’s been to basketball camp every morning this week.

Basketball season is only 3 months away.

Things will calm down a bit when baseball ends in July. Then we only have Kids’ College and some other sporadic activities.

It’s a little stressful, getting everybody where they need to be, especially during a period called vacation. It’s no vacation for parents, but I sort of love it anyway. I love that my boys have so many opportunities to experience different things and practice the things they enjoy. I love watching them play sports, and even coaching them when I can. I’ll rest later, and maybe dream of stomping in the creek.

Big Man doesn’t have as many activities as his older brothers, so he’s spending his summer bantering with his babysitters. Our latest babysitter is around my age. They got on the subject of daddies yesterday.

BIG MAN: “Why don’t you live with your daddy?”

BABYSITTER: “Because he’s really very old.”

BIG MAN: “Well, my daddy is really very old, too. And I still live with him . . .”

I guess summer vacation is the time when Big Man takes a break from shutting down his parents’ flawed logic and starts shutting down babysitters.

For all the racing around I do, getting kids to their numerous vacation activities, I think I look pretty good.