Tag Archives: children

There’s a Take Your Child to Work Day that has nothing to do with the babysitter not showing up

According to the posters on the walls at work, April 27 is Take Your Child to Work Day. I guess it’s nice there’s an official day for this, but I celebrate my own Take Your Child/Children to Work Days. This is what it’s called when both parents need to be at work and there is no babysitter to be had. Fortunately, I work in a child-safe environment and have supervisors who don’t care how many members of my family it takes to do my job so long as it gets done.

Per the fliers, our official Take Your Child to Work Day festivities are intended for children aged eight and up. This year I finally have a child who is old enough to celebrate the official holiday. Even so, I think we will be celebrating Leave Your Kid in School Day on April 27.

He’s much better off in school. He might learn something useful there and he will be allowed to hold on to a childlike optimism for the future.

Once upon a time, every day was Take Your Child to Work Day. The excitement of working without safety regulations was too much for the children, so they limited it to one day a year.

I infer from the guidelines that the organizers of Take Your Child to Work Day have studied the situation carefully and determined age eight is the time when children can really begin to understand the nature of grown-up work. This is a good piece of science to know; it tells me I should never bring any of my children who have reached this threshold to work with me again.

My under-eight children are still okay to bring, unofficially, of course, because they don’t have the capacity to understand just how unexciting my work is. They still believe whatever Daddy does on his keyboard in his little cubicle sets events in motion to save the world. Small children are delusional like that. It’s cute.

My eight-year-old son is now at the point where he can detect the pedestrian nature of paperwork and feel the repetitiveness of financial reports. Many jobs have a certain amount of repetitiveness in them and I’m not saying mine is worse than any other. I’m just not sure it’s the best end result to show a 3rd grader if you want to inspire him to reach for the stars in school.

I’ve tried to think of how I could make my job seem exciting to a kid. So far, the most enticing fact I could come up with is it brings home the money that buys the Cool Ranch Doritos. I’m still working on it.

The fruit of my toil.

All around my building are buildings filled with scientists. I’m holding out hope somebody will come up with Send Your Child to Work with a Nearby Scientist Day. Then the boy could maybe see how it feels to be a scientist discovering new isotopes. The only thing I can think of that might be more inspiring to him is knowing how it feels to be a scientist who discovers new video games.

If young animals whined like human children

Zebra Mom: “Eat your grass, Jimmy.”

Zebra Kid: “I don’t like this grass. I like that grass over there.”

Zebra Mom: “There’s a lion over there.”

Zebra Kid: “Can you ask him to move.”

Zebra Mom: “No. I’m not asking a lion to move so you can have grass that’s exactly the same as this grass.”

Zebra Kid: “Just ask him.”

Zebra Mom: “No. I’m not asking. This is the same grass. Just eat it.”

Zebra Kid: “His grass is in the shade. I don’t like this sunny grass. It’s too hot.”

The grass is always tastier on the other side of the lion.

Zebra Mom: “How would you know? You haven’t even tried it.”

Zebra Kid: “Come on, Mom! Can you just please ask him. He’s not even eating grass.”

Zebra Mom: “If you don’t start eating, so help me God!”

Zebra Kid puts the tip of his tongue on one blade of grass: “This grass is way too dry. It’s like desert grass. You expect me to eat desert grass? Aw, man! Now I need a drink. I’m going to the watering hole.”

Zebra Mom: “You stay right here. There are crocodiles at the watering hole.”

Zebra Kid: “Ack. Ack. This dry grass is burning a hole in my throat. I’ll die if I don’t get a drink fast. Oh, there’s Dad. I’m gonna tell him what you’re doing to me.”

Zebra Mom: “Be sure to show him the hole in your throat.”

Zebra Kid approaches Zebra Dad: “Dad, can I go to the watering hole?”

Zebra Dad: “What did your mother say?”

Zebra Kid: “Nothing really. I think it’s okay with her if you let me go.”

Zebra Dad: “Oh. Okay then.”

FIVE MINUTES LATER

Crocodile Mom: “Ethan, eat your zebra.”

Crocodile Kid: “I don’t like zebra. I want gazelle.”

Crocodile Mom: “It’s all mammal. It tastes the same. Carcass is carcass. Now eat it.”

Crocodile Kid: “This one has stuff on it.”

Crocodile Mom: “What stuff?”

Crocodile Kid: “Look. It has all these black lines.”

Crocodile Mom: “All zebras have black lines. It’s just how they’re seasoned. You won’t even taste it.”

Crocodile Kid: “It’s disgusting. I can’t eat that. It makes me wanna hurl just looking at it.”

Crocodile Mom: “Eat around the black lines then. You’d better eat it before it gets cold. It’s not gonna be any good cold.”

Crocodile Kid: “The lines are touching all the other parts. Their gross juice is gonna be all over everything.”

Crocodile Mom: “Ethan, there are starving crocodile children in the next water hole who would give anything to have food half this good.”

Crocodile Kid: “They can have it.”

Crocodile Mom: “Don’t you dare come to me in an hour and tell me you’re hungry.”

TWO MINUTES LATER

Vulture Dad: “I can’t believe somebody just left all this delicious carrion here. Animals are so wasteful these days. Well, they’re loss is our gain. Dig in, Judy.”

Vulture Kid: “Um. You know I don’t like the kind with the white stripes.”

Nothing says Winter like some long Summer days

It’s mid-March. That means a few noteworthy things.

Skunk mating season is winding down. If you don’t live in North America, this may not mean much to you. If you do live in North America, this may not mean much to you. If you live in the piece of North America where my house sits, this is a cause for celebration.

College Basketball – NCAA Championship Tournament. Even in a year when our team is expected to bow out quickly, this is the purpose of March.

Daylight Saving Time has begun. This is a lot like Groundhog Day, except instead of a rodent popping out of the ground, an obscure politician pops out of the woodwork to propose altering the practice of changing the clocks.

Some people love DST; some hate it. I don’t mind it, except for making it increasingly difficult to get the children to bed at a decent hour. Finally, our boys are old enough to go to bed all at the same time, without any fussing or crying. We just got the process perfected, and BOOM! – now it’s not dark at bedtime. It’s not bad so far because it’s almost dark. It’ll get more difficult every day.

Some have suggested hanging blackout curtains in the boys’ room. I was hoping to wait until I heard Zeppelin engines overhead before I invested in blackout paraphernalia. Speaking of the Germans, they were the first to institute DST. In WWI it was enacted to help their war effort.

Douse that sunlight! Here come the Zeppelins!

The Allies quickly glommed on, because in the early 19th century, when the Germans had an idea about making better war, you copied it.

Despite Daylight Saving Time’s success in helping Germany win the war, we eventually made it permanent.

“Here’s my fiendish plan: we trick them into setting their clocks ahead; their children won’t go to bed; that’s when we hit them!”

Blackout curtains might work if the boys lived in their room all the time. They don’t. They live in the entire house, where there are several windows. Even if their room is pitch black, they know in their little hearts it’s not dark outside. Therefore, this supposed bed time is a dirty fraud.

“Now children, we must all go to sleep for the war effort.”

It probably sounds like I’m complaining about DST, but I’m not. I like long summer days as well as the next guy whose kids don’t have school in the morning. What I’m complaining about is DST beginning in winter. There’s no good reason for this. I won’t see anybody dining al fresco tonight in spite of the natural light at dinner time.

DST used to start in late April, when it made sense to start it. By then you had earned extra daylight and the weather allowed you to enjoy it. The reassignment of light and dark wasn’t such a shock to the system. It had none of the folly of attempting to jump from February into May.

I think returning to an April start for DST would be a good compromise, but I’m not an obscure politician, so I guess I’ll keep my notions between myself and my closest Internet friends.

Basketball preempted by Japanese animation and one fast German lady

A few Christmases ago, my wife got me a wide-screen TV on which to watch sports. On a Sunday in early March, this should have been perfect for college basketball, except Big Brother was hogging my TV to binge watch Pokémon cartoons.

I’ll admit, there are many cartoons I enjoy, even at my advanced age, but Pokémon is not among them. I like some humor in cartoons, even if it’s just a little bit around the fringes. Pokémon contains almost as much humor as a Volkswagen repair manual.

There is one thing Pokémon does well. Unfortunately, that one thing is to encourage kids to spend their money on those annoying trading cards. In the ‘70s, Major League Baseball got me to throw my allowance at Topps trading cards, so I guess watching a new generation of waste is payback.

You wanna card battle, 21st century children? 1977 Willie Stargell would crush this young puppy.

Tiring of the Pokémon marathon, I got my iPad to see if I could find a basketball game to live stream. Browsing the sports listings, I noticed one of the channels I didn’t realize existed was broadcasting a biathlon race. I forgot about basketball and tapped to watch this.

I’ve previously made references to my secret childhood dreams of becoming an Olympic Nordic (cross-country) skier. In case you’re wondering, those dreams did not come to fruition. I was close though. The only thing I lacked was years of sacrifice and training. And perhaps athletic ability.

Nordic skiing is a great sport on its own, but then some nameless hero came along and made it into the absolutely awesome sport of biathlon by putting rifles into the skiers’ hands. Who wouldn’t want to ski and shoot? The only way it could possibly be better is if there were also a knife-throwing component.

Buster climbed onto my lap and watched the race with me. He is not as keen on skiing as I am, but he does like to see a good firearm in action.

The race was almost over. We watched all the Europeans sweat it out for the tops spots, with the traditional 8th place Canadian cracking the top 10 on behalf of North America, and only wild rumors of a United States representative far back among the workers packing up the beginning of the course.

At the end, the German racer broke away. “The German’s gonna win!” I exclaimed.

Buster pointed at the screen. “That guy’s German?”

“That lady’s German,” I corrected as she slid across the finish. “All the people in this race are ladies.”

The other racers came to the line. It was a tight finish for second among four racers.

“Wasn’t that great? Wouldn’t you love to win a race like that?” I asked Buster.

“No!” he said with disdain. “I don’t wanna be a German lady.”

I wonder how many other American boys have rejected the sport for the very same reason.

The B Team. A real German lady never takes her skis off to shoot.