Tag Archives: children

At home with Don Quixote

About six months ago, I undertook a foolish endeavor. I began reading Don Quixote. I don’t say this was foolish because I believe Don Quixote is an unworthy piece of literature. It was foolish because no person with multiple, young children has any business opening up any book of 900+ pages with the expectation of getting to the end while still remembering the beginning.

Nonetheless, for a few months, I made good progress for a man in my condition. That is to say, I was able to read about 10 pages most nights, in the interval between the children going to bed and falling asleep myself. On nights when I enjoyed particular vim and vigor, I might put up to 12 pages behind me.

Quixote

He rides his lonely road, searching for someone who’ll read him, or at least someone willing to pay full price.

I kept up this breakneck pace until New Baby was born. At that point, I was nearly 600 pages in.

Don Quixote (the first 600 pages of it anyway) is the story of man so swept up in reading romance novels about knights-errant that he slips into the delusion of himself being one of those ancient heroes. He sets off in search of adventures and causes mischief wherever he wanders, believing he is capable of mammoth feats and that it is his duty to display his prowess to the world. Whenever reality seeps in to disrupt the narrative he has devised within his head, he explains away the discrepancy with the excuse that evil wizards have enchanted him and used their spells to belittle his grandiose visions into ordinary, everyday things.

New Baby is two months old now, and I am on page 614.

Oh, but I used to read! I used to be the Lancelot of reading, tearing through books and piling up their used bodies in book cases to the ceiling. I took on classics, even the torturous ones, with no fear, occasionally triumphing by finding one that turned out to be a classic. I was a warrior of words.

old days

A monument to those ancient days of spare time and disposable income.

You can watch TV while constantly changing the position of a crying baby in search of that one special pose that will settle him down. You can even play Farmville while rotating him. But it gets hard to read while juggling the kid from arm to arm. I’m catching up on all the TV programs I missed during my reading years. Thank goodness for reruns.

Meanwhile, Don Quixote stares down at me from the shelf. Once in a while, I notice this and I stare back at him. Every time, he looks more familiar, this man who deludes himself into thinking he can accomplish goals that are far beyond him. This man in the mirror.

My excuse is that I am enchanted. But my wizards are not evil. They are playful little goblins who vex my grand plans with a steady stream of wonderful, precious, ordinary, everyday things.

highway

Two modern-day enchanters out for a drive.

 

 

Oh, how the mighty have fallen

My wife looks young. Helpful bystanders routinely step in to offer instruction to the poor, helpless, teen mother. It annoys her, which is why she was so tickled when it happened to me.

In the grocery store, we got a big cart for the boys to ride in and a little cart for our groceries. New Baby rode on top, in his car seat; the big boys shared the area below. Putting them into a cart together was setting them up for a cage match, but it was what they wanted and better than chasing them all over the store.

It’s crowded quarters in a shopping cart, so the fights came early and often. Since I couldn’t see over the car seat, the fighting noise reassured me they were in good health. I’m not sure how parents of well-behaved children have any peace of mind in such situations.

no room for groceries

Any quiet children will have to walk.

We were minding our own quarrels. An older lady, dressed in a colored sheet from the neck down, passed us in the aisle. I felt a tug at my arm.

The lady had a hold on me, in a completely un-grocery-store-like fashion. With her non-grabby hand she pointed toward the front of my cart. “He’s trying to poke the other one in the eye with that thing,” she informed me in the gravest of tones. “You might want to check on them.”

Statements that begin, “You might want to . . .” chafe me. That little injection of faux tact doesn’t temper the judgment.

“Oh, Jesus!” I thought, and possibly muttered. My wife, who was watching from the safety of the little cart, says I rolled my eyes at the lady, although I don’t remember this.

Really? You’ve never considered that if brothers this age meant to poke each other’s eyes out, they’d have done it by now?

I stepped around to look at the boys. Buster was holding the plastic clip of the toddler strap about six inches away from Big Brother’s face. I probably rolled my eyes again and proceeded as if I’d never been accosted.

Poking him in the eye, indeed! How did she know he wasn’t going for the teeth? Or the throat? She never raised boys if she thinks they’re that predictable. In this instance, the clip at the end of the toddler strap is known as leverage. You can’t effectively negotiate in such tight quarters without leverage.

It probably wouldn’t even hurt that much.

Having diffused a volatile situation, by ignoring the helpful intervention of a stranger, I looked for my wife. She was having difficulty following, due to a laughing fit making her struggle to remain on her feet.

Finally, catching up, and catching her breath, my wife recounted the splendor of my eye rolling at the lady. “Why didn’t you tell her you appreciated her concern?” she asked through her tears.

“Because I didn’t appreciate it.”

Thrilled that I had gotten a taste of the unwed, teen mother treatment, she pleaded, “You’ve got to write about this!”

Leaving the store, we saw our helpful stranger again. That includes the boys, because, against all odds, their eyes were still in their heads. The lady had set off the exit alarm and was explaining to an employee that she’d paid for everything.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” I said to my wife.

“That’s the title of your post,” she replied.

And so it is.

driving

The old days of peace, love, and harmony.

Let the game come to you

My son scored a goal at his last soccer game. I’m not sure how it happened, and neither is he, but we’ll take it.

You know that kid who dribbles the ball down the length of the field, trailing behind a comet tail of slower children, and boots in five goals per game? My boy is the one at the very back of the following pack, jogging along to see what all the hubbub is at the front.

soccer star

You know those athletes who fail because they try to do too much? He’s not falling into that trap.

He’s not a natural athlete, but that doesn’t bother his enjoyment of the game. Soccer isn’t so much a sport as a social activity to him anyway. He’s the kid who peels off from the action of his own game to wave down his friend who is playing on the adjacent field.

The propensity to get distracted from the game is not uncommon among kindergarteners. This is a good and natural thing. It also has the potential to be comical. During the last game, a child climbed up into a pine tree bordering the field and called the names of players. The players took turns ignoring the action to squint into the tree and try to identify the climber until adults ruined the fun by making him come down.

soccer distractions

“I think that tree just called my name.”

When it comes to style of play, my son is not a dribbler. He is not often very near the ball anyway, but when happenstance does nudge the ball close to him, he is likely to give it a good boot and let the other children chase it down. I am proud to say he almost always kicks it in the right direction.

I am thankful that I wasn’t trying to see the kid up in the tree during that glorious moment when my little superstar tallied his spectacular goal.

Somehow, his team had maneuvered the ball onto the offensive side of the field, which is rare enough in itself. My boy had very cleverly positioned himself on the periphery of the mob,  letting the other children endanger their shins. This wise strategy was bound to pay off eventually.

*Begin slow motion narration*

With six kids kicking it at once, the ball squirted randomly out of the crowd and rolled to my boy’s feet. Finding himself temporarily unable to locate any friends in nearby games, he happened to be watching his own game at that moment.

The ball was at his feet. It was time to give it his one good boot. Turing himself in the proper direction (his best soccer skill), he found himself staring into the empty goal.

He cocked his leg. The other children were almost upon him.

Just in time, my little sniper unleashed his mighty shoe and sent the ball rolling with pinpoint accuracy over those 10 feet and into the goal.

*Resume normal speed narration*

His teammates bounced around him as he launched the celebration. It was a moment of immense pride for me. The boy may not be a natural athlete, but he sure can dance.

Reading, writing, and romance

Our son has learned a lot in kindergarten. His reading skills are pretty good, and his math knowledge is growing. And then there’s everything about love and romance he’s picked up in the past year.

In the fall, it became clear that he had a crush on one little girl. Whenever I mentioned her name he would blush and get that secretive smile on his face. It embarrassed him to answer questions about her. My wife would scold me for making him squirm, but then she doesn’t fully understand a father’s job.

Mid-year, he traded this crush for a new one. In fact, he traded it for two new ones. I really can’t argue with the boy showing this sort of ambition, but I was taken aback about how open he was about them.

By the sounds of it, everybody in his class has a crush on somebody else, and then maybe somebody else after that. Once this conspiracy of crushes came to light, crushes became cool. All the kids are having them.

Suddenly, he likes to talk about his crushes. Here’s what he’s got worked out:

He’s going to marry his #1 crush. Except, she has a crush on somebody else. He’s not completely sure how this will affect his plan, but he does recognize it as a minor complication. He still fully intends to marry crush #1, but if it turns out she’s carrying too much external baggage, he always has crush #2 in reserve. Crush #2 may actually have a small crush on him too, making this a solid contingency plan.

The situation has completely reversed itself since last fall. Now I have to rib him by referring obliquely to Crush #1. When I hint that I’m speaking about her, he demands that I say her name, right out loud, in front of Mommy and everybody.

This change from a boy shy about girls to Rico Suave has been an eye-opener. I’m afraid some day he’s going to open his mouth and Barry White’s voice will come out of it. But it seems like these kids have also been following current events as they apply to the legal aspects of romance. I guess it’s good that they’re learning about the world around them, but if I were in kindergarten, I think I’d rather just play on the swings a while longer.

Last week he told me one of the boys wanted to marry him.

This was a new development. “One of the boys?”

“Yeah.” Then he went on to educate his backward, old dad. “Boys can marry boys, but only in New York,” he told me. “And girls can marry girls, in New York.”

“Do you want to marry him?” I asked.

He shook his head at me and gave me a look that asked if I had been paying any attention at all over the past several months. “No. I got other people I’m in love with.”

I ship out with Admiral Dewey in the morning, baby.

Kids sure do grow up fast these days. And by “these days” I mean since 1898.