Tag Archives: family

Forget about the gold, we’re going for the purple

We may have experienced a minor breakthrough.

Being a five-year-old boy, our son likes to play when he should be doing work in school. Throughout autumn, he got better at focusing on his work, mostly through the skilled guidance of his teacher, but also with our encouragement.

Then Christmas break hit, followed by a parade of snow days. The routine of school became hodge-podge. His attention to school responsibilities regressed. We started getting disappointing reports from his teacher.

He lost privileges at home. This got his attention, but it wasn’t so good at holding it when he was in school.

There’s a color chart in his class. Everybody starts on green. With good behavior, kids can be promoted to orange, then blue, and finally purple – the pinnacle conscientious pupil-hood. Behaving poorly can sink them through yellow into red.

Our son took a few tastes of red. Friends suggested that maybe he was bored in school. Okay, bored is an excuse when you’re a super-genius whose talents lie three grades ahead. Bored is not an excuse because school work is more boring than play. He’s a bright kid, but I believe a super-genius would have mastered telling time by now.

One day we found an add-on to his train set on clearance at the store. At 75% off, we couldn’t pass it up, but we lacked an occasion for him to get it. We made a deal. If he stayed on orange for a whole week, he could have it. If not, I’d return it to the store.

75% off! Like I was going to return that? So some other parent could bag that deal? I’d keep that thing in the basement until he was 50, if it took that long to earn it. But he didn’t know that.

The best wedding gift ever.

If the boy doesn’t get to purple, this may end up being his wedding gift.

The next day he jumped to orange, and brought home a golden ticket. His mom and I gave him high fives and did celebratory dances. The next two days brought more orange, high fives, hugs, and dancing. Best of all were his proud smiles.

On the fourth day, he slipped back to green. I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding, but what was done was done. I said I’d give him another chance. If he made it to purple one time, he could have the train.

Funny thing though, he didn’t seem so concerned with the train. He seemed more interested in making his parents proud.

The next week, he fluctuated between orange and green. Then, one day, I was greeted with the news that he’d reached blue. There was much rejoicing. He didn’t mention the train.

The next day, as I hugged him goodbye in the morning, he asked, “What would you do if I got on purple today?”

“I’d be so happy that my head would just about blow up.”

He laughed. I think he’s close. There’s a train at stake. But most of all, it’s a chance to blow up his dad’s head with pride.

You can compete for a gold medal as soon as family time is over

I made some predictions in a recent post. Prediction #1: My son and I would attempt to catch some Olympic cross-country skiing on TV. Prediction #2: Those races might inspire us to hit the trails together. Prediction #3: This would cause me to transfer the burden of my unfulfilled dreams of Olympic glory onto his shoulders, in an attempt to live vicariously through him, as fathers of my ilk are wont to do.

Skiing with Calvin

And after he won his gold medals, he’d be invited to the white house to meet the President and First Lady.

Skipping primetime coverage of the elegant and glamorous sports, we were able to catch some fleeting moments of our favorite gritty, ugly sports during the afternoon, better-than-dead-air, filler broadcasts. We enjoyed truncated depictions of random cross-country races. We even caught a biathlon event. We may have been the only two Americans who enjoyed it. I understand; biathlon is too slow for this country. Had it been developed here, it would be done on downhill skis, and with a machine gun. And I’d kind of like to watch that too (but not in person).

My prediction #1: CORRECT

Having ferreted out our favorite Olympic sports and taken inspiration from them, we went to the park to emulate the Olympians. We didn’t attempt biathlon practice, not because it wouldn’t have been fun for us and exciting for the other park patrons; rather, neither of us wanted to go chasing after the Nerf bullets.

My prediction #2: CORRECT

Boys playing in the park

Nothing livens up a Saturday afternoon in the park like seeing the boys at their biathlon practice. (Image: Bain News Service)

Though my son seems to like skiing, it takes more practice, and can become more frustrating than sports like, oh, say, sledding. Knowing this, I chose a park with a sledding hill and snuck a plastic sled into the trunk, just in case.

For a five-year-old, skiing means concentration, hard work, and falling down, especially when your dad needs to replace the short skis and poles you got when you were three. For a dad, skiing with a five-year-old means a lot of standing around, issuing encouragement, and getting cold. Together, we got through those frustrations.

Then, the great moment happened. The boy found his groove. It takes him time to get going because we don’t practice enough. But when he gets going, he has fun, and I get excited for him.

“You’re going so fast!” I told him. “I wish Mommy were here to see this!”

“Me too,” he replied. “It’s too bad she won’t go outside in winter.”

Too bad indeed, she doesn’t know what she’s missing.

At that point, things went off plan. I was supposed to envision him skiing across the finish line in the 2030 Olympics. I didn’t. Instead, I had visions of him skiing with me as an eight-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 16-year old, getting bigger and stronger, making me struggle to keep up. Along the way, his little brother joined us, then his other, soon-to-be little brother.

Mommy wouldn’t come out of the house. Even dreams have limits.

We went all the way around a big loop, the four of us, growing up the whole way. My old Olympic dream faded, replaced by a better one.

Then, we came to the sled hill. It was just me and my five-year-old again. We got our sled and put some icing on that cake.

My prediction #3: WRONG. So wonderfully WRONG.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and has better acting

For reasons unassociated with my personal viewing preferences, we have been watching movies on the Syfy channel of late. This is the outlet where up-and-coming actors and screen writers practice as they wait for a big break that will earn them recurring roles on Lifetime, thus winning them fame and respect for their craft.

The two big blockbusters we watched recently were Sharknado and Snowmageddon. Sharknado was a tornado made up, or at least consisting largely, of sharks. Rather than sucking things up, as might be expected of your garden variety tornado, Sharknado spit things out, namely sharks. It is possible that it may have originally sucked them up from the ocean, or SeaWorld, but I missed the beginning and I don’t want to make assumptions, as I am not a trained Meteorsharkologist.

Storm's comin'!

Too much said?

In spite of the shocking nature of the material, the acting was outstanding. The sharks nailed all of their lines. I think many of them did their own stunts. If not, the stunt doubles were made up perfectly; I couldn’t tell the difference between the stunt sharks and the lead actors.

Snowmageddon was about a winter storm that, beyond hurling wind and snow at innocent folks, also shot at them. I’m not talking about real bullets; that would be ridiculous. This snow storm shot flaming chunks of ice that exploded into fireballs on contact, just as you would expect to see any bad winter storm do.

It's not winter without fireballs

I knew I should have bought a snow blower this year.

At first, I thought this was Mother Nature’s revenge for our cavalier use of fossil fuels, but then Snowmageddon appeared to take special pleasure from attacking a bus. Well, Mama N., if you insist on destroying our means of mass transit, I guess there’s nothing we can do to please you. We might better learn to take our flaming ice beatings like men, or add extra horse power to our vehicles so we can run away faster.

Incidentally, all of this wacky weather was caused by an enchanted snow globe. Maybe it’s time to stop worrying about carbon footprints and start questioning our need for dangerous souvenir collections.

Shortly before we switched the TV over to the Smurfs movie, my son asked me about Snowmageddon, “Daddy, is this fiction?”

“Yes.”

“Because it’s not real?”

“Yes.”

“Was the shark tornado movie fiction?”

“Yes.”

“Then what about aliens? Are they non-fiction?”

This wasn’t so easy. Though I’ve had conversations with space aliens online, I’ve never met one face to face. Still, the universe is a big place.

Before I could begin to formulate an appropriately wishy-washy reply, he answered for me. He pointed his finger directly at me and exclaimed, “Yes! Aliens are real!”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because there was a show about them on the History Channel.”

I’m not sure which channels to get my news from anymore.

Let’s just watch the Smurfs. They’re good, honest folk. Salt of the Earth. Real people.

It’s party time! Again.

After my First Communion, my family went out to celebrate. At McDonald’s.

McDonald’s! How awesome was that? It had to be a pretty special occasion to celebrate at McDonald’s.

Not only was McDonald’s the only fast food restaurant in the area, it was the only restaurant where I can remember eating until my teen years. Going there was a rare and enormous treat.

A few years after my First Communion, I got invited to a friend’s birthday party at McDonald’s. This was mind-blowing on multiple levels. First: a birthday party? Birthdays were when you got to pick what your mom would make for dinner, you ate some cake, and received one present from your parents. What was this crazy talk about having your friends come to your birthday? And they all brought presents, too? No way!

And celebrating a birthday at McDonald’s? McDonald’s was ground too hallowed for a mere birthday celebration. McDonald’s was for big, once-in-a-lifetime deals, like the Sacraments. I’m sure I could easily imagine couples having their wedding receptions there (if they were high-class enough to meet McDonald’s standards).

Despite my misgivings, I went to the party. Hell yeah, I went! I wasn’t about to miss a precious opportunity to enjoy the gourmet offerings of that palace of delicacies.

The party was short and sweet. We had burgers, fries, and some cake. The Birthday Boy opened our modest gifts, and then we went home. It was the single birthday party experience of my childhood.

My oldest son is five. He has been the focus of three birthday parties and a guest at dozens. None of them have been at McDonald’s. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Times have changed, leaving middle-aged bumpkins like me wondering what to make of things. McDonald’s has gone from treat to last resort. Birthday parties crowd the outside edges of our calendar.

Though it sometimes feels as though our weekends are drowning in kids’ parties, I can’t complain. To the extent that it is a problem, I’m a part of the problem. We play the party game too, and we do it without trying to make anybody eat at McDonald’s.

I hate cake!

We think we have a lot of parties, but they have to do this five times in each of our human years. (Image: Harry Whittier Frees)

I’m all about giving my kids good childhood memories, but sometimes I worry that these automatic birthday parties will lead them to believe that watching the calendar page flip a dozen times is a superstar accomplishment. When you’re 105, it may be, but you’re 005, it’s been done by plenty of other normal folks.

Then again, opening my mouth wide and letting a priest put a dried circle of bread on my tongue wasn’t the mark of superstardom either – those wafers dissolve in your mouth; you don’t even have to chew your way to success. Yet, I got what was, at the time, the best reward I could imagine for it. And after a few more birthdays, my son will have outlived my Catholicism, so I guess I’m the last one worthy to complain about undeserved honors.

So let’s party!