Tag Archives: fatherhood

Welcome to the real world; here’s your cheese sandwich

My son sometimes plays a game where he pretends to be a waiter. He calls us Sir and Ma’am and writes down what we would like to eat on his imaginary order pad. We have grown to like the restaurant he works in because they have an expansive menu and can prepare anything we think of ordering.

As the boy grows up, the world becomes less pretend and more real. In this development, something is gained and something is lost. For instance, last night our four-year-old waiter actually served real food. This was a revolutionary step forward, but it played havoc upon his once expansive menu.

“I’m hungry,” my wife said to my son. “Can you get me something to eat?”

“Okay, what would you like?” he replied as he got out his invisible order pad. We expected him to take the order, disappear, and reappear with an equally invisible dish of whatever was ordered.

“Pizza,” my wife decided.

Cheese sandwich

THE COOK: The key is folding the bread right. A delicious sandwich must look as good as it tastes.

The boy hesitated to write it down. “Okay,” he said, “I will make you . . . a cheese sandwich.”

“No pizza?” the dejected mother asked.

“No. A cheese sandwich is the only thing on my menu. So, what would you like? A cheese sandwich . . . or nothing?”

“I guess I’ll have a cheese sandwich. But I only want one slice of bread.”

“Good choice.”

He went to the kitchen. We heard noises of actual food preparation from that direction. “Do you want a kid plate or a grown-up plate?” he yelled to her.

“A kid plate is okay.”

“Good, because I’ve got a red one for you. It’s solid red, okay?”

“Okay.”

Bringing Mommy a sandwich

THE WAITER: Our menu has expanded to include cheese sandwiches served on solid blue kid plates.

He rooted around the kitchen for a few minutes before returning with a beautiful cheese sandwich on a solid red kid plate. The presentation was as good as either of his parents could have done. There was one piece of bread, folded evenly over a few neatly stacked slices of American cheese. There was nothing sloppy about the sandwich.

“Wow! That’s a nice-looking sandwich,” his mother told him. “Look at all that beautiful cheese.”

“You got an extra slice because you’ve been so good today,” he informed her.

The sandwich looked so good that everyone, including the baby, had to have a bite of it. I’m not a huge fan of cheese sandwiches, but that was just about the best bite of anything I’ve ever had.

As we all took a taste, the waiter/cook/restaurant manager explained the shortness of the menu. “I can only make things that don’t go in the oven or on top of the stove, because I could burn myself.” He gave us a serious look. “I mean, I could burn myself really bad.”

So, they no longer have a huge selection of entrees at this restaurant. I don’t care about that. What they do have, they make with great skill and, I dare say, with love. Besides that, the service is excellent.

Guess who isn’t buried in Lincoln’s Tomb

It turns out that my son is something of a conspiracy theorist. So far, he hasn’t been big on producing evidence for his theories, but when you are four, you just know things. If evidence were such an important thing, somebody probably would have explained to you what evidence is by now. But they haven’t, have they? Case and point.

We were driving past a cemetery the other day when the boy asked, “Daddy, is this the graveyard?”

“Yes. It’s a cemetery.”

“Is this where they buried all the zombies?” He’s big on zombies just now.

“There aren’t any zombies. They’re just people who died.”

“Why can’t we see the people who are buried there?”

“Because they are buried, underground.”

“I know they’re buried, but why do they have those big, square rocks on top of the graves?”

“Those are headstones. They tell you who’s buried there.”

“I think I know who’s buried in there.”

Holding tomb

Lincoln’s first tomb. It was sort of like a waiting area until his fancy tomb was ready.

“Oh, you do? Who?”

“Mr. Lincoln.” The boy has an unusual reverence for Abraham Lincoln. He might have gotten some of this from me, but we can’t be sure at this point.

“He is? Is Mr. Washington buried there too?”

“No. Mr. Washington is buried in a different graveyard, in a different town.”

“I should think he is.”

“You know who else is buried in there?”

“Who?”

Moving Lincoln's coffin

The last of many documented rearrangements of Lincoln’s coffin within his tomb. No pictures were taken when he was secretly moved to one of the cemeteries in our town.

“Mr. Lincoln’s mother.” Sorry, conspiracy buffs, he didn’t specify Nancy or Sarah.

“Really?”

“Yup. She is. You know who else isn’t buried in there?”

“Who?”

“John Booth.”

“I would hope not.”

“Nope. John Booth is buried in a graveyard in China.”

“China?”

Booth cemetery

Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery in 1848. John Wilkes Booth wasn’t buried there then and, according to my son, he’s not buried there now. (Image: Augustus Köllner/Laurent Deroy)

“Yeah, because that’s where he lives now.”

So, apparently, John Wilkes Booth did escape to Asia after all. I had always heard that he fled to India, but the updated story indicates it was China. What makes this new information even more startling is that, by all indications, he is still alive, although buried in a graveyard. That can’t be too comfortable for him, especially at his age.

Sounds like somebody has been watching the History Channel without Daddy again.

Lots of mammals would kill to have my thumbs

This summer I want to see if I can get the four-year-old interested in sports. We signed him up for an introductory sports class at the YMCA last fall. He enjoyed all the running around, but he was not great at the parts that required him to do something purposeful with any kind of ball.

dunking practice

Learning the one-armed slam dunk. Who needs fundamentals when you can power slam?

If he turns out not to like sports, that’s fine. But he probably should have the benefit of the exposure before he makes his final decision. That exposure should probably include more than seeing his dad watch sports on TV.

His favorite sport from his class was soccer. Of course it was. Let’s just say I don’t love soccer. Evolution gave me opposable thumbs for a reason, and I don’t think that reason was to award the opponent a free kick every time I try to use my special thumbs during a game – oh, sorry, I meant match, not game.

Oh well, if he wants to play soccer, we’ll play soccer. But we may also sneak some basketball in as well, so I can really shine the spotlight onto my awesome thumbs.

I love basketball, which is not to say I was ever great at it. I gave up playing organized basketball after 7th grade when it became clear that I would always be one of the guys who gets to play the last 30 seconds of a blowout.

Basketball is a game requiring self-confidence, and once you become the player at the end of the bench nearest the exit, it’s hard to imagine what self-confidence is, or to be able to pronounce it. That last half-minute of a lopsided game is ample time for you to dribble the ball off your foot and miss three layups. Even if you play competently in pick-up games, you will shoot the ball off the side of the backboard when the world is watching.

dribbling practice

Learning the double dribble technique that will earn him a comfy spot on the bench. He’s got all his daddy’s thumbs.

I did make a last-second shot in one game, though. I caught an inbound pass and hoisted a 15-footer that bounced around the rim before falling through at the buzzer. My teammates, all of them who weren’t already in the locker room, mobbed me. It was quite a celebration. We won that game by 27 points, but it would have been a measly 25 if not for my late heroics.

My wife ran track in high school. Her race was the 100 meters. This was the only distance she ran because she couldn’t figure out how to run and breathe at the same time and that was as far as she could go without air. I think she also tried out for the swim team, but her breathing techniques and water didn’t mix.

Neither of his parents are in any shape to coach the boy to stardom. But, he doesn’t need to be a superstar. He doesn’t even need to love sports. All he really needs to do is quit asking to watch Cartoon Network when I’m fully involved in a college basketball tournament game.

I’ll trade you my virus for your bacterial infection

My son is finishing up his two-week spring break from preschool. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why preschoolers needed a two-week spring break. Is preschool so stressful that it takes two weeks to recover from the wear and tear of the 10 weeks gone by since the month-long winter break? Do the children need two weeks to recruit their strength for that last big push toward preschool final exams?

I think I may have finally figured it out.

I think it will take a good two weeks to air out the building and rid it of kiddie germs after the winter of plague we’ve had.

This winter has been the most disease-infested season I can recall. I’ve worn dried baby snot on my shoulder since November. In that time, my family has contributed our quota of snot for the next five years. Fortunately, the baby was the only one who regularly decorated my shirts with it.

I used to be a pretty healthy guy. But that was back when I used to get enough sleep, have time for hobbies, and earn enough money to make ends meet. In other words, that was before I had little people painting snot art on my shirts.

Back then I only had to deal with adult germs. Adult germs are child’s play. Adult germs visit for a day, give you an excuse to call in sick, then pack up their sniffles and move along. Kids’ germs gang up on you. They drag you down, bind and gag you, and use your head and a frying pan as cymbals. Kids’ germs can be cruel.

And preschool is a veritable stock exchange of kids’ germs. My boy must be a pretty good trader, because he was always bringing home a new and exciting strain of something, purchased at only the cost of an old, used-up bug that we had already wrung dry of puke and mucus. We’re so proud of him.

attack on marine hospital

Even in the olden days, people just could not get enough of those addictive walk-in clinic fumes. Here, crowds jockey for position to get a whiff of some coveted quarantine effluvium.

At the worst of the epidemic, we could not get in to see our family doctor. We had to go to the walk-in clinic, which is the perfect place to go if you want to sample any of the diseases your family doesn’t already have. If you ever have a burning desire to wallow in the midst of contagion, spend a few hours in this waiting room. You’ll know what germ-laden miasma tastes like.

We waited out in the hall. The air was cold there, but at least we couldn’t see it.

For months, all we heard about was what a bad flu season it was. I don’t know anything about that. I do know that it was a bad season for pharyngitis, ear infections, strep throat, strep tongue, strep teeth, a mystery virus that probably wasn’t mononucleosis after all, and a host of other anonymous bugs. The one illness we did not contract, in the midst of this epic flu season, was the flu. I guess we’re just lucky like that.