Tag Archives: food

The secret league of horrible parents

We just won a moral victory of sorts. It took two months, and there were times I doubted the Fates would allow it, but now that it’s done, I feel free to speak of it.

I mentioned that our seven-year-old son was on a basketball team. If you saw that post, you may think our victory is a decision to keep score at the games, but it’s not. It may be even more valuable than that.

Over our three years in sports, there has not been a team that didn’t require a rotating list of hapless parents to bring healthy snacks for the kids to eat at the end of every game. The Team Snack was the Sacred Cow of youth athletics. God knows, kids playing ball for an hour would wither to dust if not fortified with granola and sugar-free fluids within seconds of the final whistle.

When I was a boy, we played all afternoon without a thought to our bellies, but then we were not enlightened enough to know we were doomed to die young for our bad habits. We drank whole milk too, to give you an idea of how recklessly ignorant we were. Our parents were the worst, making us have fun all the way until dinner time. For shame.

My wife and I dislike game-day snacks because we struggle to get to the games on time without having to remember the groceries, and it’s not like we can just grab a bag of Doritos or Oreos on the way out the door. These evil snacks we have, but only because our tragic upbringings neglected to teach us any better. Blame the 1970s.

old school

After the game, we had to take up the planking from the pasture and milk the cows before we could even think about eating. (Image: Russell Lee/US Farm Security Administration)

They told us it couldn’t be done. They said the kids on a snackless team would grow envious of the other team’s snacks, though I don’t know a single kid who covets a V8 juice box and a bar of pine needles. Still, no one would want to be on the team whose bad parents didn’t do exactly what the good parents do.

So after the first practice, we waited for that email – the one organizing the snack rotation. We’d highlight a game on the schedule, dread it’s coming, and hope we were both available to attend, so all our children and all our snacks could be at the same place at the same time.

The email never came. The coach was new, and I don’t think she even thought about snacks, which makes me love her a little bit. For the entire season, we went to games where other teams had snacks. Our team never bemoaned our lack of snacks. I saw no indication they even noticed. From our team’s other parents, I never heard a peep about snacks. Our snackless rebellion was our little secret.

I now suspect that many parents dislike the post-game snack, but no one publicly decries it, because that might make them the worst parent ever, and who would ever dare flirt with that consequence?

A boy’s recipe for toast and good will

Whenever my wife has to work a morning shift, I go in to work late so I can take the boys to school. I don’t look forward to these mornings for many reasons. For one thing, I am using up my vacation time on something that is anything but a vacation. Also, none of the men in our household are famous for being morning people. The most infamous non-morning person is Big Brother.

It can be quite a struggle to get this sleepy 2nd grader out of bed and into his morning routine. But the last time this duty fell to me, he woke up by himself at the same time I did. This was a pleasant surprise, and it was only the beginning of his pleasantness.

As I was showering, a young voice was directed at me from beyond the shower curtain. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’ve done all my responsibilities. I got dressed and brushed my teeth. I made my bed and I got out the ingredients for toast.”

soon to be toast

Sorry, Soft ‘N Good bear. You’re about to be toast.

Dressing, brushing his teeth, and making his bed are all elements of the morning routine expected of him, but, to my knowledge, he has not been asked to help make toast. That he made his bed without being reminded was a good start, but getting out the ingredients for toast proved he was reaching above and beyond. He was spreading helpfulness around like sweet frosting on the cake of good behavior.

It was obvious which cake he was trying to frost. Since he woke up early, he figured why not try to get some screen time in before school. And what better way to get permission to play than to act like you’ve earned it?

“So, can I play on the Kindle?” he asked.

Just the fact that I didn’t have to drag him out of bed made it worth letting him play, but I wasn’t going to act like a total pushover. “Did you turn off your fan?” Everyone loves the white noise at night.

His answer was to leave the bathroom. Ten seconds later, he was back. “I turned off the fan. So can I play?”

“Okay. But just until your toast is ready.”

“I’m not making the toast,” he clarified. “I just got out the ingredients to make it, except the butter. I couldn’t find any butter.”

So, in other words, he got out the bread. But he couldn’t just say he got out the bread. It sounds much more impressive when you get out the ingredients to make toast, all of them except for one.

Hello, butter!

Sometimes you’ve got to open two refrigerator doors to find precious butter.

Usually, I prefer an economy of words, but I’m glad he chose to get out the ingredients for toast, minus the butter, rather than just getting out the bread. It tickled me, which probably made me more likely to let him play on the Kindle.

But then I bet he had taken all that into consideration already.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s hoping you find all the ingredients for your Turkey Day toast.

 

A chicken in every pot and a child in every arm: good luck trying to eat the chicken

People without multiple small children at home must think I exaggerate wildly when I complain about the difficulty of accomplishing anything with children underfoot. These people are wrong. I only wildly exaggerate these difficulties part of the time.

Complaining always feels better when you exaggerate the problem. Who wants to be accused of complaining about trifles? But sometimes you don’t have to exaggerate; your carping can flow easily from real life events.

The other afternoon, I took vacation time to care for Buster and Big Man so my wife could pick up a shift at her job. We met at her work and swapped cars. Big Man was napping in his seat, but Buster cried because he wanted to stay with Mommy.

After 10 minutes of trying to reason with Buster and build up Daddy as an acceptable parent, Mommy had to go. Buster cried all the way home. As we pulled into the garage, Big Man woke up. One-year-olds are often still groggy after a nap and need to be held. Crying three-year-olds need hugs. Daddy desperately needed some lunch, but with a child in each arm, that wasn’t likely.

I was able to lower Buster before my arms turned to jelly, but he kept himself comforted by hugging my leg. The floor turned to hot lava when I tried to put Big Man down. He tightened his grip around my neck. I didn’t force the issue, as one crying child is plenty.

I made what lunch I could with one arm and one leg. It was not tasty.

Hands free parenting

Do they sell these at Target? I could really use one. (Image: Keystone View Company)

Buster quit sobbing and lay down on the futon in the sun room. Big Man shook off his cob webs and let me put him down. This would allow me to tidy up before running errands.

Two seconds later, Buster was asleep. So much for packing them in the car to run errands.

But wait, the next time I looked that way, Big Man had climbed onto the futon and sat on Buster’s head.

Buster woke up, crying again. (Big Man is not an inconsequential toddler to find sitting atop your head.) But as long as everybody was up, errands were back on.

A cold front was moving through, so everybody needed to be changed into warmer clothes.

An hour later, we got in the car and headed to our first destination. Big Man was asleep again. Fortunately, all I had to do was open the trunk and point out a box. A helpful gentleman took it away. No, it wasn’t a weapons deal; it was recycling.

Then it was across town to make a merchandise return for Mommy. No matter that Big Man was asleep, I’d just carry him into the store.

We parked. I turned around to face two sleeping children. I couldn’t carry both around the store. We backed out of the spot and drove home to finish napping. Daddy could work while they slept, except that Big Man woke up when we got home.

He was still groggy. He needed to be held.

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.