Tag Archives: humor

If the frog’s happy, I’m happy

If you secretly resent those crafty parents who can effortlessly sew together adorable Halloween costumes for all their kids, then you have no reason to resent my wife and me. All of our skill at producing cute costumes comes at a bargain price from a discount store.

I have created many of my own costumes for Halloween parties over the years, but my creations have been more conceptual. One year, I was a window. Another time, I did Halloween as part of this complete breakfast. I got a lot of hungry looks from squirrels that night.

Angry owl

The Angry Owl. If I were an animal who regularly coughed up balls of mouse hair and bones, I’d be angry too.

Kids’ costumes are supposed to be cute and, more or less, easily identifiable. If this weren’t enough of a stake in my creative heart, they are not supposed to be even slightly dangerous. I was never able to guarantee that the costumes I’d made for myself wouldn’t accidentally poke somebody in the eye. That’s not really a selling point at a kids’ party.

My wife and I aren’t very artistically talented, if you take away the part of art that is left to the beholder’s imagination. Consequently, my wife spends part of October shopping for boys’ Halloween costumes.

The big boy decides what he wants to be on his own. Last year, Halloween coincided with his skunk phase. All boys go through a skunk phase, right? This year, he’ll be a soldier. He’s known this for at least six months. Easy.

A frog's OK I guess

The Ambivalent Frog. The good news is he isn’t an owl. The bad news: Do owls eat frogs?

The little boy is another story. Finding an appropriate costume for a toddler can be an adventure. Of course, it must be cute. But it also must not make him topple over at every step. Most importantly, it must not induce him into a screaming fit every time it comes near him. Nobody is cute wearing a screaming fit.

After much browsing, Mommy and Toddler narrowed down the candidates to three. The pumpkin costume had the advantage of being inexpensive, but it didn’t quite ring the bell on the cuteness scale. The owl had the potential to be very cute, but sometimes a little boy just doesn’t want to be an owl. The owl was presented to him on two separate occasions, resulting in two separate screaming fits. With regret, Mommy crossed the owl off the list.

The frog is definitely cute. The boy let himself be clothed in frog with only a mild look of reservation. Whether or not the frog will make him topple over at every step remains to be seen. But after the owl experience, we’ll find a way to live with that.

This Halloween, if you see a tired, prematurely aged man carrying an adorable frog on his shoulders, you’ll know who they are. Yes, the man may appear to be wilting under the weight, but rest assured, so long as the frog is not screaming and crying, that little old man is perfectly content.

Baby steps toward superstardom

Last spring I expressed my desire to use the summer to expose our five-year-old to playing sports. I didn’t put him into organized leagues because I wanted him to have more time to be a disorganized kid and figure out what he likes. Also, leagues cost money, and I’ve been in a cheapskate mood for the last 30 years.

Now that summer is over, it’s time for an update on his progress as an athlete. All of these wonderful advancements were accomplished under the tutelage of only his tepidly athletic dad.

Baseball

I’m not sure this is one of his favorites, as he never asked to play catch. I am happy to boast that he did successfully get all of his fingers into his baseball glove one time. This was not because he wanted to throw the ball with me, but because his friends found a ball and some bats in the garage and wanted to play. I can also proudly report that despite there being three Kindergarteners in the yard with a ball and bats, no windows were broken. Those are the kinds of fundamentals a dad can really appreciate.

Archery

We only tried this once, but he showed promising talent at sticking a foam skunk. This is a twist, since he spent all last year pretending to be a skunk.

in pursuit of the foam skunk

Skunks used to be the coolest animal. Now, they’re the coolest animal target.

Football

Now this is real progress. He no longer runs away when I toss the football in his direction. He might turn his back and layer his arms over his head, but keep in mind we’re not using helmets or pads yet. He is completely unprotected from the injury that Nerf sponge could cause him. Occasionally he will actually stretch his arms out toward the ball, but this usually ends with him swatting the dangerous missile away.

Basketball

He can now dribble a basketball up to three consecutive times with one hand. He has yet to fully comprehend that he needs to push the ball with his hand rather than just slap at it. This leads to diminishing returns after each dribble. By the fourth one, he is squatting down, slapping a ball that is resting on the ground. I may be a rulebook stickler, but I don’t count beating a dead ball as dribbling.

baby slam

Little Brother is a natural athlete. Here he is at six months, perfecting his dunk.

Soccer

He’s pretty good at soccer. When he kicks the ball he doesn’t usually miss the target by more than 75˚ to either side. He still likes to kick the ball with his toe, like he’s playing kickball, but he rarely misses it anymore. He only uses his hands as an absolute last resort, even less so after that time he got his finger kicked. It’s amazing how much a little pain keeps one mindful of the rules.

All in all, it’s been a productive summer. Sure, the little man displays lots of natural talent, but raw talent needs to be molded. Hence, much of the credit for his blossoming as a superstar athlete must be assigned to his awesome coach.

The price of too much free stuff

Driving home at night. It’s not completely dark because the five-year-old is playing with a flashlight. Every 30 seconds, I see police lights in the rear-view mirror. I wonder what I did wrong, until I realize it’s just that damned flashlight. But he really wants to see it, and promises he won’t shine it upwards anymore.

It’s loud in the car. The one-year-old is crying his most desperate cry – the one he reserves only for emergencies like wanting breakfast, not wanting his diaper changed, wanting the toy his brother has, or not wanting to ride in the car right now. It was a struggle getting him into the car seat. He stiffened himself, ramrod straight, because they can’t fit you into your car seat if you don’t bend in the middle. He has strong abs for a pipsqueak. Mommy is sitting in back, trying to console him. He won’t be consoled.

It’s raining. Not a steady, windshield-cleansing rain. It’s that fine drizzle that clings to the greasy film of life outside the glass. Those name-brand wipers that cost double, but were worth the price of protecting the family, excel at smearing nature’s spittle and assorted bug innards across my view. Despite his promises, Flashlight Boy finds the perfect angle to play a beam of light off the rear view mirror. Retinas spin cartwheels.

This blind and deaf moment was an entire day in the making. It’s the cost of hitting every free event in town in a single day.

It started at the Home Depot kids workshop, building a kit plane. They give the kids aprons and access to lots of paint. The person next to a kid with a paint brush needs the apron more, but parents are left to fend off wayward strokes on their own.

Painting the plane

A five-year-old and paint – a dangerous combination.

Painting th wing

A one-year-old and paint – sheer madness!

There’s no time to let the paint dry before the firefighters’ exhibition. Nobody with a big, red truck that shoots water needs a bounce house to attract children, but firemen often add this overkill anyway. They set a simulated room on fire. The one-year-old wants to help them put it out. He wants this more than popcorn or chips or fruit punch, which means he wants it a lot. He kicks and screams when Daddy holds him back from his heroic intentions.

simulated fire

Getting ready to put out the fire, all by themselves.

Then, it’s off to the inter-squad game of the university hockey team. Inter-squad exhibitions always run too long, even without hungry kids. Even the Zamboni loses its mystique after the second period.

Dinner isn’t free, but it’s pretty cheap in the university cafeterias. At one of the remodeled halls, it’s also one of the better meals in town. It’s like Disney World, for pennies on the dollar. Food revives the kids just enough to keep them from sleeping peacefully on the ride home.

And that’s the problem. I drive by memory until my pupils stabilize. Mommy confiscates the flashlight and we make it home safe. Four people trudge into the house, all of them cranky. It must have been a fun day.

A smile for yesterday

Every night, I read the big boy a bedtime story. This tradition dates back to the time even before there was a little brother, an era that seems ancient. It’s not so much the story that matters as it is Daddy sitting on his bed reading aloud to him.

Back in the day, he liked a particular Thomas the Tank Engine book called, Thomas and Percy and the Dragon. It’s a Beginning Readers book of about 20 pages that is not flattering to Percy’s reputation, but then Percy does have his issues.

I read this book nearly every night, to the point where I had the dozen words on every page memorized. In a misguided effort to illustrate that we were perhaps overusing this book, I began reciting the story to the boy while looking at everything in his bedroom except the book.

nighttime reading

Daddy is so well read – he can quote the classics from memory.

I turned the pages on cue and recited the appropriate text while staring into the boy’s face. This effort to prod him toward fresh literature completely backfired. Thomas & Friends were doing comedy now, and he loved it. “Look at the page!” he would demand. I would sneak a peek at the book and quickly turn my gaze back at him, eliciting a stream of giggles.

One day, someone gave us a big, hardcover book about animals. I started reading this at bedtime. There was lots of information to digest, so we fell to the rate of one page per night. Sometime between the hyenas and the sharks, his little brother was born.

When we finally finished with the animals, someone gave us a big book of facts. Some of the concepts were over his head, and I’m sure he never wondered why Secretariat was such a fast horse (he had a freakishly oversized heart), but it was our thing.

I hesitated to continue some nights. I wasn’t sure he needed to know about Shakespeare yet. I hadn’t learned to run screaming from that name until ninth grade. Probably he was too young to foresee the terrible psychological scars The Bard will inflict upon his teenage years, so he didn’t flinch.

Eventually, his little brother joined our story time. The little boy doesn’t care about racehorses or playwrights. He wants only to grab the book or wrestle somebody. He’s a distraction from our routine, but he’s also part of our world moving forward, as it should and must.

It took nearly two years to read through those two books full of amazing and soon-forgotten facts. Two nights ago, we closed the back cover.

Last night, at bedtime, the little boy was too busy arguing with his mother to join us. The big boy was waiting on his bed. Sitting beside him was that old, flimsy paperback, Thomas and Percy and the Dragon. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

I sat down and opened the book to the first page. I turned my face to the boy and began reciting.

He grinned as big as yesterday.