Tag Archives: humor

Quit clobbering me with happiness!

The other day, we went to a festival with exhibits from countries all around the world. We went, not because we are a particularly cosmopolitan family, but for the same reason we go to the apple butter festival: it was free. Being the most provincial family member, I’d probably skip all such festivals in favor of watching football from the couch if I didn’t have a wife handy to stress the importance of free events, but that’s another story.

At the festival I won a prize for transferring three M&Ms from one dish to another with chop sticks, within the span of 15 seconds. I had hoped the prize would be more M&Ms, because my great triumph had left me peckish. But the guy in charge of prizes reached under the table and from there produced happiness, which he handed to me.

It was a folded, red piece of paper, cut into the shape of the Chinese word for happiness. This is what the guy said; for all I know it could be the Chinese word for sucker, but I am placing my faith in happiness. Unfolding the paper produced a duplicate image of the word, bringing me double happiness, or perhaps making me sucker twice over.

As one who values happiness, and is also a bad ass with chop sticks, I carefully kept my folded paper safe for the remainder of the event. Though other handouts might get crumpled in the glove box of the baby stroller, I guarded my special paper and got it home safely.

At which point, our four-year-old got hold of it. I was watching highlights from the lost day of football games when he showed up with my happiness in his hands. He opened it up and put it over his face, peering through some of the holes. “Look, it’s a mask,” he said.

Boy wearing happiness mask

Hiding behind the veil of happiness. There is no mouth hole for him to speak through, so maybe this represents a few minutes of parental happiness after all.

I did not remind him that his history with masks is not a happy one. Rather, I said that it was not a mask and asked him to be careful, as it took uncommon skill to win such a prize.

“Okay,” he said as he refolded it. “What happens when you hit somebody with it?” He began whacking me over the head with my own happiness.

“Stop it,” I commanded. “You’re going to break my happiness.”

“I can’t break it; it’s paper. But I bet I can rip it.”

I gave him a look that communicated ideas completely opposed to happiness. He returned a clever look that said my happiness was growing tiresome to him anyway. He attempted to toss it down upon the coffee table, but it floated off course and landed beneath the table. As long as it was out of his destructive hands, I was satisfied.

I got lost in my highlights and forgot about my happiness. As far as I know, my happiness is back where it was born: underneath a table. If you are searching for happiness, that might be a good place to look.

Searching under coffee table

Searching for my happiness. It has to be under here with all of our other toys.

Dessert: a good eater’s just deserts

Our four-year-old has recently made a subtle but useful discovery. The revelation he has come to is that the word dessert is far more handy to a boy than are the words ice cream, cookie, or candy. Ice cream and cookies are unearned treats, things parents are uneasy about handing out freely.

Dessert, on the other hand, is a word full of positive implications. It implies that a good dinner has been fully consumed, or at least those portions not spilled upon table, lap, chair, and floor have been fully consumed. Dessert is earned by good children who have done nothing to turn dinnertime into a headache of remonstrations about the vegetables being part of the meal too.

Dessert is granted far more often than mere cookies and ice cream are. Dessert is earned; it makes the parents feel better about doling out a little sugar. And the best thing of all about dessert, the secret that the boy guards from his parents with silent delight, is that, for all practical purposes, dessert is exactly the same thing as ice cream, candy, or cookies. Cha-Ching!

Cookies, candy and ice cream

These things may have specific names, but if you’re a wily kid, you’ll call them all dessert.

“Daddy, can I have my dessert now?”

“Why, of course! Anything for such a dutiful cleaner of plates!”

But, there are times when even dessert is not the entire utopia it should be. We bought a couple of boxes of ice cream treats – smaller ones for the boy and larger ones for the parents (because the parents occasionally behave well at dinner too).

One night, when the boy asked for dessert, I gave him one of the little ice cream treats. “Can I have one of the big ice creams?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Why not? Are they all gone?”

“Just about,” I said. Actually there were two left, one for Daddy and one for Mommy, but I didn’t want to get into a detailed discussion about my distribution plan.

He seemed a little disappointed, but appeared to accept this as a reasonable answer – a much-coveted rarity with him. I went into the kitchen, quietly congratulating myself on the quick thinking that allowed me to escape further debate without resorting to an outright lie.

I was still basking in the light of my own genius, about 30 seconds later, when he appeared in the doorway. He was holding his ice cream treat out ahead him to show that it had not been touched by his mouth. This pristine ice cream, his un-cashed check, proved that our dessert arrangements had not yet been consummated. He looked at me, his eyes filled with that young cynicism I’ve grown to love. “What does just about mean?” he asked.

bowl full of candy

After Halloween, a good dad will step up and help his children work through the excess stockpiles of dessert lying around the house.

Conversations with my wife: Interpreting motherhood

Our baby saves his crying almost exclusively for when he is tired. But when he does cry, he really belts it out. He’ll play and play, then suddenly start to wail. This means it’s time to help him drift off to sleep.

One night, when my wife was out, the baby turned on his tired siren. My wife came home as I was rocking him in my arms. He hadn’t gone to sleep yet, which means he was still bellowing his sleepy woes at me.

WIFE: What’s wrong with the baby?

ME: He’s ready for bed.

WIFE: Poor thing. Give him to his mother.

(I hand him over, which is always easier to do when he’s crying.)

WIFE: (To the baby.)My sweet baby, always crying for your family when you get so sleepy. You’re just like your mama.

ME: That’s not like you at all. You yell at your family when you’re tired.

WIFE: That’s how mothers cry.

wife scolding husband

American men have been misinterpreting motherhood since the days of the Founding Fathers (and Founding Sons). The poor, misunderstood mother in this scene is only crying at her family. Maybe it is her horribly dislocated elbow that is causing her such sadness.

Are there any Godzillas in the audience tonight?

Our four-year-old has to be the hardest working preschooler in the baby-entertaining business. He is forever putting on shows designed to make his baby brother giggle. It is demanding work, as his baby brother has a definite preference for physical comedy.

Big Brother throws himself around the room in a fit of slapstick, always seeking to add fresh elements to his act. The moves that get the best laughs from the baby are repeated until the poor boy is out of breath and must resort to making faces until he claims his second wind.

After wearing himself out entertaining his little brother, the big boy throws open his arms and shouts, “Thank you, thank you, thank you very much! Show’s over, good night!”

boy and baby playing on floor

When your fans get too excited about your performance, some of them may try to rush the stage. This is called audience participation.

But the show hasn’t ever been over, and I hope it never is. There’s nothing that compares to watching a boy work so hard to make his baby brother smile, unless it is watching the baby’s eyes glow with delight at the antics of his big brother. These are riches you can’t earn.

Having been both a little brother and a big brother, I understand that this era of good feelings won’t continue untroubled through the years. Increasing mobility leads little brothers into places within the carefully constructed worlds of big brothers where they become more annoying than cute.

The baby is already starting to form a black cloud around the horizon of his big brother’s world. He has developed a love for tearing up railroad tracks unseen since Sherman marched through Georgia. Whenever he can get himself near his brother’s train sets on the floor, he becomes a hatchling Godzilla, uttering baby dinosaur noises and throwing pieces of track over his shoulder with reptilian abandon.

baby tearing up railroad tracks

Oh, the humanity! Can civilization withstand the onslaught of marauding babies? Where is that other sock?

Naturally, Big Brother does not appreciate the damage that Baby Godzilla is doing to his ecosphere. He appeals to the Japan Self-Defense Force (a.k.a. Mom and Dad) for assistance. What Big Brother doesn’t understand, because he is neither a veteran of the JSDF nor a parent, is that the authorities have settled upon a program of appeasement when it comes to rampaging Godzillas. Consequently, he often gets responses like, “Let the baby play for a while. We’ll rebuild it.”

It’s frustrating watching your infrastructure being destroyed. So far, our big boy’s frustrations haven’t turned to resentment, but he doesn’t know what’s coming. He doesn’t know that he will begin to build more sophisticated, hence more vulnerable, worlds. He doesn’t know that his brother will soon be able to walk easily between them, tugging at linchpins and kicking cornerstones.

He will learn these things in time. They will be hard lessons. I hope that he will also learn that his little brother imposes himself into his world because his world is fun and interesting, and most of all because his little brother admires him and all that he can do. It is an admiration that he did so much to foster, back in the days when he did pratfalls to make his little brother smile.

Thank you, thank you, thank you very much! May this show go on for a very long time.