Tag Archives: parenting

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.

Flag football: a sport where getting in the way is a useful skill

The oldest son is playing soccer and flag football this year. This is his third year of soccer and first of organized football. Sports get pretty serious in 2nd grade. The soccer team uses a goalie now and there are actual refs on the field. It’s like the World Cup all of a sudden.

Being new to football, we can’t document the changes from 1st grade, though we learned a mouth guard is mandatory. This was a good lesson, and it came in handy when the boy had a face-on-face collision with a teammate during practice. We also learned the difference between soccer shoes and football shoes. When I was a boy, we had one kind of shoe; it was called a sneaker.

Football requires as much determined movement as soccer. This is unfortunate, since the boy uses up all his aggressive play on his little brothers. When it comes to sports with non-related children, he is a passivist.

He is also behind most of his teammates in experience, with a total of two lifetime practices under his belt. Yet he made the most of his practice time in the first game, handing the ball off twice without dropping it, and throwing one almost-complete pass.

presnap

Preparing for the snap in shotgun formation.

look it in

Going out for a pass. It’s not important whether or not he caught it.

But his finest moment was one that won’t show up in the stat sheets. He was playing the 2nd grade equivalent of Wide Receiver when the 2nd grade equivalent of Running Back ran a sweep to his side of the field. My boy threw a crucial block, allowing the runner to get around the corner for a long gain. Now, the 2nd grade equivalent of throwing a block is putting oneself in the way of the kid who is trying to rip the flag belt off your teammate, and I’m not sure my son did this on purpose or whether it was just another manifestation of his innate skill of being in the way, but it resulted in a long gain, so who cares?

All those times when, arms full of grocery bags, I tripped over him as he stooped to remove his shoes, just inside the doorway, paved the way for this wonderful moment. Just because I never played football beyond the playground doesn’t mean I’m not capable of coaching him up a little at home.

So, even though the kid may never develop into a star ball carrier or quarterback, I think there is potential for him in this game. I’ve never known a kid so talented at being in the way. As he proved on Sunday afternoon, being in the way is a vital component of the game of football. I’m not sure he’ll ever be large enough to get in the way professionally, but no one expects that.

As long as he enjoys doing it, whether he carries, throws, or catches the ball, or just puts himself in the way of the right player, we’ll cheer him on. I may even compliment him on his blocking practice next time I trip over him.

football hero

The next generation of football hero. Yup, we’re a regular pipeline of star recruits.

Violence was not the answer today; we’ll try it again tomorrow

Sometimes I feel sorry for my wife. She has to parent three boys without the benefit of having ever been a boy herself. Nor did she ever get any practice suffering the slings and arrows of mean brothers.

I, on the other hand, was a boy for a very long time before growing into a husband. Altogether, I can demonstrate a long history of childishness. Also beneficial to my standing as a parent of boys is my wealth of experiences with mean brothers. I had mean brothers coming down from the hills to insure that all the days of my youth were peppered with toil and trouble. They became tolerable adults, but as a youngster, it was hard to have any kind of parade not rained upon by the mob. I may even have sprinkled on somebody’s festivities myself, but this was only in self-defense, or at worst, retaliation.

My wife has little patience for the boys’ foolish fights. Though I find their fights annoying, I am less inclined to intercede. Foolishness and fighting are two of the load-bearing beams underneath boyhood. The third pillar is grime, but we’ll leave that one alone for now. The point is, brothers are going to fight, and yelling at them about it seems to only make them fight louder.

When our boys fight, I try to replace the instinctive scolding with a few philosophical words of advice, once the battle has run its course.

I got money on this

“Let me in. I got money on this!”

Last Saturday, I was upstairs when the quiet of the house was interrupted by crying from downstairs. It wasn’t the usual child’s cry; it was the sweet harmony of two children crying together, each attempting to reach higher octaves and greater decibels than the other. It was the telltale sound of a war that had ended badly for both sides.

When my leisurely pace brought me downstairs, I found two children sitting on the floor opposite each other. The larger one was holding his lip. The smaller rubbed his arm. When they saw me, Big Brother interrupted his bawling to tell me Buster had socked him in the mouth. Buster didn’t waste any words. He looked at his victimized arm and pointed at Big Brother. Between them lay the random toy that had caused the strife.

Both wanted me to punish the other for his unjust aggression. I reached down between them, opened my hand, and picked up the toy. As I walked away with the trophy, I shook my head. “Doesn’t look like violence was the answer today, does it?” I said as I carried the spoils of war into the next room.

The crying ended as soon as I left. Both lip and arm healed up fast. They returned to play, and peace reigned for upwards of five minutes.

The era of good feelings was nice and I enjoyed it. Afterwards, they fought again. I yelled at them that time, because, in spite of my own boyhood and brothers, I only have so many words of wisdom to go around.

Get ready for the best bike ride ever! . . . Um, is anybody getting ready?

The last day of August, one week before Labor Day officially shuts down summer, what better time to go for your first family bike ride of the year?

Bike riding is a fun way to enjoy family time together while getting valuable exercise. There’s hardly a happier, healthier activity for a family than riding bikes, so naturally we ignored the bikes collecting rust in the garage through the meat of summer. Happy and healthy sounds like a great combination for tomorrow, when we might have more time.

Tomorrow came on August 31. The more enterprising parent had disentangled the bikes from the garage before I got home from work. A few minutes for me to change clothes, then all we had to do was jump on and go.

If not for the tire issue.

No problem. I’ll just plug the $15 Target clearance air compressor into the car and we’ll inflate those tires in a snap.

There’s no snap, or any other noise. The air compressor’s dead. Fortunately, I have a newer, better, cheaper, $10 Target clearance compressor in the house. This one blows up half a tire before it follows its colleague to air compressor Valhalla.

On to the manual pump, purchased in the ‘90s, when both it and I were much less worn out. It’s good exercise though, pumping up four tires with a leaky pump. It’s a healthy sweat.

Ready at last. Where’s the trailer for the little boys?

Ah. Folded up in the basement. But it’s easy to set up, once you get it lugged up the stairs.

Oh good. Two more flat tires. Sorry, pump. I know you’re too old for this.

Okay, got the tires inflated and the hitch hooked up to my bike. Let’s go.

Where are the boys?

Playing down the street.

Big Man needs a new diaper. Buster should go potty.

Buster doesn’t want to go potty. He needs a drink. Every boy needs a drink. And maybe a snack.

That was refreshing. Let’s go.

Buster still doesn’t want to go potty. Let’s have debate with him about it.

Buster sits on the pot for some time. He says he pottied, but nobody heard any tinkling. It’s getting late; he must be trusted. Let’s go.

Get your helmet, Big Brother. Where is it? How should I know?

Helmet found. Little boys inserted into trailer and buttoned up. Let’s go.

Yes, Mommy, you’re right. You probably should change your flip-flops for some sort of real shoe. No, I don’t know which ones would be best.

Found your biking shoes? Great. I had to take Big Man out the trailer. He got tired of waiting and started to cry. I’ll put him back in now. No, he’ll be fine once we start moving. Let’s go.

Wait. I should probably lock up the house. Better safe than sorry. Be right back.

Okay, house is locked. Everybody’s on wheels; let’s go.

Who says he needs to go potty?

I think we did pretty good. After all, we were able to put it off until August 31.

sleepy bikers

Well, at least nobody missed their bed times because they were out too late biking.