Tag Archives: parenting

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.

Into each life some shrimp must fall, but too much is falling in mine

My son’s favorite food is shrimp tempura. But he only likes the shrimp tempura sushi rolls from one particular restaurant. He eats shrimp only at this restaurant, and he eats nothing but shrimp at this restaurant. Consequently, when he was about three, he renamed this restaurant Shrimp, as in “Let’s go to Shrimp for dinner tonight.”

I, being incorrigibly out of touch with what’s current and trendy in the world, don’t care for sushi. Fortunately, Shrimp makes a pretty good bowl of chicken teriyaki, allowing me to associate with the in crowd at dinner time. My wallet helps in this regard as well.

My son asks to go to Shrimp constantly. I can only eat so much teriyaki. Besides that, he can pack away three shrimp tempura rolls by himself. Then, my wife has to have her sushi, and I my hanger’s-on dish. It gets kind of pricey. We can’t afford to eat there every week.

Enough shrimp to feed a kindergartner

Did somebody order the child-sized shrimp basket ? (Image: John Ferrell/U.S. Farm Security Administration)

Meanwhile, at my son’s school curriculum night, his teacher showed us some little squares of yellow paper, referred to in Kindergarten parlance as Golden Tickets. Children earn a Golden Ticket by being exceptionally well-behaved. For those of us who looked worried about our child’s ability to ever meet this sky-high threshold, she guaranteed that every child would be sure to earn one during the year. Not only did this reassure me, it also put me under the impression that Golden Tickets would be scarce.

After two weeks of school, what does the boy bring home but a Golden Ticket. Okay, I thought, the teacher is unloading Golden Tickets early to get the kids excited about good behavior and spread some confidence. We’ll make a big deal out of this one, because we don’t know how many we’ll see once things in the classroom get real.

As expected, the boy asked to go to Shrimp that night. Who am I to refuse the bearer of a Golden Ticket? At the restaurant he shoveled sushi away like the deserving soul he was. When the bill came, I was first struck by poverty, and then by genius. “If you want to come back here again,” I told him, “you’ll have to earn another Golden Ticket.”

I felt good about the months of dinner savings I had just won for myself. This child was the perfect blend of his mother’s talkative nature and his father’s rebelliousness to invite a long drought of Golden Tickets. His most strenuous efforts to win favor would be doomed by biology.

Four whole days later, my wife called me at work with a message from the boy. “He wants you to guess what he brought home from school,” she said.

There was a substantial part of me that hoped for head lice. But I knew the awful, golden truth.

It’s going to be a long, expensive year. My genius lies shattered on the ground – under the table with the rice crumbs from my son’s three plates of shrimp tempura.

Fridge of Golden Tickets

Since the writing of this post, we have acquired a third Golden Ticket. We’re going to need more Presidents and sting rays.

The boys’ guide to optimal utilization of toy trains and real dads

Playing with trains is fun. But you may not be squeezing out all the fun you can. Follow these simple instructions, young man, and you will extract every drop of enjoyment out of your trains.

Collect multiple, incompatible train sets

When asking for a new train for your birthday, choose one that doesn’t work with any of the sets you already own. When your dad buys the starter kit, he will become disappointed by how few pieces it contains. He will say something like, “This isn’t enough track to do anything with.” Fearful of ruining your big day with an inadequate gift, he will buy you lots of extra pieces so you can build a proper railway.

Nag your dad into helping you set up the track

Your dad is really just an oversized boy. He loves playing with trains, no matter how much work he claims to have. He may bitch and moan about his sore joints, but there’s no place he’d rather be than crawling around the floor, trying to force poorly molded pieces of plastic together. He may think he’s busy, but if you ask him to play trains every 10 seconds, his conscience won’t let him concentrate on anything else. TIP: Disregard any popping noises your dad’s knee makes when he tries to get back up.

Strategically distribute the pieces

By now, your mom has designated a specific box or basket for each of your many train sets. This would be a fine way to organize things if you were one of those focused kids who is satisfied to play with one thing at a time. Those focused kids are boring duds, and you are not one of them. Teach your parents this by putting all of your train parts into the correct storage bin, except for the most crucial piece. Place the piece that makes the whole set work in a different, randomly selected box. IMPORTANT: Forget which box you put it in. Now, you have to dump all the boxes on the floor in order to build the railway you hooked your dad into setting up. Parents secretly love this!

Mess of trains

An assortment of incompatible engines in front of a basket of almost all of the pieces of a track that may or may not be the correct gauge for one of the locatable trains.

Play with some random, piece-of-crap toy from the mess on the floor while your dad waits for you to find the missing piece

Remember that stupid toy you got in your Happy Meal? Yeah, the one you couldn’t even figure out what it was supposed to be. One of the three useless pieces of that junk just got dumped on the floor. Act fascinated by it while your dad waits for you to turn up the main bridge support for the Big Bridge Train Set you’re supposed to be building. This will supply your dad with three of the things he loves most in life: a big mess on the floor, a kid who’s making no effort to pick it up, and time wasted building a track that can’t be finished.

Whine about having to clean up such a huge mess

This is just a reminder. Everyone knows you are already an expert at this.

By following these instructions, you will get the most out of all your trains and even your lazy dad. Your dad really wants to play trains with you right now; he just doesn’t know it yet. And don’t forget about sharing. Share these instructions with your little brother. Your parents will be so proud of you.

More on boys and trains:
A good zoo will have some animals to compliment its train
History, trains, dinosaurs, trains, airplanes, and mostly trains