Tag Archives: parenting

If you can’t stand the heat, don’t install a molten lava floor in your kitchen

I cook most of the dinners at our house. There is something about the sight of me cooking dinner that makes our one-year-old especially needy. We make faces and giggle and play at all times of the day, but the only hour at which he consistently needs to be held by me is the one in which I am trying to cook dinner.

Given the choice of being held by me or by his mother, it is probably 70/30 in favor of Mommy, except when I am cooking. When I am cooking, he sees no other arms but mine. Only these arms can keep him from a crying fit when there is something sizzling on the stove.

Parents learn to do much with one hand. Our days are a routine of picking things up one at a time, in the order necessary to complete what would be thoughtless tasks to freewheeling, two-handed, childless types. Still, there are some things that are nearly impossible to do with a child in one arm, like hoisting a roast out of the crock pot or forming dough into a pizza shape.

My son doesn’t care what I can’t do one-handed. Cooking is daddy-toddler together time. He lets me know this by wrapping his arms around my legs as I’m trying to walk to get the butter. If I want to move freely between the fridge and the stove, I’d better pick him up.

Butterworth's demise

“Pick me up or Mrs. Butterworth gets it!”

By picking him up I’ve jumped from the frying pan onto the electric coil, because putting him down again is bound to be an ordeal. When a toddler is okay with being put down, he lets his feet down to meet the floor. When I try to put my son down so I can strain the pasta, he lifts up the landing gear like the floor is hot lava.

Touching hot lava dismays children, even when it is cool and made of linoleum. I am reminded of this every time I attempt to set a child down in it. Having to sit in hot lava while a heartless parent cuts up chicken breast is the worst fate imaginable. It makes a child cry. A lot. Much more than necessary. Especially since no crying is necessary. But it might distract Daddy enough to make him cut his finger, and that would teach him some respect for bonding time.

Cooling lava

A panoramic view of our kitchen floor after it has cooled down a bit from dinner time. (Image: Robert Bonine)

It’s not only that holding a child while cooking is inconvenient. There are things involved with cooking that are hotter than metaphorical lava. This means the boy has to be upset with me from across the room as I pull a dish out of the oven. But when safety is not an issue, I have learned to do all sorts of food prep with one hand.

If you wonder what this looks like, just imagine the Heisman trophy statue. Only, imagine a one-year-old tucked under the left arm, instead of a football. Then imagine that the outstretched right arm is holding a whisk.

It may not qualify as a cherished childhood memory

My wife is diligent about giving our boys different experiences to fill their childhood.  She is especially skilled at sniffing out free events. Unfortunately, we are often a step behind on the details when we set about our adventures. We might arrive at the wrong time or pull up to an abandoned building with an address almost like the one where all the wonderful childhood memories are being handed out.

Our eldest son likes the old Batman TV show and our younger boy enjoys singing the theme song. When we learned that Adam West was due to make two appearances at our university, we immediately marked the date on our calendar.

We explained to our four-year-old that this was the actor who played Batman; he wouldn’t be in costume and he would be older than he looked on TV. Even so, the boy was excited to see him. The little boy didn’t care who it was. He’d sing his song for Burt Ward if he had to.

I had to work, but my wife got the boys to the student union in time for the afternoon autograph session. This great success was marred only by the fact that the event was happening elsewhere. When this troubling detail was discovered, it was too late to make it in time. We’d have to try for the later event.

We made sure that the evening appearance was indeed located at the student union before setting out. The big boy brought his Batman mask and cape from two Halloweens ago. In the car, the little boy spontaneously burst into his rendition of the Batman theme song.

We imagined the great photo we would get of our young Batman with the original Caped Crusader. We thought about how tickled Mr. West would be to hear a song so near and dear to him from the mouth of a babe. He might even tell the story in future interviews. Maybe he would recount it in a memoir.

At the union, there were rows of chairs set out before a stage. It looked like Mr. West wanted to give a talk before signing autographs. We found seats and immediately swung into keep the toddler contented mode.

From what I heard, before the toddler bolted from the room, Adam West sounds like a funny, humble man. I spent the last half playing out in the hall. At last, people started streaming out. It was odd that they didn’t stay for autographs.

We went back into the room to find my wife and the big boy among the few people left. Not among them was Adam West. Apparently, the earlier event had been the only autograph session. Details!

It wasn’t a total loss though. The little boy had a great time playing in the hall; my wife learned several fun facts about the career of Adam West; and the big boy got an awesome photograph of himself with a poster of the senior citizen who once was Batman. Not too shabby.

Pitcuter with a picture

He’ll always remember the day he posed for a picture with a lady holding a poster of a guy in prop sweater.

 

 

Make a wish and blow out the candles on your bacon

My four-year-old son is not big on breakfast. We’ve struggled to find a food that inspires him to eat in the morning.

During the week, I’m gone before he gets up, but I was able to persuade him to eat a pancake some weekend mornings. When we could find bacon on sale, we might add that to the pancake breakfast. He developed quite a taste for the bacon.

Eventually, his palate tired of the pancakes, but he sensed that they were necessary baggage to his enjoyment of bacon. Unfortunately for him, we are most often without bacon. Sure, it tastes wonderful, but it’s pretty expensive for a food whose main purpose is to clog your heart with goo. Lacking bacon, our morning conversations go like this:

ME: “Would you like me to make you a pancake for breakfast?”

BOY: “If there’s bacon, I’ll have a pancake and bacon. Otherwise, I don’t want a pancake.”

ME: “How about a pancake and bacon, with no bacon?”

BOY: “No. I’ll just have a pancake with bacon.”

It’s rare that I can sell a pancake without bacon anymore.

The last time we had bacon, we were all sitting around the breakfast table, discussing his upcoming birthday.  “I think I want bacon for my birthday,” the boy declared. “I want bacon instead of cake.” His mother and I like bacon too; if he wants us to spend the cake money on bacon, that’s fine with us. We shrugged and said it was okay.

That must have seemed too easy, so he made sure we understood. “The bacon is instead of cake. It’s not my present.” Bacon is delicious, but it’s still only food. Food is not an appropriate birthday present for a boy who has seen the wonders housed within the magical walls of Toys R Us.

birthday bacon

I suggest that he wish for a significant price drop in the pork belly futures market.

Later, as we drove to get groceries, the boy piped up from the back seat with another bolt from the blue:

BOY: “Daddy, I think I’ll need a bow tie, if I’m gonna go anywhere fancy.”

ME: “Oh?”

BOY: “Yeah. Not one that you have to tie. Just one that you snap on.”

ME: “Where are you going that’s fancy?”

BOY: “I don’t know, but just in case I do.”

I hope he wasn’t envisioning his birthday party as a black tie affair, because bacon and ice cream don’t really wear well on a tux. Besides, if he wants to look like a junior Orville Redenbacher, he’s going to have to finance that fashion statement on his own.

At the end of our shopping trip, we passed through the bakery section of the store. The boy stopped and gazed through the glass at all the sweet treats. “Well, I think I do really want a cake instead of bacon for my birthday,” he said.

“How about a cake shaped like bacon?” his mother asked.

“No. I want it to look like an army vehicle.”

Oh well. Bacon was starting to sound good, but I like cake too.

 

Besieged by sleepy barbarians

There is a new epidemic in our house. We’re suffering a rash of little boys wanting to climb into bed with their parents at night. This pestilence results in tired, cranky parents, which was the primary reason for the fall of the Roman Empire.

I am not a proponent of children sleeping with their parents. Children do not know how to sleep in a civilized manner. They should be kept in their own beds, where the savagery of their slumber cannot infringe upon the sleep rights of the more peaceable members of the household.

If I do say so myself, I am a very organized sleeper. I rest in a straight line, perpendicular to the headboard. My legs stay straight and my arms are kept to myself. I don’t flail or kick at midnight apparitions. My unconscious discipline is absolutely Prussian. Periodically, my wife insists that I spread myself out a little so that I don’t so much resemble a man in a coffin. For some reason, she finds herself unnerved at sleeping next to a fellow resting in so much peace.

Kaiser models my pajamas

Once properly dressed in my pajamas, I’m ready for bed. Even in my dreams, the trains run on time.

She does what she can to enliven my repose. A woman of normal proportions by day, she sprouts six elbows and eight knees at night. Various combinations of these many joints can be found burrowed into my side in the dark hours. This strengthens our marriage by helping us stay connected.

There is no room in our bed for extra people, yet a bonus human can all too often be found there. It’s just a little human, but little humans use up a disproportionate acreage in the execution of their slow-motion, somnambulistic cartwheels.

The big boy’s methods are tried and true. He had a bad dream and seeks refuge in his parents’ bed. I wonder if his bad dream had anything do with a spastic creature sleeping diagonally across his bed and kneeing him in the midsection on the hour, because that’s what my bad dreams are about these days.

Practicing having fits

Photographic evidence that children belong to secret societies where they are trained how to toss their limbs in spasmodic fits. (Image: Frances B. Johnston)

The little boy doesn’t need an excuse. All he has to do is cry loud and long enough. Once he hits that pitch that sounds like he’s threatening to fling himself from the top rail of his crib, he’ll be taken in by Mommy and Daddy.

It would be unfair to accuse the little boy of sleeping diagonally. His layout is more nearly parallel to the headboard. Together, Mommy, Toddler, and Daddy form a big, sleepy H. This is unless Daddy falls over the edge, at which point the formation defies the western alphabet.

Little Boy only lays across the bed when he’s actually sleeping. When he decides not to sleep, he might situate himself anywhere. For example, he might sit next to Daddy’s head and punch Daddy in the ear just to inquire whether or not that gentleman is awake.

In the boy’s defense, it is often difficult to know if Daddy is awake, with all the flinching he does in his sleep lately.