Tag Archives: parenting

Eavesdropping on the class of 2026

Kids have the best conversations. If you ever fall into the habit of eavesdropping on kids when they discuss the world with each other, you will discover vast storehouses of knowledge. Between them, kids having a conversation know nearly everything, even if much of that knowledge is manufactured on the spot by their collective imaginations. There is only one thing kids in conversation will never know, and that is just how funny their conversation is.

The other day, I spent the afternoon with my four-year-old son and his five-year-old friend. We were driving home from the museum when we passed our local university’s beef cattle research facility.

5YO: “That’s the place where they butcher cows for meat.”

4YO: “Wait a minute. I thought we get milk from cows.”

5YO: “There’s different kinds of cows. There are cows we get milk from and cows we eat.”

4YO: “And cows that wag their tails.”

5YO: “Those are horses.”

Taft's pet cow

And then there are the smart ones who go to cowlledge.

(Further reading about cowlledge here.)

Later, at a red light, my son spotted a man waiting to cross the street. The man was wearing a McDonald’s cap and a polo shirt with a McDonald’s logo on the breast. He was holding a McDonald’s bag.

4YO: “Hey, look, there’s a McDonald’s man.”

5YO: “Yeah. He works at McDonald’s. He’s carrying a McDonald’s bag too.”

4YO: “He probably got fired. Then he said, ‘Well, at least I can get some food before I have to go home.’ That’s why he’s got some hamburgers.”

5YO: “Yup, he got fired.”

Get your burgers and go.

“Your severance package is frying up as we speak.”

When we got home, the kids started playing with an army tank and a helicopter. This is the conversation the tank had with the chopper.

TANK: “Hey, Buddy, you wanna go out to lunch?”

CHOPPER: “Okay, where should we go?”

TANK: “We can go to Wendy’s.”

CHOPPER: “Yeah! And we can have [soda] pop!”

TANK: “Actually, I don’t know if I can eat anything. I don’t really have a mouth, just some guns.”

Tank and helicopter make lunch plans.

“I’d love to have lunch with you but I have a problem. You see, I’m orally challenged.”

I only wish I could remember some of the other entertaining exchanges between them. I’m tempted to follow them around with a tape recorder, except that when I play it back I’d have to fast forward through all the fake fart noises and ensuing hysterical laughter. That would take way too much time.

SEAL Team Four and a Half

Over the past school year, my son developed a fascination with all things military. He shares this interest with a number of his preschool friends. As I recall my own youth, I find that it is not so unusual. I played “army” regularly as a child, as did most of my friends.

A consequence of my son’s military phase is his desire to wear camouflage clothes. Camouflage pants weren’t so easy to find in size 4T when I was a boy, or I probably would have been bent upon getting a pair to go with my plastic army helmet.

When my son first began his collection of camouflage fashion wear, it was cold outside. He was either indoors or playing in snow the entire time. The kid in the Camo jacket or pants stood out against painted walls or people dressed in winter clothes. It made him easy to spot.

Then something alarming happened. That sneaky outdoors got to looking very much like summer.

In summer, camouflage clothing does that horrible thing it was developed to do.

Two weeks ago, my wife took the boy to his preschool’s end-of-year picnic. Still in her winter frame of mind, she let the boy convince her that he should wear Camo from head to toe. It would make him easy to see among the other children.

And maybe it did, except the park had lots of other things besides children. These other things are known as trees and bushes.

Odd branch.

Who knew? Trees make such stylish fashion accessories.

My wife called me from the picnic. She laughed as she explained their miscalculation. “Oh my Gosh,” she said, “he’s playing over by the tree line and I can hardly see him. Now I have to pay even closer attention.” This was not part of the plan.

It was a disappointing development, because my wife is a good talker. She would much rather be chatting it up with the other moms than trying to follow the one tiny bit of human foliage around a park filled with vegetable foliage. It’s difficult to be an engaging conversationalist when you can scarcely lay down your binoculars, making it toilsome to spare an eye for your speaking companions.

Struggling with tree

Get out of here, kid! The tree doesn’t want to have to watch you either.

But my wife would have made a good soldier too. She’s a problem solver. If she had trouble tracking the object of her surveillance,  she’d find a marker. “It all worked out in the end,” she explained later. “His friend, John, had a bright red shirt on. I made him play with John all afternoon.”

“Did he want to play with John?” I asked.

She shrugged. “As far as I know, he did.”

Let that be a lesson to the boy. If he wants to wear Camo to the park, he’s bound to be the best friend and playmate of the kid with the loudest clothes.

You kids can’t have nice things

I grew up in a big family. As one of the youngest, I lived under whatever reputation my older siblings had created for us, no matter how poorly I fit that reputation.

The reputation that became firmly attached to us was that of being destroyers of all things pleasant, carefully crafted, or well-intentioned. It didn’t matter that I cared for my toys and did not try to break things merely because broken was the natural state in our world. I was a cemented piece in the group, you kids, as in “You kids can’t have nice things.”

My only relief was the hope that when I grew up I could surround myself with things that were not broken and people who did not shake their heads at me with the sad knowledge that it was only a matter of time.

Fortunately, I was never able to afford the expensive sorts of nice things. The nice things I collected as a young adult were modest. My possessions were not impressive, but they were not broken either. Against all odds, I proved that I could have nice things.

For a while.

Then came children – two boys who love to use all the strength possessed by their little fingers to affect change. Everything they touch is altered by their hands. I’m learning to think of these objects not as broken, just different than they used to be.

Playing with cat and bus

Younger children sometimes labor under the misapprehension that upside-down is adequately broken. It is not. His big brother will teach him how to thoroughly break things.

At first, I tried to move things out of the reach of active, little hands. But there is only so much space up high. Some things must be left to take their chances. Consequently, I now have a fine collection of CD cases that don’t stay shut, filled with ripped paperwork and the wrong CDs, which are all scratched to hell. It’s a good thing only old people use such ancient media anymore.

The boys’ aunt gave us a German cuckoo clock. The clock is too beautiful for us. If we had any gratitude, we’d buy a better house to move the clock into. The boys, unused to seeing such fine things in our house, were overcome with the desire to handle it with their inquisitive, spasmodic hands. I quickly hung it high on the wall, much to their mutual disappointment.

Reaching for the cuckoo

A scene from the baby’s fantasy, in which he can reach the clock and straighten out that crazy bird once and for all.

Every hour, a bird shoots out of the clock to renew their disappointment. If only they could get their paws on that clock for two minutes, what happy boys they’d be.

Yesterday, I brought sleeping Little Brother in from the car as the clock struck one. The cuckoo popped out and did his thing. The boy woke and pointed at the clock. “Ooooh,” he said, before dropping back to sleep. For those not fluent in Babyish, “Ooooh” has many meanings, depending upon the context. Here, it means: “That bird is adequate. One day I’ll get up there to yank on him, and then he’ll be perfect.”

Don’t get the idea that I resent my children’s object-altering hands. I adore those four hands. I wasted years running away. Those hands have returned me to my roots.

I can’t have nice things.

I’m home.

As you embark upon your journey through life, don’t forget your Lunchables

My son graduates from preschool today. There is a crusty old man inside of me who finds that concept ridiculous. When I was young, we didn’t graduate anything until we graduated from high school, and the high school graduation ceremony was merely our parents’ way of telling us that our old bedrooms were being repurposed. It was time to go to college or get a job.

In the preceding years, we’d moved from one grade to the next without any discernible pomp. We didn’t celebrate the transition from elementary to junior high. Mostly we feared it. Our junior high was mixed right in with the high school. That meant there were a lot of big kids in that building, and since they were huge, they were probably mean as well. Also, there was Algebra waiting to beat us up. Nobody wanted to have a party about that.

My wife asked me if we should have a graduation party for our son. I said no, quickly and emphatically. It’s not that I don’t want us to celebrate this event, I just think we should celebrate it privately. Even the crusty old man in me agrees that this is a milestone that we should acknowledge. This year has been an important first step for the boy. Yet, I don’t want to blow it out of proportion and let him believe that he’s some kind of hot shot or that he’s forever entitled to special praise because he finished a program that had a 100% graduation rate. For Pete’s sake, he didn’t even have to pass a final exam.

walking to school

Back when he was just a little guy, on his first day of preschool. It seems like only nine months ago. *Sob* *Sniffle*

But the main reason I discouraged my wife from throwing a party for the child is that I don’t want her to become the parent that all the other parents secretly despise. So far, I have not heard of any other graduation parties associated with my son’s preschool. This fragile, unspoken truce between parents seems almost too good to be true. I’m on pins and needles waiting for that one overzealous parent to ruin it for everyone.

It won’t be my wife though. Not if I can help it. The constant stream of birthday parties is quite enough. I’m about ready to take out a second mortgage so that I can afford all the birthday presents my son has given to four and five-year-olds in the past year.

Know that I love children. The kids at my son’s school are great. They should party like zoo monkeys on their birthdays. But that’s enough.

Once one parent cracks, and gets the great idea to throw and whoop-de-do preschool graduation shin-dig, dominoes will fall. Other kids will need parties. Soon, the whole town will be aflame with the glow of half-pint accomplishment. A whole year’s worth of birthday parties will be replayed, squeezed into the span of two weeks. And no one will forget who is to blame for this.

It won’t be us. Our family will be celebrating over a tray of McNuggets.

Pile of McNuggets

Congratulations!

Congratulations to all of this year’s graduates – from preschool on up. Party like it’s some far-away-sounding future year that will be long into the past before you know it.