Tag Archives: Sons

I’ll ask Santa if he’ll come back next year

Despite my many warnings to the boys about the borderline quality of their behavior leading up to Christmas, Santa came anyway. Nobody can be counted on to give 102nd chances like Santa.

We had a typical Christmas for us. It began with a mega-dose of childish excitement and glee. Then it slowly spiraled into the danger zone known as Too Much Christmas, when three boys, overstimulated and full of adrenalin, can’t process all the new things to play with and turn into Tasmanian Devils.

When Christmas is still fresh and new - before the abundance of toys overloads any synapses.

When Christmas is still fresh and new – before the abundance of toys overloads any synapses.

Just think how fun it will be out of the box!

Just think how fun it will be out of the box!

A small cooling off period sets things right again, or as near as they can be on this day of frenzy. Then it’s the battle to make them sit down long enough to eat some dinner. Fortunately, Big Brother has inherited his father’s unconditional love of the ham. He’d eat it in a box with a fox, or even during the excitement of Christmas Day. It’s only the little ones who can’t see the majesty of the glazed shank beyond the shine of new toys.

About mid-afternoon begins the parental strategizing about how to wear them down so they’ll go to bed at a decent hour, in spite of all the fun stuff calling them to wakefulness from the living room.

The day ends with a drink of Daddy’s new scotch, conveniently delivered by the UPS man on Christmas Eve. If there is a Santa, I’m now convinced his suit is brown rather than red.

And what a scotch it was. This new one is potent. It tried to put hair on my chest. It didn’t realize that my chest is a difficult place put hair. The most difficult place is my head, which retired from hair farming some years ago. At my age, that scotch would have been far more successful seeking fertile ground on my back, but liquor attempts only what it’s trained to do.

In the days following Christmas, things have settled down some. Some. We still have fights between Buster and Big Brother over the best use of certain toys. Big Man keeps everybody on their toes with his penchant for disassembling LEGO creations whenever one is left unattended and within his reach.  This causes much gnashing of teeth, yet never causes anyone to learn to keep their LEGOs up high.

There used to be a lazer turret here. But after Big Man tore that off, Jar Jar makes a good substitute.

There used to be a laser turret here. But after Big Man tore that off, Jar Jar makes a good substitute.

Pieces are broken or lost. This is the natural order of things. Instinctively, they are making room for the next Christmas.

On the third night after Christmas, Buster considered his built, then unbuilt, then half-built again LEGO toy. “Daddy, “ he said.

“Yes?”

“I want more Christmas.”

There’s a little Buster in me that always wants more Christmas too. But when the Daddy in me reflected upon the dizzying roller coaster that is Christmas with three boys, even my inner child shook his head. There’s not enough scotch in the world for that.

“Maybe we’ll have another one next year. I’ll ask Santa how he feels about it.”

A toddler for all seasons

I’ve spent some time here talking about how destructive Big Man can be. (If you didn’t know better, you might even have thought it was complaining.) It’s only fair I spend some time explaining how helpful Big Man can be. He’s a multi-faceted boy – a toddler for all seasons.

While it’s true that Big Man has spilled his share of juice and other sticky foods on the floor, he often makes a good faith effort to clean up after himself. He goes to the drawer of washcloths we keep for handling sticky boys, retrieves a dry cloth, and fervently attacks the spill. In fact, he mops his spill to an area of carpet twice the size of the original mess. Then, he dutifully returns the sticky cloth to the drawer, because that’s where it goes, and a boy should always put things back where he found them.

Even in his younger days, he was quick to lend a hand with the cleaning.

Even in his younger days, he was quick to lend a hand with the cleaning.

Big Man likes to alert his parents when the phone rings. He points at the phone and gives his distinctive alarm, “Dada! Dada!” If you make no move to answer it, because it’s a telemarketer, or more likely, you’ve forgotten what to do when the phone rings, he will climb up the chair and retrieve it for you, making every effort to press the TALK button before you get to him. He lives in undying hope he will eventually retrain you as to the appropriate actions to take in the face of a ringing phone.

Big Man likes to be sure Mommy and Daddy are fed on time. To that end, he reacts definitively to the microwave beeper. He is just tall enough to reach the button that pops open the door and stops the machine. He punches this button before the beeper has stopped sounding. Sometimes he punches it before the beeper has started, because Daddy is just too hungry to wait all that while for hot food when mostly thawed will do.

speed dial

Helping Buster order a pizza. He only messes around with toy phones when he’s humoring the children.

Big Man is in tune with sounds and their meanings. He knows the sound of the garage door opener likely means an absent parent has returned to the nest. He draws everyone’s attention to the sound with his “Dada! Dada!” warning. Even when the sound of the garage door opening means he’s found the spare opener remote and is pushing newly discovered buttons, he calls his family to investigate, because maybe, just maybe, he’s found a magic little box that brings sweet Mommy home whenever you push the button. Somebody tall enough to turn the door knob should go look in the garage to see how well this magic works.

It may have been disappointing to learn the garage door remote button didn’t bring Mommy home, but he soon got over it. After all, he’d found another button that made a distant yet familiar noise. That’s a good thing. When you are a toddler, people flood your world with impotent, toy buttons. Any day you discover a button whose pushing yields real world results is a good day.

A boy’s recipe for toast and good will

Whenever my wife has to work a morning shift, I go in to work late so I can take the boys to school. I don’t look forward to these mornings for many reasons. For one thing, I am using up my vacation time on something that is anything but a vacation. Also, none of the men in our household are famous for being morning people. The most infamous non-morning person is Big Brother.

It can be quite a struggle to get this sleepy 2nd grader out of bed and into his morning routine. But the last time this duty fell to me, he woke up by himself at the same time I did. This was a pleasant surprise, and it was only the beginning of his pleasantness.

As I was showering, a young voice was directed at me from beyond the shower curtain. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’ve done all my responsibilities. I got dressed and brushed my teeth. I made my bed and I got out the ingredients for toast.”

soon to be toast

Sorry, Soft ‘N Good bear. You’re about to be toast.

Dressing, brushing his teeth, and making his bed are all elements of the morning routine expected of him, but, to my knowledge, he has not been asked to help make toast. That he made his bed without being reminded was a good start, but getting out the ingredients for toast proved he was reaching above and beyond. He was spreading helpfulness around like sweet frosting on the cake of good behavior.

It was obvious which cake he was trying to frost. Since he woke up early, he figured why not try to get some screen time in before school. And what better way to get permission to play than to act like you’ve earned it?

“So, can I play on the Kindle?” he asked.

Just the fact that I didn’t have to drag him out of bed made it worth letting him play, but I wasn’t going to act like a total pushover. “Did you turn off your fan?” Everyone loves the white noise at night.

His answer was to leave the bathroom. Ten seconds later, he was back. “I turned off the fan. So can I play?”

“Okay. But just until your toast is ready.”

“I’m not making the toast,” he clarified. “I just got out the ingredients to make it, except the butter. I couldn’t find any butter.”

So, in other words, he got out the bread. But he couldn’t just say he got out the bread. It sounds much more impressive when you get out the ingredients to make toast, all of them except for one.

Hello, butter!

Sometimes you’ve got to open two refrigerator doors to find precious butter.

Usually, I prefer an economy of words, but I’m glad he chose to get out the ingredients for toast, minus the butter, rather than just getting out the bread. It tickled me, which probably made me more likely to let him play on the Kindle.

But then I bet he had taken all that into consideration already.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s hoping you find all the ingredients for your Turkey Day toast.

 

The Terrible Twos wait for no one

Big Man was considering the “Terrible Twos” recently, thinking about how his second birthday is still five months off, when he had a toddler epiphany: why wait? There’s no law that says you have to wait until two to be terrible. Besides with all the good work he already has under his belt: making mincemeat out of Daddy’s CD collection, destroying all his brothers’ best LEGO creations, becoming a master artist in the medium of ripped books and papers, he’s already got a meatier resume in terrible than most authentic two-year-olds.

I must reluctantly agree. Big Man has outgrown the level of destruction, chaos, and all-around mess-making expected of a one-year-old. It’s difficult for parents to see their kids grow up so quickly, but to attempt to hold him back from the terrible twos would be an injustice to his nature.

There’s lots of fun to be had in the terrible twos, unless you happen to be one of the unfortunate people who is not two, and also not terrible. In that case, you might not see all the fun in it. You may not be able to picture the fun through all the mopping up and taping back together you find yourself doing. But everybody has their role to play; that’s the beauty of the system.

"You didn't need any of this stuff, did you?"

“You didn’t need any of this stuff, did you?”

I don’t want to say Big Man is a naughty boy; I want to use euphemisms like “active” and  my favorite, “busy.” Big Man is indeed a “busy” little boy. He is very busy being naughty. But it’s all in good fun. He doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body. It’s just that his idea of good fun means somebody has to clean it up or glue it back together, or just throw it away and realize that God didn’t mean for him to have nice things.

"Got my safety goggles on, now lets fix some stuff that aint broken."

“Got my safety goggles on, now let’s fix some stuff that ain’t broken yet.”

Big Man is very curious as to how things work, and most often you’ve got to take it apart to see how it works. I’m convinced he needs to know how every single thing in our house works, now that he knows the secret to figuring it out. Child safety latches mean nothing to him. Wait, I take that back. Safety latches mean there is a rewarding treasure of dangerous things to discover behind this cabinet door – possibly things that can be plugged in.

the mother lode

It’s easier to find the right pan when they are spread out over the kitchen floor. What a helpful boy!

In fairness, I must say that Big Man revels in being helpful. He will bring you your shoes, regardless of whether you intend going out. He is so eager to give you your shoes that he sometimes flings them at you from across the room. If a shoe happens to clip your head, that’s a helpful reminder that you should always keep an eye out for your shoes after you decide to go out – and sometimes before you decide. Also, it is not the most painful thing likely to hit your head today, so just count your blessing and put on your shoes.

And my blessing always include Big Man.