It is impossible not to bite a candy cane. It’s the unofficial Tootsie Pop of Christmas.
No matter how many times you tell them no, they will still ask you every day if they can open “just one present” before Christmas.
Unopened presents make great ramps for monster trucks.
Christmas parties at school are major events in the lives of little kids.
There’s something mesmerizing about the voices of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Our boys haven’t a clue who they are, but their song can play on the radio and every activity in the house will cease, as they huddle around that player, captivated by the sound.
No matter how many Christmas cards you order, it is never enough.
Our kids like to get presents, but they also like to give. Brisco brought me a ball and a strip of wrapping paper last night and asked for help wrapping a ball to leave for Santa. “He might have a dog that can play with it,” he said.
There is no limit to the amount of Christmas candy a child can ingest.
Outdoor lights are a must.
Children have a way of forcing you into enjoying Christmas music.
The oldies are still the best Christmas programs on TV. Honestly, Frosty should really not have “Returned”.
The glaze doesn’t go on Santa’s cookies until after they are baked. (It was a blonde moment. And I had lots of help.)
Counting backwards is easier when you get down to 10.
Jefferson Airplane is alive and well and is now multi-generational, making its way into the hearts of our young via electronic toys. “Free ride…take it easy…” Sing it Brisco.
Children can live on boiled eggs and sugar alone for at least four days…and counting.
You know there really is a circle of life when your son and your husband are both excited about the same present: a midnight blue 1964 Impala, Hot Wheels edition.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Creating memories
It’s official. Our kids have totally fallen in love with Christmas. It’s still 10 days and counting until the Big Man arrives, but they wake every morning like it’s only hours away. “How many days now?” the littlest will ask. “It’s 10,” quips his brother, as they sit around the presents that are slightly over-shaken and disheveled under the tree. With just under two weeks to go, the anticipation of Christmas is really starting to create some memories.
One of the biggest I’d say was the day we put up our tree. Randy and the boys went Christmas tree hunting with some friends out north of town. Several hours, a couple runny noses and a hot cup of coffee later, we had a tree, and two wound up little boys whose excitement for the holiday was going full throttle.
Dad cut back some branches and filled an old paint bucket full of dirt, and we stood up that pseudo-Douglas fir right underneath the dancing bobble heads. It was attractive, at first glance, but those over the age of five would soon agree that turning the flat side to the wall was a lot easier said than done. After a day or so of nakedness, the kids insisted that we dress our tree with lights and ornaments…something other than a pair of paper handcuffs made in Wednesday night Bible class. And so another memory was born.
We dug out the Christmas CD, the one and only that exists in our home, and put on some music to help get us all in the proper mood. The boys thought we needed Christmas cookies to add to the festivities, so we pulled out the rolling pin and whipped up the dough, and after rolling several cups of flour right into the floor, taking a flying sweep up big brother back and ingesting at least a quarter pound of straight flour each, we had approximately two dozen candy cane and snowman Christmas cookies--half of them well-done (sorry Frosty).
I had had about as much holiday cheer as I could handle for one day, and lets face it, an activity like that should have been started mid-morning, so as luck would have it, we called it an evening, with the promise of picking up where we left off the following day. And so we did. The next evening after dinner, we clicked on the Cowboy Christmas crooners and made an attempt at decorating our tree.
Not surprisingly, the calm and orderly strategy I had devised for the proceedings blew up right in my face. For days, they begged and they bothered, they pleaded and they whined, and finally, an evening arrived where we could focus--attempt to create that Hallmark moment. And wouldn’t you know, they were more interested in sword fighting with the wrapping paper tubes or making head dresses from the tinsel than in decorating that tree.
Thus, our evening ended: One string of red lights, a box of old fashioned Christmas balls, a dozen or so store-bought ornaments and what was left of the tinsel--all hanging on our spherically-challenged tree.
I know it wasn’t quite the evening I’d pictured. Certainly not Norman Rockwell’s vision of the perfect holiday gathering. But it was the best we could do for the moment. With kids who’d rather wear their stockings than hang them by the chimney with care, we are clearly not George and Mary Bailey. No, we’re more like Jed and Granny Clampett, with slightly better fashion sense. Just trying to make some kind of happy, holiday memories for our kids. And I guess in a way, we did just that--all with only two pokes from a pine needle, three lost ornament hooks and one broken family heirloom in the process.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
One of the biggest I’d say was the day we put up our tree. Randy and the boys went Christmas tree hunting with some friends out north of town. Several hours, a couple runny noses and a hot cup of coffee later, we had a tree, and two wound up little boys whose excitement for the holiday was going full throttle.
Dad cut back some branches and filled an old paint bucket full of dirt, and we stood up that pseudo-Douglas fir right underneath the dancing bobble heads. It was attractive, at first glance, but those over the age of five would soon agree that turning the flat side to the wall was a lot easier said than done. After a day or so of nakedness, the kids insisted that we dress our tree with lights and ornaments…something other than a pair of paper handcuffs made in Wednesday night Bible class. And so another memory was born.
We dug out the Christmas CD, the one and only that exists in our home, and put on some music to help get us all in the proper mood. The boys thought we needed Christmas cookies to add to the festivities, so we pulled out the rolling pin and whipped up the dough, and after rolling several cups of flour right into the floor, taking a flying sweep up big brother back and ingesting at least a quarter pound of straight flour each, we had approximately two dozen candy cane and snowman Christmas cookies--half of them well-done (sorry Frosty).
I had had about as much holiday cheer as I could handle for one day, and lets face it, an activity like that should have been started mid-morning, so as luck would have it, we called it an evening, with the promise of picking up where we left off the following day. And so we did. The next evening after dinner, we clicked on the Cowboy Christmas crooners and made an attempt at decorating our tree.
Not surprisingly, the calm and orderly strategy I had devised for the proceedings blew up right in my face. For days, they begged and they bothered, they pleaded and they whined, and finally, an evening arrived where we could focus--attempt to create that Hallmark moment. And wouldn’t you know, they were more interested in sword fighting with the wrapping paper tubes or making head dresses from the tinsel than in decorating that tree.
Thus, our evening ended: One string of red lights, a box of old fashioned Christmas balls, a dozen or so store-bought ornaments and what was left of the tinsel--all hanging on our spherically-challenged tree.
I know it wasn’t quite the evening I’d pictured. Certainly not Norman Rockwell’s vision of the perfect holiday gathering. But it was the best we could do for the moment. With kids who’d rather wear their stockings than hang them by the chimney with care, we are clearly not George and Mary Bailey. No, we’re more like Jed and Granny Clampett, with slightly better fashion sense. Just trying to make some kind of happy, holiday memories for our kids. And I guess in a way, we did just that--all with only two pokes from a pine needle, three lost ornament hooks and one broken family heirloom in the process.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Preparing for Christmas
In the past, preparing for Christmas at our house involved hanging a single strand of lights outside, burning a candle or two inside, and a hectic, last minute dash of shopping and wrapping that would take us late into the early morning-a mere 48 hours before Santa’s big eve. Don’t ask me why; that’s just the way we did it. But this year, our boys seem to have realized that Christmas is coming, and they’ve shown a much greater interest in just how this whole thing works. The result? Someone has had to prepare.
It started when we came home after Thanksgiving to an elaborate display of a winter wonderland right on our very block. Rooftops and trees blinking and glowing with lights helped get our kids exceptionally festive-before the turkey had even been digested. So began our journey toward Christmas.
We dug out decorations that had been boxed and stored for the better part of the last four years, and after knocking off the cobwebs and repeatedly asking, “Why did I keep this?” we had finally salvaged enough holiday décor to make an attempt at a winter wonderland of our own.
I knew if we were to have outdoor lights, I’d have to be in charge, and that was ok by me. So I loaded my handy, industrial-size staple gun and was ready to get to work; however, I didn’t realize until after I’d untangled, tested, stretched out, hooked up and unloaded six strands of lights, two extension cords and a step stool into the front yard that our house is covered in plastic.
I had a moment of reckless whimsy when I thought, “Who cares? Just staple them behind the guttering. He’ll never know.” But that daydream was quickly followed by visions of broken trim pieces dancing in my head. It seemed that this year, outdoor hanging lights were going to have to be something our children admired from afar.
Luckily, I remembered some sound advice I’d once been given: “Put on a festive tablecloth and see how a little can go a long way in making the house seem festive to your kids.” I doubted a red and green table covering was going to satisfy my boys after their anticipation of a re-creation of the famous Griswold residence, but once again, I was pleasantly surprised at the effect it seemed to have. A red candle here and a little tinsel there and we were looking like a page out of Ladies Home Journal.
Of course Christmas isn’t all about the decorating. Apparently, our boys will be expecting presents.
“Mom, I want one of those green things that are about this big, and they are fun and they make noise?” He delivered this statement in the form of a question, which lead me to believe he had little clue about the toy for which he was asking.
Enquiring minds wanted to know: “Uh, ok. What does it do?”
“It makes noise.”
“Is it a race car?”
“Nope.”
“Is it a monster truck?”
“Nope.”
Something green that does nothing but make noise? Yeah, I’ll put that at the top of my shopping list.
“Maybe you could just ask Santa,” I suggested. And so the moment at which my kids started contemplating Santa Claus was born.
“Mama, where does Santa live?”
“He lives at the North Pole.”
“What does he do?”
“He makes toys for kids.”
“All by himself?”
“Oh no. He has lots of helpers.”
I could see from the look of contemplation on their faces that this might be enough to keep them thinking for a few days. And so it was. However, not long after, I gained yet another insight into just how this Christmas idea was taking shape in the minds of my children.
I knew Cooper would probably be working on a letter to Santa at school, but he hadn’t said anything about it. So I asked, “Cooper, what do you want for Christmas?” He thought for a moment, and then he said, “I want six Reece’s.” He paused, and then, “But I’ll take three Reece’s and one Skittle.”
I thought to myself, “Hmm, this limiting of their chocolate thing is really gonna pay off!” Just to make sure, I said, “Is that really all you want?” He paused again for a moment and then began, “Well, really you don’t have to get me anything cause Santa will just bring it.” I liked the way he was thinking…save Momma the trouble (and the money) and let good ole Santa do all the work. Of course there’s just one slight problem with this plan…
I continued to pry. “Cooper, did you ask Santa to bring you what you want for Christmas?”
“Yes,” he replied.
I knew we had not yet seen Santa this year, so I was curious as to just how he had asked.
“When did you do that?” I questioned.
“When I was sitting in the chair watching TV.”
Whoa. Hold up, there Rudolph. We seem to have a problem. “Honey, Santa’s not like God. He can’t hear us when we talk to him. Did you write a letter at school?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, Mrs. Johnson probably put those in the mailbox and sent them straight to Santa’s house. I bet you’re covered.”
As for Brisco, it seems a letter attached to Cooper’s, that simply read, “Ditto” would have been the easiest way out. He finally decided on six Skittles, a hat, presents-with nothing in particular in them-and a bag of dirt. I bet ole Santa can handle that.
This year, with 17 days till impact, we are more prepared than ever. Decorations are up, tree is lit, and presents are wrapped. We are as on the ball as we’ve ever been this early in the season and it makes a mother proud to have her to-do list dwindle so quickly. And as we enjoy these last few weeks before the big day, it is clear that from decorations to presents to thoughts of Santa, a little Christmas preparation has gone a long way to making two little boys wonderfully excited about Christmas…even without a single light on display.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
It started when we came home after Thanksgiving to an elaborate display of a winter wonderland right on our very block. Rooftops and trees blinking and glowing with lights helped get our kids exceptionally festive-before the turkey had even been digested. So began our journey toward Christmas.
We dug out decorations that had been boxed and stored for the better part of the last four years, and after knocking off the cobwebs and repeatedly asking, “Why did I keep this?” we had finally salvaged enough holiday décor to make an attempt at a winter wonderland of our own.
I knew if we were to have outdoor lights, I’d have to be in charge, and that was ok by me. So I loaded my handy, industrial-size staple gun and was ready to get to work; however, I didn’t realize until after I’d untangled, tested, stretched out, hooked up and unloaded six strands of lights, two extension cords and a step stool into the front yard that our house is covered in plastic.
I had a moment of reckless whimsy when I thought, “Who cares? Just staple them behind the guttering. He’ll never know.” But that daydream was quickly followed by visions of broken trim pieces dancing in my head. It seemed that this year, outdoor hanging lights were going to have to be something our children admired from afar.
Luckily, I remembered some sound advice I’d once been given: “Put on a festive tablecloth and see how a little can go a long way in making the house seem festive to your kids.” I doubted a red and green table covering was going to satisfy my boys after their anticipation of a re-creation of the famous Griswold residence, but once again, I was pleasantly surprised at the effect it seemed to have. A red candle here and a little tinsel there and we were looking like a page out of Ladies Home Journal.
Of course Christmas isn’t all about the decorating. Apparently, our boys will be expecting presents.
“Mom, I want one of those green things that are about this big, and they are fun and they make noise?” He delivered this statement in the form of a question, which lead me to believe he had little clue about the toy for which he was asking.
Enquiring minds wanted to know: “Uh, ok. What does it do?”
“It makes noise.”
“Is it a race car?”
“Nope.”
“Is it a monster truck?”
“Nope.”
Something green that does nothing but make noise? Yeah, I’ll put that at the top of my shopping list.
“Maybe you could just ask Santa,” I suggested. And so the moment at which my kids started contemplating Santa Claus was born.
“Mama, where does Santa live?”
“He lives at the North Pole.”
“What does he do?”
“He makes toys for kids.”
“All by himself?”
“Oh no. He has lots of helpers.”
I could see from the look of contemplation on their faces that this might be enough to keep them thinking for a few days. And so it was. However, not long after, I gained yet another insight into just how this Christmas idea was taking shape in the minds of my children.
I knew Cooper would probably be working on a letter to Santa at school, but he hadn’t said anything about it. So I asked, “Cooper, what do you want for Christmas?” He thought for a moment, and then he said, “I want six Reece’s.” He paused, and then, “But I’ll take three Reece’s and one Skittle.”
I thought to myself, “Hmm, this limiting of their chocolate thing is really gonna pay off!” Just to make sure, I said, “Is that really all you want?” He paused again for a moment and then began, “Well, really you don’t have to get me anything cause Santa will just bring it.” I liked the way he was thinking…save Momma the trouble (and the money) and let good ole Santa do all the work. Of course there’s just one slight problem with this plan…
I continued to pry. “Cooper, did you ask Santa to bring you what you want for Christmas?”
“Yes,” he replied.
I knew we had not yet seen Santa this year, so I was curious as to just how he had asked.
“When did you do that?” I questioned.
“When I was sitting in the chair watching TV.”
Whoa. Hold up, there Rudolph. We seem to have a problem. “Honey, Santa’s not like God. He can’t hear us when we talk to him. Did you write a letter at school?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, Mrs. Johnson probably put those in the mailbox and sent them straight to Santa’s house. I bet you’re covered.”
As for Brisco, it seems a letter attached to Cooper’s, that simply read, “Ditto” would have been the easiest way out. He finally decided on six Skittles, a hat, presents-with nothing in particular in them-and a bag of dirt. I bet ole Santa can handle that.
This year, with 17 days till impact, we are more prepared than ever. Decorations are up, tree is lit, and presents are wrapped. We are as on the ball as we’ve ever been this early in the season and it makes a mother proud to have her to-do list dwindle so quickly. And as we enjoy these last few weeks before the big day, it is clear that from decorations to presents to thoughts of Santa, a little Christmas preparation has gone a long way to making two little boys wonderfully excited about Christmas…even without a single light on display.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Sunny with a chance of drama
There’s really nothing better than 70 degree weather on Thanksgiving. Forget that packing heavy coats takes up too much room and that we always seem to lose at least one mitten and that there is no end to blowing snotty noses when it’s the typical, turkey-day forecast. I simply hate to be cold. But the weather was no issue this Thanksgiving holiday. It was beautiful and sunny and perfect for a weekend outdoors.
The boys were packed and ready to leave by dawn. Nothing could contain their excitement about playing ball with their cousins, taking rides on Uncle Glendon’s barrel train, and the anticipation of spending the next three days at Granma and Granddaddy’s. From trampolines and tire swings to nature hikes and mud pies, there’s nothing these two boys enjoy more than the warm sun, a cool breeze and a chance to embark on a new adventure with their friends.
We spent Thanksgiving day at Mamaw and Papaw’s with the other 27-grands and 18-great-grandkids. The boys never seem to get enough of the creek and the milk barn and the newly-discovered rows of round bales they spent hours jumping over and across, and unfortunately falling through.
It seemed like a fun game. The older cousins were really good at it, and even Cooper was managing to make it across, despite my gasp at his every leap. I wanted to object, and in fact I tried, but it’s no fun being the overprotective, scaredy-mom who puts a damper on all the fun, new games. So I acquiesced…and the drama ensued.
It’s certainly no secret that if ever there’s an inch to be given, Brisco will find it, and find it he did…quite literally, between two, 6-foot hay bales, with his size eleven feet. It was quite a shock, seeing him leap from mound to mound, only to fall just short of the other side, his body sliding down the rounded edge, arms over his head, flailing about for something to hold on to. It was at precisely that moment that he panicked.
The boy was fine, safely suspended between two bundles of hay. But he certainly couldn’t be convinced of that fact. I, of course, knew just how he was feeling. Panicking is usually my job. I’m good at it, and it comes naturally where my kids are concerned. So when Brisco started screaming and kicking and crying real tears, I could empathize. “I can’t move! I can’t get out! Mom! Help me! I’m stuck! Come get me! Please, Mama! Where are you?!” On and on he went.
Squealing. Like a little girl.
If I hadn’t been able to see that he was safe, I’d have thought surely he was being eaten by a starving, mad cow. But he wasn’t. He was only locked in place, arms strapped to his sides, unable to wiggle free from two gigantic bales of hay. Must have been 12 seconds of pure torture for the poor boy to have been held in one place for so long.
I rescued him from his itchy strait jacket, scolding and cuddling him at the same time. But apparently this trauma would only last about a minute and a half before he wiggled out of my over-protective grasp and was off petting calves, pitching gourds and laughing and playing with baby Jenna.
It seems no matter where we travel or what the occasion, there’s always an adventure that lies in store. It’s fun and crazy and hilarious and maddening all at the same time. Most days I can’t even imagine what I did with all my time before these two little tornadoes came along. But one thing’s for sure: day or night, rain or shine, life with these boys is always sunny…with a chance of drama.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
The boys were packed and ready to leave by dawn. Nothing could contain their excitement about playing ball with their cousins, taking rides on Uncle Glendon’s barrel train, and the anticipation of spending the next three days at Granma and Granddaddy’s. From trampolines and tire swings to nature hikes and mud pies, there’s nothing these two boys enjoy more than the warm sun, a cool breeze and a chance to embark on a new adventure with their friends.
We spent Thanksgiving day at Mamaw and Papaw’s with the other 27-grands and 18-great-grandkids. The boys never seem to get enough of the creek and the milk barn and the newly-discovered rows of round bales they spent hours jumping over and across, and unfortunately falling through.
It seemed like a fun game. The older cousins were really good at it, and even Cooper was managing to make it across, despite my gasp at his every leap. I wanted to object, and in fact I tried, but it’s no fun being the overprotective, scaredy-mom who puts a damper on all the fun, new games. So I acquiesced…and the drama ensued.
It’s certainly no secret that if ever there’s an inch to be given, Brisco will find it, and find it he did…quite literally, between two, 6-foot hay bales, with his size eleven feet. It was quite a shock, seeing him leap from mound to mound, only to fall just short of the other side, his body sliding down the rounded edge, arms over his head, flailing about for something to hold on to. It was at precisely that moment that he panicked.
The boy was fine, safely suspended between two bundles of hay. But he certainly couldn’t be convinced of that fact. I, of course, knew just how he was feeling. Panicking is usually my job. I’m good at it, and it comes naturally where my kids are concerned. So when Brisco started screaming and kicking and crying real tears, I could empathize. “I can’t move! I can’t get out! Mom! Help me! I’m stuck! Come get me! Please, Mama! Where are you?!” On and on he went.
Squealing. Like a little girl.
If I hadn’t been able to see that he was safe, I’d have thought surely he was being eaten by a starving, mad cow. But he wasn’t. He was only locked in place, arms strapped to his sides, unable to wiggle free from two gigantic bales of hay. Must have been 12 seconds of pure torture for the poor boy to have been held in one place for so long.
I rescued him from his itchy strait jacket, scolding and cuddling him at the same time. But apparently this trauma would only last about a minute and a half before he wiggled out of my over-protective grasp and was off petting calves, pitching gourds and laughing and playing with baby Jenna.
It seems no matter where we travel or what the occasion, there’s always an adventure that lies in store. It’s fun and crazy and hilarious and maddening all at the same time. Most days I can’t even imagine what I did with all my time before these two little tornadoes came along. But one thing’s for sure: day or night, rain or shine, life with these boys is always sunny…with a chance of drama.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Things to think about
I think my youngest has swine flu. Last week I caught him sucking the syrup out of his pancake and spitting the bread back in the plate. A few days later as I was clearing the breakfast table I noticed a sticky spoon laying by his half eaten waffle. Seems spoons scoop sticky syrup more easily than forks.
Despite all our efforts to stifle it, apparently our kids are officially “new age”. They discovered a rotary dial telephone at the office and were completely at a loss as to how to make it work.
After running out of our regular soap-in-a-bottle a few weeks ago, I put a new bar of soap in the bathtub. A real bar of soap. At bath time, both boys yelled into the other room, “Mom! What is this thing?” “Yeah, Mom, what does it do?”
A mother knows she is just past exhausted when she tries brushing her hair with the cleaning scrubber and taking off her makeup with the fingernail polish remover…all in the same week.
Things you never really want to hear your kids say:
Sometime before ten in the morning, “Mom! That third sucker I had was kinda squishy!”
“Um, Mommy, uh, I didn’t mean to, but there’s kind of a lot of water in the kitchen floor.” Um, Cooper, uh, that’s what happens when you turn over an ice chest full of dirty water.
“I think I slid into a pile of cow poop,” just seconds after sliding into a pile of cow poop.
“I’m cleaning the bathroom sink for you, Mom.” Which initially sounds like a kind gesture until one realizes it is being said by a three year old with limited access to appropriate cleaning supplies. That’s right. The only thing he could reach: half a roll of wet toilet paper.
Who’d have thought a trip to the cotton patch would have one kid wanting to weave a shirt and the other kid in tears because he wasn’t allowed to eat it. Cotton, son. Not cotton candy.
Brisco Berra, at 6a.m., hair standing on end, wet thumb dangling, eyes wide, all of about two inches from my sleeping face, and he screams in a whisper: “Mom, tomorrow is today!” Yep. It sure is.
Pork rinds really are the perfect mommy snack. No matter where you leave an opened bag or how long it sits, they taste the same-days later-when you finally remember you were eating them in the first place.
Does anyone really know the appropriate age for molding a child’s sense of humor? I certainly don’t. Evidently though, it’s sometime after age five. Last week, Uncle Derik decided he had a knock-knock joke he wanted to share. “Go ahead,” I said. “But I’m sure you’ll have to explain the format.” The poor children: deprived and undeveloped.
“Knock-knock,” Derik said, at which time he was met by two sets of eyes and one collective, blank stare.
“You are supposed to say, ‘Who’s there?’” I told them.
“Who’s there?” they chimed.
“Centipede,” said Derik.
“…Centipede who?” I encouraged them to say.
“Santa peed on the Christmas tree,” Uncle Derik said with a grin.
And again with the blank stare; these boys had no clue. Abbott and Costello they are not.
But they did give the rest of us a laugh when they tried their hand at telling their own brand of knock-knocks. Cooper was really on fire.
“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana hat.”
“Banana hat who?”
“LUIGI!!!”
“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana car.”
“Banana car who?”
“LUIGI!!! HAHAHA!”
And so my child’s sense of humor was born. After a few minutes of knock-knock/Luigi jokes, I was laughing so hard I had to leave the room. I know. Only a mother. But the gusto with which he was sharing was almost too much to watch. It was only when Brisco started telling knock-knock/poop face jokes that we had to put an end to the party. Oh well. I guess we can’t all be funny.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Despite all our efforts to stifle it, apparently our kids are officially “new age”. They discovered a rotary dial telephone at the office and were completely at a loss as to how to make it work.
After running out of our regular soap-in-a-bottle a few weeks ago, I put a new bar of soap in the bathtub. A real bar of soap. At bath time, both boys yelled into the other room, “Mom! What is this thing?” “Yeah, Mom, what does it do?”
A mother knows she is just past exhausted when she tries brushing her hair with the cleaning scrubber and taking off her makeup with the fingernail polish remover…all in the same week.
Things you never really want to hear your kids say:
Sometime before ten in the morning, “Mom! That third sucker I had was kinda squishy!”
“Um, Mommy, uh, I didn’t mean to, but there’s kind of a lot of water in the kitchen floor.” Um, Cooper, uh, that’s what happens when you turn over an ice chest full of dirty water.
“I think I slid into a pile of cow poop,” just seconds after sliding into a pile of cow poop.
“I’m cleaning the bathroom sink for you, Mom.” Which initially sounds like a kind gesture until one realizes it is being said by a three year old with limited access to appropriate cleaning supplies. That’s right. The only thing he could reach: half a roll of wet toilet paper.
Who’d have thought a trip to the cotton patch would have one kid wanting to weave a shirt and the other kid in tears because he wasn’t allowed to eat it. Cotton, son. Not cotton candy.
Brisco Berra, at 6a.m., hair standing on end, wet thumb dangling, eyes wide, all of about two inches from my sleeping face, and he screams in a whisper: “Mom, tomorrow is today!” Yep. It sure is.
Pork rinds really are the perfect mommy snack. No matter where you leave an opened bag or how long it sits, they taste the same-days later-when you finally remember you were eating them in the first place.
Does anyone really know the appropriate age for molding a child’s sense of humor? I certainly don’t. Evidently though, it’s sometime after age five. Last week, Uncle Derik decided he had a knock-knock joke he wanted to share. “Go ahead,” I said. “But I’m sure you’ll have to explain the format.” The poor children: deprived and undeveloped.
“Knock-knock,” Derik said, at which time he was met by two sets of eyes and one collective, blank stare.
“You are supposed to say, ‘Who’s there?’” I told them.
“Who’s there?” they chimed.
“Centipede,” said Derik.
“…Centipede who?” I encouraged them to say.
“Santa peed on the Christmas tree,” Uncle Derik said with a grin.
And again with the blank stare; these boys had no clue. Abbott and Costello they are not.
But they did give the rest of us a laugh when they tried their hand at telling their own brand of knock-knocks. Cooper was really on fire.
“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana hat.”
“Banana hat who?”
“LUIGI!!!”
“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana car.”
“Banana car who?”
“LUIGI!!! HAHAHA!”
And so my child’s sense of humor was born. After a few minutes of knock-knock/Luigi jokes, I was laughing so hard I had to leave the room. I know. Only a mother. But the gusto with which he was sharing was almost too much to watch. It was only when Brisco started telling knock-knock/poop face jokes that we had to put an end to the party. Oh well. I guess we can’t all be funny.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Baseball, Viagra, and multi-grain toast
I love it that my kids are hooked on Scooby Doo and The Pink Panther. They’ve been checking out the Flintstones and the Jetsons pretty regularly too. Brisco is even taking a liking to Krypto the Superdog. I don’t remember watching that one much, but the song that goes with it sure is catchy.
Sorta like all the commercials that are gaining their attention as well. It’s crazy the kind of stuff that catches their eyes…and ears. I first started noticing it one day when Brisco said, “Mom! There’s a blue guy on TV and he said, ‘There’s smart, and there’s K-Mart smart!’ That’s funny. He’s little, but he’s not people.” Of course I was totally confused.
Their favorite commercial for a while seemed to be the Holiday Inn spot that plays “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while workers quickly prepare the guest room as if they are the grounds crew during the seventh inning stretch. The boys would always stop whatever they were doing and say, “Look! They’re fixin’ to rake the carpet!”
After that it seemed they were hooked on the commercial advertising New Era baseball caps. I’ll set the scene: After walking yet another batter, Cole Hamels of the Phillies looks up to see what everyone supposes is his pitching coach standing on the mound. Cooper recites his lines, “Come on, Cole. Keep pounding the corners! Get ‘em to chase one outside.” Then Hamels says, “Who are you?” And the camera cuts to two little kids in the stands just shaking their heads, embarrassed once again by their father’s intrusion. And Brisco finishes it up with an “Aw, Dad! Not again!” Like Mastercard, it’s priceless.
As of recent, Brisco seems to have fallen pretty hard into the advertisement trap. He’s the perfect candidate for a trip into the black hole of “want” created by professionals who market every toy under the sun to children who think they “need” it all. Their strategy has not failed to make an impact on this one. Monsters, board games, flying saucers, and a dozen other toys he’s never seen or heard of, but has decided after a 20 second blip on the screen that he just might like them. “Can you get me that? I wanna eat that! Oooh! I want that! Mom, can you just get me everything?”
Then there are the commercials that don’t make a bit of sense even to the adults watching them, much less to our two kids. Of course, that’s no matter. They still walk around the house saying, “Copy. Copy. Copy. Copy.” “Crab. Crab. Crab. Crab.”
The music really gets their attention as well. They used to like the baseball commercial that just had a lot of clicks on it. Mouse clicks, and then all the MLB products. Now they like the one Taco Bell does for black tacos. Yesterday while getting himself dressed for bed, we overheard one of the boys in the back saying, “Black eye. Black dog. Black taco.”
They both wanna try the yogurt that the lady in the story sucks right out of the cup. And Brisco swears he wants to eat the straight-outa-the-box toaster strudels. I can’t convince him that he’s already tried them, and they simply weren’t up to his standards.
Even the car commercials seem to catch their eyes. At first, Brisco was considering a new Mustang. “Mom, can we get that car with the glass hood? It will get us to the beach faster.” But now I think he’s decided the one he really wants is the BMW. Great taste. Dream on.
Then there are the ones that you wish they’d never seen at all. “Mom! There’s the talking window again!” Thanks Viagra. Or, “Outa my way, freak!” Way to go Doogie Houser. I’ll give you a call on that cool new phone when my kid gets a naughty note at school for rude behavior or foul language.
It seems implausible that my five year old has now been introduced to Slim Shady via a commercial for the newest version of the Wii. Pretty sure he hasn’t a clue who or what Slim Shady really is (or means). Frankly, neither do I, but he sure does like the beat.
And just when I’ve about decided to disconnect the cable altogether, my little sugar tooth convinces me that all is not lost. That yes indeed, there is some redeeming value to television commercials in the 21st century. As he looked up one morning from his near-empty, oversized, Halloween pumpkin full of candy…hands sticky from Starbursts, Tootsie Roll stuck in the back of his teeth, and remnants of chocolate built up in the corners of his mouth…he said, “Hey, Mom, do you think we can get some of that multi-grain toast?”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Sorta like all the commercials that are gaining their attention as well. It’s crazy the kind of stuff that catches their eyes…and ears. I first started noticing it one day when Brisco said, “Mom! There’s a blue guy on TV and he said, ‘There’s smart, and there’s K-Mart smart!’ That’s funny. He’s little, but he’s not people.” Of course I was totally confused.
Their favorite commercial for a while seemed to be the Holiday Inn spot that plays “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while workers quickly prepare the guest room as if they are the grounds crew during the seventh inning stretch. The boys would always stop whatever they were doing and say, “Look! They’re fixin’ to rake the carpet!”
After that it seemed they were hooked on the commercial advertising New Era baseball caps. I’ll set the scene: After walking yet another batter, Cole Hamels of the Phillies looks up to see what everyone supposes is his pitching coach standing on the mound. Cooper recites his lines, “Come on, Cole. Keep pounding the corners! Get ‘em to chase one outside.” Then Hamels says, “Who are you?” And the camera cuts to two little kids in the stands just shaking their heads, embarrassed once again by their father’s intrusion. And Brisco finishes it up with an “Aw, Dad! Not again!” Like Mastercard, it’s priceless.
As of recent, Brisco seems to have fallen pretty hard into the advertisement trap. He’s the perfect candidate for a trip into the black hole of “want” created by professionals who market every toy under the sun to children who think they “need” it all. Their strategy has not failed to make an impact on this one. Monsters, board games, flying saucers, and a dozen other toys he’s never seen or heard of, but has decided after a 20 second blip on the screen that he just might like them. “Can you get me that? I wanna eat that! Oooh! I want that! Mom, can you just get me everything?”
Then there are the commercials that don’t make a bit of sense even to the adults watching them, much less to our two kids. Of course, that’s no matter. They still walk around the house saying, “Copy. Copy. Copy. Copy.” “Crab. Crab. Crab. Crab.”
The music really gets their attention as well. They used to like the baseball commercial that just had a lot of clicks on it. Mouse clicks, and then all the MLB products. Now they like the one Taco Bell does for black tacos. Yesterday while getting himself dressed for bed, we overheard one of the boys in the back saying, “Black eye. Black dog. Black taco.”
They both wanna try the yogurt that the lady in the story sucks right out of the cup. And Brisco swears he wants to eat the straight-outa-the-box toaster strudels. I can’t convince him that he’s already tried them, and they simply weren’t up to his standards.
Even the car commercials seem to catch their eyes. At first, Brisco was considering a new Mustang. “Mom, can we get that car with the glass hood? It will get us to the beach faster.” But now I think he’s decided the one he really wants is the BMW. Great taste. Dream on.
Then there are the ones that you wish they’d never seen at all. “Mom! There’s the talking window again!” Thanks Viagra. Or, “Outa my way, freak!” Way to go Doogie Houser. I’ll give you a call on that cool new phone when my kid gets a naughty note at school for rude behavior or foul language.
It seems implausible that my five year old has now been introduced to Slim Shady via a commercial for the newest version of the Wii. Pretty sure he hasn’t a clue who or what Slim Shady really is (or means). Frankly, neither do I, but he sure does like the beat.
And just when I’ve about decided to disconnect the cable altogether, my little sugar tooth convinces me that all is not lost. That yes indeed, there is some redeeming value to television commercials in the 21st century. As he looked up one morning from his near-empty, oversized, Halloween pumpkin full of candy…hands sticky from Starbursts, Tootsie Roll stuck in the back of his teeth, and remnants of chocolate built up in the corners of his mouth…he said, “Hey, Mom, do you think we can get some of that multi-grain toast?”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Happy Halloween
I heard a bit by Jerry Seinfeld last week that perfectly captured the spirit of Halloween- and both of our boys. It couldn’t have been any more accurate or true if the two of them had written it themselves. It captured the obsession our youngest has for anything sweet and the determination our eldest showed this Halloween for portraying a bonafied superhero.
It gave me a glimpse into what I’m sure will be an unforgettable decade of Halloween nights to come, and even brought back a few memories from my own childhood. I’m sure it will do the same for you.
Seinfeld on Halloween
“When you’re a kid, you can eat amazing amounts of food. All I ate when I was a kid was candy. Just candy, candy, candy, candy. In fact, the first 10 years of my life, the only really clear thought I had was: ‘Get Candy.’
‘Get Candy! Get Candy! Get Candy! Get Candy!’
Family, friends, school…they were just obstacles in the way of getting candy. So the first time I heard the concept of Halloween as a kid, my brain couldn’t even process the idea. I was like, ‘What is this? What did you say? Someone’s giving out candy? Who’s giving out candy? Someone we know is JUST GIVING OUT CANDY?!
‘I gotta be a part of this. Take me with you! I’ll do anything you want! (Seeing a white, folded sheet lying on the bed)…I can wear that! I’ll wear anything I have to wear. I’ll do anything I have to do to GET THAT CANDY.’
The first couple of years I made my own costumes. A ghost one year. A hobo the next. I knew my destiny was to someday get a real Superman costume from the store. You know the one. The cardboard box….the cellophane top…mask included in the set. Oh baby!
Remember the rubber band on the back of those masks? That was a quality item. Thinnest gray rubber in the world. It was good for about 10 seconds before it snapped out of that cheap little staple they put it in there with. You would go to your first house. ‘Trick or…’ snap, it broke. I don’t believe it.
So the day finally came. I convinced my parents to buy me an official Superman Halloween store costume. I was physically ready. I was mentally prepared. And I actually believed that when I put the costume on, I would look exactly like the Superman I had come to know on television and in the movies. Unfortunately, these costumes were not exactly the “super fit” that I was looking for. I looked like I was wearing Superman’s pajamas. It was all loose and flowy. The neckline came down to about my stomach. I had that flimsy little ribbon-string in the back holding it all together. Plus my mom made me wear my winter coat over the whole thing anyway.
I don’t recall Superman wearing a jacket. I read every comic book. I do not remember ever once him flying with a coat on. Not like the one I had. Cheap corduroy. Phony fur.
So, we went out anyway. The mask kept breaking. The rubber band kept getting shorter because I needed to keep tying it. It kept getting tighter and tighter on my face. Then I couldn’t even see.
I was trying to breathe through that hole that gets all sweaty. ‘Whoosh! Whoosh!’ The mask kept slicing into my eyeballs. ‘I can’t breathe! I can’t see! But let’s keep going! We gotta get the candy!’
About half an hour through trick or treating I took that mask off. Forget it. ‘Bing-bong. Yeah, it’s me. Give me the candy. Yeah, I’m Superman. Look at the red pant legs.’
Year after year I never gave up on Halloween, but I remember those last years of trick or treating. I was getting a little old for it. Just going through the motions. ‘Bing-bong. Come on, lady, let’s go. Halloween, doorbells, candy…let’s pick it up in there.’
They’d come to the door, and they’d always ask you those same stupid questions, ‘What are YOU supposed to be?’
‘I’m supposed to be done by now. You wanna move it along with the Three Musketeers? I got 18 houses on this block sweetheart. You hit the bag; we hit the road. That’s how it works.’
Sometimes people would give you that little white bag, twisted on the top. You knew that was gonna be some crummy candy. No official Halloween markings on it? I don’t think so.
‘What is this? The orange marshmallow shaped like a big peanut? Do me a favor. You keep this one. Yeah, we’ve got all the doorstops we need, thank you very much. We’re going for name candy only this year.’
At the end of Halloween, I was able to fill a punch bowl so full of candy, the top of it was curved. It was like a planet! And I would consume the entire thing THAT NIGHT! The next morning, I’d wake up and feel fantastic!
And that’s when I realized…when you’re a kid, you don’t need a costume.
You are Superman!”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
It gave me a glimpse into what I’m sure will be an unforgettable decade of Halloween nights to come, and even brought back a few memories from my own childhood. I’m sure it will do the same for you.
Seinfeld on Halloween
“When you’re a kid, you can eat amazing amounts of food. All I ate when I was a kid was candy. Just candy, candy, candy, candy. In fact, the first 10 years of my life, the only really clear thought I had was: ‘Get Candy.’
‘Get Candy! Get Candy! Get Candy! Get Candy!’
Family, friends, school…they were just obstacles in the way of getting candy. So the first time I heard the concept of Halloween as a kid, my brain couldn’t even process the idea. I was like, ‘What is this? What did you say? Someone’s giving out candy? Who’s giving out candy? Someone we know is JUST GIVING OUT CANDY?!
‘I gotta be a part of this. Take me with you! I’ll do anything you want! (Seeing a white, folded sheet lying on the bed)…I can wear that! I’ll wear anything I have to wear. I’ll do anything I have to do to GET THAT CANDY.’
The first couple of years I made my own costumes. A ghost one year. A hobo the next. I knew my destiny was to someday get a real Superman costume from the store. You know the one. The cardboard box….the cellophane top…mask included in the set. Oh baby!
Remember the rubber band on the back of those masks? That was a quality item. Thinnest gray rubber in the world. It was good for about 10 seconds before it snapped out of that cheap little staple they put it in there with. You would go to your first house. ‘Trick or…’ snap, it broke. I don’t believe it.
So the day finally came. I convinced my parents to buy me an official Superman Halloween store costume. I was physically ready. I was mentally prepared. And I actually believed that when I put the costume on, I would look exactly like the Superman I had come to know on television and in the movies. Unfortunately, these costumes were not exactly the “super fit” that I was looking for. I looked like I was wearing Superman’s pajamas. It was all loose and flowy. The neckline came down to about my stomach. I had that flimsy little ribbon-string in the back holding it all together. Plus my mom made me wear my winter coat over the whole thing anyway.
I don’t recall Superman wearing a jacket. I read every comic book. I do not remember ever once him flying with a coat on. Not like the one I had. Cheap corduroy. Phony fur.
So, we went out anyway. The mask kept breaking. The rubber band kept getting shorter because I needed to keep tying it. It kept getting tighter and tighter on my face. Then I couldn’t even see.
I was trying to breathe through that hole that gets all sweaty. ‘Whoosh! Whoosh!’ The mask kept slicing into my eyeballs. ‘I can’t breathe! I can’t see! But let’s keep going! We gotta get the candy!’
About half an hour through trick or treating I took that mask off. Forget it. ‘Bing-bong. Yeah, it’s me. Give me the candy. Yeah, I’m Superman. Look at the red pant legs.’
Year after year I never gave up on Halloween, but I remember those last years of trick or treating. I was getting a little old for it. Just going through the motions. ‘Bing-bong. Come on, lady, let’s go. Halloween, doorbells, candy…let’s pick it up in there.’
They’d come to the door, and they’d always ask you those same stupid questions, ‘What are YOU supposed to be?’
‘I’m supposed to be done by now. You wanna move it along with the Three Musketeers? I got 18 houses on this block sweetheart. You hit the bag; we hit the road. That’s how it works.’
Sometimes people would give you that little white bag, twisted on the top. You knew that was gonna be some crummy candy. No official Halloween markings on it? I don’t think so.
‘What is this? The orange marshmallow shaped like a big peanut? Do me a favor. You keep this one. Yeah, we’ve got all the doorstops we need, thank you very much. We’re going for name candy only this year.’
At the end of Halloween, I was able to fill a punch bowl so full of candy, the top of it was curved. It was like a planet! And I would consume the entire thing THAT NIGHT! The next morning, I’d wake up and feel fantastic!
And that’s when I realized…when you’re a kid, you don’t need a costume.
You are Superman!”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Into the great outdoors
The boys have been talking about going camping for months. We took them one night last fall, and I suppose the memory of that trip is just cloudy enough for them to remember having gone. Their dad would live in the wilderness if it weren’t for the three of us, so I knew as soon as the off season came, so would our now annual trip into the great outdoors.
Just preparing for the event takes a week worth of work. I, not surprisingly, am quite a novice when it comes to roughing it. My main concerns are what I will eat and how I will stay warm. So after packing four layers of clothes, gloves, hats, hand warmers, bedding, a bag of tasty snacks, and a couple rolls of toilet paper, I was pretty much at a loss on where to go from there. But that’s ok. I’ve found that the men in our family revel in planning and preparing for a night in the boonies.
Upon our arrival, the grown ups began unloading the pickup while the kids’ job was to start gathering wood for the fire. The boys were eager to explore their surroundings, but we insisted on work before play, especially on a campout.
Just excited to be there, they willingly complied and began creating a pile of firewood that would later prove to be a goldmine of imaginary rifles, revolvers, derringers and bazookas, thanks to the imagination and guidance of their Uncle Ryan. “Here’s a gun,” their uncle would say as he pulled out a perfectly shaped pistol. “Awesome!” the boys would chime in together. And so they began trying it themselves. “Is this a gun?” they’d ask, pulling out a mangled, twisted twig. “No. That’s a stick,” Uncle Ryan would say with a grin.
Not fifteen minutes into the experience Cooper yelled, “Mom, I gotta poop!” Just the sound of those words must have shifted Brisco’s bowels into action because only seconds later, he piped in, “Me too.” I of course, deferred them to their father.
“Go tell Daddy. He can make you a potty.”
So off the three of them went, deep into the forest to build a potty. I followed not-so-close behind with camera in hand to see what these little outdoorsmen thought of their homemade toilet.
As their father finished digging a hole, they both just looked up at him, and Brisco said in his most hick-ish voice, smothered in disbelief, “In-Ere? How’m I gonna poop In-Ere?!”
Dad assured them he wouldn’t let them “fall in”, and explained that he’d simply cover the hole when they were finished. A bit awe struck, Cooper looked up and said, “Oh. I thought you were really gonna build us a potty.”
“He just did,” I assured him. And it didn’t cost us a dime.
Over the course of the next day and a half, we had one adventure after another. We walked the creek, which had just enough running water to make jumping across a dicey endeavor at best. We climbed the creek banks and walked through Papaw’s wheat fields. We went looking for the old fort, and actually thought we had found it until I took a closer look at what the boys were oooing and ahhing about. I realized, as I squeezed thru a tunnel of mud and fallen branches, that they’d actually probably found the grave yard: a ravine, scattered with dozens of cow bones. And probably no germs or diseases of any kind.
We roasted marshmallows and drank hot chocolate and went on an adventure with Uncle Buck, who took us to the old two story house that Grandma grew up in. We carefully investigated the now abandoned homestead and imagined Mamaw buttering biscuits at the stove that lay on its side in the middle of the room. He told us the story of the day Grandma came home from school just as a storm was brewing and had to sit alone on the porch while the rest of the family was in the cellar waiting for the cloud to pass. The kids could not believe it.
We ate more hotdogs than we could hold, and enjoyed the best campfire concoction imaginable, rolled neatly into a tortilla and drowning in hot sauce. We had the best of both worlds: good food, a warm fire, the company of our family…and a playoff game blaring on the radio.
I wondered what our boys would remember most about their experience, so I asked, “What’s your favorite part so far?” Consistent to form, Brisco shouted, “The pancakes!” Cooper decided he liked the rope swing his daddy hung in the big elm tree and of course, playing in the tent.
I knew they’d had as much fun as two little boys could handle when, sitting in my lap, all bundled up in a blanket in front of the fire, Cooper asked, “What time can we go to bed?” with Brisco chiming in right after, “Yeah, Mom, what time?”
So on that cold, fall night in October, day one of our adventure into the great outdoors came to a close as we turned off our flashlights, snuggled into our tent, and were all fast asleep…before the first long-legged spider even had a chance to tuck us in.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Happy Birthday
At eight o’clock Tuesday morning, when he still hadn’t risen for the day, I went into his room and laid quietly beside him on his pillow. As if sensing that I was near, he rolled over, one hand clasped in a ball, with his thumb hitching a ride up and down with every inward pull of his tongue, and the other hand reaching, searching for my scattered mass of morning hair, strewn about his 20 year old pillow.
As he lay there, still half asleep, fulfilling the two most critical urges of his young life, it must have hit him what day it was. On his belly, with his thumb still stuck in his mouth, he lifted one eye to look at me and whispered, “Birthday!”
He’d been faithfully counting down the days until he’d finally turn five for at least a month. I was continuously amazed that he was able to keep up with his count even when he had 25, 24, 23 days to go. But his special day had finally arrived, and he could not have been more pleased.
He’d spent the weekend with Grandma and Granddaddy and shared cupcakes and a song with his cousins. He celebrated another happy birthday song with his grandmother and the triplets, and yet a third with his classmates at school. As eager as he was about his big day, it seemed every time the singing began, he’d get a case of the birthday bashfuls and hide himself right under the table. But even that couldn’t quell his excitement.
Before four o’clock ever rolled around, he had asked me at least a hundred times “how much longer” until his party. We usually just plan family parties, but this year, a mere two days earlier, he decided he wanted “a kid party”. With too little time to plan, we invited a friend, and that was certainly enough to satisfy our little birthday boy.
I suppose he sensed that he needed something to keep him busy until everyone arrived because he asked if he could make a sign for the porch to welcome his guests. I wrote a few words on a piece of paper, and he took his box of chalk out front. To the best of his now five-year old ability, he etched into the concrete, in purple: “Cooper’s Birthday 5 yrs. old.”
Finally, party time had arrived, and so did our guests, including three unexpected but welcomed neighbor kids from across the street. A table full of six, excited little boys sat patiently awaiting a feast fit for a five year old. And seventy-two pigs in the blanket, 13 cupcakes, two dozen rice crispies, an oversized bag of cheese puffs and a bottle of Sprite later…they were full, with the best yet to come.
When a boy’s birthday comes at the change of a season and he seems to be growing faster than a Nolan Ryan fastball, he tends to receive a lot of “necessities,” presented as birthday gifts, of course. And necessities for Cooper this year came in the form of jeans and long sleeve shirts for the winter. This is simply practical to a parent, but for a little boy, if you can’t drive it, throw it, eat it or tear it up, it’s just not much of a present. Luckily, a new monster truck from Grandma and a set of Matchbox racers from Uncle Max was enough to please this kid right out of his newly-opened pants.
He was thrilled to receive new baseball gear, and he seemed to learn quite quickly how to tear into every birthday card in anticipation of something green. But when he got down to the last present, he realized that there was still something missing.
Earlier in the week when his grandmother asked him what he wanted for his birthday, he said, “Well, I really want a pitching mound, but my dad’s getting me that. So I guess you can just come to my party.” But somehow, that last box on the table didn’t quite look like the mound he had imagined.
In fact, after he had the paper ripped off and the box torn apart, it still didn’t look much like what he expected. And it wasn’t until I told him, “Coop! It’s your pitcher’s mound! Smell that rubber!” that it finally dawned on him that he’d gotten just what he’d asked for.
As the day came to a close and we tucked our boy into bed that night, I asked, “Well, did you have a good day?” He smiled his sweet, toothy smile and whispered a satisfied “Yes!” with that look of happiness and contentment that every parent prays her children find. And with a hug, a kiss and a “Love you, Mom,” I squeezed him one last time. “Love you too, Buddy. Happy Birthday.”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Born out of time
If ever there was a child born out of time, it would have to be my oldest. I came to this conclusion while sitting on my grandmother’s back porch watching my tenacious four-year old son, tirelessly trying to perfect his spiral. The sun was going down; he’d been outside all day, and we could barely see the football shimmying across the yard, but there he was. Determined to get it right before he called it a day.
It struck me at that moment how out of place he seemed. He could have been sitting indoors in the comfort of his climate-controlled home. He could have been eating popcorn prepared in a microwave oven. He could have been watching cartoons played on a machine that didn’t even exist 15 years ago. But not my boy. Not while there’s daylight to burn.
This day for him was not unlike most others. My child, born near the turn of the century, has spent most of his life outside. He’s out the door at dawn and begging for just one more inning after the sun goes down. Whether he’s working in the heat or playing in the freezing rain, he’s got a plan for something and a mind to make it happen. There’ll be no wasting daylight.
I’ve watched him out the back window, throwing rocks into the air and hitting them with a stick. I’ve seen him swing a fake bat and run, as his pretend ball goes sailing over the outfield wall, rounding every base while announcing to his invisible audience the outs, the inning, and the score.
I’ve seen him walk along the creek bed, stick in hand, poking in the mud and looking for some new discovery he can store away in his mind to reenact during his next big adventure. He doesn’t need to be entertained. He’s a boy on the loose among nature.
I’ve listened to him give play by play for the greatest imaginary game of baseball between the two biggest rivals of our day, just as I suppose young boys have done for years.
“Jeter’s at second. Damon’s on first. Teixeira’s at the plate. He swings! It’s a long fly ball!! It’s…It’s…a homerun!”
I know he would have fit in perfectly with the sons of decades ago. Playing stickball in the streets. Putting baseball cards in the spokes of his tires and making the perfect crease in the middle of his favorite Yankee cap so it would fit in his back pocket just right. That’s who he is. I think it’s in his blood.
There are a million and one distractions for kids these days; it’s a wonder our children ever learn how to play. But this boy of ours seems to have figured it out on his own. He’s already spent most of his young years building with Lincoln logs and shunting boxcars. And since he was old enough to hold one in his hand, he’s been driving those matchbox cars all over the imaginary dirt roads and race tracks in his head.
He’s perfectly content to sit by the radio and listen to a ballgame, even when there are a dozen more modern conveniences by which he could sit, being passively massaged. But not this child. It’s “tag, you’re it” or hide and seek, and I suspect cowboys and Indians is next to come.
Whether he’s perfecting his spiral or throwing himself pop flies, this boy could not be more at home if he were playing a pick up game in a vacant lot with a group of neighborhood boys, or sitting at the soda fountain sipping a bottle of five cent pop. I can almost see him trading marbles and baseball cards on the front stoop with his best pal who, just like him, lives and dies by the reading of his comics and the numbers in the box scores. Seems all he needs now is a Secret Agent spy toy and a Red Rider BB gun to make his descent back in time complete.
With his little red wagon, and his little blue View Master, this boy out of time is well on his way to being right out of the pages of Stand By Me, or probably more accurately, A Christmas Story. Now if he could just get his hands on that Secret Society Decoder Pin.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Life according to boys
It’s interesting to me the way kids make sense of their world. At three and four, life is still so literal. They simply call things as they see them. And understanding the craziness that is our colorful English language is oftentimes the source of confusion and misunderstanding to the minds of the little ones we love. However puzzling, our boys just seem to draw their own conclusions about the many facets of the world around them. Here are just a few interpretations of life, according to our boys.
On love:
The boys and I have this game we play. We usually save it for when one of them is sick, or whiney, or tired, or mad. Some time when I need to really soften them up. Make them smile. Force them to be happy.
It starts simply, with a whispered “I love you” in their ear. This almost always invokes a sour look in return. But a mother must be persistent, so I try again.
“I love you more than coffee.” This usually gets an upward curl of the lip, only to be pushed back down by their stubborn will to stay mad. Again, I persist.
“I love you more than cinnamon toast.” “I love you more than sleeping late on Saturdays.” “I love you more than…(dare I say it)…chocolate chip cookies!” And that usually does the trick. By then, the boys are a bundle of giggles, asking as quickly as they can come up with a thought:
“Do you love me more than ice cream?”
“Do you love me more than baseball?”
“Do you love me more than the Yankees?”
On being himself:
Brisco’s newest wish is to be someone else.
“I wish I was Coopa,” he’ll often say. As the younger brother, I know there are a million and one reasons he might wish he was Cooper, but I’m always surprised at what he comes up with.
“So I can go to school.”
“So I can do the hand jive.”
“So I can wear red cleats.”
Sometimes he wishes that he was Daddy, “so that I can drive.”
And other times he even wishes he was the mom.
“I wish I was you,” he says with a droopy face.
“Why do you wish that?” I ask.
“So I can cook!” he says, with a why-in-the-world-else kind of tone.
On school:
After almost nine weeks, my little school boy is still gung ho. He wakes up every morning and asks, “Is today a school day?” If I say no, he hangs his head and curls his nose and lets out a disappointed, “Aww.” But if I say yes, he does a quick fist pump and an excited “Yes!” under his breath. A sign that maybe he did get a little something from his mother’s genes.
On giving:
Sunday mornings after the boys get dressed, they grab their Bibles and take some money from their money jars to give to God. This week, Brisco yelled at his dad from the other room: “Dad? Does God take dimes?”
I tell them that if we give to God happily, He will give back to us. So being the kind of kid he is, Brisco asked impatiently, “Well, when am I gonna get my money?”
He’s not just concerned about his own money though. After watching the men put the collection plates underneath the Lord’s Table one Sunday morning, he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “When is God gonna come get His money?”
On discipline:
After terrorizing his mother and a dozen or so other shoppers last week, I let Brisco choose his discipline: take a spanking or take a nap. He chose the former. Who knew naps were so unbearable?
Lately, the boys have been doing their fair share of fussing. Dad has been home more than usual, and he’s already tired of listening to it. So yesterday, after a bossy, name-calling older brother and a screaming, tattle tail little brother fussed one time too many, he gave them both swats. Brisco came running in the house bawling and holding his bottom.
“Daddy gave us a spanking with a stick with no leaves!” he cried.
Holding back my laughter, I explained, “That’s called a switch, son, and your daddy knows all about them, so you might want to think about straightening up!”
And that’s life according to our boys.
On love:
The boys and I have this game we play. We usually save it for when one of them is sick, or whiney, or tired, or mad. Some time when I need to really soften them up. Make them smile. Force them to be happy.
It starts simply, with a whispered “I love you” in their ear. This almost always invokes a sour look in return. But a mother must be persistent, so I try again.
“I love you more than coffee.” This usually gets an upward curl of the lip, only to be pushed back down by their stubborn will to stay mad. Again, I persist.
“I love you more than cinnamon toast.” “I love you more than sleeping late on Saturdays.” “I love you more than…(dare I say it)…chocolate chip cookies!” And that usually does the trick. By then, the boys are a bundle of giggles, asking as quickly as they can come up with a thought:
“Do you love me more than ice cream?”
“Do you love me more than baseball?”
“Do you love me more than the Yankees?”
On being himself:
Brisco’s newest wish is to be someone else.
“I wish I was Coopa,” he’ll often say. As the younger brother, I know there are a million and one reasons he might wish he was Cooper, but I’m always surprised at what he comes up with.
“So I can go to school.”
“So I can do the hand jive.”
“So I can wear red cleats.”
Sometimes he wishes that he was Daddy, “so that I can drive.”
And other times he even wishes he was the mom.
“I wish I was you,” he says with a droopy face.
“Why do you wish that?” I ask.
“So I can cook!” he says, with a why-in-the-world-else kind of tone.
On school:
After almost nine weeks, my little school boy is still gung ho. He wakes up every morning and asks, “Is today a school day?” If I say no, he hangs his head and curls his nose and lets out a disappointed, “Aww.” But if I say yes, he does a quick fist pump and an excited “Yes!” under his breath. A sign that maybe he did get a little something from his mother’s genes.
On giving:
Sunday mornings after the boys get dressed, they grab their Bibles and take some money from their money jars to give to God. This week, Brisco yelled at his dad from the other room: “Dad? Does God take dimes?”
I tell them that if we give to God happily, He will give back to us. So being the kind of kid he is, Brisco asked impatiently, “Well, when am I gonna get my money?”
He’s not just concerned about his own money though. After watching the men put the collection plates underneath the Lord’s Table one Sunday morning, he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “When is God gonna come get His money?”
On discipline:
After terrorizing his mother and a dozen or so other shoppers last week, I let Brisco choose his discipline: take a spanking or take a nap. He chose the former. Who knew naps were so unbearable?
Lately, the boys have been doing their fair share of fussing. Dad has been home more than usual, and he’s already tired of listening to it. So yesterday, after a bossy, name-calling older brother and a screaming, tattle tail little brother fussed one time too many, he gave them both swats. Brisco came running in the house bawling and holding his bottom.
“Daddy gave us a spanking with a stick with no leaves!” he cried.
Holding back my laughter, I explained, “That’s called a switch, son, and your daddy knows all about them, so you might want to think about straightening up!”
And that’s life according to our boys.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
This and that
Brisco has recently decided he likes to stick out his tongue. After explaining to him how this is rude and disrespectful behavior, he still refused to stop. So I told him if he sticks his tongue out, a bird will think it’s a worm and come rip it off.
The wind pants came out of the drawer this week. It’s funny how kids can’t remember the last time they wore long pants, but Brisco quickly figured it out saying, “Wind pants. You wear them in the wind.”
I tried to put long pants on Cooper one day for school, but he wasn’t having it. He said, “No, Mom. Somebody might look at me.”
We were at an arcade/restaurant last week and a teenage boy walked by with florescent pink hair. Immediately, Brisco pointed his finger and said, “Hey Mom! Look at that!” I quickly lowered his arm and told him that it is rude to point. A few days later, I had my hands in a pound of hamburger and he asked me where Cooper was. I gestured with a greasy finger to the back yard and he said, “Thanks, Mom. Oh, and it’s rude to point!”
Playing in puddles is a good way to burn off rainy-day energy. The kids like it too.
One boy is bothered when I curl my hair. The other boy insists I keep my toenails painted. Where do these things come from?
Lately, the boys have been wanting to take walks. Walks for them involve riding, pushing, pumping or dragging their “bikes”; however, we don’t own actual bicycles yet. Coop rides a tricycle and Brisco drives a scooter.
I didn’t realize that Cooper is really too big to ride a tricycle until I noticed his knees bumping the handlebars as he cruised down the middle of the street. He looks like a circus clown riding that thing.
Children riding scooters are no more safeguarded against skinned knees and elbows than those riding big boy bikes.
When doctoring skinned knees and elbows, Solarcaine and Dermoplast are about as different as peroxide and alcohol.
In our house, everything is a competition. What one does, the other has to do bigger, better and more of…even pooping our pants at the ballpark.
Whoever invented the hand movements to the song “Where is Thumbkin” must not have had children. Or maybe they lived on Siberia’s frozen tundra where the influence of modern society was at a lull. Brisco, proud that he’d mastered the part in the song, “Where is middle man?” came strolling through the ball park, in front of an entire section of people, waving his middle finger in the air, saying, “Mom! Look what I can do!”
While getting dressed for the ball game on Saturday, Brisco said, “I wish I wore a cubby.”
A bit confused, as usual, I said, “What’s a cubby?”
“A cubby!” he said. “Daddy’s boys wear them under their suits.”
Still not understanding I said, “Where do they wear them?”
“They wear them at the ball games,” he said, as if I was the most un-with-it parent alive.
“No, where under their suits?” I said.
“Right there,” he said, pointing to his midsection.
Oh. I get it. A cubby.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Let them earn it
It seems all it takes is a coin or two flipped from the right fingers to trigger a child’s drive for the good ole American green back. At least that’s how it happened for us. On a Saturday at the baseball field, with a couple of Corbin boys leading the way, the Smith boys got a taste of what it feels like to earn a little money.
It was almost an overnight epiphany. Just days before, a penny was something they might find lying on the ground in a parking lot. A nickel and a dime were two interchangeable pieces of “silver”, and a quarter was what they gave to God every Sunday. But the thought of these jingling pieces of metal holding any meaning or power of motivation for our two young boys wasn’t even a thought in my mind. It seems all it took was a little competition and a desire to be like the big boys to spark an interest in earning that dough.
Since their long, hot Saturday of chasing foul balls, the boys have compiled quite a collection. Each with a jar and their initials on the lid, they can be found scavenging under bleacher seats, scoping the ground near concession stands, and eye-balling the pavement around cars in the parking lots for a chance to add even a “broken” penny to their collections.
I, of course, have searched for various ways to use our children’s new-found obsession to create familial peace and domestic harmony. For example, there’s nothing worse than grocery shopping with two little boys who’d rather be doing anything other than walking quietly and politely through a store while being metaphorically chained to a metal box on wheels. But give them a list, a washable marker for checking it, and the promise of a monetary reward for doing a good job, and they are the next best thing to the personal shopper.
Loading and unloading the dishwasher is no longer a dreaded household chore. With wages lower than they’ve been in decades, I can get this detested duty hired out for a measly quarter. And if it happens to be a laundry and trash day, the three year old is quite adept at collecting, sorting, and shooting those clothes into the washer tub, as well as hauling the bathroom trash to the kitchen. With all of fifty cents going to the lucky helper, the price is just about right.
I’ll not say that they completely understand the concept of this money business, but I can tell that they are both trying to figure the whole thing out on their own. Early one morning, Coop decided he’d ask a few of his unanswered questions concerning the tiny wad he’d collected in his jar. Looking at his one and only dollar bill, he asked, “Mom, who is the man on the money?”
Both proud and amazed that I could answer his question, I said, “It is George Washington. He was the first President of the United States.” The second bit of information seemed really pretty useless to him, but this Washington, fellow, now that had him intrigued.
“Where is he now?” he asked. “Well, he is no longer living,” I tried to explain. But the child wanted more. “When did he die? How did he die? Where is he now?”
Hmm. Well. Let me see. I must say, the details of my Presidential history pretty much ended with, “I don’t know, son, but I know he’s dead.” After a few more questions about “What is the pyramid?” and “Why is there only one eye?” and “How does the eagle fly holding all that stuff in his feet?“ I finally agreed that I’d have to look further into this money matter and get back to him with more legitimate answers.
Brisco was a bit more satisfied with remaining completely oblivious. One Sunday morning during services, quarter in hand, he leaned over and asked me if the man on his quarter was God. Through my stifled guffaw, I said, “No, baby, it’s George Washington.” He just smiled and said, “Oh!”
All in all, it is decidedly a lot easier to introduce them to the coinage when they’re small. They’re learning to master the skill of counting, but they don’t yet know the difference between a penny and a quarter. Cooper will dump his jar at random and “count his monies.” He has no idea the dollar amount he has accumulated, but when he has finished counting, he’ll shout, “Mom! I’ve got 59 monies!”
And dollar bills don’t make a fun sound when they fall into a jar, so for now, at least, our green is secure.
It’s fun to watch the boys get excited about working hard. They seem to have a vague understanding that Daddy works hard so he can provide for our family, and they are trying hard to follow suit. Brisco offered to take his money to the store and help pay for the groceries. And there’s really nothing more satisfying than having your four year old come to you and say, “Mom, I want to earn some money.”
I can’t wait to teach them to do windows!
And that’s All in a day’s work!
It was almost an overnight epiphany. Just days before, a penny was something they might find lying on the ground in a parking lot. A nickel and a dime were two interchangeable pieces of “silver”, and a quarter was what they gave to God every Sunday. But the thought of these jingling pieces of metal holding any meaning or power of motivation for our two young boys wasn’t even a thought in my mind. It seems all it took was a little competition and a desire to be like the big boys to spark an interest in earning that dough.
Since their long, hot Saturday of chasing foul balls, the boys have compiled quite a collection. Each with a jar and their initials on the lid, they can be found scavenging under bleacher seats, scoping the ground near concession stands, and eye-balling the pavement around cars in the parking lots for a chance to add even a “broken” penny to their collections.
I, of course, have searched for various ways to use our children’s new-found obsession to create familial peace and domestic harmony. For example, there’s nothing worse than grocery shopping with two little boys who’d rather be doing anything other than walking quietly and politely through a store while being metaphorically chained to a metal box on wheels. But give them a list, a washable marker for checking it, and the promise of a monetary reward for doing a good job, and they are the next best thing to the personal shopper.
Loading and unloading the dishwasher is no longer a dreaded household chore. With wages lower than they’ve been in decades, I can get this detested duty hired out for a measly quarter. And if it happens to be a laundry and trash day, the three year old is quite adept at collecting, sorting, and shooting those clothes into the washer tub, as well as hauling the bathroom trash to the kitchen. With all of fifty cents going to the lucky helper, the price is just about right.
I’ll not say that they completely understand the concept of this money business, but I can tell that they are both trying to figure the whole thing out on their own. Early one morning, Coop decided he’d ask a few of his unanswered questions concerning the tiny wad he’d collected in his jar. Looking at his one and only dollar bill, he asked, “Mom, who is the man on the money?”
Both proud and amazed that I could answer his question, I said, “It is George Washington. He was the first President of the United States.” The second bit of information seemed really pretty useless to him, but this Washington, fellow, now that had him intrigued.
“Where is he now?” he asked. “Well, he is no longer living,” I tried to explain. But the child wanted more. “When did he die? How did he die? Where is he now?”
Hmm. Well. Let me see. I must say, the details of my Presidential history pretty much ended with, “I don’t know, son, but I know he’s dead.” After a few more questions about “What is the pyramid?” and “Why is there only one eye?” and “How does the eagle fly holding all that stuff in his feet?“ I finally agreed that I’d have to look further into this money matter and get back to him with more legitimate answers.
Brisco was a bit more satisfied with remaining completely oblivious. One Sunday morning during services, quarter in hand, he leaned over and asked me if the man on his quarter was God. Through my stifled guffaw, I said, “No, baby, it’s George Washington.” He just smiled and said, “Oh!”
All in all, it is decidedly a lot easier to introduce them to the coinage when they’re small. They’re learning to master the skill of counting, but they don’t yet know the difference between a penny and a quarter. Cooper will dump his jar at random and “count his monies.” He has no idea the dollar amount he has accumulated, but when he has finished counting, he’ll shout, “Mom! I’ve got 59 monies!”
And dollar bills don’t make a fun sound when they fall into a jar, so for now, at least, our green is secure.
It’s fun to watch the boys get excited about working hard. They seem to have a vague understanding that Daddy works hard so he can provide for our family, and they are trying hard to follow suit. Brisco offered to take his money to the store and help pay for the groceries. And there’s really nothing more satisfying than having your four year old come to you and say, “Mom, I want to earn some money.”
I can’t wait to teach them to do windows!
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The power of a peer
I’m learning too quickly how a parent can lose all influence over her children. In days gone by, what mom and dad said was gold--twenty-four karat, take it to the bank, won’t turn your finger green gold. But apparently over time, the altruistic words of the parental unit begin to roll off their backs like carelessly placed eggs on an untrue counter.
We no longer hold the sole position of selfless, all-knowing guidance counselor, ever available to give honest and direct answers to our children’s toughest questions about their world. We’re losing our standing as the go-to guy when it comes to inquiries about life and death and the origin of the “big blue man” who grants wishes “from a can”.
It seems we have been replaced by those with less experience, a lower IQ, and a significantly smaller shoe size: their peers…and I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen until puberty.
But it has, and it does, and the times are fewer and farther in between when I hear my oldest spout, “Mom said!” as the authoritative grounds on which he bases his disagreements with his little brother. Rather I’m the one being corrected and admonished for little things, like the words we have chosen as the names of everyday necessities of life at the Smith house.
Case in point, after spending a week this summer with their five year old cousin, Mattie, they were both shocked and in awe to discover that boys wear underwear and girls wear panties. To most, I suppose this is a simple fact of life. At our house, however, it has always been “panties”, although in a house full of boys, I have no idea why.
I felt a little dejected, then, after being harshly scorned by a three year old and promptly corrected by his older brother at my inappropriate usage of two so distinctly different nouns. I can only imagine how confused the two of them must have been to have received such a revelation. Especially since one of their weekly chores is to put Daddy’s folded panties neatly on his dresser.
Along those same lines, they learned that “girls wear swimming suits and boys wear swimming trunks” and thank goodness that mix-up seemed a little less gender confusing than the previously misrepresented undergarments.
Sometimes the things they learn serve a good far greater than that of simply undoing the misdeeds of their parents. Often, their minds are opened and their vocabularies expanded to include ideas and phrases that will prove invaluable to them in later life. Words that they can call on when no other expression seems to fit so succinctly. My favorite illustration of this comes from my niece, Harlie, top trip in a trio of the most beautiful, brilliant and busy three and a half year olds I know.
During a recent conversation, I was amused and intrigued to discover that Josephine, the full blooded Italian woman straight from the old country who keeps my sister’s triplets, “has idiots at her house”. Upon hearing this revelation for the first time, my eyes widened and an unsuccessfully suppressed smile crept across my face. “Idiots, huh?” I had to know more.
With top notch sincerity she continued, “Idiots don’t come in the house.” I tried some independent analysis, but I was left wanting more insight from this clever little girl. “So where do the idiots go?” I asked.
“Idiots are in the movies,” she explained. “Idiots are not in real life.” Oh how I wanted to alert her to her naïve misinterpretation, but I decided that was a conversation for later in life. She continued, “Idiots steal the puppies.”
I decided maybe I was missing something. That she actually had specific “idiots” in mind and that she wasn’t just speaking philosophically or in general. So I asked, “Harlie, what is an idiot?” She responded without a flinch, “Mean people.” And I thought, well, I guess she’s right!
It wasn’t until later that I figured out Miss Harlie was referring to the idiots/mean people in the Dalmatian movie. And much later, I realized Mr. Brisco must have been listening to our conversation, otherwise how could he possibly have labeled his mother “an idiot” after an unfortunate encounter with Dad’s belt.
More recently, I overheard a conversation between my boys that had real potential to become an all-out brawl. I was so pleased and proud, however, to hear Cooper resolve the conflict with the following statement: “You go ahead, Brisco. First is last and last is first,” which I always thought was a direct quote from the Bible.
I wanted to encourage Cooper in this kind of behavior, so I made sure he knew that I’d heard him. I said, “That’s nice, Coop. God said that to us in the Bible, didn’t he?” He had no problem quickly correcting me by stating, “God didn’t say that. Mattie did!”
Yes, the influence of a cousin, a cohort or even a childhood classic can open the eyes of a parent to the significant clout held by those around them. The power of a peer can be greater than a dearly-beloved mother, a highly-respected father, and even the Good Book itself.
We’re trying to keep a hold of what little influence we’ve still got. And at least for now, they’re willing to come to us with a few of the smaller questions of life.
“Hey, Mom, does eating sugar really make you run slow?”
We just keep shooting back those honest and direct answers.
“You bet. And drinking water will make you run really fast!”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
We no longer hold the sole position of selfless, all-knowing guidance counselor, ever available to give honest and direct answers to our children’s toughest questions about their world. We’re losing our standing as the go-to guy when it comes to inquiries about life and death and the origin of the “big blue man” who grants wishes “from a can”.
It seems we have been replaced by those with less experience, a lower IQ, and a significantly smaller shoe size: their peers…and I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen until puberty.
But it has, and it does, and the times are fewer and farther in between when I hear my oldest spout, “Mom said!” as the authoritative grounds on which he bases his disagreements with his little brother. Rather I’m the one being corrected and admonished for little things, like the words we have chosen as the names of everyday necessities of life at the Smith house.
Case in point, after spending a week this summer with their five year old cousin, Mattie, they were both shocked and in awe to discover that boys wear underwear and girls wear panties. To most, I suppose this is a simple fact of life. At our house, however, it has always been “panties”, although in a house full of boys, I have no idea why.
I felt a little dejected, then, after being harshly scorned by a three year old and promptly corrected by his older brother at my inappropriate usage of two so distinctly different nouns. I can only imagine how confused the two of them must have been to have received such a revelation. Especially since one of their weekly chores is to put Daddy’s folded panties neatly on his dresser.
Along those same lines, they learned that “girls wear swimming suits and boys wear swimming trunks” and thank goodness that mix-up seemed a little less gender confusing than the previously misrepresented undergarments.
Sometimes the things they learn serve a good far greater than that of simply undoing the misdeeds of their parents. Often, their minds are opened and their vocabularies expanded to include ideas and phrases that will prove invaluable to them in later life. Words that they can call on when no other expression seems to fit so succinctly. My favorite illustration of this comes from my niece, Harlie, top trip in a trio of the most beautiful, brilliant and busy three and a half year olds I know.
During a recent conversation, I was amused and intrigued to discover that Josephine, the full blooded Italian woman straight from the old country who keeps my sister’s triplets, “has idiots at her house”. Upon hearing this revelation for the first time, my eyes widened and an unsuccessfully suppressed smile crept across my face. “Idiots, huh?” I had to know more.
With top notch sincerity she continued, “Idiots don’t come in the house.” I tried some independent analysis, but I was left wanting more insight from this clever little girl. “So where do the idiots go?” I asked.
“Idiots are in the movies,” she explained. “Idiots are not in real life.” Oh how I wanted to alert her to her naïve misinterpretation, but I decided that was a conversation for later in life. She continued, “Idiots steal the puppies.”
I decided maybe I was missing something. That she actually had specific “idiots” in mind and that she wasn’t just speaking philosophically or in general. So I asked, “Harlie, what is an idiot?” She responded without a flinch, “Mean people.” And I thought, well, I guess she’s right!
It wasn’t until later that I figured out Miss Harlie was referring to the idiots/mean people in the Dalmatian movie. And much later, I realized Mr. Brisco must have been listening to our conversation, otherwise how could he possibly have labeled his mother “an idiot” after an unfortunate encounter with Dad’s belt.
More recently, I overheard a conversation between my boys that had real potential to become an all-out brawl. I was so pleased and proud, however, to hear Cooper resolve the conflict with the following statement: “You go ahead, Brisco. First is last and last is first,” which I always thought was a direct quote from the Bible.
I wanted to encourage Cooper in this kind of behavior, so I made sure he knew that I’d heard him. I said, “That’s nice, Coop. God said that to us in the Bible, didn’t he?” He had no problem quickly correcting me by stating, “God didn’t say that. Mattie did!”
Yes, the influence of a cousin, a cohort or even a childhood classic can open the eyes of a parent to the significant clout held by those around them. The power of a peer can be greater than a dearly-beloved mother, a highly-respected father, and even the Good Book itself.
We’re trying to keep a hold of what little influence we’ve still got. And at least for now, they’re willing to come to us with a few of the smaller questions of life.
“Hey, Mom, does eating sugar really make you run slow?”
We just keep shooting back those honest and direct answers.
“You bet. And drinking water will make you run really fast!”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Things I learned from baseball
My four year old son is a genius. I walked into his room the other day to find him sitting at his red, plastic desk writing an essay. The perfectly formulated, perfectly structured experiment in creative writing every English teacher dreams about receiving from a pupil.
I don’t know many four year olds who can read, write or correctly punctuate a compound/complex sentence while maintaining appropriate subject-verb agreement and using the correct verb tense. Maybe this is why the brilliance of my boy overwhelmed me. Lest my boasting take away from his masterpiece, I’ll simply let the reader decide.
“Things I learned from baseball”
By Cooper Smith, age 4
How to count:
Keeping score in baseball is a great way to learn how to count. There’s that big scoreboard out there with all kinds of numbers on it. Once your mommy or daddy teaches you zero through ten, it’s all pretty easy after that. Then you just start saying “teen” a lot and you finally learn to get them in the right order.
How to read:
The scoreboard can be an intimidating beast for a kid to try and tackle. There aren’t just numbers up there, but lots of letters too, and all in different spots. Once you learn that “H” spells “Sentinel Bulldogs” and “V” spells “The other team” you can pretty much tell who’s winning and who’s not. Of course if it’s an away game, “V” spells “Sentinel Bulldogs” and “H” spells something else, and we never get to have last bats.
How to add and subtract:
After mastering the scoreboard, one finds it’s never really good enough just knowing how to read it. A real fan and a true ball player has to understand how many runs his team needs to put the other team away, or on a bad night when Daddy has to yell a lot, to catch up.
How to communicate with people:
Sometimes the guy making the numbers come up on the board doesn’t pay attention and he gets them all wrong. But that’s ok, cause there is usually someone sitting close enough to yell at him to change the score and pay closer attention.
How to earn money:
During ballgames kids can earn money for every foul ball they chase down, and each one is worth a quarter. Last Saturday I earned seven quarters! No wonder Dad has to work so hard; he has to pay for all those foul balls!
If we’re lucky and we get to stay to the end of the game, Momma will let us pick up all the trash in the ball park for a dollar, but we have to leave the chewed up gum on the ground cause it’s full of filthy germs.
How to use our best manners:
It’s never ok to spit where we play, but in baseball sometimes it’s ok. You just have to be sure the wind isn’t blowing toward your mom or you get in big trouble.
We usually aren’t allowed to eat with our hats on, but if it’s just a hotdog or cheesy chips, it doesn’t really matter as much. And if someone gives you gummies or Gatorade or Jello with onions, you have to say “Thank you” or mom makes you give it back. Even at the concession stand.
How to control our emotions:
We usually aren’t allowed to throw things that aren’t made to be thrown, but in baseball, sometimes you’re allowed to throw your hat, but only if it keeps you from throwing a fit. Dad says it’s especially important that the pitcher doesn’t throw a fit cause the umpire won’t like it and he might even change the strike zone and then you may die on the mound.
Always be a good sport:
At the end of every game, both teams go to home plate and give each other high fives. I liked doing that in coach pitch, but I think as you get older the fives must start to hurt a little cause the big boys don’t look like they are having much fun doing it, and the Yankees don’t do it at all.
Mom says to treat others the way you want to be treated, but I think that only goes for people on your same team, cause I never see Daddy’s boys smile at the boys on the other team. And nobody smiles at the umpire.
Mom says we’re not supposed to yell either, but sometime she forgets and sometimes Daddy forgets and maybe somebody needs to put up a sign to remind everyone that this game is supposed to be fun.
How to think ahead:
Dad’s always saying when you play baseball, you have to use your head. I used to think that’s why they made you wear a helmet, but then he said, “No, you’ve got to learn to think.” I think about baseball all the time.
How to compete:
Mom says it’s not always easy being the youngest in the family. You aren’t as big, you aren’t as fast and you have to wait till later to do what your big brother is doing right now. She says that means I shouldn’t be so hard on Brisco and that I should try to let him be safe sometimes when we’re out playing ball. But I don’t like to do that very much. Besides, that’s not how the big boys do it.
How to be loyal:
On game days we wear something that’s red like the Bulldogs. Sometimes we wear our long, red, socks, but they aren’t Red Sox-red socks cause we don’t like the Dirty Sox.
Sometimes we play “Who do you want to win” and say the names of two different teams. When we say the Bulldogs vs. the Yankees, we always choose the Bulldogs, even though I know there’s no way the Yankees are ever gonna drive all the way to Sentinel to play ball.
How to be responsible:
Mom is always telling us to “be responsible” with our things. She says she’s sick from having to search for balls and gloves when it’s time to go somewhere, and if we’d put them in the basket when we’re through playing, we might could find them when we need them. I decided to try it out last week to see if it would work cause I got sick at Grandma’s house and I sure didn’t want Momma to have to do that.
How to fall in love:
The first thing I do every morning is ask Mom if there’s a baseball game on TV that we can watch.
Now that I’m in school, I get to take my glove and ball with me so I can play with it outside, and when I come home, Mom lets me throw the ball against the wall in the house and practice fly balls and grounders.
The other night at the ball field, I laid my glove down somewhere and couldn’t remember where I put it. When Mom asked me where it was, I felt really sick in my stomach and my face felt red and hot. I tried not to cry, but I just didn’t know where that glove was, and I couldn’t imagine how I would live another day without it.
How to dream:
Mom says I can be anything I want to be when I grow up. I told her I wanna be a baseball player. She said, “Who do you wanna play for?” I said, “Daddy, of course!”
As I stood looking over his shoulder, I was amazed at the insight of such a young boy and the lessons he had gleaned from simply being an onlooker in a 163 year old game. I hugged his neck and told him I loved him and asked if we could hang his story on the fridge. He just smiled and handed it over and blew me a kiss as he grabbed his mitt and headed out back.
I pass that masterpiece at least 20 times a day. The way he has so accurately portrayed the little boy in the piece. The precise shading he had crafted in the scene on the page. Simply put, it is picture perfect.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
I don’t know many four year olds who can read, write or correctly punctuate a compound/complex sentence while maintaining appropriate subject-verb agreement and using the correct verb tense. Maybe this is why the brilliance of my boy overwhelmed me. Lest my boasting take away from his masterpiece, I’ll simply let the reader decide.
“Things I learned from baseball”
By Cooper Smith, age 4
How to count:
Keeping score in baseball is a great way to learn how to count. There’s that big scoreboard out there with all kinds of numbers on it. Once your mommy or daddy teaches you zero through ten, it’s all pretty easy after that. Then you just start saying “teen” a lot and you finally learn to get them in the right order.
How to read:
The scoreboard can be an intimidating beast for a kid to try and tackle. There aren’t just numbers up there, but lots of letters too, and all in different spots. Once you learn that “H” spells “Sentinel Bulldogs” and “V” spells “The other team” you can pretty much tell who’s winning and who’s not. Of course if it’s an away game, “V” spells “Sentinel Bulldogs” and “H” spells something else, and we never get to have last bats.
How to add and subtract:
After mastering the scoreboard, one finds it’s never really good enough just knowing how to read it. A real fan and a true ball player has to understand how many runs his team needs to put the other team away, or on a bad night when Daddy has to yell a lot, to catch up.
How to communicate with people:
Sometimes the guy making the numbers come up on the board doesn’t pay attention and he gets them all wrong. But that’s ok, cause there is usually someone sitting close enough to yell at him to change the score and pay closer attention.
How to earn money:
During ballgames kids can earn money for every foul ball they chase down, and each one is worth a quarter. Last Saturday I earned seven quarters! No wonder Dad has to work so hard; he has to pay for all those foul balls!
If we’re lucky and we get to stay to the end of the game, Momma will let us pick up all the trash in the ball park for a dollar, but we have to leave the chewed up gum on the ground cause it’s full of filthy germs.
How to use our best manners:
It’s never ok to spit where we play, but in baseball sometimes it’s ok. You just have to be sure the wind isn’t blowing toward your mom or you get in big trouble.
We usually aren’t allowed to eat with our hats on, but if it’s just a hotdog or cheesy chips, it doesn’t really matter as much. And if someone gives you gummies or Gatorade or Jello with onions, you have to say “Thank you” or mom makes you give it back. Even at the concession stand.
How to control our emotions:
We usually aren’t allowed to throw things that aren’t made to be thrown, but in baseball, sometimes you’re allowed to throw your hat, but only if it keeps you from throwing a fit. Dad says it’s especially important that the pitcher doesn’t throw a fit cause the umpire won’t like it and he might even change the strike zone and then you may die on the mound.
Always be a good sport:
At the end of every game, both teams go to home plate and give each other high fives. I liked doing that in coach pitch, but I think as you get older the fives must start to hurt a little cause the big boys don’t look like they are having much fun doing it, and the Yankees don’t do it at all.
Mom says to treat others the way you want to be treated, but I think that only goes for people on your same team, cause I never see Daddy’s boys smile at the boys on the other team. And nobody smiles at the umpire.
Mom says we’re not supposed to yell either, but sometime she forgets and sometimes Daddy forgets and maybe somebody needs to put up a sign to remind everyone that this game is supposed to be fun.
How to think ahead:
Dad’s always saying when you play baseball, you have to use your head. I used to think that’s why they made you wear a helmet, but then he said, “No, you’ve got to learn to think.” I think about baseball all the time.
How to compete:
Mom says it’s not always easy being the youngest in the family. You aren’t as big, you aren’t as fast and you have to wait till later to do what your big brother is doing right now. She says that means I shouldn’t be so hard on Brisco and that I should try to let him be safe sometimes when we’re out playing ball. But I don’t like to do that very much. Besides, that’s not how the big boys do it.
How to be loyal:
On game days we wear something that’s red like the Bulldogs. Sometimes we wear our long, red, socks, but they aren’t Red Sox-red socks cause we don’t like the Dirty Sox.
Sometimes we play “Who do you want to win” and say the names of two different teams. When we say the Bulldogs vs. the Yankees, we always choose the Bulldogs, even though I know there’s no way the Yankees are ever gonna drive all the way to Sentinel to play ball.
How to be responsible:
Mom is always telling us to “be responsible” with our things. She says she’s sick from having to search for balls and gloves when it’s time to go somewhere, and if we’d put them in the basket when we’re through playing, we might could find them when we need them. I decided to try it out last week to see if it would work cause I got sick at Grandma’s house and I sure didn’t want Momma to have to do that.
How to fall in love:
The first thing I do every morning is ask Mom if there’s a baseball game on TV that we can watch.
Now that I’m in school, I get to take my glove and ball with me so I can play with it outside, and when I come home, Mom lets me throw the ball against the wall in the house and practice fly balls and grounders.
The other night at the ball field, I laid my glove down somewhere and couldn’t remember where I put it. When Mom asked me where it was, I felt really sick in my stomach and my face felt red and hot. I tried not to cry, but I just didn’t know where that glove was, and I couldn’t imagine how I would live another day without it.
How to dream:
Mom says I can be anything I want to be when I grow up. I told her I wanna be a baseball player. She said, “Who do you wanna play for?” I said, “Daddy, of course!”
As I stood looking over his shoulder, I was amazed at the insight of such a young boy and the lessons he had gleaned from simply being an onlooker in a 163 year old game. I hugged his neck and told him I loved him and asked if we could hang his story on the fridge. He just smiled and handed it over and blew me a kiss as he grabbed his mitt and headed out back.
I pass that masterpiece at least 20 times a day. The way he has so accurately portrayed the little boy in the piece. The precise shading he had crafted in the scene on the page. Simply put, it is picture perfect.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Going to school
We put a lot of thought into whether or not we were ready to send Cooper, our oldest, to school. We’ve been back and forth on both sides of the issue at least a dozen times. I’d say we’ve decided and been undecided for the better part of the last year.
We rationalized and debated our reasons for and against, but it seemed there were good arguments on each side. My mind and my experience told me that he was probably as ready as any four-year old ever is when he walks into a school building for the first time. But my heart just couldn’t seem to accept it.
The day had come, however, and we were forced to make a decision: our boy was going to school.
I guess it’s all pretty normal-dreading the first day of school, worrying about sending our kid off into the real world while he is still so small. I have been against it since his birth almost five years ago, but that’s just the momma in me. It’s a crazy feeling when something that for so long seemed so far away is suddenly staring us right in the face.
Not all parents dread that first day, I suppose. It is possible that some parents look forward to the day their children are old enough to go to school, walking out that door first thing in the morning and returning hours later, full of knowledge and wide-eyed excitement about the new world they’ve discovered. I just can’t seem to get there.
Over the last few months, when someone would ask Cooper if he was ready to start school, he’d say, “No, next year.” He had no idea that next year had gotten here so quickly. Seems he and I were on the same page.
I prepared in my mind how we’d spend our last few days together, and of course little went according to my plan. As it turned out, I would have to be satisfied with a couple of hours of together time before bed on his last night before the big day.
Since little brother had stayed the night with Grandmother, I had Cooper all to myself and decided that before bed, we’d grab some ice cream and retreat to one of our favorite places on earth: the ball field. Unfortunately, batting practice was in the barn that night, so we just borrowed the tailgate of somebody’s pick up and sat outside, enjoying the cool air, the crack of the bat, and a pint of Golden Vanilla.
We only stayed a little while, but it really doesn’t take long to create a memory. Cooper was astonished that we were eating right out of the carton, and he wasn’t about to let one tasty drip escape his lips as he tipped the miniature tub to drink the last, melted bite.
We looked for shapes in the clouds and counted the lightening flashes and talked about his first day of school the next morning.
“What do you think will be the best part?” I asked.
He squinted his eyes and twisted his lips as he searched an empty frame of reference for a suitable answer.
“I think it will be the music,” he said with a big grin. “Yes! You might get to go to Mrs. Warren’s class tomorrow,” I said.
He laughed, and I knew he was taking comfort in knowing he’d be seeing a familiar face, and anticipating what an exciting day tomorrow would be. “She really makes me happy,” he said. And I knew for certain that he meant every word.
When we got home and ready for bed, we laid out his clothes for the next day. He was careful to choose just the right shirt to match his favorite, red shorts, although I had to convince him that he didn’t need to sleep in them first. We packed his school supplies into his new backpack, and everything seemed to be in place.
He asked in his best, big-boy voice if I thought I could maybe lay down with him for a while, and although I had a thousand other things that begged to be done, there wasn’t a chance in a million that I was moving from that spot. But before we turned out the light, I had one more item to pack in his bag. So I gave him his hand-made Hallmark.
He read his name on the outside of a folded 3 x 5 note card. As he opened it up and looked inside, he recognized right off the shape that was drawn in the middle of the page. “It’s a heart! And it looks like a baseball!” he beamed.
“See if you can read it,” I urged him and pointed to the letter at the top of the card. He began, “I… …U”. And he read it like an old pro.
I don’t know if he was really moved by the note or if he was just proud of himself for reading what it said, but he jumped into my arms and gave me a hug and a kiss and wore a colossal grin from ear to ear. A priceless moment for a mom.
“Now this is in case you miss me while you’re at school,” I said. “I’ll put it right here, and if you start to wonder what I’m doing at home, you can read your note and you’ll know!”
That seemed to make all the difference in the world…for me, at least. And he seemed pretty happy about it too because after double checking that it was right where we left it, we turned off the light, laid our heads on the pillow and drifted right off to sleep…with barely a sniffle or a tear.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Through the eyes of a child
I’m always amazed at what my children can see. They can spend twenty minutes searching for a pair of “lost” shoes lying in plain sight at the bottom of the closet and still never find them, but can take one sweeping glance at the television set and tell whether the batter is a lefty (“like Coopa”) or a righty (“like me!”). So many new things to learn at such a rapid pace, and they are soaking it all up every minute of the day. Through the eyes of a child, the world is a beautiful, interesting, curious, comical and sometimes scary place.
It’s fun to watch them discover that they have learned something new. After mastering the alphabet and the spelling of their names, anything that was a circle looked like the letter “O”: cookies, wheels on the bus, and every knob on the cabinets in our kitchen. Three o’clock (on the clock) is always an “L”. A squiggle in the garden hose makes the perfect “S”, and the handle of a coffee cup, a capital “D”. All that, I’d say, is pretty simple. But when Brisco stood up from the potty in the restroom of the Lookeba-Sickles field house and said, “That looks like a six!”, in reference to the shape of the handle on the toilet, well, that’s when I knew this child was probably always going to think outside the box.
The smallest observation, I’ve learned first hand, can create connections in their minds and make all the difference in whether or not they comprehend the lesson we are trying to teach. Lately, we’ve been working on picking up after ourselves, a lesson no male in this house has yet to grasp. After a rather overdue deep cleaning of our kitchen recently, Cooper came in to see clear cabinets, freshly mopped floors, and the smell of lemon pine sol. He said, “Mom, I really like your house.” After which he immediately picked up his three pair of shoes, two hats and rather disgusting pile of damp, muddy clothes from the day and deposited them in their appropriate locations. Yes, it is amazing what kids can see.
Children can sometimes be so simple; however, the job of raising them is anything but. After being gone on vacation, Brisco decided he needed some serious “Momma Time”. One morning, he curled up in my lap and gave me one of his great big bear hugs, wrapping his arms and legs around me so tight I could hardly breathe--one of the best feelings in the world. Then he looked up at me and said, “Mom, did you know someday we’re all gonna die?” I took it as any well prepared, intellectual, mother of two would--like a rock to the side of the head.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, our youngest became somewhat preoccupied with death and dying. He was persistent in his questions and concerns about exactly how and when death would be coming. “When are we gonna die?” And “If I eat this, will I die?” And “If you hold something in your hands, will it still die?”
We did our best to give appropriate and adequate answers to this difficult and rather adult line of questioning, but he just kept coming back with more. It seemed he was having a hard time making this heaven place out to be a good thing. Evidently, he had just put it all together that in order to go there, one first had to die. And if dying was anything like a ten day vacation, he had decided he wanted no part of it.
“Do you wanna go to heaven?” he asked me one day with the look and tone of “Why would you wanna do something like that?” I answered, “Of course I do!” at which time he proceeded to inform me that I’d have to die first. I finally decided if I was going to help change his way of thinking, I’d have to bring out the big guns. And for Brisco, that always involves chocolate.
“You love chocolate, don’t you?” I asked him in a melt in your mouth not in your hands kind of way. His eyes got wide and he smiled really big. He made that “Yum” sound and hugged his tummy right on cue. “Well, think about heaven as a place where there’s lots of yummy chocolate, and you can have all you want.” His wheels were turning, but he’d not yet climbed on board. I put it in reverse.
“Brisco, it is ok to ask questions about dying and going to heaven, but you don’t need to worry about it all the time. Nobody knows when they are going to die, but for most people it is not until after they are grown and have played lots of ball and gotten married and had children and are the daddy and then the granddaddy. Most people live for a really long time until they are very old. We just have to read our Bible and do what God wants us to do in the meantime.”
There. That should do the trick.
He looked at me in a questioning way as if he were about to ask the most profound question of the decade, “But Mom, when I get to heaven…can I have ice cream with my chocolate?”
“You can have anything you want!” I said with a smile.
For the most part, that has put an end to his obsession with death. Not that I’m unhappy that my kid is thinking about heaven, but to be worried about dying at the age of three could really put a damper on the next 50 years. He still asks random questions, like one cloudy day last week he said, “Did the sun die?” Those kinds of curious, comical and sometimes heart wrenching questions come so easily from innocence of our children.
Lately, we’ve just been taking it easy, eating our way through a jumbo bag of pretzels, guessing the number or letter that is formed after each tasty bite. Watching squirrels climb trees and observing ants taking loads of bread crumbs back to their den. Being completely exhilarated by a bases loaded, two out, full-count A-bomb in the bottom of the ninth to give our men in pinstripes yet another amazing win. It’s the simple things in life that make our kids smile. And us, too, when we take the time to see this world through their eyes.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
It’s fun to watch them discover that they have learned something new. After mastering the alphabet and the spelling of their names, anything that was a circle looked like the letter “O”: cookies, wheels on the bus, and every knob on the cabinets in our kitchen. Three o’clock (on the clock) is always an “L”. A squiggle in the garden hose makes the perfect “S”, and the handle of a coffee cup, a capital “D”. All that, I’d say, is pretty simple. But when Brisco stood up from the potty in the restroom of the Lookeba-Sickles field house and said, “That looks like a six!”, in reference to the shape of the handle on the toilet, well, that’s when I knew this child was probably always going to think outside the box.
The smallest observation, I’ve learned first hand, can create connections in their minds and make all the difference in whether or not they comprehend the lesson we are trying to teach. Lately, we’ve been working on picking up after ourselves, a lesson no male in this house has yet to grasp. After a rather overdue deep cleaning of our kitchen recently, Cooper came in to see clear cabinets, freshly mopped floors, and the smell of lemon pine sol. He said, “Mom, I really like your house.” After which he immediately picked up his three pair of shoes, two hats and rather disgusting pile of damp, muddy clothes from the day and deposited them in their appropriate locations. Yes, it is amazing what kids can see.
Children can sometimes be so simple; however, the job of raising them is anything but. After being gone on vacation, Brisco decided he needed some serious “Momma Time”. One morning, he curled up in my lap and gave me one of his great big bear hugs, wrapping his arms and legs around me so tight I could hardly breathe--one of the best feelings in the world. Then he looked up at me and said, “Mom, did you know someday we’re all gonna die?” I took it as any well prepared, intellectual, mother of two would--like a rock to the side of the head.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, our youngest became somewhat preoccupied with death and dying. He was persistent in his questions and concerns about exactly how and when death would be coming. “When are we gonna die?” And “If I eat this, will I die?” And “If you hold something in your hands, will it still die?”
We did our best to give appropriate and adequate answers to this difficult and rather adult line of questioning, but he just kept coming back with more. It seemed he was having a hard time making this heaven place out to be a good thing. Evidently, he had just put it all together that in order to go there, one first had to die. And if dying was anything like a ten day vacation, he had decided he wanted no part of it.
“Do you wanna go to heaven?” he asked me one day with the look and tone of “Why would you wanna do something like that?” I answered, “Of course I do!” at which time he proceeded to inform me that I’d have to die first. I finally decided if I was going to help change his way of thinking, I’d have to bring out the big guns. And for Brisco, that always involves chocolate.
“You love chocolate, don’t you?” I asked him in a melt in your mouth not in your hands kind of way. His eyes got wide and he smiled really big. He made that “Yum” sound and hugged his tummy right on cue. “Well, think about heaven as a place where there’s lots of yummy chocolate, and you can have all you want.” His wheels were turning, but he’d not yet climbed on board. I put it in reverse.
“Brisco, it is ok to ask questions about dying and going to heaven, but you don’t need to worry about it all the time. Nobody knows when they are going to die, but for most people it is not until after they are grown and have played lots of ball and gotten married and had children and are the daddy and then the granddaddy. Most people live for a really long time until they are very old. We just have to read our Bible and do what God wants us to do in the meantime.”
There. That should do the trick.
He looked at me in a questioning way as if he were about to ask the most profound question of the decade, “But Mom, when I get to heaven…can I have ice cream with my chocolate?”
“You can have anything you want!” I said with a smile.
For the most part, that has put an end to his obsession with death. Not that I’m unhappy that my kid is thinking about heaven, but to be worried about dying at the age of three could really put a damper on the next 50 years. He still asks random questions, like one cloudy day last week he said, “Did the sun die?” Those kinds of curious, comical and sometimes heart wrenching questions come so easily from innocence of our children.
Lately, we’ve just been taking it easy, eating our way through a jumbo bag of pretzels, guessing the number or letter that is formed after each tasty bite. Watching squirrels climb trees and observing ants taking loads of bread crumbs back to their den. Being completely exhilarated by a bases loaded, two out, full-count A-bomb in the bottom of the ninth to give our men in pinstripes yet another amazing win. It’s the simple things in life that make our kids smile. And us, too, when we take the time to see this world through their eyes.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Just another road trip
As we loaded up for an impromptu, flying trip to the All-State game in Tulsa with a coughing, hacking husband at the wheel and two little boys strapped in their car seats in the back, I must have checked my sanity at the front door on the way out of town.
Riding in the car is always an adventure, but as of late, they boys have taken to hating road trips. Even if the destination is one of Daddy’s ballgames, the first thing they’ve learned to ask is inevitably, “Is it a long ways?”
We know better than to stretch the truth. We’ll pay for it during the ride. We just tell them where we’re going and how much fun it will be when we get there and maybe throw in a promise of an extra game of catch or a piece of chocolate candy if they agree to go willingly.
We had just taken them to see a RedHawks game in Bricktown last Friday, to which they adamantly approved, so when Dad told them we were going to another big ballpark, reluctantly, they agreed to go the distance.
The trip began without incident as the boys played “I spy” for the better part of 20 miles. Cooper reminisced with his dad about the good ole days (last week) and the million and one games of backyard baseball they’ve played this summer. “Daddy, remember when we were playing baseball and you hit me right in the belly?” he asked. Dad smiled, but had a come backer of his own. “Remember when you were the hitter and you hit the ball right at me?” They both just laughed.
Amazingly, we made it all the way to the second Weatherford exit before Brisco announced, “I’m hungry! Let’s go by and get a hamburger!” I, of course, needed a bathroom break about Burns Flat, but I didn’t dare share that with our man-on-a-mission driver. We were both forced to hang on for a few more miles.
I passed the time thumbing through the 247 satellite radio stations, trying to ignore the rain pounding on the windshield. Brisco began talking to himself. “I need more gum. Gum, gum, gum. Gum, gum, gum. Gum, gum, gum, gum. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.”
I decided a distraction was what we both needed. I introduced the boys to the “Copacabana“, the 80’s girl-band Bananarama, and a host of other do or die music greats from the past in an effort to pass the time. It didn’t seem to be working. Before I knew it, we were enduring a musical interlude from our very own back seat. Our two well-mannered boys had created their own version of what I’m sure kids of some generation may someday call music. I called it the “nose flute”. Randy called it the “booger bugle”. Either way you look at it, our kids are no Brooks and Dunn.
We unwillingly played “I smell something” and rolled the windows down on the Interstate going 70 (ish) in the rain, just to suck in one breath of clean, fresh air.
Randy and I poked fun at one another’s musical preferences, as I enjoy a wide range of musical genres from rock and country to alternative and R & B, as well as the classic in all arenas. His preferences are a bit more narrow: hair bands and old country, with a soft spot for Elton John. But I’m working on him.
We bantered back and forth between Salt-N-Pepa and George Jones before I finally gave in and left it on a good ole Merle Haggard tune we could both agree on. I had work to do.
“When are we gettin’ to food?!” came a blast from the back seat. I explained to them how they could tell that we were getting close to a town. “Watch for the green signs.” This kept them busy for at least a mile.
Four hamburgers, two fries, six chicken nuggets, one missed exit and 29 “I need a drink(s)” later, we were on the turnpike and the boys had been convinced that if they’d close their eyes and take a nap, we’d be there when they woke up. Oh, and of course sleeping after a meal always helps to subdue the car sickness in our eldest.
We finally made it to Tulsa. It had been pouring most of the drive, so we just hoped that a rainout wasn’t in our immediate future. As it happened, the weather was mostly dry, the boys were well rested, and the concessions were almost affordable. It was a near-perfect day at the ball park, and we still had a whole two hours to kill before buckling back in for the drive home. Oh well, what’s another road trip?
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Riding in the car is always an adventure, but as of late, they boys have taken to hating road trips. Even if the destination is one of Daddy’s ballgames, the first thing they’ve learned to ask is inevitably, “Is it a long ways?”
We know better than to stretch the truth. We’ll pay for it during the ride. We just tell them where we’re going and how much fun it will be when we get there and maybe throw in a promise of an extra game of catch or a piece of chocolate candy if they agree to go willingly.
We had just taken them to see a RedHawks game in Bricktown last Friday, to which they adamantly approved, so when Dad told them we were going to another big ballpark, reluctantly, they agreed to go the distance.
The trip began without incident as the boys played “I spy” for the better part of 20 miles. Cooper reminisced with his dad about the good ole days (last week) and the million and one games of backyard baseball they’ve played this summer. “Daddy, remember when we were playing baseball and you hit me right in the belly?” he asked. Dad smiled, but had a come backer of his own. “Remember when you were the hitter and you hit the ball right at me?” They both just laughed.
Amazingly, we made it all the way to the second Weatherford exit before Brisco announced, “I’m hungry! Let’s go by and get a hamburger!” I, of course, needed a bathroom break about Burns Flat, but I didn’t dare share that with our man-on-a-mission driver. We were both forced to hang on for a few more miles.
I passed the time thumbing through the 247 satellite radio stations, trying to ignore the rain pounding on the windshield. Brisco began talking to himself. “I need more gum. Gum, gum, gum. Gum, gum, gum. Gum, gum, gum, gum. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.”
I decided a distraction was what we both needed. I introduced the boys to the “Copacabana“, the 80’s girl-band Bananarama, and a host of other do or die music greats from the past in an effort to pass the time. It didn’t seem to be working. Before I knew it, we were enduring a musical interlude from our very own back seat. Our two well-mannered boys had created their own version of what I’m sure kids of some generation may someday call music. I called it the “nose flute”. Randy called it the “booger bugle”. Either way you look at it, our kids are no Brooks and Dunn.
We unwillingly played “I smell something” and rolled the windows down on the Interstate going 70 (ish) in the rain, just to suck in one breath of clean, fresh air.
Randy and I poked fun at one another’s musical preferences, as I enjoy a wide range of musical genres from rock and country to alternative and R & B, as well as the classic in all arenas. His preferences are a bit more narrow: hair bands and old country, with a soft spot for Elton John. But I’m working on him.
We bantered back and forth between Salt-N-Pepa and George Jones before I finally gave in and left it on a good ole Merle Haggard tune we could both agree on. I had work to do.
“When are we gettin’ to food?!” came a blast from the back seat. I explained to them how they could tell that we were getting close to a town. “Watch for the green signs.” This kept them busy for at least a mile.
Four hamburgers, two fries, six chicken nuggets, one missed exit and 29 “I need a drink(s)” later, we were on the turnpike and the boys had been convinced that if they’d close their eyes and take a nap, we’d be there when they woke up. Oh, and of course sleeping after a meal always helps to subdue the car sickness in our eldest.
We finally made it to Tulsa. It had been pouring most of the drive, so we just hoped that a rainout wasn’t in our immediate future. As it happened, the weather was mostly dry, the boys were well rested, and the concessions were almost affordable. It was a near-perfect day at the ball park, and we still had a whole two hours to kill before buckling back in for the drive home. Oh well, what’s another road trip?
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Destination: Paradise
As we rode in the back of the Aerostar Minivan/taxicab, I felt the driver ripping through the empty streets of the Dallas suburb as if working to qualify for pole position. This formula one racer turned family truckster turned on-the-spot cabby could have been the next big up and comer on the NASCAR circuit. At least that’s what the two cups of coffee in my otherwise empty stomach in her backseat at 4 a.m. was telling me. But I just held on tight and thought to myself, “Stay calm. A few more miles and you’ll be on a plane headed for the islands. Destination: Paradise.”
But as we unloaded at the airport, I had no idea how many others would be en route to their own versions of paradise, until I saw the line stacked in triplicate all the way from baggage check-in to the doors leading to the street. Not to worry. I had e-tickets. And that little kiosk was calling my name.
I stepped to the automated check-in machine, an ATM for boarding passes, and put in all the required information, from our birthdates to our shoe size to the color of our underwear, and awaited my two tickets to paradise. Instead, the red, flashing police light that sits above the machine came on, and my do-this-the-easy-way check-in screen read: “You must see an agent.” This can’t be good.
“Don’t panic,” I told myself. In a few short hours I’ll be lying on the beach of the beautiful St. Thomas island-my sea sick hubby on one side and the crashing of the waves on the other-kids safely at home with grandparents. I can handle this airport agent. At which time I was promptly directed to the aforementioned baggage check-in line to my left.
It seems traveling at 6 a.m. on a Friday morning doesn’t do much to reduce the traffic at DFW. In addition to our two measly economy seats were seats for six generations of Lucy and Ricky, an irritable fellow with the demeanor of Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker combined (and who had evidently been in the airport since 8a.m. the day before), and an entire high school soccer team, just to name a few. We were definitely not lacking for entertainment. Especially after the airline agent began spreading the word to the dozens of awaiting passengers that we would more than likely miss our flight.
As we finally reached the front of the line, a gentleman called us to his counter and asked for identification. He began typing on the keyboard in front of him, asking a few random questions along the way. I assumed things were good, until he called over a supervisor. The supervisor began typing on the keypad, and the two men were talking softly over one another’s shoulders. After what seemed like an excessive amount of typing from both men, I mustered my courage. “Is something wrong?” And like a scene out of a Ben Stiller movie, the guy just kept typing.
Finally, without even looking up from his screen, he said, “The problem is, the two of you are on the ‘No Fly’ list. Without even thinking, I cackled, “You’re kidding, right?” Lesson #1: Airport agents do not “kid”. Especially concerning characters as threatening to our national security as a high school baseball coach and a stay at home mom.
After a few more uncomfortable moments and what seemed like enough typing to pass half the state of Texas through baggage check, the agent informed us that we needed to be at terminal C26 now if we were going to make our flight. “And oh yes, by the way, it is too late to get your luggage on board.” And I thought raising kids was stressful.
As it turned out, we did make our flight, our luggage was in St. Thomas waiting on us, and our week of rest and relaxation was finally underway. The beauty and serenity of the water and the island were almost enough to make me feel guilty for leaving the boys at home. But I’m a firm believer that a battery will only last so long on a single charge, and it had been a long time since this drum-beating bunny had been given a rest.
While I refused to let myself think too long and hard about what the boys might be doing at home, it’s probably no coincidence that we got home with an insane number of photos of iguanas and pelicans and 747’s.
It comes as no surprise either, that after riding shot gun behind my daredevil of a husband on a jet ski going 60 mph in the over-sized waves of the windy Caribbean, I was forced to think at length about the future and welfare of my children (as my entire life flashed before my eyes).
It’s no joke that by the fourth or fifth day, we were both talking about how much this one would have loved the waterfall and how that one would have gone crazy over free vanilla ice cream any hour of the day.
It felt quite normal that almost every conversation we had with other couples along the way was about “my eight year old Tyler” or “my 25 year old in grad school” or “our three and four year old boys”.
No doubt, beaches are beautiful and vacations are vital, but our children are the real joy of our lives. It’s true that no matter where we travel or how far the journey, a piece of us remains a parent. It’s an inescapable role in which we revel and relish, even when we’re determined to retreat.
In the end, after seven relaxing days of sailing, snorkeling, sun baking and dining at sea, I know what I really knew all along: no matter how wonderful or well-deserved or exotic the location, coming home to our boys is my favorite destination.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
But as we unloaded at the airport, I had no idea how many others would be en route to their own versions of paradise, until I saw the line stacked in triplicate all the way from baggage check-in to the doors leading to the street. Not to worry. I had e-tickets. And that little kiosk was calling my name.
I stepped to the automated check-in machine, an ATM for boarding passes, and put in all the required information, from our birthdates to our shoe size to the color of our underwear, and awaited my two tickets to paradise. Instead, the red, flashing police light that sits above the machine came on, and my do-this-the-easy-way check-in screen read: “You must see an agent.” This can’t be good.
“Don’t panic,” I told myself. In a few short hours I’ll be lying on the beach of the beautiful St. Thomas island-my sea sick hubby on one side and the crashing of the waves on the other-kids safely at home with grandparents. I can handle this airport agent. At which time I was promptly directed to the aforementioned baggage check-in line to my left.
It seems traveling at 6 a.m. on a Friday morning doesn’t do much to reduce the traffic at DFW. In addition to our two measly economy seats were seats for six generations of Lucy and Ricky, an irritable fellow with the demeanor of Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker combined (and who had evidently been in the airport since 8a.m. the day before), and an entire high school soccer team, just to name a few. We were definitely not lacking for entertainment. Especially after the airline agent began spreading the word to the dozens of awaiting passengers that we would more than likely miss our flight.
As we finally reached the front of the line, a gentleman called us to his counter and asked for identification. He began typing on the keyboard in front of him, asking a few random questions along the way. I assumed things were good, until he called over a supervisor. The supervisor began typing on the keypad, and the two men were talking softly over one another’s shoulders. After what seemed like an excessive amount of typing from both men, I mustered my courage. “Is something wrong?” And like a scene out of a Ben Stiller movie, the guy just kept typing.
Finally, without even looking up from his screen, he said, “The problem is, the two of you are on the ‘No Fly’ list. Without even thinking, I cackled, “You’re kidding, right?” Lesson #1: Airport agents do not “kid”. Especially concerning characters as threatening to our national security as a high school baseball coach and a stay at home mom.
After a few more uncomfortable moments and what seemed like enough typing to pass half the state of Texas through baggage check, the agent informed us that we needed to be at terminal C26 now if we were going to make our flight. “And oh yes, by the way, it is too late to get your luggage on board.” And I thought raising kids was stressful.
As it turned out, we did make our flight, our luggage was in St. Thomas waiting on us, and our week of rest and relaxation was finally underway. The beauty and serenity of the water and the island were almost enough to make me feel guilty for leaving the boys at home. But I’m a firm believer that a battery will only last so long on a single charge, and it had been a long time since this drum-beating bunny had been given a rest.
While I refused to let myself think too long and hard about what the boys might be doing at home, it’s probably no coincidence that we got home with an insane number of photos of iguanas and pelicans and 747’s.
It comes as no surprise either, that after riding shot gun behind my daredevil of a husband on a jet ski going 60 mph in the over-sized waves of the windy Caribbean, I was forced to think at length about the future and welfare of my children (as my entire life flashed before my eyes).
It’s no joke that by the fourth or fifth day, we were both talking about how much this one would have loved the waterfall and how that one would have gone crazy over free vanilla ice cream any hour of the day.
It felt quite normal that almost every conversation we had with other couples along the way was about “my eight year old Tyler” or “my 25 year old in grad school” or “our three and four year old boys”.
No doubt, beaches are beautiful and vacations are vital, but our children are the real joy of our lives. It’s true that no matter where we travel or how far the journey, a piece of us remains a parent. It’s an inescapable role in which we revel and relish, even when we’re determined to retreat.
In the end, after seven relaxing days of sailing, snorkeling, sun baking and dining at sea, I know what I really knew all along: no matter how wonderful or well-deserved or exotic the location, coming home to our boys is my favorite destination.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
The Mom’s List
In case you have yet to notice, we are living in a world of lists. Open any year-end edition of any pop culture magazine or click on most any website on the Internet and you’ll find some kind of helpful-or completely useless-list to peruse. “10 Most Evil Disney Villains” “10 Failed McDonald’s Products” Or my personal favorite, “10 Survival Tips for People in Horror Flicks”.
It has become a money making industry, it seems, for folks to formulate their own “Top”. From Top Model to Top Chef to the literally dozens of lists compiled by ESPN’s Top Whatever-Sport-Happens-To-Be-In-Season. We can check out American Top 40 every hour of the day, thanks to satellite radio. Forbes is spending money to tell us the top 100 Celebrities making money, and they’ll even throw in the top earning dead celebrities if we’re willing to move our mouse.
We can find lists to teach us how to “talk text” with our teen. Lists to learn how to help our kids stop stuttering, and still others to tell us when we should be talking to our kids at all! But with this overload of useless listing that is pervading our web space, I’m yet to find a list that’s truly informative for the complicated, every-day tasks of parenting. So I decided to write my own.
I came to the decision to make The Mom’s List after an apparent lapse in judgment that occurred several months ago. Evidently, I decided it would be a good idea to take the boys to the skating rink. I suppose I thought it would be a fun, new experience for them. After all, I used to be a fairly decent roller skater. Surely I could handle them just fine.
But what I found after just a few short moments of adding wheels to the bottom of our shoes (which should have been my first clue) was that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Maybe in life, there are certain things that we just shouldn’t do alone: Walking down a dark alley. Climbing Mt. Everest. Tandem skydiving. These seem so obvious, even to the faintly blond. But after our roller rink incident, I decided that maybe this mom needed a list. A list of the every day activities that any sane of mind parent might consider, but really should consider twice before tackling alone. Thus, “The Mom’s List” was born.
“The Mom’s List: Installment One”
Top five things a parent should never do alone
5. Take children roller skating
I’d say that’s been covered.
4. Take kids to the beach
First, we must clarify that the beach for us is the North Shore of Lake Altus-Lugert. Not so “beachy” as beaches go. But for a three and four year old, it does the trick. Let’s just say that if one were considering this as a fun outing, she might first realize that the journey from the car to the water is no day at the spa. From hot sand to red ants to “scratchy trees” and blowing cottonwood, getting to the beach itself with floaties, towels, children and treats is nothing short of a miracle. Having the energy to blow up the floaties, keep the sand off the Cheetos and explaining that we don’t pee where we eat is altogether another realm of the supernatural. Taking the kids to the beach: definitely a two-man job.
3. Promise to give them a spanking
This, I must clarify. In our house, we spank. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” and all that jazz. We take it to heart. But when the kids have no qualms about telling you that “your spankings don’t hurt”, the game plan, it seems, must change. I suddenly felt all alone in this spanking endeavor. My threats were idle. My spankings were wasted. My hand was sore. So, I decided I’d climb on board with the “Just wait till your Daddy get’s home” bit. But that didn’t quite seem fair to Dad, and let’s face it, I’m not quite ready to give over all my power just yet. So my best advice on giving spankings is this: Never give spankings alone. Always have with you your closest and most convincing friend, Dad’s leather belt.
2. Give them haircuts at home
Since the time of his youth, my husband has had haircuts at home. So when we got married, I just started giving him haircuts (and I use the term loosely). When the kids came, it just seemed logical that they too, would receive their haircuts at home. It probably needs mentioning here that I am in no way, shape or form a beautician. I have a comb and a pair of scissors. That’s it. So a haircut from Mom could take anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours. And that’s the truth. As you can imagine, “Sit still-Stop moving-Look straight ahead” are only a few of the phrases that I might utter in my distress. That is why haircut at home, at least at our home, should only be given if Dad is there too. He’ll sit and “take a haircut” so patiently that the boys are both begging to be next in line. There is of course one exception to this rule. If Dad is unavailable, the use of a straight jacket and a neck brace would probably suffice.
1. And the number one thing a parent should never do alone…(drum roll, please)…
Undertake the task of raising kids
I have found in my short span as a parent, that there are times when we just shouldn’t go it alone. Whether it’s my own kids’ Dad or someone else’s dad, a grandparent, a friend or a perfect stranger, sometimes a mom just needs an extra hand. From the helpful emails and notes of encouragement to the offers of trips to the park and kickball in the yard, when all a mom needs is 10 quiet minutes to clear her mind or a couple of hours to type her piece, those are the times when the kindness of others can make or break this job of being a mom.
And there you have it. The first official Top Five on “The Mom’s List“. After all, if “Craig” can do it…
And that’s All in a day’s work!
It has become a money making industry, it seems, for folks to formulate their own “Top”. From Top Model to Top Chef to the literally dozens of lists compiled by ESPN’s Top Whatever-Sport-Happens-To-Be-In-Season. We can check out American Top 40 every hour of the day, thanks to satellite radio. Forbes is spending money to tell us the top 100 Celebrities making money, and they’ll even throw in the top earning dead celebrities if we’re willing to move our mouse.
We can find lists to teach us how to “talk text” with our teen. Lists to learn how to help our kids stop stuttering, and still others to tell us when we should be talking to our kids at all! But with this overload of useless listing that is pervading our web space, I’m yet to find a list that’s truly informative for the complicated, every-day tasks of parenting. So I decided to write my own.
I came to the decision to make The Mom’s List after an apparent lapse in judgment that occurred several months ago. Evidently, I decided it would be a good idea to take the boys to the skating rink. I suppose I thought it would be a fun, new experience for them. After all, I used to be a fairly decent roller skater. Surely I could handle them just fine.
But what I found after just a few short moments of adding wheels to the bottom of our shoes (which should have been my first clue) was that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Maybe in life, there are certain things that we just shouldn’t do alone: Walking down a dark alley. Climbing Mt. Everest. Tandem skydiving. These seem so obvious, even to the faintly blond. But after our roller rink incident, I decided that maybe this mom needed a list. A list of the every day activities that any sane of mind parent might consider, but really should consider twice before tackling alone. Thus, “The Mom’s List” was born.
“The Mom’s List: Installment One”
Top five things a parent should never do alone
5. Take children roller skating
I’d say that’s been covered.
4. Take kids to the beach
First, we must clarify that the beach for us is the North Shore of Lake Altus-Lugert. Not so “beachy” as beaches go. But for a three and four year old, it does the trick. Let’s just say that if one were considering this as a fun outing, she might first realize that the journey from the car to the water is no day at the spa. From hot sand to red ants to “scratchy trees” and blowing cottonwood, getting to the beach itself with floaties, towels, children and treats is nothing short of a miracle. Having the energy to blow up the floaties, keep the sand off the Cheetos and explaining that we don’t pee where we eat is altogether another realm of the supernatural. Taking the kids to the beach: definitely a two-man job.
3. Promise to give them a spanking
This, I must clarify. In our house, we spank. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” and all that jazz. We take it to heart. But when the kids have no qualms about telling you that “your spankings don’t hurt”, the game plan, it seems, must change. I suddenly felt all alone in this spanking endeavor. My threats were idle. My spankings were wasted. My hand was sore. So, I decided I’d climb on board with the “Just wait till your Daddy get’s home” bit. But that didn’t quite seem fair to Dad, and let’s face it, I’m not quite ready to give over all my power just yet. So my best advice on giving spankings is this: Never give spankings alone. Always have with you your closest and most convincing friend, Dad’s leather belt.
2. Give them haircuts at home
Since the time of his youth, my husband has had haircuts at home. So when we got married, I just started giving him haircuts (and I use the term loosely). When the kids came, it just seemed logical that they too, would receive their haircuts at home. It probably needs mentioning here that I am in no way, shape or form a beautician. I have a comb and a pair of scissors. That’s it. So a haircut from Mom could take anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours. And that’s the truth. As you can imagine, “Sit still-Stop moving-Look straight ahead” are only a few of the phrases that I might utter in my distress. That is why haircut at home, at least at our home, should only be given if Dad is there too. He’ll sit and “take a haircut” so patiently that the boys are both begging to be next in line. There is of course one exception to this rule. If Dad is unavailable, the use of a straight jacket and a neck brace would probably suffice.
1. And the number one thing a parent should never do alone…(drum roll, please)…
Undertake the task of raising kids
I have found in my short span as a parent, that there are times when we just shouldn’t go it alone. Whether it’s my own kids’ Dad or someone else’s dad, a grandparent, a friend or a perfect stranger, sometimes a mom just needs an extra hand. From the helpful emails and notes of encouragement to the offers of trips to the park and kickball in the yard, when all a mom needs is 10 quiet minutes to clear her mind or a couple of hours to type her piece, those are the times when the kindness of others can make or break this job of being a mom.
And there you have it. The first official Top Five on “The Mom’s List“. After all, if “Craig” can do it…
And that’s All in a day’s work!
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