One day, lad, all this minivan will be yours

NOTE: After my unearthing of last week's piece about the Minivan of Manliness, I remembered that I had written another piece about it in 2017 for the fish wrapper that eventually let me go this past December. This one is about Excitable being, well, excited, about inheriting my ride when he started learning to drive. More on that after the story:

My son asked if we could give one of his high school teammates a ride home, so I hit the button to slide open the passenger-side rear door to the minivan. As the two of them climbed in, Excitable told his friend with what I knew to be more of his own brand of goofy pride than sarcasm, “Dude, this here is gonna be my whip.”

Don’t look it up; I already did.

Catch as a Catcher Can

Spring training came early for my little baseball player.

By “early,” I mean a few days before Halloween when he started a two-month clinic at a local sports academy. Not sure what I mean by “little.” Excitable is nearly 5-foot-6 and has mistakenly played in my Size 11 cleats before.

He’s following my footsteps in another way. He’s going to be a Little League catcher.

Signs of the Mayan Apocalypse

It saddens me to announce that this will most likely be my last post.

It saddens me further to know that my long-awaited GoogleAds check will never arrive. I’d love to blow all three-digits of that baby on one last CornNuts and malt liquor bender while the hellfire and brimstone rain down.

Those of you grappling with strangers at Target for the last Furby may have forgotten that come tomorrow, Friday, Dec. 21, all life ceases. This doom and gloom arrives courtesy of the Mayan civilization, which is legendary for its contributions to language, math and culture, specifically Southern Culture on the Skids' instrumental, "Make Mayan a Hawaiian."

I usually ignore Judgment Day predictions, but the signs of the Mayan Apocalypse have become increasingly apparent.

My Son, The Biologist

With the sky thick with snow-spewing clouds and the icy layers building upon the satellite dish, our weekly family TV ritual was called on account of premature winter. The Uncools scattered to their separate rooms and separate personal electronic devices because we had enough weather-related togetherness last week to hold us through the spring. The spring of 2015.

The exception was Excitable. He punched remote buttons for the Flatscreen of Awesomeness and maneuvered the drop-down menus to dip into the raging stream of online videos. He called up one of my favorites, Mythbusters, which he also enjoys even if it not for all the same comely, red-headed nerdy reasons as his old man. But the rest will come soon enough.

Together we sat and laughed and learned with Adam and Jamie as they explored the scientific truths behind legends such as “Can a penny thrown off the top of The Empire State building kill a pedestrian on the sidewalk?” and “Could a person be buried alive and live?”

Then came the episodes on “cola myths.”

My Son, The ‘Play Boy’

I’m sending the sheared crusts of Excitable’s peanut-butter-on-sourdough sandwich swirling down the disposal when the boy himself bounds into the kitchen. He speaks with an uncharacteristic early-morning verve as I tie the handles of the plastic bag bearing his name, underlined and in bold black letters.

“At camp yesterday, we were playing card games and a boy named RJ brought out a deck from Canada,” he says, “and on each one …”

“Is the word, ‘Eh?’”

“No!” his enthusiasm undampened by my interruption. “On each card was a bikini model!”

“Oh.”

“Yeah! But then the counselor took them away. After that, the game just wasn’t the same.”

Oy.

A Very Saxy Interlude

When it came time for Excitable to select an instrument to learn at school this year, his initially mentioned an interest in the flute.

This would have been awesome if he had previously shown any interest in my dusty stack of Jetho Tull vinyl in the corner of our basement, or at least in this key scene in one of my all-time favorite movies:

Truth be told, his only interest came from knowing his sister had played flute in elementary school and that she might be able to help him fake his way through it.

Well, as long as it wasn’t the screech of the violin, I could live with it. However, I thought I’d drop one sly hint on someone else’s behalf.

“Your mom,” I said, “would LOVE it if you tried to learn the saxophone.”

It’s in His Jeans

My son, Excitable, may be a hit with the ladies for his dance moves, but eventually his allergy to showering will overpower their love of his inner Deney Terrio.

Then there’s his clothes.

I love the boy because, among a myriad of other reasons, unlike his sister he is not constantly begging me to take him shopping. He tends to wear clothes until they are tattered and holey. Then he continues to wear them tattered and holey.

I keep expecting calls from his school like this:

Tips for the Boy Appreciated

Excitable, formerly known as Thing 2 to you old-school “Uncool” types, hits double digits in a month.

The big 1-0.

Dear Lord, I’m frickin’ OLD!

But this is not about me. It’s about him.

On his 6th birthday, I offered him a mess of life lessons on this blog. Hence, four years later, I’m tapped out. Drained. Spent. Pffffffft.

Here and at DadCentric yesterday, I asked readers to give my boy some advice for his 10th year on Earth and (cue cavernous echo effect) BEEEEE-YOOOOOoooond.

So pass on your words of wisdom to the boy in the comments. He probably won’t heed them, but he doesn’t listen much to me either these days.

Go on. I dares ya!

+ + +

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My Son, The Dancing Machine

Our city’s afterschool program holds a year-end event to celebrate the children, raise funds and give thanks for another 9 months without one of its supervisors being carted off in a straight jacket. This is good.

Unfortunately, there is also a “show.”

The kids in each elementary school’s program put on a skit. Some years the skits relate to a theme like cultural diversity, saving the environment or the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (we have lots of corporate financiers in these here parts). The subject doesn’t really matter because the show usually takes place in an auditorium as cavernous as Sarah Palin’s brain cavity. In addition, the auditorium features minimal on-stage sound amplification and an audience consisting of a horde of baby brothers and sisters screaming for Sippy Cups while their parents whisper loudly to one another, "What are they saying up there?”

This year’s show was just as inscrutable, especially the section featuring the Things. We believe it had something to do with fire prevention and MC Hammer.

The highlight of this incoherentness was our son, Thing 2, shaking his booty like his 9-year-old life depended on it. Let’s go to the videotape:

Apparently, the boy is born to boogie. While emptying his backpack one night, My Love and I found a “birthday book” his classmates had put together for him. These are just four of the comments:

 

NOTE: These are all from girls. Uncool’s son has got it goin’ on!

Then there was the report card conference I had with his teacher. The boy is an excellent student, good classmate and “quite the dancer,” she said. “And he’s so serious about it.”

When asked about his passion for the disco floor, Thing 2 declined comment for this post. Instead, he thought he’d just show you:

(Sorry. YouTube won’t let me embed the video because it uses a licensed song, so go to http://youtu.be/HBpVmdtCjxA to view it.)

Just Desserts

Every Wednesday night at 8 o’clock, the Uncool Family huddles together in front of our wondrous 46-inch flatscreen to watch our favorite family show, The Middle.

While My Love and I find most episodes of Modern Family to be gut-bustingly funny (especially the Valentine’s Day ones in which parents Phil and Claire attempt to rekindle the passion with some failed role playing … twice), it’s a little too adult for The Things. The chronicles of the chronically underachieving Hecks of Orson, Indiana; however, usually generates several good laughs without the need for me to explain the innuendos, double entendres and why Daddy drools every time Sofía Vergara bobbles by the camera.

(I also have a thing for Julie Bowen dating back to her character on NBC’s late, great bowling-alley-lawyer show, Ed, but she doesn’t cause the same involuntary reflexive in my salivary glands.)

(Or in my groin.)

The Middle, however, provides much simpler, cleaner teachable moments. For example:

We were laughing along at a repeat episode recently in which the mother, Frankie, throws out her back and is lying flat on the floor. There’s some battle of the sexes subplot going on so she can’t tell her husband she’s hurt herself and when he enters the room, she pretends she looking for a button.

The husband, Mike, announces that he just remembered that it’s their anniversary, so she should “throw on some heels” and he’ll take her to dinner.

“I’ll even let you order what you want and I will have something of equal or lesser value!” Then he adds slyly, “Maybe we’ll even head home for a little dessert.”

Frankie thinks (via voiceover) while squirming on the carpet in an attempt to hide her pain: Oh, God -- I hope he’s taking about ice cream.

Thing 2’s eyes widen.

The boy practically leaps off the couch and yells: “Maybe he’s taking about CAKE!!”

“No, son,” I reply, “I believe he’s talking about pie. Definitely,  pie.”

Thing 2 looks deflated and adds a simple, tongue extending: “Bleech!”

Someday his taste in sweets will change but, as I prove quite regularly, they never get any more sophisticated.

Pinch Hitter Lacks Power

A bit of the magic went out of Opening Day last week when we had to place Thing 1 on the disabled list.

She woke at 3 a.m., crying and moaning. Fever. Headache. Pain in the pee department and up into the plumbing.

It’s no fun having a urinary track infection as an adult, so I’m sure it was worse for an 11-year-old girl. But there are worse and more embarrassing reasons to go on the DL. Just ask former Mets flop Kaz Matsui, whose “injury” may or may not have given a double meaning to his being a switch hitter.

Not that there’s any thing wrong with that.

It was strange being at my first Opening Day without my baby girl in tow since 1999, but her little brother stepped up his game and was nearly perfect.

No complaining about the cold, damp weather.

No whining that he was bored or that he wanted to go home.

Shut off which ever of the 67 different Pokémon games he has for his Nintendo DS the first time I asked while we waited for lunch, then put it away and never brought it out again until the ride home many hours later after the game finished and we toured the gift shops and Mets Hall of Fame exhibit. (Yeah, yeah -- it was a pretty small  exhibit.)

As we sat watching the rather lackluster play of the Mets, he listened politely as I prattled on about the no-doubles infield defense and seemed genuinely interested as I demonstrated how to make a rally cap when his team stood four runs down in the ninth.

“Dude, we need more than rally caps,” I said to him as our home team batters continued to flail meekly at the Washington Nationals’ pitches. “You need to conjure up all the special Pokémon powers you can to make the Mets score some runs and get them a victory!”

“Dad,” he said back without missing a beat, “I don’t think there’s ANY power for that.”

Keep on Monster Truckin’

With gasoline prices nearing record highs and Friday night rush-hour traffic clogging all major arteries north, Thing 2 and I did what any other red-blooded, freedom-loving American father and son would do.

We hopped in the Minivan of Manliness and headed to our first-ever monster truck rally.

Thirty miles and 57 minutes later we reached (Insert Name for this Month) Bank Arena for the Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam, "the world's premier monster truck series." This last part is important, I suppose, because you only want top of the line when it comes to overgrown pickups with wheels as big as restaurant Dumpsters crushing junker cars and spinning doughnuts that spray yards of dirt into the hooting and howling masses.

Those masses, as it turned out, were not dressed in the flannel or camouflage that several of my Tweeple had told me I would be required to don to gain entrance. (Didn’t even need to show proof of Skoal.) Instead, the crowd looked much like 9-year-old Thing 2 and myself -- families from the Gold Coast suburbs looking for a few hours of escape. (By the way, the fashion de rigueur proved to be earplugs or industrial-sized ear muffs to counter the roars of multiple 1,500-horsepower engines. Having already lost sufficient hearing from my teenage years of mowing neighborhood lawns with a Walkman on high, I went au natural.)

We settled into our $20 seats and steeped in an atmosphere of equal parts anticipation and methanol exhaust. Only a few weeks before we sat here for a Sound Tigers minor league hockey game but now, instead of ice, a pudding-thick dirt covered the arena floor. A 15-foot-high mound of it fashioned into a ramp formed the centerpiece and, given the 5-0 shellacking the Sound Tigers took that night we saw them, we could only hope the team's skates and sticks lay buried under it.

It’s a hockey arena!

The evening started with a wheelie competition. Doesn't sound exciting, but your perspective changes when the second competitor - a truck fashioned to look like a crook horned bull called "El Toro Loco" (but pronounced in an Oprah-giving-away-cars voice as "El TOR-rooo LoooC-COOOOOO") - gets stuck sitting on its hind wheels atop two half-buried banana yellow Cadillacs.

No! It’s a dirt track! It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

Thing 2 burst into a belly laugh so big and full that I thought his recently consumed nacho cheese sauce would spurt from his nostrils. The sound reminded me of Snoopy's gut busting guffaws in the old "Peanuts" television specials. Kids don't make that sound while playing Wii or DS. Thank God! That would really disturb my beer enjoyment.

I came pretty close to echoing that laugh myself when the cherry picker trying to push El TOR-rooo LoooC-COOOOOO back onto its tires caused the truck to tip backward and land upside down. No one was hurt, though the truck ended up having to perform one horn down the rest of the night.

There were drag races among the trucks (my fave being a lobster-shaped one called "Crushstation"), races between teams of ATV's, and some pretty amazing motorcycle stunt jumps with back flips and trick stances. However, the main reason we came was to finally see in action our old friend Grave Digger, the red-headlighted black, purple and neon green mack daddy of monster trucks.

While this was our first rally, I had seen Grave Digger for years while driving past its home base on the Caratoke Highway in North Carolina en route to an annual trip to the Outer Banks. The past few years, our son had convinced us to stop there so he could tour "Digger's Dungeon," climb through the massive rigs and even take a $5 ride on a more humble, but still humungous vehicle.

(NOTE: I’ve never been allowed to ride the semi-monster truck. My Love always goes with the Things, I think, to prevent me from being tempted into a lifestyle she detests.)

Digger didn't disappoint. The last truck to perform in the night's freestyle competition, it snorted and jumped and spun around the arena, even seemingly defying physics and logic by leaping its 5-ton body off the massive center ramp, then landing with a rubbery bounce and dirt-spewing pirouette on its highly suspended frame to a standing ovation.

Well, at least one from this father and his son.

My Son, The Literal-Minded Math Genius

When it comes to telling me about her day at school, Thing 1 stays fairly tight-lipped because, as dictated by Angst and the Art of Pre-Teen Disgruntlement, that’s the proven way to produce a grunting sound most appropriate to respond to any inquiries by a parental unit.

Still, the unsolicited information spilling forth from her the other day did not put me into immediate Code Blue cardiac arrest. That’s because it involved tattling on her little brother.

“Thing 2 one came into my classroom today,” she said between handfuls of lime-flavored tortilla chips. “His teacher had to come get him out. He started crying. Is he in trouble? You should punish him. Now. Chop chop.”

In the basement, Thing 2 lay sprawled on the couch, thumbs spastically waging another violent Pokémon overthrow on his Nintendo DS.

“So, Thing 2, son,” I said as I tried not to inhale the stench rising from the dirt-encrusted shreddings masquerading as his socks. “What were you doing over in your sister’s classroom today.”

“We were doing math and I got all the answers right, so Ms. Kowalsky said I was so smart I should skip the next grade and go right to fourth.”

“And that’s what you did. You walked out of your second grade class and went down the hall to Thing 1’s class.”

“Yeeeees,” he said over the beeps, blips and electronic death wails.

This was a serious step up. During our parent-teacher conference in March, his teacher told me she usually only told him to “get out of here and go right to third grade.”

Which, of course, he also would do.

“You know, dude, she’s kidding you, right? It’s a joke.”

“No. It’s NOT!” He lowered the DS and made … eye contact.

“Yes, it is. C’mon, why would you want to skip all the way up to fourth grade aside from the fact you’d finally be among kids closer to your own gargantuan height.”

“Because I already know everything,” he said before setting his jaw and roaring with a steam engine’s force of conviction, “and I WANT TO MOVE ON WITH MY LIFE!”

Son, my, son. So big of body, big of brain and short of patience. Some day, you’ll want to reverse all the clocks whose hands you have whirled forward with childish haste, but you won’t be able to.

If you’re lucky, though, you may be able to slow them down just a tick or two.

In the meantime, I hope what I can teach you about long division and complex fractions will do the trick.

My Son, The Fashionista

It dangled limply out from under his plaid pajama bottoms.

"Thing 2, what's that?"

"It's my Sock Band^TM. I have three. See?"

"Those are just groddy socks that you have worn the bottoms out of and shoved up your leg."

"Yeah. Sock Bands^TM. I invented them."

"And what purpose do they serve?"

"I dunno."

"How long have you been wearing those ripe babies?"

"Two weeks."

"To sleep?"

"Yep."

"To school?"

"Yep."

"You showed your classmates your Sock Bands^TM?"

"Yep."

"Do they all wear them now?"

"Nope. They don't know how to make them."

"Maybe you need to incorporate and go into business selling them."

"Hmm. Maybe."

"It's tough being an fashion innovator, let alone the stud of the second grade, huh?"

"What's a 'stud'?"

"One lucky bast--, er, boy."

"Yeah. That's me."

"Rock on, son."

"OK, Pops."

+ + +

Have you entered to win a year's supply of Hillshire Farm meat products from "Always Home and Uncool" yet?  All you have do is go to this post and leave a comment.

My Son, The Playa

The phone rings with a subliminal tone begging me to answer it instead of letting it go to the machine as usual. It’s Thing 2’s teacher.

“I need to talk to you about an incident that happened at lunch today.”

The first warning sign came in the autumn under a canopy of decaying leaves and bitterly cold drizzle. Thing 2’s class came to tour the local arboretum. I played chaperone while they learned about the circle of life in the vegetative world.

Instead I witnessed the embryos of birds and bees.

Thing 2 was holding hands with a girl.

Well, it was really more the other way around. I saw her make the grab, and she saw me see it, giving me a coy smile before she turned away.

She was his assigned “buddy” for the day. Maggie. A stick with a blonde ponytail. She had been giving him the googly eyes since that first day she joined his class, mid-semester, last year. I know. I helped out in the classroom that day.

“The children were playing a game of spin of the bottle.”

A month or so later, while I helped sell pencils, erasers and things of far more plastic and far less essential nature at a school function, a teacher passed on a sighting of the second warning sign.

“Oh, your son is so cute. And with the girls! Thing 2 and Libby are always together on the playground. They are best friends.”

Libby? Who’s Libby?

“When I asked, Thing 2 quickly owned up that it was his idea and he was the one leading the game.”

Libby is a classmate. In February, while others were passing around glossy index-card Valentines from the drugstore that featured the latest hip cartoon character or superhero on them, Libby presented my son with this 9-by-12-inch homemade beauty:

“He said when the bottle landed on someone …”

“… you had to dare that person …”

“… to tell someone that he or she loved them.”

Huh?

That’s it?

“So,” I say into the receiver. “You’re saying that no spit was swapped?”

His teacher laughs.

“Yes, that’s correct. … Tomorrow at lunch, some of the assigned seats will be rearranged.”

* * *

Thing 2 clamors into the minivan that afternoon. He vibrates with the unharnessed energy of the nearly 8-year-old boy he is.

“Hey, buddy,” I say over my shoulder from the driver’s seat. “Anything interesting happen at school today.”

I catch his expression from the corner of my eye. No fear, no deception, just pre-adolescent exuberance. “Nope. Is it taco night?”

“Yep. Taco night.”

“Yeaaah! Taco-taco-TAAAAAAA-cooooo!”

* * *

Thing 2 sits at the counter and asks a question of no consequence.

“I don’t know,” I say, the corners of my mouth rising to devilish points. “Maybe will should spin a bottle for it?”

“OK,” he says. His expression and body language stays unchanged.

As opposed to My Love’s. She has been apprised of the phone call and her eyes speak to me in deafening volumes.

“Not now,” she pushes through gritted teeth that sharpens each letter before it hurtles toward me. Her head motions to big sister, Thing 1, snacking at the other end of the counter.

I duck, roll my eyes and mouth “I know” because I do know.

Geez. Let a dad have a little fun, woman.

A short while later, when big sister is miles away at dance class, My Love and I flip on the klieg lights. We don shades, fold arms, tilt heads all David Caruso like.

We confront. He confesses. Rubber hoses limp back to their lockers.

“Don’t sweat it,” I say. “Just understand that that game is not appropriate for school, OK? No biggie.”

But My Love, she wants more. She wants details. Nay, she wants …

Names.

“Who else was playing?”

They spill forward monosyllabically. I know most of them, if not by sight, by reputation. But of the girls in his list, conspicuous by their absence, are two.

Maggie.

And Libby.

* * *

The day after.

The sun creeps over the backyard tree line, bathing the kitchen counter in tangerine and lemon just to Thing 2’s left. He polishes off his bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch then hurries down to his laboratory.

He’s been cutting and pasting and taping off and on since Tuesday afternoon. He has a project of the highest importance on the second-grade Richter scale due this morning.

“Two’s still asleep!” falsely tattles Thing 1 when she arrives in the kitchen half an hour later.

“No, he’s not,” I say. “He was up before you and he’s downstairs putting the final touches on his lid. Today’s Crazy Hat Day at school.”

“Oh,” she says. “How was I to know?”

Minutes later, as I scrape the plates, from the basement, my son arises. This is what he looked like:

Amazing.

Overnight, my son has transformed from stud to pimp.

 

Technorati Tags: children,pimps,studs,playas,games

Why Today is a Snow Day

The automated messaging system called to let us know that schools would be closed today because of the impending blizzard.

That call came at 7 o’clock.

Last night.

The Things, however, decided not to take chances.

Right before bed they continued their long-standing “vague hint of a snowstorm” ritual involving poor fashion and kitchen utensils.

Thing 2’s teacher also didn’t want to take chances. Before she dismissed class yesterday afternoon, she gave them the following action list that if -- and only if  -- completed would ensure a thick, hearty snowfall overnight:

• Flush an ice cube down the toilet. Not a problem as long as my Tanqueray and tonic doesn’t accompany it on the journey.
• Wear your pajamas inside out and backwards to bed. Check. I’m generally good with anything that makes the little heathens actually wear PJs.
• Put a spoon under your pillow before going to sleep. Check. Uh, double check to make sure peanut butter is first wiped off the spoon.
• Sleep with your feet where your head should be and vice versa. Thankfully, My Love is in town so the kids won’t try to sleep in my bed with me. Thing 1’s feet can make an onion cry.

So if you are buried in the white stuff today, please blame my children. And our nation’s system of public education.

Then, use your non-shoveling time to read another snow-related essay of mine over on DadCentric called “Snow Brick Castles in the Air.”

First one there gets to use the neon green brick maker:

Technorati Tags: blizzard,winter storm,snow,snow day,winter,weather,my children control the universe

On the Wagon

If you walk away from this blog having learned only one thing about me, it should be this:

I’m far from a perfect father.

I mean, I’m not the worst dad out there.

Still.

I let the Things watch waaaay too much TV and play too many video games.

I’ve failed to convince them that a vegetable exists besides the occasional raw baby carrot that they should cozy up to at meal time.

And I yell.

Not to the point that my lungs cry "mercy,” mind you. I save that for game time with Thing 1’s soccer team.

Not so much that neighbors five houses away need to seek shelter indoors during warm weather and close all windows.

Enough, though. Sometimes at a volume that, while proved  to be handy at getting people’s attention for major announcements at parties, seminars and – at least once with the Things – a crowded subway station.

For a while, Thing 1 even joked that “Daddy needs anger management classes.” I replied that what Daddy really needed was two kids who listened to what he said and did what he asked when it was initially spoken at conversational levels.

The recipient of most of my vocal prowess tends to be Thing 2. He’s not a bad kid. Just a smartass, pain-in-the-tuchis at times.

Like father, like the nut falling near the tree. On its head.

One of his teachers told us years back that he was bound to be a lawyer because every less-than-agreeable request of him evolves into a bare-knuckled union negotiation session:

ME: Time to go to school. Go put on your pants.

THING 2: School is not for another 30 minutes. It only takes 10 minutes to walk there.

ME: I know, but it usually takes you 20 minutes and me repeating myself six times for you to do what needs to be done.

T2: No, it doesn’t.

ME: Stop it. Go put on your pants.

T2: Go where?

ME: Go upstairs and put some pants on. NOW!

T2: There are no pants up here!

ME: Where are you looking?

T2: In your room!

ME: Why are you looking in my room for your pants?

T2: You said ‘upstairs.’ You didn’t where upstairs.

ME: Look in your own room! I laid out a pair on your bed.

T2: There are no pants on my bed.

ME (grabbing the pair off his bed): What are these then?

T2: Those are jeans!

ME: Arrrgh! Jeans ARE pants!

T2: No, they’re not.

ME: Yes. They. ARE. They are a TYPE. Of. PANTS. Now put them on. … Take your pajamas off FIRST, doofus.

T2: But you didn’t say to take …

ME: YOU KNOW VERY WELL YOU HAVE TO TAKE OFF YOUR PAJAMAS FIRST! NOW FRICKIN’ GET YOUR FRICKIN’ PANTS/JEANS FRICKIN’ ON BEFORE I FRICKIN’ …

T2 (pulling up pants): Ha. You said you have to repeat yourself six times. You only said it fouuuur times.

If this was The Simpsons, it’d do the Homer “why you little …” and squeeze and rattle his neck until his eyes bulged out. Instead, like most good Northeast suburban white ex-Catholics, I just clench the anger away through my fists until it fills my insides, overflows and shoots out my mouth.

Like steam from a boiling kettle.

Like molten lava from a volcano.

Like the shock wave that follows a nuclear explosion.

Alas, this is who we are.

A couple weeks back, I went upstairs to kiss the boy good night as is our household ritual.

But Thing 2 didn’t want to look at me.

A few minutes before I had to use my rise-above-the-subway-rattle voice to stress the importance of nightly dental care over attacking another alien village on his Nintendo DS.

“You hurt me,” he said. His lips and eyes swelled with sorrow.

“Hurt you?” I half-laughed. “Where?”

He balled up his fingers. He placed the fist gently on his chest.

“In my heart.”

Then he rolled away from me.

So, friends, in 2010, I’m on the wagon.

The yelling wagon.

Because some days I truly suck at parenting.

But this year, not yet.

Why I Won't Sleep Much Halloween Night

"Hey, Dad! Wanna see my pictures from art class?"

"That's an scary looking jack-o-lantern, Thing 2. But, uh, what's with the red under the eyes and mouth?"

"That's blood! Oozing out!"

"Uh, awesome, buddy. What else ya got there? That's a big one."

"Yeah. I was the only one to do two pictures. Everyone else only did one. But I did TWO."

 

"Cool looking witch silhouette in front of the moon, dude."

"Yeah. Look down there ...

 

"... That's a tombstone by the house!"

"Nice touch, son... but, um, what's that over there? ...

 

"... Is that a scarecrow? With a chainsaw?"

"Yeah! He came to the life! He cut up the man in the house. That's who's under the tombstone!"

(blink)

(blink)

"So, uh ... wanna tear into the bag of AirHeads I bought for the trick-or-treaters?"

"YESSSSSSS!"

*

Happy Halloween. Be good to your trick-or-treaters. And your kids. Please.

Lost in Translation

When the Things were younger, we set the TVs in our house to display the closed captioning under the belief that this might help the runts learn to recognize words and spell while somewhat countering Zack and Cody's best efforts to turn their brains to mush.

I cannot verify this method actually works, given Thing 1's struggles with reading and what happened this past weekend with Thing 2.

My Love sat in the living room watching a movie and Thing 2, taking a break from his ambitious early compiling of his Christmas list (top item: "Everything Pokemon"), joined her. In one scene in the movie, the brother tries to teach his sister's boyfriend to how to say "thank you" in a foreign language.

"Oréa viziá," says the boyfriend to the brother's mom.

In a subtitle, up pops the English translation: "Nice boobs."

Thing 2 giggles.

Curious, My Love asked him what the words onscreen said.

"It said, 'Nice bobs."

Since the movie was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I can only assume Thing 2 took this to be a joke about shish kabobs.

New Low in Pediatric Dental Care

My kids are generally quite open and honest. This is good because they are incredibly inept at lying.

A prime example comes in the form of my son, the emotional pendulum known as Thing 2, when it comes to brushing his teeth.

If he has cleaned his crooked off-whites, it's all sweetness and chubby angelic cheeks and here, Daddio -- have a whiff of my minty Colgate breath. If he hasn't, he'll lie right to your face, providing your disembodied head is floating somewhere up near the ceiling because that is where is eyes roll up toward when he lets the bull fly.

"Let me smell your breath."

"Maahh! You don't believe me! Waaaaaaah!"

"If you brushed, then let me get a snootful of that fluoridey freshness."

"Meanie!"

"Dude, I felt the toothbrush and it's not wet. It's been three days since the bathroom was cleaned, yet the sink contains no globs of blue goo. And I marked the level of the anti-cavity rinse with a line on the bottle this morning and -- boo-yah -- it's unchanged."

"You HATE me!"

For a kid who has had four cavities fixed already at age 7, he's unusually stubborn about this.

He's also unusually oblivious. This is not the first time I've laid out how I compile all the evidence against him when he tries to fib his way out of brushing. Why doesn't he just run the brush under the water, put a dab of toothpaste on his tongue and a mess in the sink, and dump a little rinse out? I think it's because deep down, he's morally good and grounded.

And somewhat lazy.

What's a dad to do with a young 'un who refuses to practice good oral hygiene even though said young 'un maintains a diet based on all the major members of the -ose family: glucose, fructose, dextrose, etc?

I've tried reward charts, punishments, electric toothbrushes, musical toothbrushes, toothbrushes shaped like fire trucks, toothpastes featuring cartoon characters, toothpastes endorsed by TV stars -- you know, everything a good American would try except standing there and actually  watching him brush because that would make me a helicopter parent and he needs to learn responsibility.

And, I'm somewhat lazy.

After one recent argument with him over his failure to brush and greater failure to lie convincingly about his previous failure, I rhetorically asked:

"What do I have to do to get you to brush your teeth?"

Since rhetoric, like penmanship, is not part of the second grade curriculum in our town, Thing 2 answered plainly:

"Drop your pants."

So I did.

As graceful a 'half monty' as a desperate dad could muster. (Boxer-briefs, don't fail me now!)

And no sooner did the pants hit the floor then up the stairs he scurried, twisted the tap and began to brush.

Whoa.

Maybe I'm on to something here?

Next, I will attempt to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

For that, though, I may need an assistant.

And a wax job.