Twelve years ago this journey began. Our twin boys were six and I initially just wrote about the cute stuff they did. In fact, the name of this blog came to be because one day I heard them chanting “ihopeiwinatoaster; ihopeiwinatoaster” over and over in the basement. Time passed, I tried to go a little deeper, say important things. However, those cute boys are at university now and their stories are their own. So, what’s an old blogger to do? Well, I guess that’s what I am trying to find out.
If I followed this blog and saw this I would accuse me of making this one up, especially knowing my propensity toward fiction. I did not.
I have seen thousands of comics strips far less funny than this one. As God is my witness, I do not know how Z managed to spell catastrophe right, but he did. It's a couple guys throwing a little ball. I love how it takes four frames for the ball to make it from one dude to the other, talk about building the suspense. And then, bam right in the neck, which everyone knows can quickly remove one's head. "Ow," he says. Sort of nonchalant for a guy losing his head, I'd say.
"Plop," the classic sound of a severed head hitting the ground. Note that he is still smiling.
"Help." A statement, still smiling. I am not sure who that is who comes to the rescue, the head-replacer, I can only assume, I don't think it's the one who threw the ball. The head-replacer has a somewhat unforgettable hairdo.
And, everything is good in the end. It's far funnier than absolutely any Family Circus I have ever seen. (I just like to pick on Family Circus, arguably the worst comic ever.)
Again, I have to assure you that this is real and not made-up. I also hope you can see why I have to do this, sometimes it's just too damned easy.
From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'
Yes, I said the little one, these are the things I find in their little ring notebooks, the three below I literally picked up off the floor and, just before I wadded them up, in the interest of this blog, I took a look at them:
I blew it up pretty big here so you could get the full affect. I don't know what that is on the left there; a sea-faring vessel presumably designed by Jules Verne, a sailor (you can tell by his hat), what is obviously a skull and crossbones on the mast, a smiley sun and the ever present spider all sailing in to the red, winter sun, ...on a red sea. A shark swims low in the water. Oh, and I think that is an anachronistic Mayan fertility symbol there on top of the mast. That's just weird.
In the middle there is The Vampire Duck of Doom (under dreidels I think).
And finally there is a round red man barfing. He is armless as well.
In N's defense here, I think these are a couple years old now.
I often wonder what I am doing here in the ether of the web. I suppose I'd like to think something will come of it. I'd like to think it's helping me concentrate on shorter bursts of writing (I tend toward long fiction). I would also like to think I am doing this because I want there to be a bit of a record of some of this stuff. I was thinking about all that today and, out of nowhere, the thought hit me that I would do anything to have this kind of record from my own father. Perhaps that is how I should think of this. It's personal now.
From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'
This is from about a year ago, around Thanksgiving:
I wonder how many people know this song? I would think most do. Now, how many people have actually thought about this song? I have.
"'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free." Simple and free, both, together; it's human nature.
"'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be." One of my favorite words, ought, you know what you should be doing, come on down with the rest of us and do it.
This is, of course a Shaker song, a religious lot those Shakers, and yet the "place just right" in this song is "in the valley of love and delight." Not some lofty heaven, not a threatened hell, no, right here, a place you know, a place familiar.
"When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shant be ashamed." It took N to help me remember what this was about: humility. He likes to make little choreographed moves to the songs we sing and he did a simple bend at the waist and shook he head at "ashamed." No, we should not be ashamed to bow to our loved ones and bend to our God, and yet we sometimes are.
The last line always gets me. Remember the "merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily" in Row Your Boat from the 'Inexplicable Instruction and Flow Charts' post I did in late November. This goes those four merrilies two less, and is better. Think about it, "To turn, turn will be our delight, 'til by turning, turning we come 'round right." Notice how the two "turns" are repeated in the "turning" part of the stanza. Just turn a couple times, be delighted and come 'round right
"Come 'round right" is exactly what I ought to strive for everyday, especially with these boys.
The whole video kind of falls apart there in the end but, that's just the way we roll around here.
From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the back seat...'
"You don't know everything. Only God knows everything. He has a VERY BIG brain."
I love that the backwards "e" is labeled with an "E." And that's the sky there at the top and that mysterious item is the sun. I have no idea what the thing with the "xes" and "hols" is. The whole thing is very well labeled, it seems everything you might need to know is right there, except, of course, what the hell this is.
I am constantly amazed at how much of this stuff there is. (I keep looking at that to see if I can figure what it is, I got nothing.) Just as Z has tried to work on the theory of everything, I find myself considering one unifying concept of fathering. You probably noticed that I said 'fathering' rather than 'parenting, that's because I see it as gender specific. I suppose that makes me, in some eyes, a sexist. I don't feel like one.
If there is one unifying concept for me I would say it was what I previously mentioned, to cherish, about which I have always felt pretty confidant. Today it doesn't seem enough. I need to go deeper because what I am thinking about today isn't what I give them; it is what they find within themselves. Do I mean self-esteem? Perhaps. Do I mean the love of self? Yes... but there's more here though, what gets all these things through to them, what makes all of this sensenical, if you will?
I think it is trust. Some part of them has been led to believe, or inherently believes, that they can trust themselves, that their decisions matter, and what they think matters. This trust gives them courage and that courage matures and enlightens them. I sometimes can't imagine how odd and stressful life must be for a nearly seven- year-old; how often they must step up and do things they are not inclined to do, how often they must take a leap of trust, the trust that is within them.
From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'
“Your butt is the middle of your body. And that is good, because if it were on the top, you would have to stick your head in a toilet to poop."
I have done a few math posts here but there is a lot of information in our house on any of a number of scholarly pursuits. I am pretty sure these are galleys from some of the textbooks they are working on:
This is from their science series called 'Backyard Bugs.' As you can see it is an exquisitely rendered, near-photo quality drawing of a spider. Not just any spider, a two-toed, creepy-smiled, round one. With eight carefully and perfectly proportioned legs. Audubon move over, I mean look at that attention to detail, the movement in those dancing toes, the nearly human-like face, amazing. It looks like it may jump off the page right into your face. N outdid himself this time.
And this from what these days they probably call The Historylanguageculturalandotherstuff Arts curricula:
I will use the previously mentioned decoder ring here for you, Z's printing can be a little difficult to follow:
"The Big Cities"
A castle presumably in England.
The first panel reads: "Most of the world's oldest towns and villages were built by rivers (okay). Some of these are now capital cities (that's a very salient observation, I think). A very big one is the Eiffel Tower (right, sorta)."
Next panel: "A small place is Antarctica or the North Pole (well, I missed that transition, but... and isn't it the South Pole?). People live in igoos (sic) there. Igloos are made of ice and snow."
Well, I think that concludes the lessons for today. Your 'learning points' (I kid you not, they use that in first grade) today are: Eiffel Tower is the capital of France, in "ant are tucka" the people live in "igoos" and all the spiders are happy.
Recess.
From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'
"Whatchagotthere?" I asked of Z as he went walking by with a rolled up piece of paper in his hand.
"This" was his earnest response:
"Uh, little dude," (I call them 'little dude' sometimes) "What exactly is it?"
"Oh, it's one of those angelthingees.?" He answered, using his patented single-arched-eyebrow move. "You know, that one from that book..."
No, I have to admit, I do not know what he is talking about. What book? I mean she looks like some Viking goddess saint rising up over Valhalla to direct our prayers to Mary, I think. Is that a breast plate she's sporting there? Are her wings on upside down? And why are her arms so large and, well, furry-looking? Is she wearing a tunic?
I don't think I'd put so much thought into it if he hadn't seemed to think I should know what he was talking about. I was at a party last night and one of my old college buddies said that he no longer used nouns because he can't seem to remember them anymore, an affliction I seem to be suffering from as well. He said he grunts and points or uses those 'watchamacallit' words we all spew out assuming everyone else will simply fill in the word we are no longer capable of remembering.
With these guys, they often don't know what the actual word is, or, on a deeper level, what the thing they are feeling is called. I feel sorry for them sometimes; feeling jealousy and not knowing what it is, or sadness, or betrayal, or any of those complex emotions we deal with so often with such casualness. Sometimes it helps me to remember that the complications of life are not so bad sometimes because I know what they are all called.
You know what's funny? I know a lot of very smart and clever people and one of them is going to tell me exactly what the 'angelthingee' is and I know I'll say, "Oh, that one from that book!"
From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'
(After Bill taught them how to peel a Cutie tangerine) "Daddy, show us something else." "Like what?" "Everything! We need to learn this stuff!"
