Unbridled

Marci got this on the camera maybe two years ago.  I don't know when we "big guys" stop dancing like "little guys."  It's a shame we ever have to.  They make up their own moves (surely you don't think I dance that well), it's as though moving to music is in their very genes, which I happen to think is true.  They look so happy, joyful and free.

I've been thinking a lot about that:  Happy, as in "Hey, I'm alive,"  Joyful, as in "I'm happy and I will show you," and Free, as in "I have no restraints, I will do it this way because it pleases me."  Should it always be that simple and easy, boys?  I hope so, for your sake.

I've been wanting to post something other than pictures and such.  I am still working on conversations which are hard to sometimes record.  I am glad to show you this, I am glad it is here.  Of the over sixty posts I have done in the past few months, I suspect this is one the ones I will come back to most often.  And cherish most deeply.

From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'

Me:  "Goodness, when did you get so big...?"

Z:  (matter-of-factly) "Friday."

It was Friday, I was there...

Nonversations

(nonversation(n):  a dialogue between two people in which, although thoroughly convinced otherwise, both parties are not in agreement as to the topic)

N came home from school the other day and rushed in, rushed through his homework and his take-home folder and rushed for a piece of paper and wrote this:

It says, using the decoder ring:  "What I need to do.  1. recess play Loveys.  Defense with horns, punching.  Foods we eat: cheese, pretzels.

(I say watchagotthere a lot.)

"Watchagotthere?" I ask him.

"Oh it's a list of the things I need to do tomorrow," he says handing me the sheet which he had ripped the bottom of off, presumably because he doesn't like seeing so much empty space.  Who does?

"I see.  What's a 'Lovey?'" I ask.

"It's a bunchakids on the playground and we're called the Loveys and we run around together and we like to eat stuff."

Now here's where it gets a little confusing, you see I figured that this 'bunchakids' had in common the fact that they all had objects of significance, i.e. Teddy Bears, Linus-style blankets, a wooden screwdriver, a silky scarf, you get it.  I saw it as a sort of book club, discussion group, juice-box sipping type of thing.  My bad...

"What do some of the other kids have for Loveys?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you know, like you have Kitty and Zack has Bear-Bear, what do the other kids have?"

"Uhm, Dad, it's a club for kids, there are not cats or bears allowed... or girls, I think, except for (as i have said I refuse to implicate others in this whole mess of a childhood I am describing), they're girls, actually."

In a moment of inclarity I ask, "Why are you called Loveys, then?"

"Because we love stuff.  Like pretzels and cheese, and turkey.  Oh, man, I forgot to write that."

"Well that's great," I say, actually pleased that love is even a topic of interest in my poop-joke-loving, punch-kick-throwing, constant-kill-referencing nearly seven-year-olds.

"So what's this defense with horns and ponchos?"

"Dad," he says very slowly, treating me like the idiot I must appear to him to be, "We're the Loveys, we chase other kids around and some times we need to use our horns," here it puts fingers up by the side of his head in the universal gesture for horns (and ironically, idiots), "and we need to get better at punching."

"Uh, right.  What kids are you chasing, and why?"  And why are 'Loveys' punching?

"We chase the Hades, the kids who aren't Loveys."

In a moment of exasperation I blurt out, "What's Hell got to do with it?"

Finally Z, sensing the confusion, chimes in.  "Dad, Loveys chase Hatees."  Again very slowly, "Like love is the opposite of hate, Loveys, Hatees... get it?"

Uh, yeah Zack, I am caught up now.

What is this, Playground Crusades?  Honestly I still don't get.

From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'

"I am going to POW you into dead-ness... (the bad guy said that to you, Mom, it wasn't me)."

I have actually been 'POWed into dead-ness,' it ain't that bad...

Retrotoaster, The Food Palette

The USDA or FDA or FEMA or somebody is soon introducing a new approach to balanced nutrition for children:

A little explanation is due here.  You see, I got a new purse, fanny pack, manbag, messenger bag, murse... oh who am I kidding, it is a purse, even if it is rich, chocolate brown leather.  Anyway, when I went to switch out from my old bag the above fell out, folded and tucked in a back zipper pocket.  I don't remember when, although I suspect it was at least two years back, or why I put it in there.  I most have found some humor in it and I still do.

This will replace the Food Pyramid or Food Pie Chart or whatever it used to be. They are calling it The Food Palette.  It includes, and is limited to, these main items, which I had, thankfully, already labeled:  mac-and-cheese, apple sauce, white milk, french fries, chicken nuggets (which I assume they were out of, or 86ed, at the time because they are scribbled out), burger and chocolate milk.

A cannot be sure why it says "Zacl + (circled)2" there at the bottom nor why one branch of the palette is labeled "nana" and the other "(backwards)papa," but, who am I to question the mysterious and always profound wisdom of the federal government.

Any of you who have toddlers and pre-schoolers are probably saying that you have already adopted the Food Palette, and those of you who are still trying to feed your youngsters cauliflower, egg-white omelets and tofu will soon be following this, I guarantee.

They boys have been sick on and off now for over a week and that makes it difficult to spend the time posting on ihopeiwinatoaster here, but, hopefully, they are finallty getting better and I can get back into the rhythm of things here again.  It's funny, I follow a few parenting blogs and some are so far-reaching, so well edited, so clever, so well-tended with Facebook pages and links and the like, that I wonder:  when do these people find the time to be the perfect, clever, vigilant, loving, crafty and flawless parents they portend to be?

Well, my blog sucks a little so you must know I am spending time with my kids.  Right?

From Marci's  "...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat..."

Z:  "But, Nick, you have to *tell* me when you change my mind."

I, too, need to be told when my mind is changed, it's only fair...

Domestic Bliss

N drew this the other day, it's pretty standard issue stuff:

It's a house with a beautiful dormer, roses, nice landscaping, a working fireplace I see there, mountain setting, a nice Dr. Suess sun setting behind the Dr. Suess tree there on the left and, in the tree, a baby bird or a bear cub with a toothache.  Oh, and there is someone there to greet you.

I think we are looking at a whole lot more here, though.  It's sort of The American Dream, I thought for a while (they get fed a lot of that in public schools, in a good way), but I don't think that's quite it either.  It's more.  It's a sort of brief peek into a forming psyche in a way.  And what do I make of it?  Alright, I'll play...

I see a love-instilled view of nature.  I see contentment.  I see sunshine-yellow warmth rendered perfectly in black and white.  I see light where darkness could be.  I see a door opening.  I see open arms.  I see an awareness of happiness.

An awareness of happiness, does that make sense?  It is from the knowing that we can be happy, not simply in happiness, that we draw our strength as family, as tribes, as communities, as humans, as a species.

Happiness is not something to be poo-pooed or taken casually, it is very real to a nearly seven-year-old boy. And, we must be sure that he sees it falling off of us like rain, dripping in his eyes, blurring them to the petty meanness that life can be, and assuring him that this is his inheritance, his entitlement, his destiny.

I feel sure that this is a self-portrait, that man there to greet you, greet me, is Nick.

On another note, I made some bread today in the machine:

"Dad's ugly bread."  Yeah, thanks Zack.  Honestly, that's how it looked, dead-on; pasty, lumpy, and fallen.  We all suffered through  two hot slices a piece somehow.  Slathered with real butter and honey, giggling over how positively pathetic it looked, there's nothing like a hot yeast-bread.

From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'

"Dad, can we dance?"

"Yes son, you can always dance."

I said that...

Twin's Towers

Just an example of just how different two kids, raised under the same roof, sharing the same DNA, and treated as equally as possible can be.

Marci and I are going away for a few nights to a cabin in Hocking Hills to celebrate our ten-year anniversary so, I won't be posting for a few days.

From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'

"Yeah, Nick, it's not rocket science."

It just seems like it...

The Perfect Star and Something Else

There has been much sickness around here of the stomachy viral type, I'll spare you the details.  Consequently, I don't really have much time here today so I offer these two little nuggets:

The star is so wrong it is absolutely precious, isn't it?  And I do not know what that other thing is, honest, no clue.

From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'

"Don't praying mantises seem kinda wise?"

I've always thought that...

"It Goes the Other Way, Daddy"

I been rotating this thing for the better part of an hour here, and I'll be damned if I know which way it's gonna land.  (You'll see what I mean her in a sec.)  Here are my favorite two:

The first one is a pair of top-of-the-line blacksmith's coveralls, straight out of the Monkey Ward's catalog of nineteen-hundred-and-twelve.  You can see that it has two handy attached buckets, shoulder protection, the optional brush there on the left, and that snazzy firebrand belt buckle. The image is lovingly rendered on a vellum-like parchment. 

Whoa, I know.  Just like that it's the Tazmanian Devil in high-heels carrying not one, but two, purses, one with the optional brush, and he has a paper bag over his head.  Obviously sketched on the scene.

I can't emphasize enough the necessity of going through your children's schoolwork together with them.  For all the right reasons mind you; like knowing what the math assignments have been lately, catching up on the latest Weekly Reader, seeing their reading levels soar and showing them your are vested in their lives and cherish everything they do, oh... and there's some really funny stuff there, too.

I found this tucked in N's folder.  He made it during the dreaded "Inside Recess."

Me:  "Well this is pretty cool here.  What is it?"

N:  "It goes the other way, Daddy.  Jeesh."

"Oh, sorry Little Dude."  What exactly is the other way? I flip it uncertainly.  "What is it?"  I ask again.

"Idunno..."

And yet he knew it needed to go the other way.

So, I keep rotating it and trying to find which way it goes.  Parenting is like that, there must be a right way but we have to spend a lot of time flipping around the picture to get there.

From Marci's '...things you don't expect to hear from the backseat...'

Nick (wistfully):  "I love sausages."

That's my boy, that's my boy...