Veritas

Yesterday I mentioned a scrimmage game.  Here's the report from Z:

"Today we had a skrimage (which is precisely how 'scrimmage' should be spelled) game.  I (it) was a tie.  I caught lots of balls.  It was fun!"

It's all true; we had the game, it was indeed a tie, which is great no one lost, Z did 'cot' a lot of balls... in fact he dropped back out of shortstop and snagged one over his shoulder, man, he looked... oh, sorry.  And. it was fun, with an exclamation point.

There are two diverse points I want to make today, the first is simple: kids tell the truth.  I think we are born to tell the truth, it is our default.  My boys are terrible at lying and usually only try kiddingly.  Sometimes they try to sneak stuff into their book-bags to take to school, baseball cards, a Ninjago guy, a drawing for a girl.  I don't really know why they try to sneak, I know the teacher doesn't care, so, I figure if they want to risk losing what they take in, or, suffer the ridicule when it's something I didn't have the chance to suggest otherwise, like the green turtle bath tub toy that N took some ribbing for, then  take it in.  No need to sneak it into the backpack if...

You know what, I lied.  I know damn good and well why they do it:  It's fun to sneak stuff.  Hell, half the reason I smoked cigarettes as long as I did was because I got a little thrill when I went off and sneaked one.  Little thrills now, big thrills later.

I'm in trouble, aren't I?

My second point is more a bit of advice I guess.  Always make sure there are writing utensils and paper and notebooks and markers and post-its and flip books and colored pencils and crayons and anything else you can think of.  You will be rewarded, given you take the time to look, with an insight into your kid's mind.  They will write the facts, their make-believe heroes will right the wrongs, they will draw their dreams, they will animate and orchestrate their hopes.  They will tell you their truths.

I admire my boys, truly.  I am, and I've mentioned this before but is worth repeating, flabbergasted at how well they negotiate this plane on which we live.  I mean, really, life is pretty weird and it is impossible to figure out, believe me I'm still trying, but every morning they happily get out of bed, dance into the morning and seem to shout:  Bring it on!

Hell, yeah, with an exclamation point.

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

Z:  "Show me your best purr."

N 'purrs'

Z:  "That doesn't sound like a purr... that sounds like a fart."

I just don't know why I find that so amusing...

Ironical

I found this as I was dumping out the trash from a closet purge Saturday:

Some quick twists of my patented parent-to-kid decoder ring yields:  "When I get older I will be able to read."

I really don't know which way to go on this.  The obvious response, and the reason I snagged it out of the trash, is that it is very funny.  I mean, well, if you couldn't read you really couldn't write this now could you?

My second response is, why does it have a piece of tape on it?  Is this is a reminder?  As though N taped it up on his mirror as a motivational, positive thought.  People like me and someday I will be able to read.  Wait, I can, I can, I can read!  It worked!

Finally, I can't help but think about one other thing.  Another thing I've forgotten, something I just don't seem to be as capable of anymore,  looking forward with hopeful anticipation.  I forget to dream.  I so often look forward afraid and uncomfortable.  I know I wasn't always like this but today... not so much.

As always, my boys remind me how to live a better life, dream a better dream, secure a happier tomorrow.

So, tonight's baseball scrimmage will be great.  Friday's party will be fine.  Camping this summer will be memorable.  School placement next year will be perfect.

When I get older, I will be able to...

What will you be able to do?

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

N (as a blizzard of maple tree helicopters falls down on him):  "Oh, Daddy, it's so... perfect."

Perfect use of the word perfect...

The Purplest

Yesterday I went on and on about the similarities between N and I and how I found that a bit distressing, and more than a little odd.

It is Birthday Week here for the boys so I thought I should talk about Z a little more.

I get these often from Z, and, in a way, that is all you need to know.  Here is another picture that tells our story:

(Yes that is a knife in my hand, ignore that, really, forget about it.)  You see, that is how we often are, he and I, close.  He cuddles most mornings with me, watches TV in my lap, gives me numerous hugs before bed, and likes to run his hands through my beard when we talk.  He likes to contradict me, he forces my hand sometimes, he knows the words to all the songs I sing and I know he loves me.  And, as a parent, that means everything.

There is a great children's book by Barbara M. Joosse titled I Love You the Purplest in which a mother tells one son she loves him the reddest when he asks who she loves the most, the other boy she tells she loves him the bluest.  Together she loves them the purplest.

Well, that's the way it is with kids, you love them all, but you love them differently.  One you might love from the soul, without even beginning to understand it.  The other you might love from your head, loving their character and personality.  One child exasperates you, but, behind that, your love for them shows because you only want the best for them.  We love them all from the heart though, with that eternal love we all came with, the one we so easily forget we have.

I love Z with a love that is inexplicable, transcendent, and pure.

I love that the other day I found him, supposedly getting his jammies on, with the pj pants on, a different shirt was on his body, you know, a playshirt, and the jammie top was in his hand.  He wore a very perplexed grin because it just dawned on him what he had done.  I asked him what he was doing and he said, with a giggle in his throat, "I don't know."

I love that he likes rules, and math.

I love that he dances with joy spontaneously and frequently.

I secretly love that he stands up eating, I don't know why, but it seems so damn cute to me.  It should infuriate me.

I love that he sings along with the television show theme songs.  Hey Word Girl is tricky.

I love that he loves me so.

So, I guess that these last couple of posts haven't been too witty or clever.  I trust this sentimental slop hasn't chased you away for good.  I'd like to think someday the boys might see these posts, these confessions of mine, and rest easier.  Perhaps they will better understand the ultimate love story that is the parent child relationship.  Perhaps they will find some useful truth about my truly unconditional love for them in these words.

Perhaps they will understand I will love them the purplest, "always and forever."

(You disregarded the knife, right?  Totally forgot about it, okay?  Thanks.)

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

Zack:  "Gimme an E!"

Nick:  "E!"

Zack:  "Gimme a B!"

Nick:  "B"

Zack:  "Gimme an E!"

Nick:  "E!"

Zack:  "Gimme an S!

Nick:  "S!"

Zack:  "What's it spell?"

Nick:  "I don't know ..."

(pause)

Zack:  "Me either ..."

I shouted "Ebes," it's a river somewhere, I think...

Twoodles

In a post called Hairbrainage, The Early Years I said "The nuts never fall far from the tree do they?"  I see more and more proof of that all the time, especially with N.

In the backseat of the truck, amongst the pretzel crumbs and juice boxes and candy wrappers and pages torn from the Magnifikids and workbooks, dry erase boards and markers, the boys have little sketch books to draw in or write stories.

For several days, on short trips, I noticed N working in his with intense concentration, I could tell because children actually have a concentration gauge, in their mouth, their tongues.  You remember right?  I still do it, when I use scissors.  Anyway, he finally deigned to show me it:

It's pretty cool, isn't it?  It took him a long time but, he stuck with his vision and finished up.

When I worked in high-end restaurants, every night we have a pre-shift meeting.  I would guess every line of work has the meeting where you need to look like you are paying attention, even if you don't care.  So, for years I just doodled in my little pad in my waiter book.  Even though all the other waiters knew what I was doing, the management always assumed I was taking meticulous notes on the special and the wine deals.  Whatever...

Years ago, probably eight or so, I left a place and was cleaning out my book.  I saw some of the doodles, and, for reasons I didn't know at the time but which have become delightfully obvious here, I saved a couple, here's one.

Yeah.  I don't care who you are, you have got to find that a little weird, eerie even.


I think the funniest thing anyone can do, besides saying the word "poop," is to put something on his head, anything, there is no way to fail.  I happen to have invented the twelve-pack-carton-hat in the early eighties in Athens, Ohio.  (You know what I am talking about, just open up one end and shove it on your head.  Hilarious.)

Here's another good example:

Haha.  That's funny.  Here's one from N:

Four hats!  Brilliant, comic genius.

So, here's the thing.  I suspect Nick thinks a lot like I do, has many of the same thought patterns and sensibilities as I.  Cool.  I guess I am forearmed, but should I tell him how things might get?  Should I forewarn him?

Should I tell him that pretty girls and sunsets will make him cry?

Should I tell him that waiting will infuriate him?

Should I warn him about the sudden joy that will engulf him when he meets his wife, or sings with a friend, or sees his own children, or watches squirrels chasing each other in the backyard of his youth.

Will he be clumsy with scissors and knives?  Should he know that string-trimmers will vex him all the days of his life?

Will he suffer loneliness and  feel misunderstood?  Should I tell him it will pass and he will better know joy and love having suffered them?

That bacon will make him weep and the taste of deep fried anything is perfect?

On the other hand, he already knows stuff that I won't have to teach.

He will sense justice and act to protect it.

He will know love is a verb, that action is the only way to love, or live.

He will innately understand beauty and art and words and food.

He will believe in God yet wonder if God believes in him.  Always.

Happiness will come slowly, quietly and will always be tinged with melancholy.

I know him now, so well, so painfully well.  I know my heart will break with his a thousand times.  I know I will laugh at his jokes and antics a million times.  I know it will be hard, I know that.

But, I know this journey we are all on, mine, his, yours, is always worth it.

I think I'll tell him that today.

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

During a very involved improv with rocket ships and ground controls:

"Don't blast off in to space yet!  I need to poop!"

So that's what all those NASA delays were...

MacGyver It

MacGyver v. 1. To use ingenuity to fix or remedy a problem using only the tools and materials readily available.  2. Jury-rig, often the precursor to hairbrainage.

N gets this concept and, when the invented item need only to 'pretend' to work, he's a frickin' genius at it.  Case in point:

I have to tell you I can't remember the actual day he made it, I do remember laughing and knowing I had to take a picture of it (at the time I was not doing this blog, either).

He carried it around for a while and kept improvising things to do with it.  It was a "spyer" at one point, a phone with a "secret partment" (why bother with com-partment when you don't really need the com?), it was a "hand-bomb" which I intercepted just before it hit the window, it was nearly a boat and it was a pet robot.

It was as though he made it in anticipation of needing it.  That's ballsy.

Really, it is whatever you can make of it, Johnny.

There is a profundity to creativity and a courage that goes unsaid.  I think about his mind process as he conjured this magical machine.  What made him decide that little yellow box needed to go onto that look-around-the-corner-thingee?  Did he choose the "coaches against cancer" wristband on purpose, had the Loveland Tigers one already been commandeered for some other state-of-the art counter-intelligence stealth device?  And why, I wonder, is the box secured by a strap from his Handy Manny tool backpack as well as the wristband?  That must be a pretty damned important box.

I truly believe that in failure lies success.  In experimentation, try and fail, we find what we need to find.  I should have the courage to look around me, use the resources at hand and amuse my self and others.  I think I have lost that ability, or, as I have mentioned before, forgotten it.  My boys always remind me how far I have gotten away from the simple, truthful, clever, divine soul we all come with.

I always think I need more stuff.  I don't. I need more courage, the courage to brilliantly, gloriously, extravagantly... fail.

You know, come to think of it I don't think the boys have ever seen a hand-grenade before.  Cool, my kid would have invented it.  They would have invented the wheel, too.

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

"How do you spell eight?"

(pause)

"I have a little brain so tell me slowly."

I am having t-shirts made... 

On Asparagus

The Cincinnati Enquirer, our dying, nearly defunct dinosaur of a newspaper here in The Queen City has two excellent writers; Paul Daugherty, an award-winning sports writer with a heart of gold, and Krista Ramsey, a beat writer who covers religion and community.  A recent article by her, 'Parenting's Beautiful, Terrible Risks' really touched me, one sentence in particular:

"A parent's job, from the beginning, is to basically put himself out of a job."

I think that really nails it, doesn't it?  It distills everything into one succinct point.

It made me think of this picture:

They are about twenty-one months old and looking out into the big old world outside their living-room window with such wonder, excitement and, how should I say it... purpose.

And we, the parents, the "big guys" as N always calls groups of parents, are the ones entrusted with showing them they way, preparing them for what lies ahead, smoothing the road, padding the corners, and, sometimes hiding the truth.

What has this got to do with asparagus?  Nothing.  Everything.  I am not sure.  The other night I made asparagus and the boys loved it.  They also love spinach.  I think I forgot to tell them they weren't supposed to like these things.

I know I have so much to tell them, and a lot of I don't want to.  I really wonder sometimes about how they see the world unfolding in front of them.  I said to N the other day, I think maybe for the first time:  "Well, life's not always fair."  He looked at me with an incredulous face and said, "Well, why not?"

I didn't have an answer.

In frustration the other day, I said to Z, "Everything's not always fun and games, you know."  He got his Spock eyebrow up and said, "Well, why not?"

I still didn't have an answer.

Life should be fair and everything should be fun and games all the time.  What can we do, we Big Guys, to make that so?

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

"There is no Mercy Rule in Connect Four."

I wish there was because the boys always spank me at that stupid game...

"Handburger"

My fourth blog post in November, 2011, was titled "You Should Try The Purge".  In it I describe the goings-on in one of three pretend restaurants we have at our house.  On the menu, besides "The Purge," was an item listed as "hand brger," or Hamburger.

Sometimes what children think they hear makes more sense than what we actually say.

Here is a lovingly rendered Hand Burger:

Looks pretty good doesn't it?  When I was a kid we had Hamburgers every Saturday night without fail.  In the winter my dad cooked them in the fireplace on a grill specially made for fireplaces, I always thought that was pretty cool.

When the boys were younger I started them out on burgers but they didn't really like them.  Of course they were pretty big (I am a famous carnivore), so I split one between the two of them.  They would eat a little but they never showed the enthusiasm I think grilled meat on a bun deserves.

Finally, I came upon a solution.  I usually (now, with advent of "pink slime," almost exclusively) grind my own meat for my ground beef needs, so I knew the beef was tasty and wholesome.  I always had fresh 'fixins,' as we grew up calling the lettuce, tomato and onions.  So I realized I really couldn't really make a better product.  About the same time, the restaurant I worked at started serving steak sliders, sliced steak on a small bun with sauce and onion.  And then, one day in Kroger's, I saw slider buns for sale.

So, I grabbed a pack, scaled down the size of the burgers, served them on those little buns.  The "Hand Burger" was born.  They loved them.  The other night they had two each.

What happened, in my mind, was 'ownership.'  Have the kids get involved and they will gobble up what you serve.  They had their own burger, dressed it the way they wanted and they really enjoy them.

Oh, and I can have three or four and not feel guilty because they are smaller, right?

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

"Dogs and cats don't speak the same language as us."

Wait, they don't?  Well who have I been talking to all these years?  Nevermind...