Who'll Watch the Parade?

I made the classic syllogistic mistake; I joined a club that would have me as a member.  There's a group of Blogger Dad's on Facebook and I find myself included in their ranks.  I posted about them before in this post which has links to some truly great blogs.  Really, I am not sure I am in the right spot.  Compared to some of the other dudes' blogs, mine is amatuer at best, and, I would guess to some of them, pedestrian and dull.

I made a decision to be pedestrian and dull, which I would define maybe as ordinary and thoughtful.  I choose not to take political sides, or discuss religion except in vague non-committal references; I choose not to make tawdry anatomical references or cuss regularly and vehemently; I choose to leave out my college years and struggles with addiction and loneliness.  Also, I choose not to make fun of my kids or write things that they someday might find embarrassing or difficult to understand.

There is no doubt that these are great subjects for bloggers, and, I often wish that I too could, through the veil of anonymity, pursue some of them.  But, if you want to know the truth, I find that kind of posting a little too, well, easy.  It's easy to rant about football and men-hating Mommy Bloggers.  It's easy to make p*nis jokes and rely on sexual innuendo.  It's easy to link-bait and stir up controversy and vitriol and animosity.

(Yeah, this is why I shouldn't join groups; I don't play well with others.)

On the other hand, I think it is difficult, especially for men, to write about their deep love for their children.  Through the words of some of my fellows I have felt the pain of knowing your child is sick.  Through their words I have known the belly laugh that is parenting a toddler, the heartbreak of preschool, the smell of baby shampoo lost, the last diaper.

Writing about love and tenderness is difficult, writing with respect and wonder is difficult.  Acknowledging the pains and joys of fatherhood is a noble, gentle, difficult endeavor.  I will continue to celebrate my children, honor their childhood and remember them as they are today.


After that long intro I wonder if I should even get to the point or just call it a day...

The other evening, I guess it was a Friday, we had leftovers for dinner, you know, a little bit of this, a dab of that.  The boys hate it, but, there is almost always pasta, that's a good thing.  Nick is a fast eater (I try not to look, it's sorta gross) and, after he took his plate and such to the kitchen, he grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and started drawing.  Z was soon done and he did the same.  After the dishes were cleaned up Marci and I joined them at the table and started drawing along, laughing and chattering and teasing and, well, being a family.

We actually do this with some frequency, just sit at the table and doodle, you know, stuff like this Picasso inspired sketch Z started and that Mom filled in:

Marci also likes to make these adorable wordle thingees, with suggestions from the boys:

Nick made these two owls, a jazz owl and an orchestra owl, I'm not positive who's who:

Zack makes stuff like this, a Ninja guy with a regrettable chest-piece, and a cruise ship:














Nick made this curious pictures of some "Littles" listening to what appears to be a Victrola, I don't know:

I tend more to photo-realism:

I know, these are all masterpieces, right?  Well, not really.  I guess to some they might seem sorta stupid.  But, I'll bet, in ten or twenty or thirty years when these picture reappear, they will remember those simple nights of crafting and drawing, of dance-parties and wrestling, of singing and silliness, fondly.  I know I will.

I guess to some this all seems ordinary... yep, that's my point.

I really and truly believe that in our twentieth-first century pursuit of, how to say this politely, of Pinterest perfection, we step right over the ordinary.  We leave it unacknowledged, neglected and forgotten and we fail profoundly at recognizing its inherent, even paramount, importance.


A better blogger than I, Rachel, wrote a blog post a while back explaining far more eloquently than I the importance of the ordinary.  In "A year of Ordinary Achievement" she explains that her journey from frazzled techno-junky to "Hands Free Mama" has led her to a profound and deep understanding of the quiet, gentle love that is the ordinary.  I have long agreed with her on the notion that the modern devices, cell phones, computers, video games and all the bells and whistles and tweets and twitters that accompany them, as well as the time so many spend managing them, are an invasion of the precious time we have with our children, families and friends.

So, along with Rachel and Neal and Justin and John and Chris and Matt and so many others, I ask you to celebrate the simple, the plain, the sublime, the beautiful, the holy, that is the ordinary - because, I think, that's where love lives.


I grew up in a small rural town here in Ohio and every summer they had a community festival.  All the civic groups and bands and veterans and business had a float, pulled by a tractor, or marched in the parade.  The kids in town, and parents and whoever, really, were invited to decorate their bikes and ride, in an incredibly unruly mob, in the parade as well.

One year, I was maybe nine or ten, I was decorating my bike for the festival and my Dad was watching.  I suggested that he should decorate a bike or march with the church float or something and he said:

"If everyone is in it, who'll watch the parade?"

You were right Dad.  I'll watch the parade.


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

N: "George Washington is in the refrigerator."

Z: "And Martin Luther King is stuck on our roof."


Now that's just weird...

What Is Revealed?

Sometimes, one of the boys comes up to me and asks me to take a picture of some arbitrary object, maybe a finished puzzle, a particularly satisfying Hot-Wheels configuration, a pillow and stuffed animal arrangement, or, something made from LEGOs.

Nick gave me this the other day and was particularly adamant about me taking a picture of it and printing one out for him:

I ask him why and he said, a little rudely, he just wanted one.  So I did it and didn't give it much thought until I went downstairs to get the picture from the camera and print it, and then I took a good look at it.  I got nothing, I flipped it around (which I have tried before) to no avail, I considered it a little too much.  Finally I just decided he must like because it was unusual and pretty and he made it.  Hey, I had to justify it somehow.

 I went back upstairs and handed him the print.  He quickly got a pair of scissors out and cut out just the LEGO shape.  Surely there is a plan here, I kept thinking to myself.  I asked him again and he didn't answer, he was cutting and he only does one thing at a time.  I see he's done and look at him and ask him directly, "What is it?"

"I don't know, I just like it."

And then he adds, "I think it looks like a monkey."

Well there ya go, a monkey, fine... wait... it doesn't look in any way shape or form like a monkey.  I mean, not even vaguely.  Oh well, I just manage the madness, mine is not to judge content.

The other day Nick had about a cubic yard of LEGOs and was making something, carefully, intently, precisely.  I asked him what he was making.

"I dunno..."

Okay, I guess.  It just seemed like he had a plan.  I let it go and went back to the kitchen where things make sense.

About six breaded chicken cutlets later I heard, through the din that is searching through a huge rolling box of LEGOs,  a light bulb go off and then, in an eureka sort of tone, I heard him exclaim:

"Oh, it's helicopter!"

And so it was:

I laughed out loud at the notion that he was waiting for what it was to reveal itself.  I do that.  I think writers do that as we wind ourselves to a hidden truth through the words we line up.  What something is ultimately going to be is often not as important as the journey that leads us to it.

Parenting is that way for me.  I have a notion of what I would like my kids to be like when they grow up.  But, at this point I cannot say what that will be for certain.  I just hope someday they look in a mirror and think:  "Hey, I'm a decent guy."  I can only hand them the odd, multicolored, seemingly random pieces one at a time and see what they come up with.  I am hoping for the best.


Honestly, the silly side of me had a lot of fun with this as well imagining da Vinci pounding on a rock and screaming: "Oh, it's David!  Everybody, it's David, you know, the David!"  Or Pollack looking down at his tarp and thinking: "Oh, it's not a mess it's abstract expressionism!"  Or some cavedude in a cave in France with a mouth full of semi-masticated beast sneezing  onto his hand as he is leaning against a wall to pee and thinking: "Oh, it sorta looks like a deer!"  Or a potter at a wheel, sweating as he pumps his legs to keep the wheel moving exclaiming: "Oh, it's a pot!"

I guess, in a way, everything has to be revealed, or reveal itself.

"A Day in the Life..."

I get so much great crap in the take-home folders, I just love it.  Also, I think it is the perfect stuff to highlight here because it's usually already distressed from the book-bags and the bus ride and the, well, nearly eight-year-old boys, and often wouldn't even last until Mom gets home.  It is, frankly, temporary; crayons and construction paper and washable markers and pencil are not exactly archival quality, so I scan them and they're good 'til someone forgets how the internet works, or however that ends.

That being said, there is another reason I am so drawn to them, perhaps a symbiotic reason:  they are immediate.  They are reflective of the now of these little boys lives.  The things they write and draw and gather and craft at school are as revealing as a photograph, and yet so much of it is given a cursory glance then thrown away.  I often wonder how they feel about that, seeing that project, on bats, say, they worked on so diligently and earnestly in class and then explained to you so eagerly and proudly at the dining room table, seeing all that work just thrown away.

Oh don't get me wrong, it must be thrown away, the sheer volume of output from the schools would bury most homes in just a few years.  I try to honor them by looking at it, savoring it, even, if I can admit it, milking it a bit.  Every now and then they want to save something, I do, and some of it I offer up here.

Z did this assignment this week:

I don't feel the need for my secret kid-to-adult decoder ring I so often needed when they were younger as much these days.

So, what can we learn about this Zack.  It says his favorite movie star is Charlie Brown, that's either sort of sad or, very, very adorable.  Likes his Wii.  He's got a good friend in class (I smeared the name because I refuse to implicate others in any way around here) "because he helps me."  That is a good friend, I am glad for him.  He likes the songs on his iPod, cool, I am glad Marci found those old things and spent the time loading them with music.  A good "restrount -" seriously I can barely spell that word and I was in that biz for thirty years - Skyline; it's a local thing, chili.  His favorite place is his house, awwwww...

I can only assume the assignment was of the "a day in the life" variety so overused in elementary schools and Irish Literature.  Let's see what Zack did.

"A day in the life of..." (yeah, yeah, yeah, that kid really likes to write his name) "today I woke up and it was a new day I woke up and I drew a pitchure (picture) of a knight."  Oh wait, that drawing is still on the table upstairs... Here ya go:

"And then I played with  my brother.  Then for our breckfest" (breakfast, but I do like that spelling) "we had blue berry muffins.  They were delishes (that means yummy.)"  (Don't patronize me, boy, jeeze) "and they were super.  In fact I ate 3 of them!  after that I got on the bus and had fun at school.  At school we wrote about our favorite things.  I wrote these answers:  My favorite movie star..."

Yeah, he looped back to the beginning there.  It's like when you tried to pad a college paper, or a short chapter in a novel, just as an example.  Novelists never pad their chapters.

I think you can see he is a happy, productive kid.  I draw strength and encouragement from this sort of thing.  It makes me feel like we are doing things alright around here.


The same week N brought this home and handed it to me as he got off the bus...


I hesitate here.  There is something I don't want to bring up, not because it implicates someone, or is bad, or would shatter a political career, no, I don't want to bring it up because it hurts me when I think about it.  It hurts me in a way, in a place, that is deep and vulnerable... and then I cry.

Briefly, Nick has been suffering some deep anxiety about things that happened in place far away in a school, somewhere else.  But, not far enough away for a sensitive, naive boy who is afraid of cartoon villains and Wagnerian minor chords.  He's been quiet and withdrawn a little at school and becomes very distressed when he is tired here at home.  He's coming to terms with it, as am I, but, I often ask him how he's doing and reassure him that he's safe and that sort of thing.

So, as he got off the bus, he fished around in his pocket and handed me this:

I'd like to be able to say I easily recognized that, well, creature, on the front there, but, nope.  After some consideration, and I am only speculating, I think it's a "Little."  They have tails, and wear gourd hats and utilikilts... I'm not sure about the football connection, maybe it's a rugby ball.

The inside reads:  "I ham (am) having a grate (great) time at school today.  Today is gym, some people got to have an esta (extra) gym I did  "oh and Mucik (Music)."  We finist (finished) are (our) math.  I don't know when testing is.  do you?  Sorry that I forgot my folder fore (for) two days.  Love, Nick."

I love that "oh and Mucik" is in quotation marks, as if it just popped into his head little voice style.  And I do get annoyed when they forget their folders but, but...

...I think he wrote this to reassure us, to show us he was doing okay, "grate" even.  I know he knows we are concerned and this was his way of showing us that he was getting better.  Dear, sweet boy.


So there you have it, a little take-home folder nonsense - explained.  I was going to link some of the other posts of stuff from school but, seriously, it's like half my posts, but a good example of one is this post in which I lament "The Last Take-Home Folder" of First Grade.


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

(Daddy's attempt at a philosophical conversation)

D: "What do you think is the difference between a house and a home?"

N: " A house is H-O-U-S-E and a home is H-O-M-E."

*thanks, kiddo, that clears it up* :)

There is no 'u' in home... huh?


(I responded to the Sandy Hook  tragedy in a post called Chase Kowalski and in this post as well.)

A Better Piece

I have been working on a better piece

I have been working on a longer piece; a bigger, sweeping piece about bigger, sweeping stuff.  What I have to say is important and I need to make a point of telling it to you.  But, the words aren't doing it right.  It keeps coming out awkward or foolish or angry or disingenuous or bloggy or self-centered or any comic combination of them all.

I was going to quote people and "pay-it-forward" and have lots of color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph about each one.  But, the pictures aren't doing it right.

In a fit of embarrassing arrogance, I was trying to get the words and images to say what I wanted them to say.  That never works for me, and yet I forget that and, I try.  So, to the gods and the trinity and inspiration and the muses; to the hearts of boys and the playgrounds of childhood; to the sea of energy, the stream of life; to whatever, whomever, spawns creativity:  I apologize.  I know better.  Forgive me.

So, forget my brain, this is what made my soul sing today:

Why yes, yes, this is a scene from The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein.  Zack drew it in his classroom  from a bigger image projected on the screen as his beautiful, dear, sweet teacher read it aloud to them.  I am not sure about the wall of blue there on the right.  A waterfall? A sideways sky?  I'll be damned it just hit me, it's an unfinished sky.  An unfinished sky... wow, that's so lovely and appropriate and metaphorical and philosophical and metaphysical and sad and melancholy and hopeful and dreamy.  And it was just dumped on me like a bucket of blue Gatorade.

This little detail from the book is slightly different:

In the book it says m.e. + t in the heart, as in the little boy and the tree.  Zack's says, I think, "Z" + and he's left the other side blank, not unlike an unfinished sky.  He somehow knows, even though he's only eight, he somehow knows there is oh-so-very much in front of him, in front of you, in front of me, in front of us; so very much more to come.  Our unfinished stories unfold in front of us.  And, here is what I need to remember: that's a good thing.  To look forward in hope is what we have, it's what we do, it's who we are.


On a more serious and urgent note, something is amiss in Nick's bed and it scares me.  I went into their room to open the blinds and when I turned around, this scene confronted me:

This Skylander thug, "Eruptor," of the Fire Element (or so he says)...

... is holding these dudes hostage.  The rainbow pill-bug, that's "Gumdrop" and he's the leader of the whole bed-pal posse and he is all, dare I say it, legs-up.

Nothing good can come of this.

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

"Don't startle Jesus!"

That strikes me as good advice...

Planned Unending

I thought I would end it today; actually, I thought I would end it today several months ago, this blog, that is.  I had picked an arbitrary mile-marker as a good stopping point and, within a few hours, I should get to it.

I dabble around in stuff, arty stuff, things that catch my attention or at which I wonder.  I have tried, and failed I guess, (though I never see it that way) many different art styles and the like.  I have written and still write some pretty good songs.  I wrote a book of angst filled poetry in the eighties.  I also tried my hand at painting with acrylics and big canvases which resulted in something resembling Pollack puke.  I wrote a novel, it’s okay, a bit overwrought and wordy, but, I stand by it.  Not so much the paintings…

I do have a point here, all those projects are done, I speak of them in the past tense.  That is at times difficult; every time I pick up the book I immediately want to re-edit the whole damn thing.  The paintings might actually work as a ceiling in my unfinished basement.  The poems should be hidden from my children.  But, I am done with those chapters (pun retro-intended).

But, and, finally, the point is - I am still blogging.  I am doing it right now.  It doesn’t feel done; it doesn’t seem to have offered me all it may; I still have something more to learn.

So, as I reach the ten-thousand mark, I think I’ll let it flip and see what’s next. 

Nick Made this a while back, 'kinderneogothic' is what they call the style:

 Buttresses?!?  Buttresses...?!?  We don't need no stinkin' buttresses, even if they can fly.


Here's a retro post from Marci's '   "..things you don't expect to hear from the backseat..."

N:  (While drawing) Why did you make me have just one eye!?!

Z:  That is a nose.

Damned cubists...

(Thanks to everyone who has encouraged me along the way, I appreciate it.)

iFauxns

Yep, we did it.  We got the boys new phones for Christmas.  In fact, we are so cool we let them design their own phones from scratch.

So, when they came to creating their new phones they ended up with slightly different products.  Here is the front of Nick's:

It's got all the standard keys.  A big OK button.  I am not sure what a "sift" key is.  I can only hope that it goes through all the stuff that's important, finds none, and shuts the whole thing down.  That's just a guess.

Let's flip it over:

I can't say if that is a very slick, personalized, falling-water-themed skin, or, if it's another screen.  Either is pretty cool.


This is the front of Zack's:

Sort of an unorthodox approach to number sequence, but, hey, I'm old-school.

He's got what I can only assume are hotkeys on the sides:

I am pretty sure I want a "specker" key, it makes people explode when they are being dicky...  nevermind, I made that up.

Here's the one he'll wear out:
 

Games, just games.


You might remember from the posts Com(paper)puters and The Paper Arts that they are not strangers to the challenges of cutting-edge twenty-first century design:

The Paper Arts

Com(paper)puters

I see some kids my boys' age with cell phones.  You know what?  When I was a kid all adults smoked, but, even then the grownups had the sense not to give a second or third grader a lit cigarette.  We had to make do with candy cigarettes that blew little puffs of powdered sugar, and Pixie sticks.  I think for now I'll just let my kids pretend a little while longer.  I don't want to hand them a lit cigarette.


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

Z: "Why would you want to see a movie called Less Marbles?"
M: "It is pronounced Les Miserables."
Z: "Oh ... so then what is it about?"
M: "Um, well, people fighting in France."
B: "And they sing."
N: "They sing?"
M&B: "Yes, they sing."
*pause*
Z: "Marbles would be better."

Singing marbles would hold my interest longer than that musical ever did...

New Years End

All new years end; last year's did just a day ago.  I am really not ready for that so I am just going to deny it.  Our collective mood in the house this year was subdued; perhaps the boys noticed my thinly veiled melancholy.  I felt oddly guilty in my sadness that some had no one to open the presents and we did.

Yesterday the Christmas stuff came down and I found these in a pile of drawings near the tree.  Christmas wishes I forgot to send on?  Gifts from the boys?  Santa bribes?  I am not sure.

Nick did this one:

It's actually our living room.  We put up the letters J-O-Y on the wall above the fireplace.  You know, in retrospect I just may have put that 'J' up backwards this year.  Well, that's embarrassing.  I really dig his fire in the fireplace, it is simple yet dynamic.  We hang some sparkly ornaments above the window and we have a very fluffy tree, with six ornaments on it.  And N's catchphrase is indeed "Horay."

Zack designed a fancy card for next year I guess:

He's been experimenting with a cursive sort-of font and it seems to be evading him.  Overall though, I like it; the colors are nice, I like the tree iconography and the message is simple and inclusive.

I also found this from Nick:

They told him they were poinsettias but they are actually those horribly colored brown maroon mums you see every fall.  It's still festive but I think he needs to go deeper into the Crayola palette and find some happier hues.


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

"Let me get my monocle!"

Game on...

*a feature first introduced in the post Yesterday's Math.