I Must Confess...

I’m going to come clean about something I do as a parent and I bet I’m not alone in this. It’s something I do almost every day, although I should not do it at all. I should know better. But I do it anyway. And there’s a good chance you do it too.

By now you’re probably dying to know what it is, so I’ll let the suspense build while I provide some background information. You’ll thank me, this will totally be worth it.

My sons are eight and five. They are bright boys, and they are well behaved (for the most part). And they are completely different. It’s not just that one likes trains and the other likes jigsaw puzzles. A lot of the difference is their age coming through. They are at a very formative stage, and each year they surprise me as they grow.

As I see them get bigger I interact with them differently, giving them more responsibility, harder tasks. And herein lies my problem: I dole out instructions like I’m talking to adults. But they aren’t. They are kids. And I talk to the eight-year-old like he’s an adult and I talk to the five-year-old like he’s an eight-year-old.

Then - this is the kicker - I get frustrated when they don’t do things right, or they do them too slow. And even though they are close in years, the eight-year-old has no concept of what it was like to be five, when he was still learning and wasn’t as coordinated. He gets frustrated over menial things, like how his brother plays Lego Batman on the Wii.

Kids don’t think like we do. They may be able to carry out a short list of simple tasks, but they can’t remember long lists of complex tasks. Especially my five-year-old, who is free-spirited on top of being five. Here’s an example:

I can’t say “Get ready for school” when he gets out of bed and expect him to make it all the way to the bus stop without further instruction (not counting assistance provided, like toasting the waffles, pouring the cereal, and crossing the street). Here’s what all is required of him in order to “get ready for school” -

- Get dressed
- Brush your teeth
- Comb your hair
- Go downstairs
- Take your allergy medicine
- Eat breakfast
- Use the bathroom
- Wash your hands
- Now dry them off
- Turn the light off
- You turned the fan on. Turn the light off
- Now turn the fan off, too
- Leave the dog alone.
- Come over here
- Now
- One
- Two
- Thank you. Now pick those shoes up and put them on…

Eventually we do make it to the bus stop. But you see, there is so much that falls under “Get Ready for school” that they can’t remember it all. I have to break it down into its smaller components and micro-manage the shit out of each child, or they will manage themselves. For kids at ages where they still miss important details, like “wear underpants,” they just aren’t ready for self-management. I will find that they inserted a 20-minute session of “Play with Darth Tater” between “Brush your teeth” and “Comb your hair.”

It gets worse when I use big words. These are usually reserved for the Great Parenting Lectures where I go on for ten minutes, knowing I lost them nine minutes and forty-five seconds ago but continuing to extol virtue after virtue nonetheless because I feel bad when I spank them.

I tell them about the consequences of their choices and taking responsibility for their decisions and owning up to their actions and being a leader, not a follower. And they look at me and say, “If you hold you face like this too long,” (pinches his cheeks and purses his lips like a fish) “will it stay like that forever?”

On the other hand, if I say let’s go to the park they will vanish and reappear a split-second later with shoes on, thrusting my car keys into my hand and urging ME along, telling me that I made a wrong turn when I wasn’t going to the park he was thinking of. Now he’s got a built-in GPS for crying out loud…

Prostitution- Defined

Last weekend we went to Akron for a wedding. On Friday we stopped at my uncle's house to drop our kids off, and they stayed with him Saturday while we went to the wedding and stayed in a hotel that had free shuttle service to and from the reception (it's like getting an official license to drink yourself silly).

I'll tell you about the wedding later. This story is about the kids' experience at my uncle's house, and how it affected my relationship with my Grandma. You're probably wondering what this has to do with the definition of prostitution....

The backstory: We met at my Grandma's house to pick the kids up. I had to go to Grandma's house, there was a serious issue I needed to confront. You see, she gets online sometimes. And she read this post about my last trip to my uncle's house. And while she does get online, she does not get my sense of humor. She got to the part about "Lila smoked some really strong crack" and of course she took it literally and promptly called my aunt to tell her that I was no family man like I pretend to be, I took the kids to a crack-house before I went home.

To my aunt, this was way to good to quash, so she didn't even try to explain it to Grandma. Instead, she called me, laughing so hard she could barely speak and leaving it up to me to clear my name.

We got to Grandma's house before my uncle and the kids did, and I took Lila (our GPS) inside to show it to Grandma and explain such concepts as metaphors and hyperbole. No sooner had I re-polished my tarnished image than my aunt and uncle arrived with the kids.

First thing was hugs and kisses for the boys (had to re-establish the fact that I am a family man). The kids ran off to play Grandma's piano.

"Oh, in case it comes up," my Uncle said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the kids were out of hearing range, "prostitution is not wearing your seat belt."

To make a short story long, here's how this little word game unfolded:

My Aunt and Uncle were channel surfing with the kids when my older son saw COPS on the cable guide. He loves that show, he first saw it when he was staying at my in-law's house. I watched it with him several times, eventually drawing the conclusions that 1) I didn't want to keep explaining what was happening and why, and 2) the explanations are not suitable for a seven-year-old anyway.

I didn't think to tell my Uncle this beforehand.

So the first scene in COPS was the officers busting a car full of hookers.

"Why are they getting arrested?" My son asked.

"They weren't wearing their seatbelts," was the evasive answer given.

A few minutes later the officer said, "We're going to have to take you in on charges of prostitution."

My son drew the only conclusion he could, given the information available to him at the time. "Prostitution? So that's what it's called when you don't wear your seat belt."

Nobody contradicted his logic. However, my Grandma overheard my Uncle telling me this, and now she believes that I am somehow involved in prostitution. So apparently I went from socializing with crack-ho's to just ho's. And for the record, Grandma knows prostitution has nothing to do with seat belts.

Vacation Recap- Part 1

The weekend is over, we're home again and getting back in the swing of things. The trip started up Garrettsville, Ohio (where?) near Aurora (where?) and Ravenna (where?). These are small towns east of Cleveland (oh...Cleveland. Thanks!).

My uncle lives in Garrettsville (remember, near Aurora and Ravenna?) and his daughter just turned one. I should probably mention my aunt here, too, since she's the mother and really did most of the work. It's just that I'm related to my uncle by blood and her by marriage, so I mentioned him first. But I don’t want anyone to feel left out.

The party was a lot of fun, mainly eating and drinking and playing cornhole while the kids played football and soccer. And a bonfire. I got to see my great grandmother and great grandpa, other aunt, uncles, and cousins I only see about once a year at events such as this one. As an added bonus, my Dad was in town and made a surprise visit. We knew about it beforehand but had to have a non-disclosure agreement in place so nobody would know he was coming. I think that was in case he had to back out.

We were going to camp out. By which I mean sleep in a tent in my uncle's backyard while otherwise enjoying all of the amenities of a comfortable home. Due to one brief mid-afternoon rain shower and more than one beer, the tent never got set up. So we slept on air-mattresses in the basement (it was a finished basement, very nice).

We spent the morning trying to get Wii Fit before loading up and heading home. I am not Wii Fit, at least not when it comes to ski jumping. I'm better with Yoga. Apparently my seven year old son has the Wii body of a twenty-six year old. I don't know what to make of that.

We have a GPS named Lila, and she usually tells us where we need to go, in her sweet British accent. Lila smoked some really strong crack before we headed home, though, and instead of guiding us back the way we came, the bitch took us on a convaluted tour through the greater Akron-Canton area before leading us to the road home (I-71 south, in this case).

The rest of Sunday was rest and relaxation, and a little bit of getting ready for Monday and our trip to King’s Island…

We think we're so cool

Once upon a time, my wife and I were cool. We went to cool places and hung out with cool people. We wore cool clothes and said cool things. We were arctic, we were so cool.

Things heated up when we started a family. Kids can do that. They add warmth to your life and soul, but that warmth slowly melts away your cool.

First to go is the ability to travel to cool places. This is followed by dramatic changes to the company you keep. You hang out with non-parents less and less. Non-parents don't understand that infants don't care if you have a hangover. And if you didn't drink to begin with, a) why the heck not, and b) non-parents also don't understand that you have to stop what you are doing twice a day for six to nine months so your baby can nap, so bear with me.

Cool clothing is next on the list. Your children may wear cool clothes, but you are so broke from buying kid stuff you are afraid to splurge on yourself. I have never splurged on my own clothing. God that sounds bad, if your mind is in the gutter where mine is. If I ever look well-dressed, it is because my wife purchased good clothes for me and told me when to wear them.

The last cubes of cool to melt away are your language skills. Elimination of foul language is the beginning of the end. As it turns out, it is inappropriate to tell a crying baby to "shut the f-up." Who knew. Instead, you are supposed to hold them and coo lovingly, or just let them cry it out while you slowly go insane. You are going to go insane anyway, as a parent, so you may as well start the process right away. Once you have total disarmament of your F-bombs, it's all downhill from there.

The isolation mandated by parenthood keeps you at a distance from new cultural trends. You don't go to the hot new hangouts. Actually, you just don't go out at all, but that's too depressing to mention. You can only watch kid-friendly TV, at least until you get them to bed. Then if you put on a movie, you are likely to fall asleep watching it because you are too tired from dealing with the kids all evening.

And you don't understand the new slang. You are vaguely aware that it exists, but you rarely have instance to practice its proper form and end up saying the wrong thing the wrong way at the wrong time. My wife was watching TV and some criminal did something really stupid and got busted.

"Oh, smack!" She said to the TV. Then she turned to me and asked, "Is that what you say?"

"Snap."

"Oh yeah. Snap." At least she got the timing right.

Luckily this little exchange occurred in the privacy of our own home, not in a public forum where many people would be aware of it. That would really be embarrassing, you know.

Vacation Day / Happy Birthday

Today is the last day of spring break, so I took the day off work. Last night we drove three hours to Charleston, WV, and we're staying with my mother-in-law. This would be an excellent place for a mother-in-law joke, but I can't do it. She's wonderful, and I can't think of any witty barbs. Also, she reads this blog sometimes. I love you Linda! Happy birthday!

Later today we're going to take the kids bowling. I don't expect any of us to play as good as we do on the Wii. I've made four strikes in a row Wii bowling, and when I don't get a strike I usually clear the frame in a spare. I don't think I've ever made one strike in an actual bowling alley. Although, to be fair, I think I've bowled in a real bowling alley about 4 times in my entire life. And that includes a fairly intoxicating venture to Dave & Busters in Nashville last year in a work-sponsored event.

in real life, if I could switch my bowling score with my golf score I'd be a pro at each, because I bowl a 63 and I golf a 300.

PS Blogger spell check doesn't know that Wii is a word. It doesn't have a problem with Atari though. Get out of the 80's and catch up to modern times, Google. I expected more from a high tech giant like you.

What You See is What You Get

Today I watched my wife’s eye get sucked out of her head.















Well, not the entire eye, just the lens, but it was still really cool. She went in for cataract surgery this morning. They called me back into a room to talk about the post-

op care, and there was a large TV screen with her eyeball on it. That’s all it was, her eyeball, opened wide. The surgery was being broadcast live. There was a small implement that looked like the tip of a calligraphy pen poking into the bottom center of her eye, where there was a 3mm incision in the cornea. “…and after she wakes up, which will probably be around 2:30pm, she can take the bandage off if when she can blink,” the nurse explained as I stared at the screen. It was hypnotic. This big eyeball staring at me. Kind of like watching Lord of the Rings. “Do they take the whole lens out?” I asked, although they were quite obviously doing just that. I didn’t need to ask. I could see it right there in front of me. After all, I wasn’t the one going in for surgery. But I was fascinated watching it. The nurse explained that a cataract is a medical condition where the entire lens becomes dense and cloudy, not just a film covering the surface. The procedure is really a lens extraction, and they put in a new lens, custom made for her eye. The calligraphy pen broke up the lens, and when it finished, a small vacuum took its place. Small in real life, that is. On screen it was the size of a Dirt Devil. It sucked out all the lens pieces, and then another tool came onscreen to insert the new lens. The lens went in all folded up, and I watched as it slowly unfolded, like a flower blooming in slow motion, the bright orange backdrop of her retina helping to illustrate the thin black edges of the transparent lens like some jellyfish dancing in front of an underwater volcano. Now how cool is that? She’s back home and doing fine. She napped for a couple hours. I took a vacation day so I could be caregiver, and she’s remarkably self-sufficient when she isn’t sleeping, so this is more like a standard vacation day for me. Just without the beach. #