My Daducation

Warning: If you are easily offended perhaps it would be best if you did not read this post. It is not meant to offend and I don’t need a bunch aggravating emails.

Anyone who has kids knows how they can come up with the craziest of conclusions from stuff they have seen or heard. It doesn’t seem to make any sense at the time, but after you think about it for a little bit, it makes perfect sense from their perspective. Take my five-year-old as an example:

The other night we are eating dinner, making plans for how the eight-year-old and five-year-old plan to waste their summer. My wife and I were discussing how we can integrate an exercise program into our daily routine. We used to be members of a gym, but we gave up the membership when my wife was pregnant and I was too damn lazy to go. So we sat there talking about the merits of joining the gym again versus the amount of time we have to go. Part of the discussion revolved around whether our 18-month-old is old enough to be left with the childcare center at the gym without flipping out. We weren’t sure that would work out so well since she seems pretty attached to my wife.

We actually liked the child care center at our gym. There were several nice care-givers there, including one we had babysit for us once. She was very young, in high school still, and she was from Kenya. She seem to be genuine in her interest in kids. However, the five-year-old seemed to have a very concerned look on his face. After a few minutes my wife finally asked him what was wrong.

“Are you going to the gym?” he asked.

“Probably not this year,” she answered.

Relief came across his face. He went back to eating.

“Why did you want to know,” she pressed him.

“Well,” he said, “I don’t want to have to go in with the Ninjas any more.”

We look at each other. I am clueless.

“What ninjas?” my wife asks.

“THERE WERE NINJAS THERE!” he said. “Didn’t you see them?”

Slowly it dawns on my wife. She explains it to me.

“The caregiver there was from Kenya. She is Muslim. She had to wear the Hijab on her face,” she explained.

So there I was, explaining to him that Muslims were not Ninjas. After a while he seemed convinced.

I’m just glad he told us before he waltzed in there and asked her if she was a Ninja. Talk about hell breaking loose.

The furor over the memos describing methods of torture used by our intelligence services hit a fever pitch in the last several weeks, and I couldn’t help but be surprised by it all. While my friends and family know me as a political person I made a promise to myself that this blog would not be a platform for my views. So I  can’t comment directly on my opinion on this matter, except that I’m pretty sure “pretty please” won’t work with a terrorist.

Anyway, I figure there has to be a compromise somewhere in this mess. And I think I’ve come up with a game plan that can work. In fact, I’m sure those scumbags will be begging to tell us everything in no time.

First - Soften Them Up

The plan to soften them up involves my five-year old. His unique talent is his ability to repeat the same question over and over again. And again. And again. And you think he will stop. He doesn’t until you cave. He’s tough as nails with this.

Example:

Five Year Old: Can you get my box down out of the closet?

Me: Yes. Give me five minutes and I’ll come down.

Five Year Old: Dad?

Me: Yes?

Five Year Old: Can you get my box down out of the closet?

Me: Yes. Give me five minutes and I’ll come down.

Five Year Old: Dad?

Me: Yes?

Five Year Old: Can you get my box down out of the closet?

Me: Don’t ask me again.

Five Year Old: Can you get my box down out of the closet?

Me: I said don’t ask me again.

Five Year Old: Can you get my box down out of the closet?

Me: YES JUST WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!!!!!!!

Five Year Old: Can you get my box down out of the closet?

At this point I feel like running out of the room screaming. And I do.

Second - Embarrass them with their terrorist buddies.

My eight-year-old has a knack for repeating many of our home conversations in public. Since I usually speak sarcastically he doesn’t always “get it” and notifies some people about my thoughts and opinions because he got a chuckle out of it and thinks they will think its funny too. No, I don’t get invited to many parties anymore in case you were wondering.

Example:

Me: Wow, that kid in your class has a huge head. Does he have to wear a helmet so he doesn’t hurt himself banging it on doorways?

Eight Year Old: (laughing) No. (laughs some more)

Me: Poor kid. I bet he has to step into his shirts.

Eight Year Old: (laughing) No. (laughs some more)

Two days later…

Eight Year Old: My teacher would like to talk to you.

Me: Why?

Eight Year Old: Oh, I told everyone what you said about that kids big head.

Basically I am ready to throw myself at the mercy of the school as I’m sure they will think I’m a jerk. For good reason. I know I’ll have to give up some volunteer hours to make everyone happy or face their wrath.

Third - Sleep Torture

My one-year-old has mastered sleep torture in a very unique way. We spent a great deal of time and energy training her to play in her crib when she wakes up in the morning or after her nap. We have a monitor on to keep tabs of her while she plays. This monitor is next to our heads. While we are sleeping.

Unfortunately she likes to play with her Elmo Music Box. Right now it has “Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood” in it. She pushes a button to play the song. She usually pushes the button about 38 times. In a row. While I am trying to sleep. I am not sure if you appreciate the agony of hearing Elmo shriek the words to “Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood” 38 times in a row. It has literally driven me to the brink of mental collapse. I hate Elmo. I am thinking about accidentally dropping that music box in the driveway. As I’m backing out.

So now we have a three-tiered system of attack where my kids can effectively force any hardened terrorist into providing whatever information is necessary. If the terrorist can withstand the indefinite repeated questions from my five-year-old he must still contend with my eight-year-old who will be more than happy to tell his terrorist buddies that he saw him sneaking a snack when he was supposed to be fasting. Oh the humilation. And lastly, if none of that works, we will bring on my one-year-old and her Elmo music box, which will be sure to destroy any remaining resistance he has.

If you can recommend any other alternative methods, lets make a list.

Update: Please change any use of the word “terrorist” above to “man-caused disasterist.” Thank you.

Things have been so crazy in our house that I have had very little time to get  back to writing here on the blog. But I will be posting soon!

As I drove home from school with my five-year-old last week, we listened on the radio as they broke the story of the Somali pirates who had attempted the seizure of an American cargo ship, and instead wound up holding the ship’s captain hostage. For anyone who has read my blog in the past you already know my five-year-old is the youngest pirate in the world. Please take a moment to get acquainted.

Back? OK, we can continue.

So we are driving along and the story breaks across the radio. My five-year-old’s ears immediately perk up.

“Is he talking about pirates?!” he asks excitedly.

“Yep,” I respond.

He listens to the story. He doesn’t understand everything that has happened, but he does understand that they captured the captain.

“Did the pirates kill the captain?” he asks, breathlessly.

“No, they are holding him for ransom I think,” I say.

I look in the rearview mirror. A huge smile is on his face.

“What do you think they will do to the captain?”  I ask him.

“He’ll walk the plank and get eaten by sharks,” he says. This idea makes his smile even bigger.

I am growing a little uneasy.

“You know, buddy, ” I tell him, “the Navy is going to stop them. They might kill the pirates.”

“No, the pirates will get away,” he says wishfully.

We drive a little further. I am thinking about my little pirate. Will he grow out of this? Will he understand that pirates are thugs? Will he ever realize that chicks don’t date pirates?

He seems adamant about not brushing his teeth. After all , he tells us, pirates have green teeth.

He seems to only want to get in the bathtub to play with his pirate boats. No, he tells us, don’t wash me - pirates are dirty.

It gets worse as we have dinner that night and I ask him what he wants to do when he gets big like me.

“Be a pirate,” he says without flinching. In fact he is eating, and doesn’t even look up when he responds.

‘What did you expect him to say?” my wife asks. “By the way, the doctor called to confirm his appointment to implant his peg leg. I suppose that was your idea, wiseguy.”

“No, it wasn’t me,” I reply.

His phone privileges are officially revoked.

So what’s my next step? I believe I can take my chances that he will one day meet a nice girl and she will talk him into being a wall street trader or a politician. But then again are they any better???

Of course, I may be over-reacting. After all, they say the Somali pirates made over $100 million last year. I know I didn’t make that kind of money. Maybe he’s on to something.

One the better inventions of the last century for kitchens everywhere was the dishwasher. The promise of never washing another dish, of easily cleaning up after dinner, of spending more time with the family……..what a crock. I have yet to see a dishwasher clean a dish without human intervention. It’s pathetic.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe my wife is in tune with this reality. Her confidence in our dishwasher is staggering. I have witnessed the depth of her confidence as she loads the dishwasher. I can see she believes she has a dishwasher that actually WASHES dishes. Spaghetti still on the plate? No problem. Oatmeal still in the bowl? Easy. Cake on a platter? Piece of cake. (sorry)

Of course, the reality is that the dishes are not clean. If there is a speck of dirt on them going in, it’s still there when you take them out. I’m not sure what is happening in there, other than jacking my water bill, but it certainly isn’t WASHING anything.

Yes, I’ve seen that advertisement from Maytag where the guys loads a full cake into the dishwasher and it disappears. What a total joke. What a great way to destroy your plumbing. I don’t care if it has chopping blades or not, can it scrape that grain of pulverized oatmeal off a bowl???

I’ve had friends tell me to try different detergent. So I did. This appears to be a whole other racket. Seriously, how many different detergents do you need? And how do you choose when NONE of them get anything any cleaner? Reminds me; I need to buy stock in these companies.

So, of course, I have been relegated to hand-washing each dish before placing it in the dishwasher. Now, mind you, this is only to rinse debris off the dishes, not an actual soapy cleaning. Why should the dishwasher get off that easy? No, our dishwasher is a sanitizer now. At least now I won’t know if it isn’t doing its job.

Which leads me to the next problem…..loading the thing. Not to brag, but I have the ability to organize the loading of a dishwasher pretty well. It is an art, because not only do you need to fit everything in, you need to do it so that the water reaches all the dishes. However, my wife does not appear to be concerned with this. Actually I would guess she loads the dishwasher using a horseshoe toss technique. From across the kitchen.

I open the dishwater to find bowls on top of bowls on top of more bowls. Cups turned over and full of water. The silverware is wedged in the tray so tightly I need a crowbar to extract them. A huge pot is turned upside down blocking all water from reaching the top rack, like a blast shield. The pot is huge. Real big. It should have its own zip code.

“Hey, ” I mention to her, “why didn’t you just hand wash the pot? It’s too big for the dishwasher.”

“Ah, it can handle it. Besides did you see how big that thing is? I’m not washing that in the sink. It won’t fit,” she responds. “By the way, can you load the dishwasher tonight?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Great. Make sure you throw in the toy box. I need it sanitized.”

I think I have to ban her from touching it.

So it follows not long after that I smell burning in the middle of the night. I rush downstairs to find the dishwasher near the end of its drying cycle. And something is smoking. That something is a plastic spoon that slid down to the heating element and melted into something that resembled the devil’s pitchfork.

But worse than this, there is a green film all over the inside of the dishwasher which does not want to come off. I scrape. I scrub. Not coming off. It is not until I look into the bottom on the machine and see a little green paper stuck in the silverware tray. It is the wrapping of a crayon. A green crayon.

“Oh yeah,” my wife says,” The one-year-old must have stuck that in there when she was playing with the dishwasher tray earlier.” She finds this hilarious.

“Of course,” I say. “Silly me, I didn’t know this was one of her toys.”

“Oh pipe down, slim,” she says. “She likes the dishwasher. Who cares if she plays with the tray?”

Apparently I am the only one with a hangup on a properly operating dishwasher. As for the green mess, well I am wondering if I can find a way to get the one-year-old to clean it up since she loves the dishwasher so much. Any ideas?

I can remember when I was a kid my parents had the curious obsession with assigning chores to me and my brother and sister. They tried different processes to dole out chores, starting with a list and working their way to my personal favorite, the “Job Jar.” This was a jar that had slips of paper, each containing a job, all thrown in. You had to reach in and grab a slip and perform that job. I can remember my own little tricks to try to get the best jobs, although I was rarely successful because all the jobs basically sucked.

My oldest son has reached the age where he needs to become responsible for doing his own chores. While certain tasks were always his, such as cleaning his room or putting his clothes in the laundry, he never had to do jobs that were for the household in general. While he is a sweet boy, I would never confuse with him someone that looks out for the needs of the household.

In a effort to make it more interesting, my wife offered to let him create a chart of chores he could do, and as a bonus she allowed him to assign allowances to each chore. If he did the job he got paid.

Shortly after the chart was created and placed on the refrigerator, a curious thing happened……he completely forgot about it.

So, as parents do, whenever an opportunity came for him to perform a chore on his chart we reminded him of it.

“Do I have to?” he would ask.

“Yes,” we would say.

He would proceed to grumble under his breath, a talent learned from his mother, while he did the chore. Of course, saying he did a good job with the chore is like saying Britney Spears did a good job raising her kids. Which leads to the next problem.

“That needs to be done again,” I tell him as he emerges from making his bed.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because ‘making the bed’ means actually making it look like no one slept in it. Yours looks like you wrestled a monkey on it. I’m not paying fifty cents for THAT,” I inform him.

“Fine, but I want a dollar because I did it twice,”  he says.

I explain to him that he doesn’t get paid for a job done poorly. He asks me what Mom takes away when I don’t do what she asks. I tell him to mind his own business.

So the chart continues to sit on the refrigerator, only garnering interest whenever the new Lego catalog arrives each month. Like a junkie, he immediately starts hitting me up for cash. I point to the job chart. He bites his lower lip and begins to try to find an easy job. Reminds me of someone…..

Anyway, we have started working out the kinks in our household version of a “Plan To Create Jobs.” While I know the folks in Washington think they know how to create jobs, they have nothing on me. I’ve got a list of tedious crap a mile long. It’s not that I don’t like doing them and think someone else should……well, maybe it is. It also has to do with that fact that he might actually learn something by doing them. He might gain a new respect for how much good ole Mom and Dad do for the family.

I believe our eight-year-old will come around and realize there is no use fighting it. He knows we want to him to learn responsibility. He knows we want him to learn accountibility. He knows I don’t like changing the litterbox.

On a more positive note, the little brother seems to have an interest in helping with chores. But, man, his prices are high!

As a kid I remember going over to a friend’s house was always a neat experience because it was interesting to see how other people lived. I had a friend whose parents yelled at each other in a combination of Italian and English. He and his sister would fight once a day. Not yell at each other. Fight. With fists. And hair-pulling. It was great theatre. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

One thing I saw from time to time was that they stored their books, magazines, and newspapers in the bathroom. For years I never said anything, because who was I to tell them where to store things in their house. Finally one day I asked my friend.

“Why do you keep your books and magazines stacked in your bathroom?” I asked.

“That’s where we read. Where else would we keep them?” he said.

I am floored by this at the time. I had no idea people did this. Bathroom time was always a SEAL operation for me. Get in and get out. Sitting and reading was not an option. For that matter I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose that as a reading spot. What’s wrong with the couch? Or a recliner? Personally I liked to sit on my bed and read. I still do to this day.

For years after I can remember going to visit people and seeing a library in their bathroom. It seemed to be more often than not people maintained a book depository in the water closet. For years I shook my head in amazement. Why would you pick this place to read??

One day the realization comes crashing home to me. It happens shortly after my  second child has learned to walk. While an independent sort, he liked to walk around and find out where you were. This is cute. For a while.

Most parents get into a pretty good groove when they have the first child, learning how to skillfully hand off the kid from one parent to the other when something has to be done. It’s a tag-team deal and it works pretty well. When the second child comes along, you shift the defense to man-to-man coverage. This seems to work fine, until one of you actually needs to get something done. Then someone is on double duty.

After a few years of double-duty, finding some peace and quiet is mandatory. Little did I realize the ONLY place to do this is the———BATHROOM. Not the bedroom, with the door locked. Not the office, with the door locked. The bathroom. Because you have an alibi.

Yes, sometimes it is necessary to head in with a good book and catch up on some reading. Sometimes they hang around outside. It can be a little hard to concentrate with all the yelling:

“What are you DOING in there?!”

What’s funny is that isn’t what they want to know. What they really want to know is if they can come in and harass me some more, and how come I won’t let them in to do this. If the book is good enough I don’t hear them at all.

So I am wondering if any of you parents can recommend a good book to take in with me next time?

When I was a kid I went to Kindergarten pretty much as a blank slate. I knew some letters and numbers, but I certainly wasn’t a speller and I couldn’t write my name. It seems however that I must have graduated to first grade relatively unscathed as I recall. I don’t remember my mother crying about my lack of Kindergarten knowledge. She usually cried about other things, probably having to do with my existence.

Anyway, fast forward to my senior year, where I have apparently passed the public school’s standard to graduate from high school and proceed to college. Not that the public school standard was that high in the first place. By then I could spell my name and do basic math, so I guess I was good to go. They handed me my diploma and asked me never to come back. I can’t say my Kindergarten experience impacted me in any way. Maturity was never my strong suit anyway.

So fast-forward again to my parenting years. As our first-born neared the age required for him to start school, my wife began to go through the enrollment process. She reports her findings pretty quickly.

“He needs to know ALL of his letters and ALL of his numbers,” she says.

“Really? That’s a lot of numbers. He’s only five,” I say.

“No, I mean one through ten, wiseguy,” she says, ” I doubt you even know all your numbers.”

” Hmmm. Does he know them?” I ask.

“He knows his numbers. We will have to go through his letters and see what we need to work on.”

“Uh OK,” I respond.

“He also needs to know how to write his name. And his address. And phone number. And his geometry. And cutting.”

“Ummm. OK. How about Linear Algebra?” I ask. “What exactly are they planning on teaching him when he gets there?”

“I’m still working on that,” she says.

So we put the five-year-old through his pre-Kindergarten paces, making sure he is well versed in the fine art of writing his name, address, phone number and numbers. He is also skilled in the art of naming his shapes (including the parallelogram) and cutting out shapes.  He appears to be ready to go. If anything I now know all that stuff as well. I thank my wife for her help.

So we decide to go to the enrollment open house at the school. It is a madhouse. There are people everywhere. Then I realize we are standing in line for the refreshments.

We make our way to the Kindergarten area, where we get the opportunity to speak with the teachers. We are given a stack of papers we are to fill out. They are in Spanish. We realize we are in the wrong line again.

Finally we get our chance to speak with the teachers. She asks her round of questions. Our answers seem to be correct. I know this because she hasn’t asked me to leave yet. We finally get to ask ours.

“What exactly will they be learning in Kindergarten?” I ask.

“Spanish,” she replies. And she is serious.

She chooses not to elaborate after this. We suddenly have an urge to be in another room at that moment. We thank her for her time and quickly make our escape.

Oh well. Home school, here we come.

I’m not sure what dinner-time is like at your house, but frankly it has become such a chore at ours that some days I would rather send everyone to bed starving. I think God invented mealtime as a form of birth control.

Our kids represent the first three stages of chaos:

Our 1-year-old is an eating machine. It’s actually like feeding a snapping turtle. I’ve got the scars to prove it.

Our 5-year-old’s tastes change as often as his underwear. This week he only wants to eat things that contain chocolate. So I have been telling him that broccoli is made of chocolate.

Our 8-year-old has improved his eating habits but will not eat fruit, or sit next to anyone eating fruit. Don’t ask.

The following things happen through the course of “dinner”:

1. The 1-year-old tosses her plate of food across the room. Thank God for hardwood floors.
2. The 1-year-old cries because she has no more food. I inform her it is on the floor. She seems surprised.
3. The 5-year-old informs us that the chicken that has been made “tastes like garbage.” Since he has never eaten garbage we are pretty sure this is a ploy to move on to dessert.
4. The 8-year-old begins talking about who got in trouble at school.
5. The 5-year-old spills his cup of water.
6. The 1-year-old spies my iced tea and demands a drink. She demands this by making a noise that sounds like angry monkeys.
7. While I am cleaning up the 5-year-old’s mess the 8-year-old informs us he did not get in any trouble at school.
8. The 8-year-old decides he needs to pee. He is allowed to leave, lest there be an accident.
9. The 5-year-old decides he needs to pee. He is told to stay in his chair, as we know this is a ploy to move on to dessert.
10. The 1-year-old has consumed 10 mandarin oranges in 0.3 seconds, a world record. I checked.
11. The 1-year-old demands more food. Loudly.
12. The 5-year-old spills his cup of water again.
13. While cleaning up the 5-year-old’s mess, the 8-year-old informs us he may have gotten in some trouble at school.
14. Under harsh questioning the 8-year-old folds and explains that he really didn’t do anything wrong, the teacher just thought he did. We are fuzzy on the details, but I am at least relieved he was not eating cake off the floor.
15. The 1-year-old begins testing the acoustics of the room. It is becoming impossible to talk over her.
16. Not happy with “fuzzy details,” my wife gets the 8-year-old to admit he was talking in class.
17. The 5-year-old spills his cup of water. Yes, this REALLY happens three times.
18. The 5-year-old is made to clean it up.
19. I regret having the 5-year-old clean up the mess.
20. I clean up an even bigger mess he made.
21. My dinner is cold. I eat it out of spite. My wife is exhausted. She is staring at the clock. I think I hear her muttering something about their bedtime
22. Everyone is cleaned up and sent to their respective play areas while my wife and I recover.

Yes, dinnertime. The cure for conception.

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