My Daducation

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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.

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!

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