Overheard on the playground

"Daddy?  Spiderman can beat up Jesus."

Actual quote.

Connor has gained an encyclopaedic knowledge of Your Friendly Neighborhood Webslinger^TM: his alias Peter Parker, his beloved Aunt May, adversaries Venom, Green Goblin, Doc Octopus, Electro, theRhino, Kingpin... and so on. He gained all this without the benefit of seeing a Spiderman movie, reading a comic, seeing a cartoon, and so on.  That means he learned it on the playground.

Thing is, we're not exactly taking him to Sunday School. So it appears he's getting a primer in world religions on the jungle gym as well.  Not a working knowledge of such matters, mind you, just the facts as they can be comprehended by a team of five-year olds: Jesus was powerful.  He had magic powers. That means he's like a superhero.  And those with superpowers, by definition, must fight for supremacy.

I guess on that front he has a point - Spiderman has a better costume, better physique, and a cooler job, while Jesus, as Patton Oswalt duly noted, has the powers of an X-Man sidekick.  So maybe there's something to this: if he comes home Monday and equates the government shutdown to the kids who refuse to roll the kickball when it's not their turn, well, I'd be duly impressed.

The idle questions of a preschooler

For whatever reason, whenever I've had a get-together with some of Connor's peers, the idle chit-chat with other parents always turns to difficult questions^TM.  And, even more surprisingly, I'm somehow viewed as a sage, someone equipped to provide wise responses^TM to posers like:

Your kids play so nicely together. How can I get my boys to get along?

It's all about incentive. Like, "sharing toys means you get to stay  up 

10 minutes more". Give the kids a reason to get along. But keep it small

and  time-focused, or you'll be in the business of buying matchbox cars 

and pumping your kids full of ice cream each night just to keep the peace.

My son told me, "Daddy, I don't want you to ever die." What do I say to that? 

Be honest.  Death is a part of life.  It gives life meaning, a reason to do 

stuff today, because we never know when we might not be around anymore.

 Without death, we'd always push stuff off to tomorrow.  And what would 

you rather hear... "Let's go to the playground  today?" or "What's the hurry?

 We can go to tomorrow?" 

How can my kids be good eaters like Connor?

Have them help you cook stuff they like.  When they start seeing those 

different elements come together, they'll have a better appreciation for 

different tastes.  Or if that fails, give the food disgusting names. Because a 

kid may not like "hummus", but a four year old will be intrigued by a big 

serving of "stork poop".  

But I'm in trouble.  I mean, who do I turn to when my son poses a question like,

Daddy, why is that man shaving his chest?

Right?  

Let's rewind a bit.  Connor at T-ball: pretty good hitting on a tee, now a champion base-runner, fields foolishly, and throws like Elaine Benes dances. In his defense, Connor's a lefty, and I see him trying to map the throwing motion of all the righty coaches into something similar.  That means bending his elbow into his body, warping his wrist inwards, and doing a whole lot of Tommy John surgery-inducing movement from his funhouse mirror interpretation of a game of catch.  So in an attempt to provide a major league ready role model, I let my son watch some baseball.  He's rapt - he thankfully watches so little TV that this is not a surprise.  But it's a live event, so that means commercials.

And that's when we get 28 seconds of Gillette ProGlider Fusion fun. Now, the innuendoes surrounding  manscaping would ordinarily go completely over Connor's head. But intercut into the footage of Ron Burgundy's never-ending pool party circa 2013 are images of a man "tidying up"  his pectoral area.

Now, my son has seen me shave.  But when I shave, I:

• use shaving cream (I'm a sensitive skin kid of guy)
• don't shave in a series of quick flourishes (I would need fourteen titches if i shaved with the level of relish used in a TV spot)
• never shave my chest.

So when he asks, I tell him some people do that.  And that opens Pandora's box.  

"Why don't you shave your chest?" 

I never wanted to, Connor.

"But your chest is hairier than his, Daddy." 

Yes, because he shaved it. 

"Would your chest have less hair than his if you shaved it?" 

It depends on how I shave it.  

"Would you have muscles like that if you shaved your chest?" 

I think if I had muscles like that I would shave my chest.  

"Can you get muscles like that?" 

Oh look, Connor, the game is back on!.  

Ugh.  Now I understand why my wife watches all TV via Tivo.  

The  saving grace to this awkwardness? The fact that my son missed the inference that Kate Upton likes below-the-waistband clear-cutting. Because that would have led to some really bizarre questioning that I don't want to think about.

What the hell has parenthood done to me?

So I'm driving around town today with my son in the back seat.

  On the way to Little League practice. 
  
  While I was driving my minivan.

  With Kelly Clarkson on the radio. 

  And my son and I were singing along. 

I don't even know me anymore  Man, the 31-year-old, post-punk listening, PBR drinking, Nat Nast wearing, online-dating, international-vacationing, Bohemian-index-lifestyle version of me would pity the 41-year-old version of me.  And the 25-year-old version of me wouldn't even acknowledge the current version of me (likely because of the alcohol-induced myopia and excessive narcissism, drizzled with a healthy dollop of denial)

I blame my kids. 

But... Don't tell anyone... I kinda liked it. Especially the Kelly Clarkson bit.

Yo no hablo Espanol

My son is taking Spanish.

This matters to us for a three reasons I can think of right now:

1. My wife and I both think there is a richness that comes from appreciating other cultures, and language is a big part of that.  So yes, we'd like our kids to be able to travel internationally, and at least have two languages in which they can ask for simple directions only to get blank stares.
2. The missus is a Canuck, so multi-culturalism and multilingualism is in her blood. That said multi-culti blood is hoity-toity French rather than Spanish is beside the point.
3. And, in no small part, because one of my big regrets in life is that my ability to speak in a foreign tongue is limited to mangled French that prevents me form speaking in either the past or future tense - I can only discuss what I am doing.  Right. Now.*  And yes, before you say anything, I'm aware my interest in having the kids be polyglots is both vicarious and ironic.

* I can also tell someone to "stay here" in German.  Or ask "What is this?" Both of which are of extremely limited use.  I can also say "Word to your mother" in Greek, which is only useful if I was a rapper. In 1991. Who wanted to get his ass kicked.

He's quite good, or at least he is when measured by the yardstick of being a  four-year-old, non-native speaker.  Heck, this morning he was reading a book to his sister (Knuffle Bunny, if you must know), and started randomly replacing the English words in the story with their Spanish counterparts. Okay, granted, many of the words in question were ones like "Mommy" or "Daddy, but I'm still impressed because (a) it was unprompted, and (b) as mentioned, he's four.

Two-year-old Claire is not far behind in her interest in Spanish.  Her ability to be condescending about it, however, is FAR more advanced than her brother.

See, we have a few Spanish books. And, when it's storytime, Claire occasionally picks one up.  When she does, I get the rolling insult:

"This book is in Spanish.  Mommy reads Spanish.  Connor reads Spanish.  Juanita reads Spanish.  But Daddy doesn't read Spanish."

Yes, my daughter makes a point of listing everyone she knows who can habla Espanol better than her old man. Which, admittedly, is everyone who can habla Espanol.

I get that insult every time.

What a jerk. My only solace is that she doesn't know more people who speak Spanish.

The past-tense pasttime dream

I merely want what all parents want in life: for my son to throw a 98 mile an hour fastball and bat .300, ensuring a free-ride scholarship at a top-flight university (in part due to good grades), thereby saving me and the missus hundreds of thousands of dollars in education costs which can then be funneled into my dehabilitating addiction to single malt scotch.  

I know I'm not alone in that desire. Why? Two key reasons:

• Because by the time he's 18, inflation will drive the four-year cost of an Ivy League-or-comparable education will run $400k+.  I'd prefer to pocket that money instead, because (a) I am selfish, (b) I am a dick, (c) I am lazy, (d) I clearly put my own needs over my children's well being, and (e) as previously mentioned, I really like Oban and Laphroaig 18 year scotch.  
• They don't give scholarships for mathletes,  there's relatively few good football schools with academic bona fides that my wife wouldn't dismiss quickly, derisively, and fairly, and my son likely will top out below 6' 4", leaving basketball greatness outside of his wingspan reach.  That leaves baseball.

So we signed Connor up for t-ball.  And I now know I better start saving for his higher education, because a five-tool player he is not.  His hitting isn't hot. Hitting for power is a pipe dream at best.  He can't field.  He can't throw - I mean, he had the ball in his mitt, went to throw - with both hands, ball in mitt - and proceeded to launch the ball an exacting three feet in the opposite direction form the coach who was his cut-off man.  And hell, he can't even run.  Well, he can run, he just doesn't know what he's doing. He batted, got to first, ran to second, rounded third, and didn't know where home was - so he ran back to the bench.

In fairness, t-ball with the preschool set is unfathomable.  Ever seen little kids play soccer? The way you have the ball and twenty kids in a scrum around the ball, chasing it wherever it might go? Yeah, that's what fielding is like at t-ball, except with more staccato action and a greater chance for injury.  One kid hitting on a tee, ten kids blobbed together in the middle infield, and a mad tangle of grabbing and squabbling with each bunted ball.  I expect Connor's first loose tooth will be by week four, when a slow dribbler results in him being accidentally tackled by his teammate.  And heaven help us if any of the kids develops into a hitting prodigy who belts line drives off the tee - Connor spent as much time with hisback turned playing with the loose infield sand as he did paying attention to the batter.

What does this teach me?  That this "extremely limited TV diet" is clearly not working.  If Connor at least watched a few more Yankees games, at least he'd have the basics down.  Like what the basepaths are. I mean, I was uncomfortable - even the fat British grandmother of one of the kids howled in laughter as Connor  moped when neither the first nor second grounder of the day was hit to him.

Whatever. I guess Harvard's out of the question.  Sigh.

At what age can you administer sleep aids to a child?

Please tell me 30 months.  I think that's more than fair.

Listen, it's not that my kids don't sleep.  They may require some coaxing at nap time, and my daughter has more bedtime rituals than Wade Boggs at his most superstitious, but they fall asleep.

But, like the living dead, just because they were put down doesn't mean they stay down.

Case in point: Saturday night.  While I volunteered at a fundraiser for my son's preschool*,  my wife took the kids to a birthday party for our ex-babysitter Patty's kid.  Now, a few weeks back, we went to a birthday party for one of Patty's elder kids.  We knew what to expect: Peruvians party 'til late (no matter that the birthday girl was a toddler), cake wouldn't make an appearance until 8 or 9 PM at best, and with so many games and activities they kids would never want to leave. So after face painting, dances, sing-alongs, and enough food, chips, cake and candy to make Connor puke (literally), Janelle took the kids home.

Bedtime: 10:30 PM.

Granted, it was a 30 minute drive home. And the kids needed a scrub-down with makeup remover.  But 10:30? That's at least 2 hours too late, maybe more.** My wife told me of the late tuck-in when I got home at 11, and I began to steel myself for Sunday morning when we'd deal with the unholy terror that is two sleep-deprived kids.  But the telling comment from my wife was "maybe this means Claire will sleep in until 8 or so."  I arched an eyebrow at that one.  And I think I had the wisdom to keep my mouth shut and not comment.  That, or I blurted my feelings on that being a pipe dream or crazy or some other ill-advised and not-so-pithy comment that was greeted with a judicious beat-down that I have wisely blocked out.

No matter.  At 6:30, Claire emerged from her room, storybook in hand. crap-filled diaper around her waist. Now, the optimist would say "hey, she often gets up at 5:50, that's a good 40 minutes of extra sleep". The pessimist would take the soiled diaper, shove it down the optimist's throat, and try and sneak in one last REM cycle while his daughter struggled to amuse herself for an hour.

As my wife will tell you, I was the pessimist, as I buried my head under a few pillows and stayed in bed past 8.  Yeah, not the most supportive I've ever been. Don't worry, though, the joke was on both of us - later that day, we took the kids into Manhattan to visit the Guggenheim.  And if you've ever tried to deal with overly-tired kids around a mess of Modern Art that's protected only by small lines on the floor that intimate "please don't touch" - this, after letting them play with a participatory piece in the lobby that encouraged adding graffiti to a wall with crayons - you know the unique brand of hell that was Sunday morning.

* I'd like to say that my volunteering was me being more noble than my wife, but the event was called "Dads Can Cook", so unless Janelle got gender reassignment surgery, this was an event with my name on it.  Oh, and I didn't volunteer so much as I was volunteered (shanghaied?) by my friend Victor.  Aaaaand they had booze and a band, so torturous it wasn't.

** Unlike my wife, I would have packed up the kids and left by 7:30 or 8.  Because I am a dick who puts bedtimes above my kids' enjoyment.  Yes, this is why they will eventually rebel by partying all night as teenagers.  Or, if they are more passive-aggressive, why they'll write tell-all books when I'm a retiree in Boca.  Either way, there will be retribution, and I'll be on the receiving  end of it.

They should really have a warning about this sort of thing.

Morning. I'm prepping lunches for the kids. Claire "finishes" (a spurious distinction, but whatever) and departs for the living room.  Five minutes later, screams.  My daughter runs in, crying and clutching a mini toy car to her head.  She's blubbering something I cannot understand. Then she grabs hold of my leg and hugs me with both hands.

The toy car is still hanging from her hair.  And I can hear its wee motor straining.

Hoo boy.  So I fumble for the off switch. Then I spend five minutes unwrapping her locks from the axles, only to be greeted by a handful of hair.

Indemnifying disclaimer: The hair that was lost? I didn't rip it out, Claire did.
Damning disclaimer: Had Claire not done it first, I clearly would have done
even more damage.

So we've long since discarded the packaging for this gift, and I have no clue whether the product disclaimers warned "Please keep this from the long hairs atop a toddler's head" or "Warning: allowing the car to take a batter-assisted summit of a 2-year ofd's mane will invalidate the warranty." I suspect not.