DadCentric

Things I'll have to explain to my kids someday: the animal edition

 

Every culture that has arisen since the dawn of man has anthropomorphized animals to teach children about the world.

I have no idea if that's true.  But I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were.

I've been thinking about this a lot ever since we first started reading books to our kids, which was pretty much as soon as their eyes could focus on the page.

90% of the characters in their books are non-humans.  I think it's about the same for movies and TV shows, although we haven't really gotten into that stuff yet.

The easy explanation for why the characters are bears and spiders and puppies is that these critters hold the kids' attention better than boring old homo sapiens. The Naked Ape, it would seem, just doesn't have the star power of the gorilla or caterpillar.

That's why fables can be so effective.  A cast of talking animals interacts in a way that's instructive in terms of human behavior, but may or may not have anything to do with the traits of their species.  Are foxes really more prone to cognitive dissonance than other animals?  Maybe?  But more importantly, Aesop knew that the image of a fox lunging at grapes that were just out of his reach and then pretending that he never wanted them in the first place is more striking and therefore more memorable than that of a generic human doing the same thing.

Hi Kids! Do You Like Violence?

These kids of mine, man, these boys. If you look out my back window some time, you might catch sight of them riding their bikes in merry circles around our deck, shouting, laughing, not a care in the world. Or you might see them digging in the dirt, working as a team to root out buried treasure. Swinging for ever greater heights on their swing set, taking a stroll through the garden, or just running as fast as their little legs can carry them, just as happy as could be. I wouldn’t even be surprised if you spotted them hugging one another. “What loving and cheerful little balls of sunshine those two are,” you might think to yourself And you’d be half-right, which, by definition means you’d also be half-wrong. Because these kids of mine? These boys? They’ll turn right around and pop the shit out of each other.

Of Beaches and Bar Napkins

It was all fun and games until the baby turned five. Seriously, who does that? Five is the start of the working man. It is the beginning of early rising and late, Scotch-filled nights. It is shoes with laces.

The Scotch is for me.

It is a milestone, this five. It is a big brother reaching across the aisle and pulling his younger one forward. The aisle being between clothing marked with a "T" and that just noted with a number. It has been years since their respective wardrobes could be stocked from within the same store section.  It is as sad as it is convenient.

Five. Boom. There it is. Life has been a beach, and suddenly there is kindergarten, a pending wave looming on the horizon. Suddenly his days will start that downward dilution of responsibility ebbing out the flows of fun, and I will hope that it was enough. I will hope that his days of wine and roses have left him content with his innocence and that he is stocked readily with happiness.

The wine was for me.

My days will be freer. There will no longer be an echo beneath my feet or a thunder rumbling across the kitchen floor. Rather there will be empty spaces with quiet rays of sunlight soothing corners that once danced beneath the beat of a boy and his shadow. 

I will get things done and will no longer complain about losses of time due to the needs and wants of a child's imagination.  I will no longer have to set work aside at random hours of the day for such things as books and somersaults.  I will be able to start those projects that I thought I always wanted, and I will convince myself that they are worth finishing. This is where I open the door to opportunity.

Or I could just let it knock a little longer.  Where's the fire?

Five. It stirs the soul and shakes like a martini. It is dirty. It is dry. To his credit, he is taking it pretty well. From a distance you can't even see the wrinkles between his dimples and their smile. His hair is golden where mine grows gray, and his gaze is forever forward. What got him here is just that. Milestones are best for stepping on, and his tiny hand in mine holds every shade of balance. I am a walk interrupted by bits of sprint. He is leaps and bounds, and shoes too big for baby steps.

A martini sounds good right now.

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

You may know that I moonlight over at Man of The House. One of my fellow MoTH writers, Josh Katzowitz, wrote a piece a few days ago that got me thinking about my age, and whether or not I act it. It inspired the following post:)

Conventional wisdom says that if you are a dad, you need to set aside foolish/dangerous activities for the sake of your children. Before I had kids, I did plenty: I was an avid surfer, a frequent rock climber, solo backpacker, rugby player and a pseudo-adrenaline junkie. I also went to a lot of Phish concerts, partied in bars until the wee hours and generally behaved like a beach-dwelling twenty-something well into my thirties.

Several years ago, I went through a Harley Obsession. Many guys do; few of those guys have wives who tacitly approved of adding a big V-Twin to the family. My wife did not encourage me, but she didn’t put up much resistance. She bought my logic: Harleys are safer because they’re easier to ride than “Crotch Rocket”-style street bikes, they’re bigger (thus easier for car drivers to see), and they come with a built-in collision avoidance warning system – their signature deafening engines. She wasn’t a Harley fan so much as a fan of the cool leather jacket she’d need to buy in order to be able to ride with me. I’d never ridden a motorcycle, so I did my research: there was a Motorcycle Rider’s School nearby, and my friends who owned Harleys assured me that riding them, once you got the hang of it, was fun and easy. (I didn’t think too much about the notion of “getting the hang” of riding a machine that weighs several hundred pounds, can reach speeds of 80+ mph, and only has two wheels.) I knew the model I wanted: the Heritage Softail. I took a few trips to Harley dealers, sat on the thing, and imagined myself rumbling up the Pacific Coast Highway, the wind in my face.

(You can find out how this all turns out over here. After you finish, pop on back - I wanna hear from you dads out there, and their Significant Others, about why you do or don't wanna grow up.)

Dog problems: I might have to do something really dicky

It was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote this frustrated post about my dog (warning: disgusting photo) on my personal blog.  Since then we've been dealing with the problems I enumerated in the post (and in the email to the dog's breeder included therein); and not much has changed.

In case you don't feel like clicking around, here's a summary of that post:

• Our dog is beautiful and large (120 lbs), and can pull a wagon full of kids, adults, or non-humanoid cargo like a goddam mule
• She has some gastro-intestinal issues
• She has some anxiety issues
• She has some urinary incontinence issues (not unusual in females of her breed, although unusually severe in her case)
• We once had some seemingly valid reasons for paying for a boutique breed instead of adopting a mutt, all of which make us seem like idiots now

I've written a few times about our Stella since then, but I have avoided doing so lately, because most of what I have to say about her is kind of sad and makes me seem like an ogre.

The truth is that I don't have a great relationship with my dog.  If we were married to one another, I suspect a counselor would suggest we seriously consider a trial separation.

When I talk about Stella, I like to use what an administrator at the high school where I once taught called an "asset model," and what my wife refers to as a "shit-filled twinkie."  That's when you start off lauding the positive characteristics about something or someone, and then move on to the areas that could use improvement.

So here goes.

The Tooth Fairy

The age of the debit card. I didn't have any cash in my wallet, nor did did Beth. I came up with an excuse to run out. We needed things: milk, orange juice, bananas, eggs, and those fantastic Trader Joe's vanilla wafers, the ones with the flecks of ground Madagascar vanilla beans. The rain had been on us all day, and continued into the night, leaving a cold sheen over everything. Dinner had been served - the kids wanted mac and cheese, and got Spaghetti 3-Ways (I'd frozen the remnants of my soon-to-be-patented chuck roast, black bean, chipotle and bacon chili, left over from the Super Bowl, kept in reserve for just such a night). A gooey mess - chili over spaghetti, melted mozzerella over that. They were skeptical - "chili and spaghetti??" in unison. "Trust me", I told them. Begrudgingly, they did. And were rewarded in turn. They shuffled off, one to her bath then bed, the other to his shower then bed. I read to him then tucked him in. "You sure she's going to come tonight?", the sure more of a thure, as his tongue hadn't yet gotten used to the newly-created gap in his teeth. "Yep", I replied. "She'll be here. Trust me."

The mundane errands hide the magician's secrets; the reasons for the errands are his MacGuffin. The car was low on gas; I stood in the drizzle and the pump gurgled slowly. Last time we were at the store we bought whole bean coffee but forgot to use the store's grinder; I had the can of beans and the receipt. $6 isn't a lot of money, but it's the principle: we paid for it, the store should let us grind it. I was prepared for a fight, but the manager was all smiles. "No worries. Happens all the time." I roamed up and down the aisles, tossing things into the cart. We also needed string cheese and chips for his lunch. I forgot to buy those. "Do you need cash back?", the machine asked after I'd swiped my card. Yes, I clicked. I tucked the bill into my wallet, wheeled the laden cart back out into the rain, loaded the bags into the trunk, and drove home. It was late; I'd had a long, gray day of conference calls, research, and data-mining. The couch, my wife, and a bottle of wine were waiting. But first: a slow, methodical opening of a door, a walk on the balls of bare feet across a dark room. On his bedside table, a small pillow shaped like a molar, his incisor tucked inside. A quick exchange, the money for the tooth. And just before leaving his room, a pause to listen to soft, dream-infused snores.

Zane is Over Valentine's Day

This is Zane. His favorite movies are Mary Poppins and Indiana Jones.  He likes bell peppers, but doesn't care for pickles. He has many layers, like an onion, but a bit stinkier. His favorite band is Queen. He'll be turning 5 in the morning.

He has no desire to work for Hallmark, and no time for any girlie business.

 

Love Means Always Having To Say You're Sorry

A Valentine's Day message from Jason's kids, who remind us that protective headgear is the V-Day gift that keeps on giving.

(Our favorite group of SoCal moms,The San Diego Momfia, has more Valentine's Day kidcentric cuteness.)

I don't heart Valentine's Day

On the long list of holidays I don't give a rat's ass about, Valentine's Day is up near the top. 

It's hard to imagine anything more preposterous than designating one particular day on which we're all supposed to get smoochy and romantical with our current life-partners.  I mean, does anyone really feel special when they're treated to chocolates and erotic foot massages just because the calendar told their hapless boyfriend/girlfriend that today was the day they had to join the rest of the Western World in spontaneous gestures of romantic love?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not against romance in general, or even celebrating it based on what day it is.  That's what anniversaries are for: your special day with your main squeeze.  It just seems to me that the day when a dozen roses and a nice dinner mean the least is the day when societal pressure dictates the purchase/preparation/presentation of those items by anyone who is in a relationship.

What My Kid Saw At The Revolution

A four day weekend. Not for us - we still have to work. For some ungodly reason(s), the oldest has today and Monday off, and being aware of this, he woke up earlier than usual, on a morning that saw me sleeping comfortably, still wrapped in the soporific tendrils of the NyQuil I'd taken about 7 hours earlier. Naturally, he chose to rouse me, because of course he won't sleep in when he doesn't have to wake up early. That would make my life too easy. "Can I watch something?" 

I staggered downstairs, dumped coffee into the Maker, turned on the TV. A ruggedly handsome reporter was talking about Egypt; the screen kept cutting to that country's Vice President, droning on about "stability" and "the people" and "reform". The mind bifurcates: the Dad Brain wondering what's on The Cartoon Network at this hour, the Guy Who Spent Five Years In An International Relations Study Program Brain culling facts about the Egyptian officer corps' entrenchment in that country's infrastructure, how they've controlled massive chunks of the Egyptian economy along with the Egyptian political system and the fate of its recently displaced figurehead. I needed that coffee. 

"Why are those people cheering?" The kid was just starting to learn about the world; he knows that Egypt exists, but he's six, and all Egypt means to him are pyramids and mummies. "Well," I said. "We talked about the American Revolution, right?" "The one with George Washington?" "Yeah. Well, the people in Egypt, they're having something like a revolution. Their president is not a good man - he treated the Egyptians badly, didn't let them vote, threw them in jail for no reason, stuff like that. So a whole bunch of them got together and protested - remember when you learned about Dr. King, and the big marches he led? Sorta like that - and it looks like the Egyptian president's going to quit." "So they'll be free?"

I thought of the men that were in charge of the Egyptian military. Absolute power is heroin-strong. Such men do not play checkers, as the jubilant folks on Twitter would have you believe. They play chess. It was too early, in the morning and in the kid's life, to explain realpolitik to him. "I hope so", I replied. "We'll see."