Number 37 No comments yet
Reasons why my son is awesome:
37. He named his stuffed triceratops ‘Rhino’.
Slacker 1 comment
This weekend, begoggled and spluttering in the pool, Ian shouted, ‘Look out! It’s a horrendous storm!’
I dragged him from the water, found a naughty step, and explained that ‘life around here’s gonna get pretty rough if you don’t start getting your indefinite articles straight’.
He also went to bed early, without dessert.
Parenting Fail No comments yet
Except that I’ve done this. Look, once you let them out of the stroller, they won’t go back!
Join Today! 1 comment
I’m not a joiner, by nature. I was a Boy Scout, briefly, when I was younger, but ditched the group when I learned that Camp Fire had girls. Even then, the depth of my membership extended only as far as summer camp. Apart from church choir and a library card, I just don’t belong.
Yet when a five-year-old boy presents you with a membership card for the ‘Woke Toke’ club, you don’t really have a choice in the matter.
This card, hand-printed and laminated in scotch-tape, was accompanied by an equally detailed, palm-sized walkie-talkie, the companion of which was nestled in Ian’s shirt pocket. All of this, of course, was a prerequisite for membership in the ‘Hunten Club’.
Last month, feeling nostalgic for the wasted hours of my childhood, I purchased a used copy of Final Fantasy XII. This is one of a continuing series of role-playing games which began with the original NES; the last I played was III, due in large part to marriage and rediscovery of natural light.
Final Fantasy XII features ‘Hunts’, whereby your party is hired to dispatch an expanding list of troublesome and implausible beasts for fun and profit. There is no dental plan, but you make your own hours.
Ian was hooked with our first hunt: the Rogue Tomato, which seems to be a hybrid of a tomato, rag-doll, and Garden Weasel. Our conquests soon included a Thextra, Rocktoise, and a Croakadile.
Hence the ‘Hunten Club’. Ian presented me with another membership card and a sword; he was carrying a bow. He’d drawn a menu of creatures from which to choose, from slimy blobs to fish with over-sized tongues. The walkie-talkies allowed us to separate for a more efficient search, and to call for help if absolutely necessary.
Our targets were elusive, so we regrouped at the Lego workshop to design a monster-detector:
We’re not accepting clients just yet, but we do have a waiting list.
Preference No comments yet
‘Daddy, can you take this, please,’ because, I thought, he was done with the cup of tea, and wanted me to set it on the end-table. ‘It’s still too hot.’
‘Just keep it. It’ll cool down.’
‘No,’ as he slides from the couch, walks around me, and carefully places his cup on the table. ‘I don’t like to hold things.
I Shall Call It No comments yet
‘Daddy, did you know that cars can have names?’
‘Names? What do you mean?’
‘Like, names. Like you and me!’
‘Ah. You mean people names.’
‘Yeah! Does this car have a name?’
‘Of course. Nostalgia for Infinity.’
‘What?’
‘Hey, that’s catchy!’
A Rubber Band and a Paper Clip No comments yet
Yesterday was a snow-day. The day before, Ian was bombastically and ballistically ill. We basked in the wonder of Netflix and watched the first season of MacGyver.
Ian filled his tool-belt with a plastic knife, compass, three pirate eye-patches, and a treasure map. I made a book of matches for lighting fuses. He drew a map consisting of a line with a single dot, labeled ‘BOM’.
Man with a Plan 1 comment
Science fiction is important in our home to me. Kelly likes Star Trek and will tolerate Star Wars, but she draws the line at string theory or Firefly. I need an outlet. So, when Ian started talking about ‘estimallations’ (i.e., constellations) and planets on the way to school, naturally the discussion turned toward the terraforming of Mars.
‘How would you change Mars so that people could live there?’
‘Well, first I would buy a water park.’
‘A water park? Like Aquatica? Why?’
‘Because we’d need a big bucket.’
‘Ah.’
‘And I would carry the sea to Mars in the big bucket,’ said my son, who does not possess doctorates in Chemistry, Biology, or Long Division.
‘How would you get the bucket to Mars?’
‘Lots and lots of people. Oh! And I would use the bucket to carry oxygen, too.’
‘Why oxygen?’
‘Because we need to breathe. But the oxygen would just float out of the bucket. Oh! We could put a lid on the bucket.’
‘That’s a good idea! Shouldn’t we use a rocket to carry the bucket?’
‘Well, the rocket would probably shake the lid off. But we could put a lock on the lid. And put the big bucket inside a bigger bucket with another lid. And lock that.’
And as my son transformed a world within the idle moments before school, his backward letters didn’t seem so concerning.
Metrical Friday: Shoes No comments yet
Shoes | By Anonymous
My father has a pair of shoes
So beautiful to see.
I want to wear my father’s shoes.
They are too big for me.
My baby brother has a pair
As cunning as can be.
My feet won’t go into that pair.
They are too small for me.
There’s only one thing that I can do
Till I get small or grown.
If I want to have some fitting shoes
I’ll have to wear my own.
The Why 1 comment
Because we can’t afford a hybrid or flash water heater, I decided to do our part for the environment by replacing our incandescent Christmas lights with LEDs. I was also out of replacement bulbs, and we’re running low on band-aids.
Returning from dinner last night, Kelly wondered aloud why the blue bulbs seemed brighter than the others. ‘Mommy?’ Ian asked as he climbed toward the front door.
‘Yes?’
‘Maybe it’s because your face?’
The Responsible Parent within me—who dreads the moment his son meets a teacher without a sense of humor—shuddered. The Daddy within me fell to his knees with laughter while simultaneously standing with pride, subsequently spraining his duodenum.