We gave Ian a hand-held V.Smile for his birthday. I figure the mental degradation by video games is counter-balanced by our getting rid of cable a few months ago. Besides, no one likes a kid who’s too smart for his own good.
So far his favorite game is Dora the Explorer, which proves that irony is alive and well in our family.
Catechism is finished for the year but choir has a few weeks left, and Ian’s been coming with us to rehearsals. Coming to your parents’ choir rehearsal? What more could a four-year-old want from life? Last week, I let Ian bring his V.Smile. And a pair of headphones.
After making sure everyone in the choir knew that he was now, in fact, four years old, Ian took himself and his bag of tricks to the robe closet. There’s a nook with mirrors facing each other, and he likes to sit between them and wave at himself.
Toward the end of the second piece, I heard a low, growling noise. I thought maybe a fellow bass had gotten carried away, but no one else seemed to have heard anything. I heard it again when we stopped, and noticed a friend in my section laughing. He nodded his head toward the closet.
‘Hgrrrrrrrrrrah!’ I followed the sound.
Ian was hunched over his V.Smile, nose nearly touching the screen. ‘Grrrrrr!’ I tapped his head, and he flinched. He looked at me and frowned, pointing at the screen. ‘That spider won’t move,’ he said. Except that he was wearing headphones. ‘THE SPIDER WON’T MOVE!’
I pulled the headphones off. ‘Kiddo, it’s just a game.’
Comments are open to anyone but my mother.
Today is Ian’s fourth birthday. When he was born, Ian’s first sound was a screeching wail. Four years later, he’s able to express himself more accurately.
‘Happy birthday, Ian!’
‘I don’t feel different.’
‘Today’s your birthday!’
‘Why?’
‘You’re four years old!’
‘Are my teeth going to fall out?’
Happy birthday, kiddo. We love you!
(Today is also the birthday of my brother, Nick. Happy birthday, bro! Your teeth won’t fall out, either.)
Ian will be four years old on Wednesday. He’s grown taller and doesn’t need the carseat anymore, and more often than not he remembers to lift both the toilet lid and seat, but what really freaks me out is how quickly his mind has switched from ‘toddler’ to ‘boy’.
For example. I was in training on Friday, and my morning was more relaxed than usual. I took Ian to breakfast at Denny’s. The bad one. The spider who lives in my car thought pancakes sounded like a good idea, but didn’t tell us until we were on the way.
Ian says he likes bugs, but secretly wishes they would all die as far from him as possible. The spider climbed on Ian’s door, and Ian tried to climb in my lap. Lest I forget the screaming, let me mention the screaming.
I pulled over and dealt with the problem. The spider didn’t have pancakes.
As I opened the door for Ian in the parking lot, he said, ‘I bet the spider didn’t like that ride!’ Emphasis his; no fatherly, creative editing. Verbatim.
I knew what he meant, but some part of me refused to believe that my not-yet-four-year-old son could make such a mental leap of humor. To date, his funniest one-liner had been ‘A, B, C, D, E, F, car…’. So I asked him: ‘Why’s that?’
‘Because he climbed out and he died!’
Last year, Ian’s birthday theme was pirates. Kelly responded with extreme prejudice.
She was relieved when he chose ‘baseball’ as this year’s theme; how difficult is it to upend a bowl? Less so when he finally decided on Cars.
While God may not have had quite this moment in mind, today’s verse is still more than appropriate, cake- or otherwise:
Her children stand and bless her. Her husband praises her: “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world, but you surpass them all!”
To a Child
By Sohpie Jewett
The leaves talked in the twilight, dear;
Hearken the tale they told:
How in some far-off place and year,
Before the world grew old,
I was a dreaming forest tree,
You were a wild, sweet bird
Who sheltered at the heart of me
Because the north wind stirred;
How, when the chiding gale was still,
When peace fell soft on fear,
You stayed one golden hour to fill
My dream with singing, dear.
To-night the self-same songs are sung
The first green forest heard;
My heart and the gray world grow young—
To shelter you, my bird.
I’m sentimental. When I was in high school, I started a memory box where I kept every greeting card, ticket stub, picture, button, pebble, and used Kleenex for four years. I lugged a rock the size of my head home from a trip to the Badlands. I kept a pathetic clay whistle I made in art class—it was in the shape of the Grim Reaper; not everyone likes high school.
I’d come a long way in being more discerning with my nostalgia, but I’ve back-slid since becoming a father. At work, I have Ian’s first drawing, a paper plate with his handprint, a paper mitten he made in school, a painting of me he made in school, my first Father’s Day card, and a foam picture frame he made with Grammie. Not to mention all the pictures. And drawings from friends’ kids.
Where is the line between sentimentality and OCD?
One day last week, Ian made two drawings before I left for work. This is no great feat: Ian’s a minimalist. A few lines and circles on one legal-size piece of paper, and he moves on. Yet he takes these drawings very seriously.
‘Here, Daddy! You can take these to work!’ He held them out to me, a line drawn on one, and a slightly longer line on the other.
‘Wow, thanks! But I don’t have room for those at work.’ I really don’t. This year’s change in jobs also moved me from an office to a cubicle.
‘Yes, you do! Here, I’ll put this,’ he shook one of the drawings, ‘next to your bag. So you don’t forget.’ And he did. He walked to the living room, found my bag, and carefully covered it with the paper.
I was touched! How thoughtful! How tender! How…. Can I be honest, here? I love that Ian draws pictures for me. I love that he’s thoughtful, and I’m glad he knows how much I think about him while I’m gone. But he does this a lot. And the drawings aren’t always, you know…good. Not that I’m asking for Picasso, but I can tell when he’s drawing and when he’s simply passing the time. My desk no longer has room for ‘passing the time’.
So I hugged him and kissed him, and when his back was turned I put the drawing on the living room table where he wouldn’t find it.
Ian put this sticker on my pocket this morning, before I left for work. He was quite insistent. He gave it to me because I’m ‘a star’.
‘I’m nice, am I?’ He meant ‘aren’t I’, but this phrase is his compromise with ‘am’t I’. Grammar isn’t easy.
‘I’m the sticker-giving man!’
If I learned that my son were using drugs, I expect my response would be something greater than an introspective frown. Then again, he won’t have learned it from watching me.
When a Knoxville, Tennessee father discovered that his son was smoking pot, et al., he made sure everyone else knew as well:
‘The boy was forced to wear a large sandwich board sign that said “I abused & sold drugs,” while standing in front of Cedar Bluff Middle School.
“I would like to say that I’m not out here doing this to humiliate my son,’ the dad said. “I’m doing this because I love him. We do have an extreme drug problem in America, and maybe it’s time for extreme measures that parents need to take to monitor this problem that we have.”‘
To his credit, the boy knows when to take responsibility for his actions: ”Well, I did do the crime and I’m willing to serve the punishment for it.’
Of course, the internet being what it is, there’s some discussion, here. Hackles have been raised, and some folks are more worried about potential low self-esteem than a potential funeral.
Remember Tasha Henderson? In 2005 she dealt a similar punishment to her 14-year-old daughter, who was misbehaving in school.
If they think a little more ‘shame’ is going to faze a middle school student, then they’ve never been to middle school. Drug abuse thrives in secrecy. Some problems can’t be solved with decorum and tact.
(Thanks, Glenn Sacks!)
