The Things Kids Say

Tonight, Son3 asked me: "Why do old people have such saggy skin? Look at Coach B. His skin is so saggy it looks like he has skin sideburns." Whatever "skin sideburns" may be, I know I don't want them. But all I could say was, "That's what happens." I didn't bother to say that eventually it would happen to him.

This reminded me of something hilarious that a friend's daughter said to her one day when she got out of the shower: "Mommy, why do your nipples go up and Grammy's go down?"

Why is it that kids can see so clearly -- our faults, our weaknesses, our peculiarities?

A few weeks ago Son3 said this after a baseball game: "We're never going to win a game. I can see it in my coach's eyes." Ugh.

There are so many, many things I wish I'd written down over the years. Hilarious comments. Astounding observations. If your kids are little, I urge you not to be a lazy, procrastinating slacker like me. Write it down! And if the kids you love (yours, your nieces and nephews, your friends' kids) have said something lately that's humorous or profound, please share it.

Small Surprises

In some ways parenting is sheer drudgery. But in a good way. Unless you're insane, you'd never give it up or wish it different. Well, maybe wish it a bit different, like wishing for more sleep when your kids are little.

For years parenting seems to be all about diapers and feeding, teaching and disciplining. Get through that and it can seem like parenting is only about driving, delivering the kids from point A to point B and then doing it all over again. I exaggerate only slightly; that's where I am right now -- the taxi service phase. Surely this is God's way of making you excited about the prospect of your children starting to drive.

This phase, when your kids are of school age, is delightful, if hectic. If you're like me, you might even start to think you have this whole parenting thing down pat. You know who your kids are -- their strengths and weaknesses. You know what to expect from them. And this is the dangerous part, I think. If you're not careful, you could start to put them into boxes and leave them there. This one does well in school. This one hates math. This one is an artist. This one won't ever eat anything deemed "squishy." You could easily compartmentalize and not see that your youngest, who you have always thought of as an athlete and outdoors guy, is an artist too. Surprise!

I think that surprises are the best part of parenting. Okay. In the future I might not think this is true. But right now I do.

This week Son2 surprised me. Out of the blue, he said, "Do you know what my favorite quote is?" Of course I did not, but I was expecting something funny. Instead he said, "'It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.' Harry Truman said it. I love that quote. I think it's really true."

I was flabbergasted (the kid hasn't even worked in an office yet -- how does he know this is true?) -- and delighted. It's fascinating to me that at age eleven this could be his favorite quote. This is the kind of thing that makes me think -- wait, who are you?

On Mother's Day we went to DC, a favorite family tradition. It was a breezy, blue-sky day and we walked from the Metro to the Jefferson Memorial. A certain youngest child who is not particularly fond of museums and memorials might remember the dead rat floating in the tidal basin as one of the highlights of the trip (which he and his dad had to capture on camera), but his oldest brother was captivated by this Jefferson quote and took a picture of it with his phone:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

Surprise. This boy was already in my smart boy box. And my thinker box. But still, I was astounded. Really? You're fourteen, and you love this? I think teenage boys get such a bad rap. Most people are prone to put them in the unruly and obnoxious box.

Speaking of surprises, I surprised myself this week. The youngest has an injury, which he is, perhaps, grossly exaggerating. Hard to say. This is the sort of situation that reminds me that I don't have this parenting thing down pat. Hmmm, it's not particularly swollen, but you won't walk on it. So we made a trip to the ER and he is supposed to use this enormous CAM walker thing for a week until we follow up with orthopedics on Tuesday. Since all my children have a theatrical bent and this one in particular has an iron will, the situation is maddening. I believe he could walk on it just fine if he wanted to.

So I've been tempting him with a paintball birthday party that he and his brothers have been invited to on Saturday:
"Wow, you're not going to be able to play paintball if you can't wear a normal shoe and run around on it."
"I really hope you can play paintball. I'd hate to see you miss that."

Then, his oldest brother got in on the act. He started calling him wuss-cake:

"C'mon wuss-cake, come and get me."
"Gonna walk on that wuss-cake?"
"How ya doin', cake?"

I surprised myself by not stopping him. I usually put the kabosh on name calling, but I knew he was doing it to provoke his brother to walk. In fact, I was so irritated with the little dude that I wanted to call him wuss-cake myself.

Unfortunately, there was another surprise. The youngest kid's got a stronger will and a greater need for attention than I thought...

News?

I was watching CNN this morning and saw this scrolling on the bottom of the screen in the little "news" ticker that all the networks seem to use these days:

Foul stench in office fridge sickens 7.

Now that's breaking news for you. Consider yourself updated on world events.

Observed

Yesterday while driving the boys home from school, I saw this bumper sticker:
If you think UNDER GOD should be removed from the pledge, then get out of the USA and GO TO HELL.

I laughed out loud. I happened to notice the bumper sticker while we were waiting at a traffic light next to the Extreme Food & Gas Mart. Which is always good for a chuckle.

Here are a few more observations I've made recently:

1. Recently I noticed a septic service truck with these three adjectives describing their services: Reliable, Reasonable, Competent. I can understand reliable and reasonable, but...competent? I hope they're more competent at septic servicing than they are at marketing. Which they probably are. Word nerd that I am, I had to look up competent just because it seemed such a poor word choice for this usage. Webster's definition is "Having requisite or adequate ability or qualities." Like I said. If I had a septic system, I'd be looking for a little more than competence.

2. Someone who shops at my local grocery store has this bumper sticker: Vegetarian -- Indian word for bad hunter. I'm a vegetarian, and that always gives me a laugh.

3. Before Easter I saw a handpainted sign on my way to the boys' school. It said: Easter flowers ahead. Git 'R Done. Somehow I don't think that had been expressed just like that before.

I don't know if David Letterman still does his thing with signs, headlines, and such because I haven't watched him in years. So I need a fix: Do you have any humorous bumper stickers or signs to share?

Quoting Movies

When I was in high school my guy friends were forever quoting movie lines to each other. I didn't get it; in fact, I found it annoying. None of my girlfriends did this, so I concluded that it was a decidedly male thing to do. Well, I now live in a family of males and there is a lot of movie quoting going on, though now I do it too. I can't decide whether this is something that women generally do or if the boys have worn me down. Regardless, we rely on movie lines to communicate all kinds of things around here, and it's amazing how often we find opportunities to use our favorites. Here are a few of our most-used lines:

"Make yourself a dang quesadilla." (Said by the grandmother in Napoleon Dynamite -- with the ls pronounced.) I say this to the boys all the time when they're hungry.

"Tina, go get your food." (Napoleon from Napoleon Dynamite) Often announced when dinner is ready.

"What if...my bladder explodes?" (Bob in What about Bob?)

"Baby steps to four o'clock." (Bob in What about Bob?)

"Bob, there is a groundbreaking new book..." (Richard Dreyfuss in What about Bob? -- said about his own book)

"What is that haunting aroma?" (Will Ferrell in Kicking and Screaming)

"Better in a different, better sort of way." (Or something like that, Will Ferrell in Kicking and Screaming)

"Work. Work's your new favorite." (Will Ferrell's department store boss in Elf)

There are more, but I'll spare you. Now that I'm thinking about it, I realize that much of our communication is actually trading movie lines. Some of our conversations might be completely indecipherable to others. So, I'm wondering...do you this too? What movies or movie lines do you quote from the most?

A Not So Lucky Rabbit's Foot

I was walking my dog this morning and thinking about the fact that I've been a bit negligent with the blogging. I was trying to decide what to write about because there are always a million blog topics swirling around in my brain...but the trouble with all of them is that they're kind of heavy, or involved, or something. It looked like today would be another day when I had too much to do to try to unwind any of those topics and write about them.

But walking the dog is a great time for thinking through things, which is what I was doing when I realized we'd been standing in one spot for a while. The dog was sniffing about furiously and finally I realized it might be the right time to pay attention. That's when I saw the disembodied rabbit's foot at my feet. I gave Bear a good yank and basically leapt over the foot, doing my best to drag him with me before he decided to help himself at the sidewalk buffet.

This got me thinking about the differences in what country dogs and city dogs encounter on an average walk. Fortunately, Bear is not obsessed with finding snacks when we're out and about. We can step around dead bats and birds, and rabbit legs too apparently. I appreciate this about him. Deeply.

Because when we lived in DC and later in Chicago, we had a dog who ate anything he could find. The dog was well fed, but that seemed to have no impact on his obsession with finding discarded "treats." He was like a vacuum cleaner for the city sidewalks. Half-eaten sandwiches, hot dogs, and fries were all fair game. Not to mention chicken bones. That dog could find and ingest a chicken bone faster than I can say chicken bone. Of course, none of these sidewalk delicacies could hold a candle to the time when he licked human vomit off the ground. I assure you, that little encounter resulted in my obsessive scanning of the sidewalk in front of me. It also got me wondering whether you could wash a pet's mouth out with soap, or at least some mouthwash.

Of course, it's good to have such an orally fixated dog in front of you when you're leaving your apartment on a hot summer evening and there's a rat on the steps outside your building. Then said animal can snatch up the rat, give it a good hard shake, and kill it on the spot, saving you the horror of a giant DC rat running across your sandaled foot. Which did, in fact, happen to a friend of mine one muggy summer night in DC. Fortunately, she was a few steps ahead of me and the rat ran over her foot and not mine. I know. I'm a true friend.

The rats rule that swampy town (and no, I'm not talking about the politicians). But that makes me wonder if the overpopulation of rats in DC is one of God's little inside jokes.

Opening Day

Opening day. Sunny and 72 degrees. A Little League parade. Two baseball games. What more can you ask for?

Here's a poem I wrote a few years ago after my oldest played in his first little league all-star game -- the pinnacle of a boyhood dream come true. His first at bat, a ball hit down the left-field line. Some people take pictures; I write poems. Without the poem, I would have forgotten the joy of it by now.


In July’s thick heat
you taught me
the shape of hope
is a boy of ten
set
in the batter’s box

it is the swing of a bat
a body unfurled
for one breath
extended

it is the arc
of a ball over third
and your expectant face
upturned