Tagged: kids
You-Berry
“All right H-, tonight’s going to be a bit different. I’m going to cook you some broccoli, which you’ll eat here, then we’ll go to the restaurant.”
“Old Mcdonald’s?”
“No, I feel like a burrito, so no McDonald’s today.”
“What’s this daddy?”
“What’s what?”
“This?”
“Oh, yes, that came in the mail yesterday.”
“Can you open it, please?”
“Sure, just give me a second to start your broccoli. Okay, it’s open. Careful, careful! You don’t know if it’s breakable.”
“Can you open this card?”
“Sure. Here’s what it says, ‘What’s sweeter than a blueberry?…a you-berry! Happy Valentine’s day. Love, Grandma and Pops.'”
“It’s my Valentine’s Day?”
“Huh? Oh. No. Well…yes. I mean, that’s adorable.”
Bright
He always chuckled to himself on the mornings that he forgot to turn on the lights. Freshly shaved, he’d come out of the bathroom and see her eating in the dark.
She always answered “good” when asked her state of being, no matter the level of light, and this morning was no different. After breakfast she began playing with her dolls in her normal talkative way.
“Okay. I’m just going to brush my teeth and we’ll be ready to go,” he explained.
“Okay,” she responded.
As he turned the water off and reached for the towel he noticed she wasn’t talking anymore.
“Hey. You okay? How come you’re not talking anymore?” he asked, walking by her, still gathering everything together.
“I don’t want to brush my teeth daddy,” she confessed.
“Well, well, well,” he laughed. “And you might have gotten out of it if you didn’t say anything. Think about that for next time. For now, let’s go brush your teeth.”
Amazing Girl-Child Lives Outside of Space and Time!
Her small size leads you to believe that you know all there is to know about her.
You are correct to discern that she cries a lot, talks a lot, can’t do math, can’t read, eats an incredible amount of food considering her weight, plays with toys, likes to be tucked in at night, asks to have her hand held if she’s not being carried, places a frightening level of trust in adults, and sometimes has accidents.
You’re also correct if you guess that she can’t carry on a conversation which furthers any agenda, she has a surprising stubbornness, her fantasy world is repetitious, and very few of her actions are original. It is easy to see why people like her have lost their appeal. They require attention. They need help. They listen; they believe; they mimic; they obey; they break; they depend on others; they spill their milk regularly.
What you might not notice is that she can’t tell time. That’s right. She doesn’t know what time is. Not just what time of day it is, but she doesn’t have an awareness of time. Can you remember what life was like before you knew what time was? Probably not. But maybe you can remember something about life before you used an alarm clock to remind you that your life was so important that you must stop resting. Being around her–being around them–is the closest thing any of us will get to living without time again.
Without time 40 lbs never felt so light; repetitious stories never sounded so good; cleaning up spills never required less energy; soothing cries never seemed so desirable. Without time raising a child never seemed so natural.
The “Prep” Period
The bell rang. “Alright everyone, we’ll pick up here on Monday. Be safe this weekend.”
“Finally,” he exhaled, “I have a moment to prepare for the rest of the day.”
After one last glance making sure the hallway was clear, he closed the classroom door. Inside, he sat alone. He cleared his throat.
“Do your work,” he said. But he wasn’t pleased. He tried again.
“Do your work.” He still thought something wasn’t right.
“Do your work.” Eek! Too much Batman. He chuckled to himself before continuing.
“Do your work.” Getting better, but still not perfect.
“Do your work. Do your work. Do your work. Do your work. Do your work. Do your work. Do your work. Do your work. Do your work.” It was subtle, but he heard improvement. Looking up at the clock, he saw his prep period was almost over.
“One last time,” he said to himself.
“Do your work.” He smiled. “Perfect! And just in time.”
The bell rang. Getting up to go stand outside his classroom door, relieved, he said to himself, “Okay, I’m ready for the students.”
She’s A Djeeen-yus!
“Trees,” she said in response to the prompt he gave.
After hearing “I see…” and seeing his finger point to the cars on the page, she responded, “Cars.”
He turned the page. The next page had two scenes. In the first, the main character painted a wall blue. In the second, the main character’s friend colored the wall red with a crayon. He continued the challenge-response game.
“I see…” he queried, pointing to the blue.
“Paint,” she finished.
Smiling ear-to-ear, he chuckled. “Ha. Good. I would have also accepted ‘Blue’.”
Shhh!
He did it. He was so proud of himself. Well, that’s not saying much, but the point is the first day of school had come and gone. What’s that? You’d like to know what high school is like these days? …if he has time? Let me ask him. He said he’s on his way out the door, but for you “anything.”
Oh okay, I get it. He wants me to let you know he’s mumbling inaudibly. Forgive him, he was just attempting to demonstrate what he experienced all day today. He’s telling me that no kids speak loud enough to hear. Yeah, it’s a joke that just doesn’t work so well in writing, but trust me, it was effective in person.
He apologizes for the lame joke, and thinks you’d be interested to know that today’s 9th graders were born in 1999. Shocking. Actually, that year is super familiar to me. Oh, I know. That’s the year The Matrix came out! Now he wants me to let you know that he’s not joking about the mumbling. He says “literally, only 2 out of 99” 9th graders spoke loud enough for him to hear. And with this new touchy-feely way of teaching and thinking about them, he says he actually felt like it was inappropriate for him to ask them to speak up–like it was too harsh and might hurt their feelings. Crazy.
Besides the fact that they need a class on confidence before they proceed, he doesn’t think that you’d be surprised by much else. For example, the school has a dress code. One rule is no blue jeans or dark blue jeans. He’s telling me that he mentioned to a student that her jeans today seemed to be dark blue. But then he confessed that they might be okay because they were so dark they might be black. He says his wavering prompted a young man to tell the class his dark blue jeans were black. Sheesh, give ’em an inch….
Okay, he’s telling me that he has to get going now. He really would like to share more, but he literally couldn’t hear anything. You should see this, he cares so much for you that as he’s getting further away he’s raising his voice so I can still hear him. He’s yelling from a distance now. Okay, I think he just said it was just seven 50-minute periods of low-talking. At least he doesn’t look stressed.
Grandparents Wanted
“Now that we know who is doing what, it’s time for the prepared speeches portion of the meeting. Each of our speakers today has prepared what I’m sure will be marvelous speeches. First up, giving her ‘Ice Breaker’ speech, is Debbie Hinkletoe. She has spoken many times in the past, but this is her first speech with us. It appears we are making her feel as nervous as Anne Frank practicing tuba, so let’s be sure to give her all the support we can muster,” joked the old man lovingly attempting ease Debbie’s visible nerves.
It was unclear whether the old man knew that the joke would, to put it mildly, step on a few toes. The few audience members cursed with the inability to resist a joke’s cue-to-laugh recognized their loneliness and quickly adopted silence.
Concluding the awkward moment, a respectable old woman declared, “Not funny.”
“Okay, meetings over. Thanks for nothing, you inconsiderate asshole!” seemed the words the audience expected to hear next. However, following General Waverly’s (White Christmas) advice, “If there’s one thing the army taught me, it was to be positive… …especially when you don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old man made the correct decision to let the moment pass and continue the meeting.
He couldn’t help but smile. He just witnessed an event only found in books: An old man putting to use his well-deserved ability to “not care”, and an old woman responding in kind. Oh, the subtleties of that moment. As if the back-and-forth had caused the air to congeal, a stillness overtook the room for but an instant. Neither mortal would yield. Neither should have. They both behaved perfectly. They both…were grandparents.
He always liked “grandparents” as a group, but he was never quite able to put his finger on why; until that exact moment.
But first, while it may seem obvious, the reader must learn what he believed a grandparent to be. A grandparent is not simply someone whose children have had children. By his thinking, to be a grandparent, one’s children must be (or have) raising their own children. Biological grandparents fulfilling the role of primary parent are not grandparents to him, then. This is a necessary qualification.
It seemed to him that something magical happened when an old person was fully released from parental responsibilities. The concern for ‘appropriate’ and ‘proper’ disappeared, rightfully so. Grandparents, then, were the living proof that even the loftiest concepts needed to be knocked off their pedestals every now and again. It was the exchange between these grandparents that revealed this truth clearly.
This realization had a second effect. It motivated him, for he was a parent. Moreover, he now understood that to earn his status as grandparent he must aggressively embrace his parental responsibility. Any wasted time or opportunity would only result in his missing out on the ability to someday be the salt of life, would result in his missing out on the near-sanctified duty to offend, provoke, insult, but also spoil, entertain, love.
More than that, he finally understood why, no matter what they did, he always felt loved by his own grandparents. It was because they wouldn’t be his grandparents if his parents hadn’t loved him first.
How To Raise A Toddler
(If you’re short on time, skip to the bottom for numbered instructions.)
Okay, bedtime story complete; she’s down. What the? Why would they make something a toddler is supposed to put in her mouth out of cardboard? It took less than two hours for her to flatten the red-party-favor-blower-thing with her brimming with saliva little mouth. Gross. Yep, I’m throwing it out. I’ll just deal with her tomorrow. She probably won’t even remember that it existed. (#1)
“Daddy!”
Yup. She’s awake. I’d guess that it’s probably around 8:00 am. It’s got to be. I already heard my housemate leave for work. Let me just check my phone to see what time it is… 7:00 am! Oh well. I want waffles this morning anyhow, so I could use the extra time.
“Daddy?”
“What is it?”
“Where’s my red thing?”
“What red thing?”
“Daddy, can you turn on the light in your room?”
“Just eat. When you’re done, you can turn on the light yourself. You’re a big girl now. You can reach all the light switches in the house. Turn them on and off yourself as you please.”
“Daddy. I’m done. Peez I get off the table?”
“You’re done?! You haven’t finished your waffles. How are you going to have enough energy to make it to lunch?” (#2)
“Daddy. Peez I get off the table?”
“Fine.”
“Daddy. Where’s my red thing?”
“I threw it… it probably got thrown away. It was broken.” (#3)
“Who breaked it?”
“It’s ‘broke’, not ‘breaked’, ‘broke’. You did. Don’t you remember?” (#4)
“I breaked it?”
“‘Broke.’ Yep. You sure did. You should be more careful next time. Okay, hurry, you have to go to school.” (#5)
“But I didn’t break it.”
“The point is, it is gone.”
“Are we going to the mountains today?”
“No, you have school today. We’ll go to the mountains on the weekend.”
“Oh.”
“Okay, let’s get moving. I’ll get your clothes, time to go potty.”
Not quite making it to school (daycare) on the first trip, I was back in the driveway needing to grab the bathing suit I had told myself not to forget. Leaving her in the running car on the drive during the short trip into the house, I thought of all the morons who’ve car-jacked a car with a kid in the back. Not even fully closing the front door for fear of locking myself out, I might as well have put out the bat-signal.
Feeling the front-door give a little as I twisted the just unlocked handle, I pushed further only to curse myself. Apparently I didn’t remember to lock the deadbolt this morning before leaving like I told myself I would last night during a bout of all-too-common laziness. Who invented deadbolts that require a key to lock it on the inside of the house anyhow? Safe neighborhood, I’m sure.
Upon approaching the car, her child seat was empty. More curious than concerned, I saw movement on the other side of the seat. Good for her. She finally knows how to unlock the seat-belt. Finally, we made it to the ‘Early Learning Center’.
Crying , she wrapped my pinky and fore finger in her left and right hands which had acquired the grip of a python overnight. I pried my fingers free and left her in the arms of some accented foreign lady who is her teacher.
This is probably not doing any long-term damage to her. (#6)
Instructions for How To Raise A Toddler:
Step 1 – Lie as much as you can to the toddler and yourself.
Step 2 — Use the fact that all other parents are also lying as reassurance that you’re on the right track.
Captain’s Log 