Category Archives: Snags

October 2, 2007 · 1:20 pm

Evil Genius Turns Six (or Happy Birthday Snags!)

My son turns six years old today.  It’s kind of unbelievable to look back at photographs from when he was born and remember the tiny baby he was, versus now, the child he has become.

He was a tiny thing, just 6 pounds, 12 ounces, and 19 ½ inches long.  Today he’s close to 60 pounds and just shy of 4 feet tall.

Back then he didn’t speak, he slept a lot and cried.  Now he won’t stop talking and he wakes up way too early in the mornings.  He still cries, but mostly only when he’s hurt or very mad.

Back then, as I struggled with my new role as a mother, I came upon a quote that immediately and ever since became one of my favorite quotes about parenting: The days are long but the years are short.  I don’t know who said that, but I believe that those are truest words ever spoken.  How did we get here?  Six years down the road from where we started?  The past is nearly all a blur.  That’s partly, I think, why I started writing.  To document the stories of our lives before they become blurry too.  The past… eventually it eludes us, stands just beyond our grasp laughing at us and at what we can’t remember because we are too busy dealing with the here and now.  And so I take the time to write things down before I forget them, before I get too busy with the next thing.  I will collect these stories, and one day I will publish them.  Most likely it will be my own personal endeavor, a book made on Blurb or somewhere similar, and bought only by myself.  But I will give the book to Snags.  And when he is 25 or 38 or 46 he can look back and remember with me, or with his own children, the things that we might have otherwise forgotten.

There’s a gentleman that I know who through the years has asked about my son and told me about his son, already an adult.  This man came to the conclusion, from the stories I told him about Snags, that my son was destined for greatness.  “The only thing is,” he said, “I’m not sure if he’s going to be the President of the United States or a criminal mastermind.  You are going to have your hands full,” he warned.  “Keep on top of your son, nurture his skills, and push him toward good.  He’s smart… too smart, too crafty and too mischievous, he could go either way.  It’s your job to lead him in the right direction.”

And I’m trying, I really am.  But the other night I got a little taste of what the future might hold, and this kid of mine, he may turn out to be an Evil Genius despite my best efforts.  It was bedtime and I was reading out loud about the planet Saturn from a book called 4000 Things You Should Know.  “Saturn,” the book states, “is so massive, the pressure at its heart is enough to turn hydrogen solid.  That is why there is a layer of metallic hydrogen around the planet’s inner core of rock.”  And it goes on to explain that “Saturn is not solid, but is made almost entirely of gas, mostly liquid hydrogen and helium.  Only in the planet’s very small core is there any solid rock.” 

I tried to explain that in terms I thought an almost six year old would understand, so I  explained that air is a gas and that if it were on Saturn it would turn it into solid chunks.   

I continued reading and after a few minutes Snags interrupted and said, “Okay! We need to destroy Saturn.  We need to BLOW. IT. UP!” I looked at my son, innocent child turned comic book villain, and said no, that wasn’t right.  We shouldn’t do that.  But then I proceed to ask him why he thought we should blow up Saturn.

“Because,” he said, “there is no oxygen is space.  That’s because Saturn takes it all and turns it into rocks.  So if we destroy Saturn the rocks will turn back into air and people will be able to breathe in space!”

I laughed.  “Okay,” I said.  “I see your reasoning.  That sounds logical, but I don’t think I explained this right…  We don’t breathe the type of gas that Saturn turns into a solid.  That’s hydrogen, and we are breathing air which is made up of mostly nitrogen and oxygen, not hydrogen…” 

The next day, as I was shopping for Snags’ birthday present in Target, I was thinking about his plan to blow up Saturn.  I had to consider whether or not I was the best person to lead Snags away from the dark side… 

I was in one of the toy aisles and reaching out to take hold of a Star Wars transformer that could turn from an X-Wing into Luke Skywalker.  As luck would have it, it was the very last one they had.  And just as my fingertips brushed the package, a little boy zipped down the aisle at breakneck speed and grabbed the toy off the hook it was hanging from. Right from under my hand!  The child’s mother saw this and reprimanded him, told him to give the toy back to me, that I was looking at it and going to buy it.  The child handed the toy over to me, and I thanked him and then his mother. I thought that was the end of our conversation.

But then the woman asked me “Are you going to buy that?” and I said “Yes, I was thinking about it.” To which she puffed herself up like the Wicked Witch of the West Target and huffed “THINKING ABOUT AND BUYING ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!  WHICH IS IT?!”

I was stunned.  It took me a moment but when I recovered from her verbal slap I said I was going to buy it. Then, for fun, I continued to look at other Star Wars toys on the shelves, pulling them down, turning them over, reading the back and looking like I was weighing their merits against the transformer I said I was buying.

Eventually, I tuned my cart around and pushed my way out of the aisle.  I stopped to look at another toy, one that Snags has asked for before.  I pulled it off the shelf and put it in my cart.  Then I turned down the Barbie aisle, pulled the X-Wing/Luke Skywalker Transformer from my cart, and shoved it behind a bunch of Barbie Dolls.  I decided that I wasn’t going to buy it, but neither was the witch in the Star Wars aisle.  And that’s why I am not sure I will be much help when it comes to stopping my little evil genius from blowing up Saturn.  It’s for a good cause, after all.

4 Comments

Filed under birthday, humor, Luke Skywalker, parenting, Saturn, Snags, Star Wars, transformers

September 27, 2007 · 12:00 am

Soccer

Snags is playing soccer this fall but if you sat and watched the practices and games, you’d think he thought I’d signed him up for Conversation 101.  All he does during practice is stand in line for the various soccer drills and talk to the kids around him.  The coach is forever calling “Snags!  Are you ready?”

Last weekend his team played their first game.  And by game I mean scrimmage and also I mean there were no referees or anybody “official” on the field.  Well, save for the two fathers turned soccer coaches, that is.  And I only count them as officials because they had whistles. 

When you are five and playing soccer, the field is pretty small and your teammates are both boys and girls.  Your team uniform consists of matching t-shirts for all the players.

There are no fouls: no yellow or red cards.  There are no free kicks or penalty kicks.  But that is probably because there are hardly any kicks at all.  Mostly the team runs in a large clump, like a herd of small animals, chasing the ball around the field.  If and when some hapless player does manage to strike the ball with his or her foot, it’s usually by accident and out of bounds, or into their own goal.  Nothing says team quite like scoring a goal against your own, now does it?

Since the games are more or less unofficial in this age group, each team member gets to take a turn trying out various positions on the field.  They can play one of three broadly defined positions: offense, defense, or goalie.

The goalie’s job is the easiest here.  The ball so rarely comes anywhere near the goal, the goalie can take a nap if he wants to and still be 99.9% guaranteed that nobody will score on him while he snoozes.  Except maybe that kid from his own team…

But back to my kid…the whole time Snags was playing defense he stood there sentinel, not moving except to chew on a finger shoved so far into his mouth it looked like he was trying to force himself, like some high fashion runway model with an eating disorder, to vomit.

I don’t know what he was looking at but it’s safe to say it wasn’t the ball, or the rest of the team as they came charging at him and he stood there, as if behind glass, or as if he was watching the action before him on a television set in Best Buy.  Occasionally he’d swat at a bee that flew his way, but that was it as far as motion goes.

The coach tried to get his attention:  “Snags!  Get ready, the ball is coming right at you!  Run to it! Snags!  Look!  The Ball!”  Eventually his coach gave up and called for the other defensive player, Tony, to take the ball.  And so did Snags.  As the ball came his way I heard Snags say, “Get the ball, Tony!” even though clearly it should have been Snags’ ball.  Being as it landed right as his feet.

Another kid on the team, Paul, isn’t much better though.  He doesn’t move unless the coach Calls. His. Name.  His mom stands at the sidelines yelling instructions:  “Paul, go get the ball, run after it, kick the ball Paul!”  And Paul shakes his head and hollers back, “But the coach didn’t Call. My. Name!”

And Paul may have a point there.  I noticed that the coach is more than a little vague in describing the rules and roles and the various soccer skills to the kids. These kids are 5 and 6 years old, playing in a league where five is the minimum age for starting to play.  Meaning, most if not all of the kids on the team have never played before. On the first day of practice, for example, the coach told the kids to dribble the ball.  One child picked up their soccer ball and started to dribble it like a basketball.  The coach sounded a bit annoyed as he said, “No!  No HANDS!  Don’t pick up the ball with your hands!  This isn’t basketball!”  He sounded, I thought, like Tom Hanks in the movie A League of Their Own, where he yells all aghast, “There’s no crying in baseball!”

So the children heard “no hands in soccer”, only to be told later, when they played the position of goalie, “Go get the ball!  Pick it up with your HANDS!”  So I think they might be just a little confused about it all. And I think the coach ought to maybe demonstrate the skill he’s trying to teach.  Then again, I tried out for the girls soccer team in high school and didn’t make it, so what do I know?

Since I’m not the coach, I merely sit and watch.  I cheer the kids on, cringe when they score on the wrong goal, and hand over Snag’s water bottle when the coach calls for a water break. Oh, yeah, and sometimes I swat at a bee that flies my way. 
 

6 Comments

Filed under coaching, humor, kids, life, Snags, soccer

September 24, 2007 · 1:33 am

Don’t Try This at Home

Snags has the imagination of a crazy person’s reality.  A schizophrenic’s perhaps.  I don’t know if he actually hears voices, but he certainly holds conversations with invisible people — people that aren’t exactly real, like Darth Vader and The Mystery Gang from Scooby Doo.   He once spent weeks, or maybe it was months, talking to Eric and Dr. Kaufman and the Phantom Virus, characters that were in Scooby Doo and The Cyber Chase.  Most recently, he’s been holding his hand to his ear as if it were a telephone and having conversations with Darth Vader and The Emperor.  And he’s been known to suddenly shout out in the middle of dinner for someone to “STOP FIGHTING OVER THERE WITH YOUR LIGHT SABERS!”  Then of course, there’s the fact that Snags has changed his identity many, many, many times over the past few years.  I’m not sure how it’s taken me this long to wonder why I haven’t ever hauled him off to the doctor to get this checked out.  A visit with a psychiatrist perhaps, to reassure myself that this is just his imagination at play and that he’s not actually CRAZY…

But anyway, given his imagination, I thought it would be fun to make up a story, something utterly impossible and fun, and share it with him.  After all, Snags usually likes my made up stories.  He often requests them.  “Mom,” he asks most nights before bed, “Can I have a telling story? Please? Just one short one before I go to sleep?” 

So one afternoon a few weeks ago, I found myself a little bit bored and dare I say sick and tired of listening to Snags having one sided conversations with Darth Vader and the Emperor on his hand phone, and I decided to tell him a story…

But before I tell you more, let me give you a little bit of background on my inspiration for the story, which I took from Pinocchio, my own mother, and Bill Cosby…  Pinocchio, you may recall, is the story of a wooden puppet that gets turned into a real live boy. My mother, well she used to tell my brother when he was a kid, that she got him from a shelf in a department store and that she could return him at any time… And that sort of reminded me of Bill Cosby, and that bit where he says something like “…I brought you into this world and I can take you out, make another one that looks just like you…” 

It was with those thoughts in mind that I came up with this story. This story that I made up on the spot and thought was a pretty ingenious idea: both brilliant AND funny.  So funny, in fact, that I was chuckling in my mind the entire time I was telling it.  But oh, the wrath I brought down upon myself!

See, I told  Snags that he was originally a baby doll and that I bought him at Toys R Us. Everyone, I told him, all of our family and friends, and even strangers, thought I was crazy for carrying a doll around.  So I started to pray to God to turn the doll into a real boy and when he was 7 ½ weeks old, God did!  But, the night before that happened, right before I went to bed, I had tossed Snags the doll into my toy box because, well, he was just a doll… But then in the middle of the night a noise woke me up.  I heard something crying and there was a bad smell in my room.  Our dog had started barking, so I turned on the light to see what all the commotion was about and saw the dog barking at the toy box.  I got out of bed, went over to see what was going on, and lo and behold, there was Snags, alive and waving his arms and crying.  And he’d pooped his diaper!

I went on to tell Snags that the scar over his eye, the one we’d always told him he got from throwing himself on the floor and hitting his face on a toy when he was a baby, was really from the dog taking him out of the toy box and playing fetch with him when he was still a doll.  That, you see, is where the dog’s teeth had scratched his doll head…  Now, I thought this was all very funny, but apparently I was wrong.

Snags totally freaked out and screamed and yelled at me.  He was so stinking mad I couldn’t believe it.  “No!”  He screamed.  “You’re lying!  That’s not true!  I was never a doll!  Why would you say that?  I’m not going to trust you anymore!”

I was taken aback at his outburst and suddenly I felt very defensive.  It was just a story, after all.  A story I kind of liked, you know, since I made it up (even if Pinocchio and my mother had sort of been the inspiration for it). But still…

In my defensiveness, I’m a little ashamed to admit, I turned into a bit of a child myself and kept insisting the story was true, and that Snags shouldn’t be so upset.  In fact, I told him, “You can ask your dad and Uncle Dan when they get here.  They’ll tell you this is all true!”

And of course Snags did.  He ran screaming to my husband and his Uncle the moment they walked in the front door.

“Dad!”  He yelled. “MomsaidIwasadollandGodturnedmeintoaboyandIknowsheslying!”

“What?!” my husband responded. “She said what?”

“MomsaidIwasadollandGodturnedmeintoaboyandIknowsheslying!” Snags repeated.

My husband looked at me, shook his head in disgust and said, “Now WHY would you tell him THAT?” and my brother, Snags’ Uncle, started laughing.

“It’s NOT FUNNY!” Snags cried.  “It’s not true, either, is it Uncle Dan?” he insisted.

But my brother, well, he’s a lot like me and can’t resist a good moment when he sees it.

“Well yeah it’s true!” he said, with a big smile spreading across his face.

To which, Snags got even angrier.  My husband had to calm him down, and I had to admit that it was just a story.  But I still maintained it wasn’t such a big deal and he shouldn’t have gotten so upset about the whole thing.

And my brother, he seemed a little deflated when the truth came out. But I think that’s because up until the point where I had to come clean and admit that the whole “Snags was once a doll” story wasn’t true, my brother was probably thinking that if my mom ever did return him to that department store, at least there was a chance his nephew might be sitting on the shelf next to him. 
 

5 Comments

Filed under dog, God, humor, identity, insanity, parenting, Scooby Doo, Snags, Star Wars, telling stories

September 20, 2007 · 12:15 am

The Fire Drill

Snags has a mortal fear of fire drills.  It all started when he was in daycare, somewhere between the ages of two and two and a half, when another child pulled the fire alarm.  I imagine the sudden loud noise of the clanging alarm frightened him the first time he heard it.  When we picked him up from daycare the afternoon this all happened, Snags said, “A baby pulled the fire alarm!”

That of course, seemed impossible.  I mean, how could it be?  A baby?  Pulled the fire alarm?  Babies aren’t tall, they can’t reach the average fire alarm, can they?  But we quickly learned that Snags was right.  It turned out that Megan, a little girl at the school, was in her teacher’s arms as the teacher stood in the hallway near a fire alarm.  Megan, curious babe she was, reached out to the shiny red fire alarm handle and gave it a yank, thus setting off the blaring tones of the alarm, and requiring the entire population of the daycare center to evacuate the building. 

Three, almost four years later and Snags has never forgotten this.  He has also never forgiven Megan this one transgression for the fear it instilled inside him.  And over the years this fear… snowballed, more or less.

The preschool that Snags attended insisted that children keep their shoes on during the day, and the teachers imparted the logic that “You need to keep your shoes on in case there is a fire drill!” to the children to teach them this.  I assume they said this because if there was a fire, or even just a drill, that they’d waste precious time putting shoes on 10 or 20 children that had been running around without shoes.  Evacuating the building without shoes could be a danger.  We wouldn’t want these barefoot raggamuffins to cut their foot on a pebble in the parking lot, right?

And yet somehow, in all of that “keep your shoes on” harping, Snags got it twisted in his head that taking shoes off CAUSED the fire alarm to sound.  Shoes on and all was golden.  The days were quiet and calm.  Shoes off and all would be chaos and the screeching alarm would pierce eardrums and turn children into stone.  Or at least that’s how I imagine Snags had made the connection of in his mind.  Because once, we were at the mall and Snags saw people trying on shoes.  He was half way to the exit door before I caught up with him.  “Let’s go!  Now!”  He cried.  “The fire alarm’s going to go off!”  I couldn’t convince him otherwise.  Nothing I said quelled his fears.   He started to cry and shake in fear and as the tears began to roll down his face like a sheet of water over Niagra Falls, I conceded that it might indeed be best if we cut our shopping trip short and left the mall as quickly as we could. 

When Snags was three a new student started at his school, and was placed in Snag’s classroom.  The child had some discipline problems in that he did exactly everything he was told not to do.  Also, he was fond of taking off all his clothes any time he felt like it, which seemed to be approximately every five minutes, or three seconds after the teachers had dragged him out from under the craft table and got him dressed again.  And of course, as part of all of this, he took his shoes off.

The teachers admitted that this new child was a challenge, and that he was a disruption to the class and that he upset ALL the other children.  EVERY. DAY.  It seemed there was nothing they could do about this except wrestle the naked problem child to the ground and forcefully put his clothes back on him. Snags began to dislike school.  He’d cry in the mornings that he didn’t want to go to school.  It wasn’t fun.  Jeremy wouldn’t keep his clothes on… Then one day, Snags’ teacher came to me and DEMANDED that I had to do something about Snags, because every time Jeremy took his shoes off, Snags started to panic and cry because he thought the fire alarm was going to go off, and his crying set the other children crying one by one, until the entire class was a roomful of wiggling, writhing, crying children that no amount of anything could calm.

I didn’t know what I could do.  Really, it seemed to me, the teacher should be doing something about Jeremy the problem child who couldn’t or wouldn’t keep his clothes or his shoes on.  I shouldn’t have to do anything about Snags for being scared.  Besides, I’d already spoken to Snags about this.  Ad nauseum.  I’d explained that shoes, on or off, were not the switch that controlled the fire alarms.  In fact, I’d told him there was no connection there at all.  But he insisted it was true.  After all, the teachers told them this every day.  Keep your shoes on in case there’s a fire drill.  Only Snags heard “Keep your shoes on or there WILL BE a fire drill.” 

Eventually, the problem child was removed from the school.  This wasn’t my doing.  One morning we just arrived to find that he wasn’t there, and then he wasn’t there the next day, or the day after that….  And then we learned that the school had asked the family to take the child elsewhere, he was simply too great a disruption, too great a discipline problem, and they couldn’t handle him, shoes or not.

That would seem to be the end of the story except Snags focused his energies on Megan, the child who had pulled the fire alarm that very first time. When she was a baby.  She’d been moved up to his classroom, and sometimes at nap time the teachers would set up her cot on the floor directly underneath the fire alarm.  Snags monitored this like you’d watch a poisonous snake circling around you.  He asked the teachers to move Megan’s cot.  “She might pull the fire alarm again,” he warned them.

Over time we got to the point where every morning Snags would demand that I ask the director of the preschool center “Is there going to be a fire drill today?”  And every morning she’d say “No.  No fire drill today.”  This got tiring very fast.  I was sick of asking the question and I know the director was tired of answering it.  But if we didn’t dance the dance, Snags would be paralyzed with fear, right there in the middle of the hallway, unable to move unless he was promised there wouldn’t be a fire drill frightening him on THAT day.

So, after a few months of this, I got the bright idea to tell Snags that the computer where I signed him in in the mornings had a sentence there each day telling me if there was going to be a fire drill or not.  So I’d log him in and say, “No fire drill today!” and he’d audibly breath a sigh of relief and relax a little.  Sometimes he would even start to skip down the hallway. 

The director of course, knew about Snags’ fear of fire drills.  It had been born and bred in her center, after all.  I’d asked her every day for months if there was going to be a fire drill.  So eventually, when there WAS going to be a fire drill, she’d warn me ahead of time.  “We’re having a fire drill tomorrow morning,” she’d say to me as I passed by her office on the way back to my car after depositing Snags safely in his classroom.  “I’ll try to do it early, before you arrive.”  And for the most part, this worked.  I think we went almost 1 ½ years without Snags having to partake in a fire drill of any sort.

But then Kindergarten was upon us.  The first day was a shortened day where the students met the teachers and the parents stayed to fill out paper work.  We went to this shortened day and all was well.  On the second morning, as we headed off to school, Snags told me that “At least they don’t have fire alarms in the classrooms!”  It seems he’d scoped out the surroundings and noted that the alarm bells were outside the classroom doors.  “Maybe if they have a fire drill it won’t be so loud” he said.

“Don’t worry, Snags!” I told him.  There’s no way they’d have a fire drill on the 2nd day of school!  That’d be crazy!”  I scoffed.  And as usual, I saw Snags relax a little.

But I was wrong… 

When I picked Snags up from his after school care after his second day of school (his first FULL day of Kindergarten) he ran to me and said “I have something to tell you!” 

“Okay, what is it?”  I asked. 

“Not until we’re in the car!” he said. 

So we gathered his lunch box and his back pack and left for the car.  Once he was strapped in his booster seat, I sat in the driver’s seat with the car door open and turned to him and said “So, what was it you wanted to tell me?” and he said through gritted teeth “Shut. The. Door!”

“Okay,” I sighed, beginning to worry what he could possibly have to tell me that was so secret the car door had to be shut.

I turned back to him.  “Okay, what is it?”

“We. Had. A. Fire. Drill. Today!” He said.

I realized then it was highly unlikely that he would ever trust me again.

Then he went on to explain that during the morning announcements, right after they said The Pledge of Allegiance, the Principal announced that they would be having a fire drill.

“Where you scared?” I asked.

“YES!” Snags replied.

“Did you tell your teacher you were scared and what did she say?” I asked.

“She said it would be okay.” He said.

Snags told me how the class practiced lining up and going outside for the impending fire drill.  In place of a real alarm, his teacher made a “beep beep” sound and when she did that, the class had to line up and evacuate to the playground.  But they weren’t allowed to play.  And then the teacher said the practice was over and they all got to go back inside the building.

Later in the afternoon the Principal came on the loudspeaker again.  This time she was ready to actually have the fire drill.  She gave the children a one-minute warning.  I think they may have counted down.  And then, right as the alarm was about to sound, Megan, Oh Megan the child who pulled the fire alarm when she was a baby, screamed “EVERYONE COVER YOUR EARS!” 

So Snags was prepared.  He knew the alarm was coming.  He even knew when to cover his ears and line up and go outside.

He wasn’t THAT scared.  He survived.

“But NEXT time,” he told me in a bit of a worried voice, “They aren’t going to WARN us! The Principal said this was the last warning and next time it will be a surprise fire drill!” 

And I find it hard to reassure him.  I can tell him not to worry.  I can tell him it will be okay, because it’s true.  I just can’t tell him it won’t be today.  Or tomorrow…

*********************************************************** 

Author’s note:  Snags’ elementary school had that “surprise” fire drill TODAY.  Tonight, a child who looks like Snags and acts like Snags, but most certainly cannot BE Snags, said to me “I LIKE fire drills!”  Upon further inquiry, the imposter child stated that his reason for liking fire drills is “…because we get to go outside!”  and also because “…elementary school fire drills don’t frighten me as much as the ones at daycare did…”

And that’s the first step in denial and why I had to get the entire fire drill story down.  Because one day, most probably in the near future, this kid of mine will swear he never had a fear of fire drills, that I didn’t spend an entire year asking the daycare center director on a daily basis if there was going to be a fire drill that day.

 So whether Snags is 7 or 15, 23 or 30 when he denies this all ever happened, I can say “Oh yes it did!  Here, read this.  THIS is how it all went down!”

11 Comments

Filed under alarm, fear, fire drills, humor, life, shoes, Snags

September 12, 2007 · 12:01 am

Thank You, Randy Newman

I’m short. 5’3” short to be exact.  Except when I wear heels and I can trick people into thinking I’m taller than I really am.  My husband, he’s tall.  Taller than me.  Probably average tall for a guy.  I can’t remember exactly how tall he is and so I can’t tell you here because you know how men are.  If I get it wrong, especially if I err on the short side of his correct exact height, he’ll get all upset and I’ll have to come back and issue a correction.  Something like Correction: For the record, my husband is X and 1/4” tall, not X and 1/8” tall as I had previously stated…  And I’m so not in the mood for that.  So let’s just say he’s a fair deal taller than I am and leave it at that.

For the most part, my height hasn’t been much of an issue.  Well, except when I buy clothes and have to pay some highly talented seamstress to trim 3 feet of material off the bottom of my pants.  Where ARE all these women who are eight feet tall anyway?  I’ve never met any of them but when I shop most of the clothes seem to be made for them.

But this isn’t really about clothes. It’s about attitudes and it’s about music, because it made me think of the Short People song by Randy Newman.  It’s about religion and gender (but only barely) and wondering what, exactly, got into my son. Really, it’s about the things kids say that make you go “hmmm…”

Because at breakfast this morning my son Snags said to me, completely out of the blue, “Ms. Trish is short, too!”  Then he asked, “Are all women like that?”

I said no, some women are tall. Ms. Trish is one of his teachers, and while I haven’t actually measured her, if I had to guess, I’d say she’s about my height. I reminded Snags that his Aunt Viv is pretty tall.  I pointed out that his cousin Christina, standing at her full height of young and strikingly beautiful and about 6 feet, is tall. 

And he looked at me and said, rather pointedly, “Yeah, but she’s really skinny.”

A little later, as I buckled Snags into his booster seat in the back seat of the car, he stopped me so he could adjust his shorts.  “Do you want my waist band to be higher than my belly button?” He demanded to know.

“Higher than your belly button?  Sure. Doesn’t matter to me.” I replied, still stinging from the implied fat comment.

Then he made up a song and sang “Higher than the women were the lemon drops!  Higher than everything were the clouds.  The rain came down on all the women and the men hid inside their houses.” 

Yeah, the men were probably watching football, or playing Xbox, I thought.

Then his song turned kind of dark…

“The men locked the doors so the women got soaking wet.  Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! HA!”

I don’t know why but I started getting irritated at his five year old callousness. I said “Hey, that’s not funny.  That’s kind of mean. You shouldn’t make fun of women. If it weren’t for women, men wouldn’t even be here.”

He looked contemplative then asked “Why not?” 

“Well,” I said, “Women are the ones who have all the babies. Girl babies AND boy babies.  If there weren’t any women then there wouldn’t be any boy babies so they couldn’t grow into men.”

“Why can’t men have babies?”  He asked. 

“Because,” I said “God made it so only women could have babies.”

“God could do it!” He retorted. “God is really powerful, right?  He could have babies himself or he could just make them.”

“Or,” he added after a short pause, “God could make men have the babies.” 

“No,” I said, “That wouldn’t work.  The men wouldn’t take care of the babies.  They’d probably sit around playing video games all day, ignoring the babies when they cried and needed to be fed or have their diaper changed.”

“Yea-ah” agreed my son.  “That’s why the women would take care of the babies.  “Anyway,” he added, “You’ll understand one day when you’re as tall as dad.”

12 Comments

Filed under babies, God, height, humor, short, Snags, tall

September 10, 2007 · 12:07 am

Dance Party DJ

One of Snags’ recurring ideas is to hold a Dance Party.  He usually begins planning the event upon waking in the morning.  He must think about the party all through breakfast, because as soon as he downs that last bite of brown sugar Pop Tart, he springs from the table to begin gathering everything he’ll need.

His list of rockin’ party supplies generally includes an overturned laundry basket to serve as a convenient table, a CD player, at least one CD (you’ll be lucky if there are two),  a couple of lights to throw various colors around the room, and some snacks.

Since he’s not allowed to plug anything in himself, I get recruited to help.  I do so, but I admit it’s with a weary trepidation.  I’ve been to these dance parties before you see.  They aren’t well attended, and the night usually ends with the host in tears as I shoo him off to bed before the fun ever really starts. 

Snags is, of course, the host of the dance party.  He also controls the lighting, the music, and the snacks.  The lights aren’t bad. His disco balls and stop lights throw multiple colors across the walls, almost like a real disco.  If you close your eyes you can imagine that you aren’t in my family room; you can almost pretend you’re on a wide wooden dance floor and not surrounded by strewn toys, crayons, magic markers, or the oversized sofa.

The snacks are just so-so for a dance party.  But if you favor graham crackers, fruit snacks, and apple juice, then you’re in luck. 

The music, however, leaves something to be desired. Maybe it’s me.  I admit I’m not a great dancer.  I can’t keep a rhythm.  Even so, it’s easier to dance to popular music:  hip-hop, rock, disco, or dare I say it, even country.  But try dancing to Barenaked Ladies as they sing “Oh Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah” over and over.  Or “Baby Bumblebee” from Toddler’s Favorite Tunes.  Whatever Snags’ favorite song du jour is, that’s what you’ll listen to non-stop until your head explodes or you trip over an errant tinker toy and have to retreat to the sidelines with an ice pack planted on your ankle. 

Fairly soon after that the dance party will end.  I’ll declare it’s bedtime, and the Dance Party DJ will cry in protest as I begin to turn off disco balls and unplug the CD player.
But don’t worry, there’s always another dance party being planned. Be sure to check your mailbox, your invitation should arrive any day now.

5 Comments

Filed under dancing, disco balls, DJ, humor, life, party, Snags

September 3, 2007 · 10:15 am

This Thing Called Kindergarten

And here we are.  The first week of Kindergarten has drawn to a close and the second week is about to start.  Snags seems to be enjoying his new elementary school and his life as a Kindergarten student.  It’s different than preschool in a number of ways, but one difference in particular has Snags especially impressed.  Witness the conversation we had at breakfast this morning:

Snags:  “Know what I’m surprised about in elementary school?  That the toilet paper dispenser, if you’re running out of toilet paper, will just drop down a new roll that was up there, already unwrapped, that nobody’s used before!”

Me: “It wasn’t like that at preschool?” 

Snags: “No.”

Me: “What did you do if you ran out of toilet paper at preschool?”

Snags: “Called the teacher.  And you know what they gave you?  Tissues!” (and here you should note that the word “Tissues!” is said with disdain).

In the evenings, my husband and I ask Snags about his day while we all eat dinner together.  Over the past week, we’ve interrogated Snags enough to find out that the Kindergarteners practiced what to do for a fire drill.  They had a fire drill.  They drew pictures.  They participated in a scavenger hunt.  They played a copy cat game. 

Snags offered to teach me a new song he had learned in music class, but he claimed to need “those little Hawaiian drums that are stuck together” to do so. “Bongos?” I inquired. But he didn’t know what they were called.  Whatever they are, we don’t have any, so he retracted his offer. I’m a little sad that he refuses to sing me the song until I get a hold of the proper kind of drums.  But in the back of my mind I wonder if this isn’t all just a ploy on his part to get me to buy him some drums. 

In gym class they tossed beanbags in the air, “no higher than your nose or they’d blow the whistle at you.”  And finally, Snags walked another child to the nurse’s office.  “Why?” I asked.  “What happened?  Why did he need to go to the nurse?”  I don’t know,” Snags said. “I think his lip was bleeding.”  I’m still not clear if this incident was in any way related to the beanbag tossing.

Who do you sit with at lunch?” I asked one evening.

“My friends,” Snags replied.

“Yes,” I said.  “But what are their names?”  

“I don’t know.” He said with a shrug.  “I have to ask them.”

And later:

“Who did you play with on the playground?” I asked.  But Snags wasn’t telling.  “James?”  I prodded. “Did you play with James?”  Finally, he said yes, he had played with James.  “And guess who I saw?” He demanded.  “Who?”  I asked. “Megan?  No?  Okay, Andrew!” I guessed.  But no.  It wasn’t Andrew.  I couldn’t think of any other neighborhood children he might have seen on the playground.  But I didn’t have to keep guessing for long… 

“I saw three bounty hunters, two people from the dark side, and a person with 100 light sabers!” Snags proclaimed.

And that’s when I choked on my mac-n-cheese. 

This school… I don’t know.  I thought it was a good place, but bounty hunters on the playground?  Here? In suburbia?

Still, I was feeling pretty proud of Snags, so I thought it would be nice if, to celebrate the end of a successful first week of school, I made his favorite dinner of barbeque brisket and gave him a small gift.

I settled on buying him a Star Wars action figure.  He was happy with the special dinner and even more delighted with his gift, but the delight soon turned into something else altogether.  Because before I knew it, he was arguing with me.  Snags wanted to use the action figure to build a Star Wars model.  And not only that, he wanted the model to be permanent, the figure forever frozen in place with glue! 

His model parts included a toy bug habitat that he had busted the insides out of, and his brand new Boba Fet action figure.  Only Snags calls him Bobo Fat, like he’s some kind of overweight circus clown.  But I wasn’t agreeable to letting Boba Fet, only 3 days old in our house now, get ruined by a five year old with a bottle of Elmer’s. 

Eventually Snags dropped his insistence on the need for glue and decided that tape!  Scotch tape! Could be used to secure “Bobo Fat” into his model like he wanted.  I consented to the tape, since it’s a much less permanent method, and I handed over the dispenser.  I watched for a while as Snags proceeded to cover up all of the vent holes on top of the bug habitat. 

“What are you doing?”  I asked.

“I’m killing him!”  Snags said.

“What?!”  I shrieked, horrified. “Don’t talk like that!” I said.  “That’s not nice at all.”

“I have to kill him,” he replied calmly. “He tried to kill Luke! I have to cover up all the air holes so he can’t breathe and he’ll die.”

I looked at my husband.  What should we do?  I pleaded with my eyes.  Who should we call?  The police?  A shrink?  I don’t think this is right, I tried to say.

But my husband, nonplussed about it all, just shrugged.

So I gave in.  “Fine!” I said.  “But don’t use all the tape trying to kill something that’s not even alive in the first place,” I added. And then I left the room.  I could hear Snags’ laughter in the background.  

Later, Snags brought his Star Wars model to me.  It was all sealed up with every possible crack covered.  Entrapped in the model without air Bobo Fat doesn’t stand a chance.  And since there’s no way to slip him any food, Bobo Fat might lose a bit of weight in there too.  I’ll check after Snags get’s home from Kindergarten tomorrow.

5 Comments

Filed under Boba Fet, humor, Kindergarten, life, Snags, Star Wars

August 20, 2007 · 12:32 am

Use The Force, Luke!

My son, Snags, has been watching a lot of Star Wars lately.  He’s totally enthralled by it.  So much so, that he’s been sucked in, and he’s changed his own identity.  He calls himself Luke Skywalker now.  And if I want to get his attention, I have to call him that too. 

This is not the first time he’s changed his name.  Over his short life he’s been Eddie, Bob the Builder, Diego, Willy Wonka, Fred Jones, The Beast, and Peter Pan, to name just a few. 

The first time he changed his name publicly, Snags was three years old and we were out for a walk around our neighborhood.  Snags ran up to an elderly couple in their driveway.  “Hello!  What’s your name?” they asked him.  “Diego!” he lied. 

Diego?  Diego?  My husband and I just looked at each other.  Diego wasn’t his name.  What were we supposed to do?  But before we could do anything they pointed at our dog.  “And what’s your dog’s name?” they asked him.  “Kutchee!” he lied again.

My husband and I were shocked.  We didn’t know what to do.  And we didn’t know the elderly couple.  On one hand we didn’t think lying was appropriate, on the other hand, they were strangers.  So instead of telling them, “Oh, he’s just kidding!  His name isn’t Diego.  It’s Snags…” we simply gathered Snags up and wished the couple a nice evening.  Once we were a few blocks away we asked Snags why he had told the couple his name was Diego.  But he wouldn’t answer.

Not long after that he told the librarian that his name was Peter Pan.  I’m pretty sure she knew he was lying, but she was kind.  She helped him find the book he was looking for anyway. 

After a while, getting dressed in the mornings became difficult.  He needed a tool belt, or a field journal, a “W” brooch to wear on his collar, an entire outfit of the color green, or a white shirt with a blue collar and blue pants to look like Fred.  White shirts aren’t a good choice for young boys who seem to think “shirt” is another word for “napkin”.

Each time my son would change his identity he’d insist that everyone address him by his new name.  Even his teachers.  We’d walk into preschool and the director would say hello and he’d ignore her.  “That’s funny!” He’d whisper to me.  “She doesn’t know my new name, does she?” he’d ask with a sly smile playing on his lips.

On his school papers he’d write his new name: Willy Wonka, he’d print.  The letters would be large and shaky and ill-formed and often backwards.  The alphabet of a child just learning how to write.  Eventually his teachers would concede, and while I never knew if they actually called him by his new name, his cubby would be re-labeled.  “Snags” would be replaced with a plastic label on which “Willy Wonka” was neatly punched out.

Sometimes my son would change his identity after only a day.  Like he was changing his underwear.  Other times it would be weeks, or even months before he’d turn into someone new.  Eventually another television show or movie would catch his fancy and he’d trade the old identity in for another, and we’d start all over.

At various times he’d think about his future and map it all out.  “When I get married,” he’d tell me, “I’m going to have 10 children.  Their names will be: Peter Pan, Wendy, Michael, John, Captain Hook, Mr. Smee, Tinkerbell, and “Alltheotherpirates”.  And I’d listen to that and count them out on my fingers.  That’s only eight children,” I felt compelled to correct him.  But then I’d think how, maybe it was okay because if you actually had 10 children, you might forget a few of their names.

I imagine Peter Pan, Wendy, Michael, and John would have it somewhat easy.  Peter could claim Pan as a middle name and simply go by Peter.   Wendy, Michael, and John are all nice, normal names.  Probably many of their friends and classmates will share the same first name.

But the others, I feel for.  I really do.  Captain Hook?  Even if the poor fellow uses Hook as his middle name, Captain as a first name sounds a little pretentious.  Or pet-like. “And this is my new cat, Captain.”  And how about Tinkerbell?.  Let’s hope he gives that name to one of his girls.  She’ll be teased enough with that name, but if Snags’ Luke Skywalker’s wife should bear only one female child, and they name her Wendy, then one of the seven boys is going to be beaten up at the playground on a daily basis.

And Mr. Smee?   That, to me, sounds like the lad is in some pretty big trouble.  Like when your mother or father calls you by your full name.  You just know you’re in for it.  You’ve gotten caught at something you’ve done and now, when your parents add Mister to your name you’re officially in trouble. 

The one I worry about the most is Alltheotherpirates.  Even I want to tease the child and he or she isn’t even born yet.

Then again, Snags’ Luke’s done this before, planned his future family out.  Only he had other children with other names.  When he thought he was Willy Wonka he decided his children would be named Charlie Bucket, Mike Teevee, Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, and Violet Beauregarde.  This was brought up daily for months.

“But what if your wife doesn’t like those names?” I asked him. 

“Oh, she will!” he insisted.  “She won’t have a choice.”

And I don’t understand that.  Because in this household, things are more or less split 50/50.  I couldn’t and wouldn’t abide by a 1950’s traditional household where June Cleaver does all the cooking and cleaning and laundry and the man comes home after work and pours himself a drink and puts his feet up.  In my house, my husband often gets home from work before me and he unloads the dishwasher and starts dinner.  I admit I’d prefer that he have my Mojito all ready for me when I walk in the door, but he rarely does.  And that’s okay.  I understand he’s already got his hands full and he can’t take time out to make my drink because he’s busy with the Filet Mignon.  He knows I’d be mad if he let it burn…  So why Snags Luke Skywalker thinks he can dictate the number or names of the children he and his future wife will have, is beyond me.  He’s not learning that attitude here.
 
All I can think is he’s planning to use The Force upon his wife.  Perhaps then she’ll bend to his will.  Maybe with The Force he can mold her mind to not only agree with having ten children, but also with giving them the crazy names of his favorite movie characters. 

He demonstrated this to me just the other day.  I was at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast when Luke told me to close my eyes and “keep them closed until I tell you to open them.”  When I did open them, the kitchen light was on, where it had been off just a moment before.  It was also swinging on its chain. 

I was surprised.  I thought perhaps there was some kind of electrical surge, but Luke admitted that HE had actually turned on the light and set it swinging by using The Force!  When I feigned shock at his ability, he thought it uproariously funny and so he spent the next half hour flipping lights off and on and poking the hanging lamp with his plastic light saber, all the while insisting he was doing it with The Force.

When I told him to turn the lights and leave them out out so we could save some money on our electric bill, he obliged but moved the game along to transporting things, both needed and unneeded, to me.  Again, he used The Force to do this.  I had to close my eyes as he brought my book (needed), a jar of spaghetti sauce (unneeded), and a can of Diet Coke (morning caffeine fix, very much needed) to me where I was still sitting at the table.

Eventually I tired of the game and got what I thought was the greatest idea any mother ever had.  I suggested he use The Force to clean up his toys.  He looked at me.  Then he said, “I can’t.  The Force doesn’t work for that.  I’ve turned that program off.”  And he turned his back and walked away.  As I watched him retreat I thought, “Oh yeah, we’ll see what your wife thinks about that, Mr. Luke Skywalker!”

11 Comments

Filed under children, identity, imagination, Luke Skywalker, Snags, Star Wars, The Force

June 28, 2007 · 2:16 pm

Okay, Listen Up!

I’m participating in a group writing project over at MamaBlogga in the hope that my post will be the one randomly chosen to win a $30 gift certificate to Amazon.  There’s a new CD by Augie March that I want to buy and I haven’t found it anywhere locally, but I saw it on Amazon.  Hope, as they say, springs eternal.

The theme of the writing project is “Three things I want my kids to…” and then the writer (that’s me!) fills in the rest.

Here is my entry:

Three Things I Want My Kids to Understand NOW, RIGHT NOW!  NO, Actually, Make that YESTERDAY!!!

And by kids, I mean Snags, the child of mine who’s just lost his first tooth, and Pee Pee, the dog who WON’T STOP PEEING ON THE FLOOR.  Snags is 5 and just learning to read; Pee Pee is 12, but she’s a dog, and hasn’t shown that much intelligence.  So that means somebody is going to have to read this to them.  Preferably a policeman, or some other figure of authority, because it’s pretty much been proven that when I talk, something shorts out in their ear to brain wiring, and I get nothing but a blank stare in return.

So here they are, the three things I want my kids to understand, and to eliminate all confusion, I will clearly indicate to which child each item addresses:

To Snags:  Your teachers are not smarter than I am.  I know you think they are because they teach you things all day long like your ABCs and 123s and witty songs and words woefully mispronounced in Spanish.  But most of them are young, barely out of high school, with just enough child care classes in their back pocket to get them through the door of your preschool.  They are all nice young women and I’ve no doubt that if and when they finish college, many of them will be smarter than me.  But I am here to tell you that contrary to what Ms. Becky says, YOU DO NOT PUT SUNBLOCK IN YOUR HAIR.  Your hair will not get sunburned.  So please.  STOP. GLOPPING. IT. ON. YOUR. HEAD.

To Snags: Remember when we read the Berenstain Bears book The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies?  I bought that book to try and subtly teach you a lesson.  Since subtly seems to have flown right over your head, I am simply going to give it to you straight: You cannot get something: a toy, a book, a candy, and most especially, not a fountain, every time we are out.  When I say “I don’t have enough money to buy you a fountain” on any given day, I mean it.  The ones you like the best cost upwards of $100 and I don’t have that money lying around.  And no, I can’t “just use PayPal!”  In order to use PayPal, I have to have the MONEY in PayPal in the first place.  Which I don’t.  So please, STOP. ASKING. 

To Snags and to Pee Pee:  You are both old enough to handle going to the bathroom yourselves, and in the appropriate place.  Snags, that means you must learn to wipe your own hiney.  You’re 5!  I’m pretty sure your Kindergarten teachers this fall won’t consider hiney wiping to be one of their duties.  And yes, I agree poop is gross, and it’s even grosser when you get some on your thumb, but you don’t have to cry about it.  That’s why we have toilet paper.  First, use some.  Not the entire roll; that will clog the toilet again.   Then if you still get poop on your thumb, use some more and wipe it off.  Then wash your hands.  And then wash them again.  And maybe, especially for the times you get poop on your thumb, wash them a third time.  And Pee Pee, please, hold your bladder until it’s time to go outside.  I KNOW you are doing this for spite.  Any dog that can sleep from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. without having to urinate in the middle of the night can surely hold it for an equal amount of time during the day.  You may not have noticed that the grass from the back yard does not extend into my kitchen, but if you’d look at the floor, you’d see that while the grass out back is brown and crispy and dying, it’s still brown.  My kitchen floor is gray and blue.  And then sometimes, yellow.  It’s the yellow that I don’t like.  Keep it to yourself.  Save it for the brown grass. STOP. PEEING. ON. MY. FLOOR.

That is all. You can go play now.
 

31 Comments

Filed under Augie March, group writing project, humor, MamaBlogga, Pee Pee, preschool, Snags, sunblock, three things