Gabe Tries to Regain Supremacy

As I said in an earlier post, the last few months Norah has been making a move to be the most amusing child. Or, at least, the one providing us with the most picture/video worth moments. But this week, Gabe has made a real push to make up some lost ground.

Last weekend, my folks bought Gabe a double-ended lightsaber. I'm not going to pass judgment on this purchase yet. Gabe LOVES the toy, which isn't a surprise. And, so far, he hasn't broken anything with it (that wasn't already broken--see the second video) and he hasn't bloodied anyone's nose. So it hasn't been a disaster. But as soon as damage to person or property occurs, I'm going to pass all kinds of judgment on this purchase.

For the time being, though, it's offering Gabe LOTS of opportunities for burning off extra energy. He's also getting to work on "his moves" a quite a bit. I'm pretty sure I posted some video a few months ago, when he was in his Power Rangers phase (it really is amazing how quickly he is in and out of these phases--probably a harrowing look into his future attention span for just about everything). He was all about working on his moves, then. Well, now he's got a big lightsaber to add to those moves. Here's some pictures/video.

There were better options before I got the camera, as usual. The lightsaber comes apart to make two regular lightsabers. Libby got a picture of Gabe and Norah fighting with them in the kitchen the other day, but it was on her phone and, while cute, lacked the quality that I can really get behind.

I was able to pull the end of the lightsaber back out (it retracts slightly into itself, and, not surprisingly, that blue end was shoved in as far as possible from him jamming it into the compost). But I will be surprised if this thing lasts more than another week or two. He's beating the crap out of it.

This used to be a birdhouse. Libby made a handful of these birdhouses out of old gourds by cutting a hole into them and then hanging them up in trees. Simple but effective (I guess--I'm not sure if we ever had any birds use them. Wasps used them, but I don't know about birds). But after about a decade, the gourds broke apart. Gabe is actually helping us here by removing the remains from the tree. Standing on the wagon might not have been a great idea, but I'm getting to the point where I hate wasting my breath telling these kids about all the terrible things that can and probably will happen to them if they aren't careful. I'm beginning to think that children actually have to experience bad things to learn that something is a bad idea. Again, it's a surprise our species has lived this long when we always have to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Gabe also got his first grown-up hair cut this week. For the last almost five years Libby has been cutting his hair in the bath tub. And I think, for the most part, the results have been quite good. Here's what it started out looking like:

Little shaggy, little disheveled. I think it looks pretty good. And if it got a little longer, it would have started getting all curly, and I think his hair looks great when it's long and curly. I mean, some of that may just be jealousy on my part since the only long hair I can grow now is coming out of my nose or out of the mole on my neck.

And here's the salon.

I NEVER would have predicted I'd say this, after watching this child for the last several years, but Gabe did a great job sitting still for this.

And the end result. I don't know. I mean, it looks great and all, but it's just not the same. With the long hair he looks "impish" or maybe like a "rapscallion." With this short, groomed, producted hair, he looks "hooligany" or "frat-boy-douchey."

Or maybe it was just missing the goofy pose for the camera.

And, finally, this morning. Shortly after getting up, Gabe decided that he wanted to make . . . I don't know. Over the past month I've been portioning out a big bagful of micro-machine Star Wars sets that I collected in . . . ahem . . . college . . . ahem. Anyway, nerdiness aside, I had several little sets with ships and miniature people and all that. They were actually pretty awesome little sets. Each one was sort of a diorama of a scene from one of the original three movies (and four of them folded up into a Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, or Stormtrooper heads, which was a pretty impressive bit of engineering). And there were a ton of ships and characters and what-not. Along with the Star Wars Squinkies that he's picked up these past few weeks, he's got quite an impressive collection of tiny little Star Wars stuff to play with.

So, somehow, he got it into his head that he wanted to create a Darth Maul set. And he wanted to make it out of cardboard. I'm guessing he pictured the end result as some sort of actual diorama looking thing. Or maybe not. Maybe he thought he could cut the cardboard and mold it to look exactly like one of the micro-machine sets. I don't know. But he asked for scissors (the adult ones, which I let him use after a few reminders to cut away from his body and so forth).

Whatever he thought he was going to do, he ended up cutting off a single flap from the box and then he decided that he was going to use the box to "scare" Norah.

And this is how he decided to do it:

Dear Future Pat: Have Fun Wiping Your Own Ass

A few weeks ago I did something that might have unexpected consequences down the road. Granted, ANYTHING I do could end up being the lynchpin event for one or the other of my kids' debilitating neuroses. Some simple phrase or action might inexplicably stick in their heads and utterly shape the way they think about everything through the years. Such is the responsibility of being a parent, and it is one that I grapple with on nearly a daily basis. But it's something that I've discussed before in this forum so I won't belabor that point any further.

However, I might have set something in motion that is one of these very lynchpin moments, so it's worth discussing the specific event and how it's playing out right now, if for no other reason than it will make it easier for Gabe to trace his problems back to this specific event and very accurately point his finger at me and shout "YOU!" as he crumbles to the floor, broken and terrified, recognizing how his whole life spiraled out of control and it was me pushing the plunger down on the toilet.

Kind of ironically. Or literally? Well, metaphorically, but with some literal irony, maybe?

Whatever.

It has to do with poop.

One night, as I was changing Norah's diaper for the umpteenth time of the day, we were discussing potty training. We often do this in the hopes of spurring in Norah the drive to tackle some sort of bathroom-using transition. While she is perfectly capable of going on the pot (if we catch her starting to squat and move her to the toilet immediately she will go there), she has ZERO interest in telling us that she needs to go before she does, so potty training has been a complete non-starter for us with her. But I'm not feeling all that rushed just yet. Gabe didn't really get going until his third birthday, so I'll put off the panicking until then for Norah.

Anyway, as we discussed potty training, Gabe pointed out "I don't wear diapers. Diapers are for babies."

"Ah," I said, sounding sage and wise, "But you used to. You wore diapers for three full years. And I still have to followup wipe just about every time you poop to make sure you got it all."

"Yeah, but I don't wear diapers," he insisted.

"But you did."

"No, YOU wear the stinky diapers."

"No, YOU wear the stinky diapers," I cleverly countered. And this went back and forth a few times because these are the kinds of debates you can have with a four year old.

Eventually, I changed tack somewhat and said, "You know, since you wore diapers for three years and Norah will wear diapers for three years, you two owe your mother and I three years of diaper changes."

Because this theorizing was less than pithy, Gabe gave me a kind of confused look.

"I changed your diapers for three years, so that means YOU have to change MY diapers for three years! And Norah can change Momma's diapers for three years."

This seemed more than fair, really. Let's face it, I've changed at least 80% of the diapers in the last four and a half years, but I'm willing to give her a 50/50 split, because I'm a great person.

Gabe turned a serious look on me. He didn't like the sound of this plan.

"But I don't know how to change diapers," he replied, thinking that would clear him of all responsibilities.

"I don't wear diapers right now," I pointed out. "So you don't have anything to change right now. Plus, you can't wipe your own butt very well just yet, so I would rather wait until you can get me nice and clean before I have you changing my diapers."

"But I'm only FOUR," he insisted. "I can't change diapers!"

"I know. And I'm not planning on wearing them for a while yet. How about when you're older? Maybe when you're all grown up? Then you can change my diapers for three years?"

He considered this briefly, then he said something that I think he's really come to regret. "When I am nineteen years old, I will change your diapers for three years."

I nodded slowly. "OK. That seems fair. I might not NEED to wear diapers yet by that point. But it might be kind of nice to have responsibility for bathroom activities taken over by someone else for awhile. It will be like a vacation."

"But grown-ups don't wear diapers," he pointed out, still trying to get out of it.

"Some grown ups DO have to wear diapers. But even if I don't, you owe me three years of diaper changes, and I want to make sure you get to experience changing diapers. So I might wear diapers for three years whether I need to or not."

He seemed to process this, but then quickly started jumping around or acting otherwise spazzy, and I thought that was that on the subject. Just another silly thing we talk about because I bring up probably inappropriate subject matter with the kids all the time. It's kind of my thing.

But it wasn't, and it hasn't been. In fact, he's brought it up quite a bit over the past few weeks. Sometimes when he sees me changing Norah's diaper, it will trigger something and he'll ask about having the change my diapers. Sometimes when he's pooping it will trigger something and he'll ask about it. Sometimes, quite out of nowhere, he'll ask about it. We were driving to the grocery store the other morning and he asked, "Do I REALLY have to change your diapers for three years when I turn nineteen?"

He's been just a tiny bit obsessed with it, to be honest. And I suppose I can't blame him. If I had three years of adult diaper changes to look forward to--at a definite point in my future (and especially if I had any concept of what life would be like as a nineteen year old, when changing adult diapers would be about the most terrible thing in the world)--I might be obsessing a bit over it, too.

So far, when he's asked, I've been reluctant to let him off the hook by saying something along the lines of "Naw. We'll be fine. We'll have Norah change our diapers instead." I know I SHOULD let him off the hook, and I will eventually, but it's been kind of interesting how he comes back to it time and again, and I'm nothing if not experimental with my kids.

But I also don't want to give him such a complex that, should I need actual diaper changing as an old man, I won't have completely ruined my chances of having my kids take care of me. So I guess I'll just have to take things one day at a time, and if he starts obsessing TOO much about it, think up some way to defuse the situation.

We'll see. I don't want to act prematurely and lose my three year vacation from wiping myself.

Star Wars

Last fall, we got a Lego Encyclopedia of Star Wars characters in the store. It immediately became Gabe's favorite book. Prior to that, every time he came to the store, he had to look at the Harry Potter Lego book, but that was quickly forgotten when the Star Wars book arrived. For two months or so, he looked over that book for several hours--combined, of course.

Then, just before Christmas, he bought it. With his own money.

Last summer, we decided to start giving Gabe a little bit of money--mostly loose change we had lying around--every time he did his "morning chores." These chores consisted of emptying the office and bathroom trash into the big can in the kitchen and feeding and watering the cats. Simple things, but we figured they started him down the road of earning his own money, saving his own money, and respecting how much work and effort it takes to buy the things he wants. Plus, empty waste bins and fed cats. Win-win.

Over several months, where we only let him occasionally pull out a quarter to use in gumball machines, he managed to accumulate about $50 of his own money. Throughout that saving period, we kept talking up the purchase of some big Lego set or other. But, then as Christmas approached, we shifted that to talk of him buying presents to give to people. And a couple days before Christmas we went to the bookstore and he picked out gifts to give to his uncle James, uncle Pete, Libby, and Norah. He picked out nice, thoughtful gifts (especially for Libby--a little stuffed cat holding a heart because, as he said, "I love her so much"), but REALLY wanted to buy that Star Wars book, too. Technically, he used up all of his money on the presents, so I bought the book for him, but that's not really important.

To up the anticipation, I made him wrap the Star Wars book and put it under our tree, to open on Christmas Day with the rest of his presents. And, like the trooper he is, he did just that. Several times he pulled the book out (he wrapped it himself, sort of, so he knew which present it was) and held it and asked if he could open it early, but he always accepted the reality of it when I told him he had to wait. As I said, trooper.

Since Christmas, this book has proven to be the best money that has ever been spent on him. He has carried the book everywhere. He takes it to bed with him at night and at naptime. At night, he has a little flashlight in bed--which he "hides" under the covers in a special place so he knows where to find it--so he can sit and look at the book, page by page, sometimes for hours. HOURS. Gabe. The kid who still can't really sit still for a show that lasts more than thirty minutes. HOURS. We can hear him on the monitor (which we still have hooked up to their room, mostly because it's awfully cute listening to them as they talk in bed for the first half hour or so before they go to sleep, but still a little bit because sometimes Norah falls out of bed or needs help with one thing or another), quietly flipping pages.

And it truly is remarkable how well he remembers some of the things that he's learned about those characters. During one of our Christmas stops, Pete and Jason (Libby's cousin), sat down with Gabe and his book and talked him through many of the characters. Since he found that book last fall, I have categorically ignored all of the characters from the prequels and the Clone Wars stuff that they've been running an animated series of for several years now. I've heard the Clone Wars stuff isn't that bad, but I still refuse to acknowledge it because Anakin is one of the main characters, and who wants to root for a character that you KNOW is going to turn into one of the most evil beings in the universe? Just seems stupid to me. To this day, I can't understand why they've never built on the post-Return of the Jedi universe like they did the FAR less interesting prequel universe. But there you have it. I'm an old, bitter, purist Star Wars fan.

Nonetheless, Gabe can recognize characters from the prequels and even knows that there are "good guy" stormtroopers. And I have to admit that I feel a LITTLE bad that he knows the prequels as "the bad movies." Because that is what I call them. All the time. I feel bad not because they are actually good movies. They are not. They are terrible. Absolutely, unabashedly terrible. The characters are awful, the story telling is preposterous (where it exists at all), and, again, you're supposed to somehow root for or care about this Anakin character that is not only unlikeable throughout but you know is going to turn evil. They are "the bad movies."

Want to know why they are bad, exactly? I recommend watching this. The reviews are long, and pretty weird (about half as long as the movies themselves, and at least twice as weird), but spot on. They will carefully explain why, exactly, people hate these movies so much. Time well spent for every Star Wars fan who can't quite put a finger on why the movies seemed so disappointing.

Anyway, I feel bad because I don't want to be the kind of parent who makes these kinds of decisions for his kids. I want them to develop their own opinions and have their own ideas. I don't want them to grow up to be newer versions of me. I mean, I'm great and all, but I've got enough problems dealing with one of me, I don't need more around the house.

On the other hand, the movies are BAD, and not only do I not want Gabe to lose the good Star Wars movies in the onslaught of new garbage that's out there, I don't want him to live under the impression that bad things, if shoved down your throat long and hard enough by George Lucas, can suddenly become acceptable and awesome simply because they exist. And I think he's too young to appreciate what a truly reprehensible character Jar Jar is and how he came to symbolize everything that went wrong with the series. How it went from simple storytelling to a machine designed specifically to market products to people, and how special effects came to replace honest storytelling. All he'll see are the awesome fight scenes and see how Jar Jar pratfalls his way through life and death situations like the least likeable Jerry Lewis character ever conceived, and he'll fall in love with something unworthy of his love. And that, I think, is a greater tragedy than me unfairly influencing his opinion, right?

Did I mention that he only refers to the prequels as "the bad movies" now? "But I want to see the bad movies!" he pleads on a nearly daily basis thanks, primarily to my own bad timing, but I'll get into that in a minute.

So, while Libby's family was here over Christmas, I had the notion that Gabe should watch his first Star Wars movie with Pete, who also has a warm place in his heart for the movies, and who is Gabe's godfather. I thought it would be a special little memory for both of them.

And it was. He still talks about it. And within the next week I let him watch Empire (which, again probably unfairly, I told him was the best of the movies) and then Jedi (which, definitely unfairly, Libby told him was the best of the movies--and which, after seeing it, Gabe agreed because he liked the "little bears" in it. Stupid little bears. I should have recognized early on the path that Lucas was choosing to take when he introduced a preposterously cute race of furry mini-wookies to destroy the entire Empire for the sake of selling more toys). He loved all the movies and watched each several times.

And then I found out that Phantom Menace was being re-released in 3D, but I didn't find it out until AFTER Gabe had seen the commercials for it a couple times. And then the merchandising blitz started and Gabe was bombarded with commercials for dozens of Episode 1 toys (that's the sucky thing about him moving away from the pre-K shows to "big kid" shows. There's no getting away from commercials anymore). And now they are playing the commercial for the 3d version every ten minutes on every channel Gabe might watch. Thankfully, the re-release is today, so maybe the commercials will go away (and I can only hope that it's a miserable flop this time around and Lucas is taught a valuable lesson--but I doubt that will happen).

And because he sees the commercials most days, I get the question as to whether or not he can watch "the bad movies." I know we'll have to cave in eventually, and maybe I'll even let him see Phantom Menace before too long, but I kind of think the second and third movies are a little too dark, depressing and grown up for him still. And stupid. Painfully, painfully stupid.

So that's where we are right now in our personal little Star Wars legacy.

A Bit of Dress Up

A few days ago, Libby took Gabe out . . . somewhere. Geez. I swear, either the kids are seriously damaging my brain function or I've got some form of brain disease, because my memory is going to pot.

Anyway. Gabe gone. Norah home with me. And she decided that she wanted to play dress up. She pulled out the suitcase of miscellaneous costumes and clothing pieces that we've accumulated and went to town.

It's reassuring, to me at least, to see that the need to make some form of muscle pose while wearing a Power Rangers costume isn't restricted to a specific gender. Or, perhaps, Norah is a bit butch.

Did I say butch? Nevermind.

And a bit of video.

To be honest, Gabe's going to need to start pulling out some A game soon or he's being threatened of losing his Most Bloggable Child award in the household. I've got quite a few pictures and a couple videos (apparently I haven't been as interested in recording everything amusing the kids have been doing for a couple months now--as evidenced by my lack of posting. As I'm looking through the files here, I just don't have much to share) of Norah on here and so far Gabe only has one video in his file from this year. I will have to try to put those pictures/videos up sometime this month, eh?