The Weird Things That Scare Kids

Up to this point, I think we've been pretty lucky on the whole "scared of things" issue. Gabe has not had too much trouble with it, and Norah hasn't really been verbal enough to truly express her fears. Gabe doesn't much care for total darkness, and Norah obviously didn't like to be alone in her room (proven by the fact that she stopped shrieking through the night as soon as she and Gabe shared a room). We've never had monsters under the bed or bogeymen in the closet or anything like that to deal with. They wake up from nightmares from time to time and we have to talk them off the ledge, but that's about it.

Or, rather, that WAS about it. Earlier in the week, Gabe had his first of what I have to assume will be many scaredy cat moments.

It was naptime. About thirty minutes after I put them down, Gabe came down the stairs and informed me that he needed to pee. Like usual. I was trying to nap on the couch, so I just turned my head and said, "Go pee, and go back to bed!" over my shoulder and tried to go back to sleep. After a bit, I heard him go back upstairs.

But the damage was already done. I had dozed off before he came down, and now that I was fully awake again, there was no going back to sleep. About fifteen minutes later, I got up. As I walked by the stairs, something caught my eye. Gabe was sitting on the top stair in the dark.

"Gabe, go back to bed. Go to sleep. No more noise, just sleep." I instructed and walked into the office. Two steps into the office and I hear bitter sobs coming from the top of the stairs. I back out of the office and look up the stairs.

"What's wrong?" I ask in the most caring voice I can muster through my annoyance at having naptime, once again, ruined.

"I-I-I'm-m-m scared," he stammered.

"Scared? Scared of what?"

"The-the-the c-c-candle!"

"What? The candle?"

"Yuh-yes!"

"A candle. You're scared of a candle?"

"Yes!"

"OK. Let me come up. You're going to have to show me."

I went upstairs and went into the extra bedroom, where he takes naps.

"Show me what is scaring you."

And he pointed at, sure enough, a candle. It was a medium sized, I don't know what you'd call them, canister candles? One of those bigger ones that are sold at candle parties that smell like something "wonderful." This one smelled like baby powder. Libby bought it when Gabe was a baby. Apparently, at the time, we weren't smelling enough baby powder as it was.

Anyway, I looked at him. He was dead serious. This candle, which was sitting on top of a small desk in the bedroom, was the cause of his worry.

"Why are you scared of this candle?"

Through his sobs, this is the message that I was able to translate, "Because the candle will start on fire and then it will burn down the entire house."

After wasting a couple minutes trying to explain to him that things don't just start on fire, and pointing out that this particular candle, even if we WANTED it to burn, couldn't because a year or so back Gabe had personally dug out both of the wicks with his tiny little fingers and spread what wax he could all over the furniture up there, I gave up and put the candle in another room.

But now I'm afraid we've opened a floodgate and the irrational fears are going to rush in and sweep us all away. As long as whatever they are afraid of keeps being amusing, though, I guess I won't take it too personally.

To Think Like a Child

I wish I could think like a kid again. Years of experience and education have jaded me to the wonder and discovery of childhood. And I miss it. Having the ability to think like a child again would certainly make communicating with my children easier because, for a change, I'd be able to figure out just what the hell is going through their heads that made them believe what they just did was a good idea.

Take, for instance:


Yesterday afternoon I found this stuck to my rocking chair. It is a lime green lego. At first I thought it was just sitting in the crease there, precariously resting. Which would have been a little strange as, even then, one of the kids would have had to set it there. But when I pulled it off, I noticed it was sticky, and that stick was keeping it on the chair, not gravity and luck. Upon still closer inspection, I saw what looked like remnants of gum on the lego. But Gabe hadn't had any gum in awhile. He did, however, still have some stuff left in his Halloween basket (specifically, the stuff that neither Libby nor I have much interest in eating).

"Gabe, is this taffy on your lego?" I asked.

He kind of squished up his face a little bit, giving me my answer.

"Did you stick this lego in your mouth while you were chewing taffy and then stick the lego to the chair?" I further deduced.

"Yes," he openly, and I think proudly, admitted.

"Why?"

"I don't know." I wish that made sense to me.

Earlier still, I opened the refrigerator and found a stick from our yard nestled between two gallons of milk on the top shelf.

"Gabe, why is there a stick in the refrigerator?" I asked.

"Because I wanted a cold stick," he answered plainly enough.

"Huh," I replied back, because what else could I say?

Well, I also told him that all he had to do was leave the stick outside and it would get plenty cold as winter was rapidly approaching, but that doesn't make for a very entertaining narrative.

At least the little stuffed penguin we found in the fridge last week made sense. Penguins SHOULD be kept in the fridge. Sticks, not so much.

Learning One of the Most Important Social Skills

As we grow, we learn thousands of different social skills. We learn them from keys we pick up along the way (or, in the case of my children, through constant, nagging reminders delivered at varying pitches and volume, sometimes accompanied by largely idle threats of future repercussions or denials of privileges). They vary wildly in their importance. From learning to put the toilet seat down whenever supposedly liberated women are also in the household (come on--I have to put the toilet seat UP, so how is it not equally fair for someone else to have to put it DOWN?) all the way up to knowing when not to sock someone in the nose when being annoyed. Most of us learn these skills through one method or another. But what is the most important skill?

Gauging importance is difficult and there are many different qualifications one could use to rank these skills. For instance, if living together in a large, happy society is considered the most important qualification, then perhaps politeness, empathy, or an ability to fart discretely might be the most important skill to learn. Or if the child in question is being groomed for a life of super-villaindom, then an ability to manipulate or dominate another's personality would be the most important skill. For the sake of this post, I've decided to go with what I think is the most key element of social interaction--the very survival of the human race. What are the most basic and, thus, most important skills that we need in order to survive as a species.

Clearly this list could be argued and many nuances could be debated along the way. Loyalty and dependability are important skills to learn, and without them we cannot form cohesive bonds with other people. So those seem rather important. Being able to comprehend abstract notions of justice or fairness also seem as though they would lend themselves well to forming permanent bonds and creating lasting interpersonal relations.

But let's face it. Basic survival relies on our ability to live with one another. To not be actively repulsed by the people we share space with. On a Maslow's-type scale of importance, loyalty and fairness and all of those other skills would make a showing, but I think there can be little debate that the very foundation of the scale has to be our Ability to Not Excrete on Other People. Few other skills, it seems to me, can illicit a more negative reaction in another person than a lack of this one. And, in fact, if humans had no ability to control such things and divert away our various yucks, then society as a whole would quickly devolve. Nobody would want to have anything to do with anybody ever.

But I will take this one step further. Waste excretions are a problem. Few people want to be peed or pooped on--and those that DO want such things have MANY social problems of their own and likely aren't what you'd call "built for society" anyway. They are anomalies, and they deserve to be peed and pooped on for being so weird. That will teach them. But waste excretions are more or less contained by our inability to survive without clothes. Run around naked such that you could pee or poop on someone else freely and chances are pretty good that you'll be dead from exposure or some infection before you've had the chance to loose your bowels on many unsuspecting folks--not that they'd let you get that close anyway since you're naked and probably covered in your own filth. Thus, that problem eventually takes care of itself.

Then there's puke.

An ability to puke other than on the ones we love is, I think, the most valuable skill that we learn growing up. What is better than not being puked on? Nothing, that's what. Nothing makes me want to love and nurture someone else more than the safe, comfortable feeling I get from trusting that, no matter what, they will choose to puke on something other than me. And I can't wait until my kids learn that skill.

Not that I, personally, get puked on all that much. I would rather have my children puke on EVERYTHING in my house that isn't me. I'm a bit squeamish about the vile stuff. But Libby is a real champ about it. She has, on many occasions, put herself between our belongings and one of our kid's upchuck. She probably deserves some kind of honorarium for it. Maybe someday I'll build her a small statue, or not puke on her myself the next time I'm sick, in appreciation.

All of this is a round-about way of getting to the day of Halloween activities that Norah decided to make more interesting with the zesty combination of stomach contents that she yacked around a few different venues yesterday.

I know, I know. Poor baby. It sucks to be two and to not be able to describe what is wrong because you not only don't have the words to describe it, but you also don't have the frame of reference to understand what is wrong. Sure she used to be a major puker, but she doesn't remember any of that anymore. It's been, what, five months since she used to work herself into a puking state every time she started crying in bed. She deserves sympathy. But so do her parents. Especially me, because I am writing this down and clearly play some part in it all no matter how little I was actually barfed on.

She spent most of yesterday lying pathetically curled up in my rocking chair (which, thankfully, only smells a little like ralph today), and it looked as though she was going to keep the two of us home while Gabe and Libby made the trick-or-treating rounds. But, right at the last minute, she threw a mighty tantrum that convinced me that, no matter how much she threw up on everyone and everything along the way, that would be a lesser evil than trying to keep her home while Gabe was out doing something fun.

So we all went out and she rallied beautifully. Over the course of the day she had managed to only eat one bite of breakfast with a few sips of milk--which ended up on her shirt and in a bowl while we were at the bookstore for a "spooky story time"--and drink a glass of water and a glass of Powerade. Yet, while we were making the rounds in the neighborhoods, she managed to suffer through whatever candy she could get her paws on and then ate an entire bag of popcorn before we got home.

This, of course, she bathed herself and her bed in about 1:00 this morning. Despite a thorough washing of EVERYTHING around her bed, their room still smells like a frat house minus the desperation.

The start of our day. See? Perky, bright eyed, not the least bit looking like a vomit factory. We even managed to get her in her fairy princess costume. Though she takes after me in many ways, we don't share a love of costuming yet. She is not much of a fan of dress up. Probably she thinks there are enough REAL problems in the world to be adding fits of whimsy and fantasy into the mix. Kids these days.

Less than thirty minutes later, she was weepy and moping in Libby's arms at the store. This was after she demanded we take off her costume, but before the spewing started.

Spooky story time. About some poor woman who is being set upon by haunted clothing. Then she industriously invents the scarecrow with them. I question the authenticity of this story, though, for several reasons.

After story time, we took Norah home and Libby stayed with her because any suggestion that I stay home elicited shrieks and hysteria. Gabe and I went to his preschool for their trick-or-treeting event. His school is so cool. His teacher had each of the kids stand by her easel while she drew pictures of them in their costumes.

Fast forward to about 6:00. Norah is apparently feeling better as being around people other than me and Gabe has pushed the icky feeling stomach into the back of her mind. She REFUSED to be dressed in her costume, though, so the hand-me-down Spiderman hoodie had to suffice for dress up. Gabe, in case you're not up on your terrible 5-10 aged programming, is the Red Power Ranger. Finn is Bumblebee from the never-should-have-been-made movie version of Transformers. Gabe, it should be noted, HAS accepted my love of costume. Perhaps a bit too much. He would have worn that costume every day since we bought it six weeks ago if we'd let him. Though he claims not to be the Red Ranger in it. He thinks the Red Ranger is kind of lame. He wants to be the White Ranger (there isn't one in the show he's watching--yet), but I keep trying to explain to him that being White is even more boring than being Beige and he should pick a more interesting color. Say, purple. Or go way out there with a hunter-safety orange. He'll have none of it.

Speaking of Gabe and Power Rangers, I don't think I've shared what he wants to be when he grows up. When he first discovered the Power Rangers, he declared that he wanted to be one when he grew up (which wasn't surprising since he'd already said he wanted to be a Transformer and a G.I. Joe when those shows still caught his fancy). But the first few times he wanted to watch P.R., he caught on to the obviously negative vibe I was sending out about the show. If you've ever watched any of the early incarnations of the show, you know how bad it is. And, currently, it's even worse than it used to be. And he picked up on my snark. After a week or two, he decided that he didn't want to be a P.R. anymore because I didn't like them--those were his actual words.

I felt pretty conflicted about that. On the one hand, I had dashed my young son's dream of being a P.R. with my off-handed negativity. On the other, I had dashed my young son's dream of being a P.R. with my off-handed negativity! I was molding his taste and, hopefully, encouraging him to like things that didn't suck so hard and so fast! Nonetheless, my sense of guilt outweighed my hope that my kids won't like stupid things, and I carefully explained to him that just because I didn't like something didn't mean that HE couldn't like that thing. And that if he wanted to be a P.R., I would be very proud of him and help him keep his suit clean and his big mechanical animal thing serviced.

But he had moved on already. He decided that he wanted to be an artist. Which lasted a couple weeks. Now, he's decided that being an artist might not be that exciting, so he wants to be the first Power Ranger Artist. We'll see how that works out.

Anyway, Norah and May (she's a red crayon) in the wagon. The girls were having a tough time keeping up with the treating pace the boys were setting, so they got to ride to most of the houses. I'm actually a little apprehensive about the day when the boys are big enough to go off t-or-ting on their own. If they kept their focus and really applied themselves, they could easily cover a few dozen blocks and strip the population of a trash bag full of candy. We hit about six blocks--pretty sporadically participating blocks--and they filled their candy buckets before we quit.

Power Ranger and Transformer, bromancing and working together. It's a magical world we live in.

At the last stop of the night, Gabe was asked by our friends to show us his muscles. This is the pose he chose to do it. Not shown in the picture is Norah devouring an entire bag of microwave popcorn.

And, finally, a non-Halloween picture that I thought I would add because I saw it on the memory card and figured I would never remember to talk about it if I didn't do it now. Libby's cousin Kelly is a cheerleader for the Chiefs (I know, pretty cool, right?). Her folks, Kent and Kathy, sent the kids some Chiefs gear, including this little cheerleader outfit for Norah. And this picture makes me laugh because she looks a little psychotic. Cute still, but psychotic also. Which made it worth sharing.

A Love Letter

Dear Sausage from Meridian Grocery,

I love you. There, I said it. There's no reason to beat around the bush or play coy. Let's just get that out in the open and let it breath.

I must admit, I've never felt this way about a food before. Sure there have been mild lapses in judgment inspired by fetching foods. Ice cream binges. Macaroni and cheese gorgings. Pizza gluttonings. Candy corn fixations. Marshmallow Peep face-stuffings. But these were never more than flings--the basest kind of short-sighted and self-destructive whimsies or cavings to cravings.

Never before have I wanted to make a food part of me. Don't take this the wrong way, but I want you inside me. All the time. I want your hot, spicy tube. In. Side. Me. Now. Always.

Don't let anyone turn this into something disgusting. It's beautiful. You're beautiful. And perfect. You are a perfect food.

Shh. Don't talk. Just get in my belly.

Love,
Pat

My Napping Theory Is Shot to Hell

You know how I said Gabe was a complete mess on the days when he doesn't take a nap--and since he's not taking naps very often anymore, he's been more of a mess than not for awhile now. Yeah, turns out it wasn't the naps that were making him normaler.

Yesterday he took a good, long nap. Almost three hours. But from the time that he woke up until he went to bed he was non-stop spaz. We went outside to work on the playhouse some, and very little actual work got done because I spent most of my time unwedging him from things.

First, he decided that he needed to climb a tree.

This tree. A redbud. Maybe. I'm never very clear on tree names because, on the whole, they all do about the same thing in my world: provide an obstacle to mow around.

I have to admit that my feelings towards tree climbing are a bit dubious. On the one hand, tree climbing is a good, wholesome, traditional "boy" thing to do with an afternoon. Norman Rockwell would have approved of the activity. It also, I suppose, trains some coordination skills and teaches kids valuable lessons about planning ahead and gravity. On the other hand, Gabe is terrible at planning ahead and gravity has never been his friend. We've so far managed to avoid breaking any of his limbs (I say "we" but his role in the prevention has been on an unwilling participation level only), but we've also managed to keep him from being higher than a couple feet off the ground. Now that he's branching out . . . ha ha . . . it's probably only a matter of time before a trip to the hospital.

Especially if he keeps going after it like he did yesterday. He tackled this tree with gusto if not exactly prowess or skill.

Really, I have nobody to blame but myself because I'm the one that pointed the ideal climbing nature of that particular tree out to him. It seemed like an innocent enough move at the time, and I was doing it to protect another, smaller tree from Gabe's wrath. The tree he originally picked out is only about four feet tall and just a couple years old. He would have destroyed it. And when I spotted him trying to "climb" it (he wasn't able to do anything more than straddle one of the small branches that was close to the ground because the tree is only about an inch thick at its base), I pointed him to the far more substantial redbud. I thought, "No worries. That first fork is a few feet off the ground, still too high for him to get into."

So he asked me to put him up in the fork of the tree to start off. "Nope," I said. "Tree climbing isn't a team sport. If you're going to do it, you'll have to do it on your own." I thought this would buy me a few more months, anyway. Or, if nothing else, keep him discouraged enough that he would find something else to do and I could work on the playhouse.

Except he found a chair. So he used the chair to get into the fork of the tree. But that was as far as he was ever able to make it. And, obviously, it was too high for him to get down from--which he couldn't do anyway because as soon as he got in there he wedged either his crotch or his shoes into the fork in such a way that he couldn't move anymore. I have to give the kids props for trying, though, and sticking with it when it didn't work. Every time he got stuck, he yelled to me to get him down, and when I put him on the ground he declared that he "needed to try it again," always with the same result. So, every five minutes or so for a half an hour I was called over to free him up, and eventually he gave up.

After the tree, he decided to feed the chickens some "salad," one of his favorite things to do right now. He walked around the yard, picking grass and throwing it through the fence to the chickens. But this time it only kept him busy for a few minutes.

I was cutting a piece of particle board for the wall and out of the corner of my eye I saw Gabe on the picnic table. He sort of seemed to be jumping up and down. Dancing maybe? Or just being weird. Who knew. Because being on top of furniture is pretty common for him, and I didn't see where he could really hurt the picnic table being up there, I instantly dismissed it and went back to my own business.

Not a minute later I heard, "Uh, Dad? Help?" in a not very loud voice--as if he knew he needed help but REALLY didn't want to face the lecture that was going to come attached.

This was another stuck-in-a-rocking-chair moment for Gabe as he was forced to remain stuck until I had time to go inside and get the camera (which I should have done anyway to get a picture of him wedged in the tree, but I figured I would have LOTS of opportunities for wedged-in-tree pictures as the years go by). Here's what I found:

For some reason, he refused to smile for the picture.

He didn't REALLY need my help, as he pulled it out this way on his own, but I'm glad he called me all the same because I wouldn't have gotten the picture of him if he hadn't. Really, he does a great job of letting us know when he's done something he knows he's not supposed to do. I guess that's the advantage of there not being huge, terrible consequences from me whenever he screws up. He knows the worst he'll get is an earful or maybe some time out, so he hasn't discovered that it's easier just to act like something didn't happen and then lie about it when I inevitably discover it. That's good, right?

And here's his explanation of what he was doing when he punched a hole through the picnic table.

Or maybe he just doesn't lie to cover things up yet because he's not very good at it. I'm reasonably sure that he was actually just stomping on this soft spot in our picnic table--which we've known for a couple years needs to be completely rebuilt, but who wants to take the time to pull apart and then put back together a picnic table when it can still SORT OF perform its function? Now, I guess, we're not going to have much choice.

And, no matter how much of a dork he is, I'm still going to keep trying to force naps on him until he's in school. It's just my way.

The Hits Just Keep on Comin'

Gabe has become a completely unreliable napper now. Two, maybe three times a week, I can either browbeat or guilt him into staying in bed long enough for him to accidentally do what his body really wants him to do and fall asleep. But most of the time he just hangs out in his room, making noise, and coming out every fifteen minutes or so to pee or poop or shout down the stairs to ask if it's "waking up time" yet.

At this point, it's worth noting that I recognize it would be easier--and there would be fewer problems with him waking Norah up--if I just abandoned his nap time altogether, let him play downstairs, and dealt with the fact that the only quiet time I will get for myself will come when I have a complete meltdown and lock myself in the bathroom. But I am loathe to give up my Me Time without a bitter, knock-down-drag-out fight. I have also maintained throughout that my kids are not going to grow up expecting the world to bend to their whims. It is vitally important--to my way of thinking, at least--that children learn to keep other people happy. It is, after all, what they're going to spend the majority of their working life doing every single day. Nobody gets to whine and cry and tell the boss they have to poop to get out of doing something they don't want to do. That's just not how the world works. That doesn't mean that my kids don't eventually erode away my resolve (sometimes quicker than normal if my tolerance for whining is particularly low that day) and get what they want, but they have to work a little to get it.

So, in my effort to at least make things more difficult for Gabe as he transitions into a napless world (which just seems preposterous to me--who wouldn't LOVE to take a nap every day and have the world resigned to take care of your every need and deal with all your problems so you can sleep carefree), we're doing "quiet time." In theory, quiet time starts when I put them both up in their rooms (Gabe sleeps in the extra bed because otherwise there's no chance Norah will go to sleep either) and it lasts until Norah wakes up. Since Norah can now nap about three hours, the odds that Gabe will be able to entertain himself quietly in his room for that long without major disturbance is about the same as of having your winning lottery ticket struck by lightning. It also doesn't help that he can't tell time, so I can't tell him to stay in his room until, say, 2:00 (there is a pretty good chance that he WILL be able to tell time before he gets to kindergarten, though, because I show him the clock and try to explain how it works with some regularity hoping to get him to recognize what two hours of quiet time looks like).

But I try anyway. And when he comes down every fifteen minutes, I inform him that he needs to go back upstairs until Norah wakes up. And I repeat that mantra every fifteen minutes until I get bored with it and let him stay up.

Yes, I realize that my Me Time is already non-existent because I'm spending all of it coaxing him back to bed. Yes, I know I'm just wasting all of our time in a futile effort to establish myself as the alpha in our household. But, so far, I haven't given up the pipe dream that I'm the one in charge around here.

But that is beside the point of my post today. One sort of advantage of Gabe not napping is that his mildly sleep deprived brain comes up with some pretty amusing stuff from time to time.

Today, for instance, he was sitting at his computer . . . .

Did I mention that we found an old lap top and gave it to Gabe for the express purpose that he could play games on an online educational site called abcmouse.com? I have to admit, the notion of letting my four year old play computer games sounded like a TERRIBLE idea when I first heard it. I already feel bad enough that my kids are borderline TV junkies (OK, probably no "borderline" about Norah's relationship to TV programming). The last thing I needed was to feel even guiltier that my kid was also addicted to video games before he can even read.

But, I tell you what, we've seen some pretty astounding results from him playing this game. Put aside the basic computer skills he already has (he can work a mouse and perform any of a number of drag/click functions, he's becoming quite familiar with the setup of the keyboard, and he's starting to come to terms with the reality of having to deal with ten year old technology being completely obsolete for doing something as basic as playing a pre-K game on the internet). He's made HUGE strides in learning his alphabet and numbers. Considering just a couple months ago we couldn't even tell if he recognized half the letters of the alphabet, now he not only recognizes them, he can identify most of their sounds, can find them on the keyboard, and he's beginning to grasp basic economic concepts (he wins tickets for playing the games on there then can buy items to decorate his "house" in the game). I'm still not saying that it's the best method out there, and it's almost guaranteed that he's going to be a video game nerd when he gets older, but so far I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

Anyway, sitting at his computer. He had a little sheet of paper that he'd stuck several different stickers on. He peeled one of the stickers off and put it above his lip like a mustache, and then he started to make up and sing a song to me. I grabbed the camera and coaxed him into doing it a few more times (he had to keep using different stickers and moving them around, too, I guess to find the perfect costume). Here's what I got.

I can't understand what he's singing about half the time, but that kind of lyrical styling is perfectly acceptable in most forms of popular music, so I think I'm going to nurture this phase.

Boys Are Weird

By now everyone should be aware that my kids are weird. Funny weird, not creepy weird. Well, maybe a LITTLE creepy weird:

I have no idea what prompted him to think this was a good idea, but, then, the male brain prior to about age 25 is full of bad ideas that seem good.

Oh, and at soccer practice the other day, Libby taught Norah how to do this:


It started off innocently enough. Norah had a boo boo on the finger and was showing it to everyone. She's actually got pretty good form already--she's a natural bird flipper, if you will. She doesn't have to hold down her other fingers or anything, just BAM, the finger. Fortunately, she wasn't grasping what she was doing, so I won't have to worry for a little while longer that she's giving me the finger when I tell her to clean her plate or go to bed. My only hope is that I can convince her that she can only flip off the devil and she'll sit down here flipping off the heat registers some day (for relevant context, go here). Then the circle will be complete.