Author: David

In grand tradition, we had the following dialogue the day before Father’s Day:

“Hope you’re not expecting anything this year.”

“Oh, I am.” And I was. I purposefully did not pick up the latest Blade of the Immortal book at the comic book store for myself. I had hopes that my wife saw fit to surprise me with it.

“I have bad news for you. A certain something has been delayed two months.”

“It couldn’t have been Blade of the Immortal, because Lee’s had lots of copies.”

A pained expression appeared on Lillian’s face. “Yes. It’s Blade of the Immortal. Amazon can’t ship it as expected. Is there anything you’d want to exchange with it on the order so that we can keep the Free Shipping discount?”

“Yeah. Replace it with the book iWoz.”

Another pained expression from the wife. “Uh, no. That won’t work!” And she flees up the stairs without another word.

And that’s how I found out what books I’m getting for Father’s Day one day early!

Oh, the difference phrasing can make in a word problem!

Maddie rocks at some word problems. Things like, “If you had two balloons and I give you three more, now how many do you have?” Or, “If you have four toys, and I take one away, how many do you have left?”

But last week, Maddie was given a picture of three big balloons, and five small balloons, and asked, “How many more small balloons are there than big balloons?”

All I got was a blank stare. Or maybe a puzzled expression. She just seemed to not get “how many more than” questions.

Then I remembered the motivater. I tried another “how many more than” puzzle.

“Maddie, if I give you three scoops of ice cream, and I give Aaron five scoops of ice cream, is that fair?”

“No!” No hesitation. She’s sure of her answer.

“Why not? How many more scoops does Aaron have?”

Just the slightest pause to calculate, then, “Two!”

Ice cream, you broke through another barrier!

For snacktime Aaron was sitting at a table enjoying chocolate chip cookies. He asked his mother, “You know what?”

“What?”

“My brain is singing a happy song.”

As we’re driving along, Aaron’s in the back seat, looking at a rural scene on a postcard that he got somewhere.

“You know what I see?”
“What?”
“A lambpire.”

I try to figure out what he means. Did he mispronounce it, or make up a new word? A lamb empire?  A lamb-umpire? A lamb-…

“You mean a lamb vampire?”
“Yup.”

He shows me the postcard, and it’s just a scene of a pig and some hills. He points to the ridge of one of the hills and says that it’s really small. There’s nothing there.

But you know what? I see it too. The hills are teeming with them.

Now that my children are old enough, I’ve been gradually teaching them that there’s more to life than meets the eye. I have a master plan for gradually exposing the mysteries of the universe to them.

The first step is an introduction to the foundations of the mysteries. I’d introduce some rudamentary concepts, and have them repeat the ideas back to me, to make sure they get them right.

I’ve started with, “Obi Wan Kenobi is a good guy. He uses the Light side of the Force.” “Darth Vader is the bad buy. He uses the Dark Side of the Force.”

But whenever I ask them to repeat the sacred teachings back to me, I just get squeals of laughter and this:

“Obi Wan Kenobi lives on the light side of the forest.”
“Darth Vader lives in the dark side of the forest.”

A few months ago, Aaron made a decision. It wasn’t anywhere near his birthday, but he’d been planning for it. So he told his mother, “I want a Power Ranger cake.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Tell the man cake.”

Now, I think Lillian understood that he meant the baker. But Aaron went ahead and explained him to her, just to be sure.

“He’s like Santa.”

Maybe to a three-year-old, the baker is like Santa, providing special goodies at designated times of the year.

Or, maybe there really is a Man Cake, who flies around the world delivering custom ordered confections to all the good little boys and girls on their birthdays.

Aaron’s mostly potty trained, with the exception of during bedtime. He knows what he needs to do: If he has to pee when he’s in bed, he has permission to get up and go to the bathroom.

But he’s a deep sleeper. When he wakes up in the morning, he’s got no idea whether he’d peed into his pull-up or not.

The first thing he does when he wakes up is to defiantly tell any nearby grownups to go away. Then he privately inspects his pull-up to see if there’s anything wet in there. Either he’ll come out of his room very pleased with himself, or a bit disappointed.

It’s like he’s checking if there’s been a surprise visit from the Pee Fairy!

Maddie has been in preschool for a while now, and she understands the importance of occasionally asserting dominance and the value of ownership. She might see other kids pushing each other around, or comparing each other’s things. A certain rank and order falls out of schoolyard play.

She’ll bring these learnings home to Aaron, and he completely doesn’t get it.

If they get to divide a pack of trading cards, she’ll dive in and start picking the best cards. He’ll wait until she’s done, and happily play with the left overs. He doesn’t care, he just wants to play with her.

If Aaron accidentally hits Maddie. She’ll get mad, and demand that he says, “sorry.” He’ll happily say sorry to her, and move on. But for her, that’s too easy on him. So, she’ll demand he say sorry ten times in a row. Without skipping a beat, he’ll sing-song, “sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry” and move on. He just likes being with her.

Well, that drives Maddie nuts! What’s the point in getting all the best stuff, or proving you’re dominant, if Aaron doesn’t cares about that? At this point, I have to step in before Maddie escalates her war with her brother who doesn’t even know a war started.

I expect Aaron to eventually understand the mind games that people play with each other. But I really appreciate his enlightened state right now. I wish we all simply had no grasp of jealousy or power-plays.

Lillian had been crying during the past week because Aaron’s starting preschool this week. She only had to think about him going to that big strange preschool to make the tears well up.

We told this story to one of our friends, who helpfully consoled Lillian with the fact that Aaron’s going to adjust just fine, and that he’ll have his big sister in a nearby classroom. He’ll need a little adjusting, but he’ll be fine.

I had to explain to our friend that Lillian’s not crying for Aaron.

Ah, mothers and their babies. The youngest is always their baby.

This was drawn on a Magna Doodle by Aaron a little after he turned three:

One of the perks of being a parent is the ability to see just the positive essence of your kids’ works. It doesn’t matter how crude the drawing might be, if it makes you happy, then it’s a job well done.