I haven`t been out on the highway in a car for some time. When I was recently, a week ago on Sunday, I was again reminded that men can be such hotheads. I mean what is the point, men? When you have a long line of cars on a two way, two lane highway, pretty much evenly spaced apart going average 60 mph, 100 km, there is absolutely no reason to pass going into head on traffic. It endangers a lot of people. Once you pass one, there are just as many ahead of you. And yet, men are driving, edging out into the other lane, getting ready to nearly kill everyone by passing.
My Father always did it. My Mother hated it. I hated it! He always had some excuse for passing. "Too much room between the two cars up ahead", "We will be home faster". Whatever, Dad. At least I am still alive I guess.
Still, the point being that only men do this type of passing. Seriously. Or the percentages must be like 90 per cent men, to 10 per cent women. I wonder how many deaths occur from this type of driving?
The further point being that men are just impatient boneheads. I can say that of men, myself being one. And I point this out because impatience and bringing up kids DO NOT MIX. It should say that on the label of kids. "Warning, do not handle if you are filled with impatience". Or, "Warning, mixing impatience with kids can lead to, a, b, c, and d death." Of course the cigarette companies will vehemently oppose this warning. But it would be good for lawyers.
In retrospect, I can`t remember why I was so impatient to get my older girl`s clothes on after her nap. With the younger one, I usually have to get her out in time to pick up her sister at a not too reasonably late time from her pre school. But when the older daughter was one to two, what did I have to do? I had to hurry to go to the park maybe? I have no idea now. It seems like I was trying to pass into oncoming traffic. There was no point to hurry. But I had to!
So there I am trying to stuff her little arms into her jumper shirt. And for some reason, after the one piece pajama, this piece of clothing always befuddled me. It would always come on backward, or inside out and I never got the shirt on in the first two tries.
In the middle of trying to get the jumper on, my daughter would see a free space and get loose and scamper to the top of her parents bed. She loved that and would give a little baby laugh sitting on the pillows while I was left holding the jumper at the bottom of the bed. We are going to be late, we can`t do this, we are going to be late for our appointment at I`m not sure what time nor where the appointment is. And I make a lunge at her. She scampers to the other side of the bed and brays like a mule. I remember my pet guinea pig used to do the same maneuver when I had to put it back in its cage after I had let it run around my room some. She looked at me just like some prairie dog sitting on its hind legs and gave a chuckle.
Don`t ask me how I caught her, but it was another ten minutes of my life "senselessly" shaved off. Too bad only in retrospect do I have the patience to see what fun that was even for me and that it was funny too. At the time, in the midst of the battle, the adrenaline was starting to clog my arteries and I was getting upset. Getting upset? I was frustrated and fuming. Get over here you little doggie and get your shirt on. It`s all a wonderful game to them, but for us impatient men, it is a battle to the death. Well, metaphorically speaking. Just a bit of hyperbole there, over the edge.
At some point, in some manner, I would catch her and now it was her turn to cry. It was time to put on her socks. Every time I put on her socks she started to cry. What, what, what is it? Is the sock too small? Too tight? She was too young to talk (besides saying C`mon since she was 16 months old) so I had no idea what the problem was. I worried that something real bad was happening and because I had put on the socks wrong we would soon have to amputate her foot because the sock was cutting off the circulation. Well, there was nothing I could do about it. We had to get to where we were going on time. I guess she would just have to limp after her foot was cut off.
The whole process turned me into a frazzled bundle of high voltage barbed fencing. "Don`t touch me I`m a real live wire"
About a year later after she could speak more, I found out the problem with the socks. I always put the sock on so that the seam which goes across the toes was a little bit too far over. The seam was either too far to the left or right and going onto the back side. It didn`t go across her toes PERFECTLY and she cried about that. Well, at least she still has both feet. We didn`t have to amputate. I wish I hadn`t been so impatient with dressing her. There was no point. Exactly like there is no point in passing the car ahead of you on a two way traffic highway. The whole thing was rather fun and funny. The wasted time was the time I spent being impatient with whatever.
Don`t be a bonehead, men.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
The secret cracked. Where did that sand come from?
One of my favorite comedians, Louis CK, has this joke in the skit "boys and girls" His sister in law has just poured herself a drink after a really hair frazzling day with her kids. Her young son, 4 years old, comes running in and plops a handful of sand right into her drink. Louis said he had no idea where the kid got the sand, they live in the city, he doesn`t have sand in his house. I love imagining this scene where the kid just plops this unknown sourced sand into her drink which his Mother really needs.
Source cracked.
I was cleaning up this morning, my day with the kids. I was putting winter coats away into storage. I was checking the pockets to take out all the used Kleenex, old wrappers, plastic spoons, little dinosaur pictures... the list goes on. I stick my hand into this nice, bright pink heavy jacket of my older girl, now over 5 at this writing, and grab, a handful of gravel. Little stones. Ohhhhhhhh, OK. I get it, of course.
When my older girl was two to three she loved going to the railroad station and then a nearby park with a playground. She loved watching the trains come in and go out, but she also would look carefully over the stones on the railroad tracks, and then pick some up on a quieter track I would let her go to. She would hand me the best specimens and I would have to keep them in my pocket. Then we would go to the park. At this playground they used pebbles instead of sand in some places. She would take handful after handful of small stones and push them under this metal grid like playing post center, pushing letters under a glass to a post person. Again she would study the stones and hand me the best small ones which had no trouble going into these little pinholes and under the grid at her "postal office". "Daddy, keep these". Because I am a natural sentimental hoarder, you know those people that can`t throw out old socks or hol(e)y t shirts because they have "memories", I of course pocketed the stones. Also because I knew the moment after I dumped them, she would ask me for them and if I didn't have them she would have a tantrum. So in every coat, in multiple pockets, I have several little pebble collections myself. While she was under four she used to always ask me for the stones back when we got to her postal office. And I always had them. These were the special small ones which fit through all the holes.
In the summer it was acorns. "Daddy, keep this one".
I was at this higher class, fancy schmancy dinner party during that year when my daughter was 3 or more. I don`t know how I got invited to that one! I was wearing a decent, nice, black shirt which I didn`t wear that much, so, got some use out of it. I`m talking to someone at the dinner table and she asks me for my contact, so I pull my jot book out of my back pocket and some small stones drop on the floor from my pocket. But I don`t know what fell so I lean over from my chair and three acorns drop out of my breast pocket onto my contacts lap on her dress. Oh. She smiles, three nuts is kind of a symbol. She picks them up and is about to put them in her little pocketbook when I say, "oh, um, do you think I could have those back? I really need those." "Thanks". Her facial contortions turned stone cold. She didn`t talk to me anymore after that. Well, I really did need those acorns to avoid a tantrum. Besides those had special sentimental value to me.
I had to bring my daughter`s outdoor sneakers home from pre school last week to have for our trip to the woods on the weekend. I`m about to put one in her little backpack when some sand spills out. So I tilt it down and like a shovel full of sand pours out onto the coat room floor. I mean this was more than just getting sand in your shoe from playing in the sandbox. I am careful with the other sneaker and go out side and just tilt it a bit so it stays in the sneaker. The sand in the shoe could fill a big teacup.
"My little girl? What were you doing that you have shovels full of sand in your sneakers?"
"Daddy, I was digging with them in the sandbox."
Uhhhhh, Ummmm? Oh. Makes sense.
After that roundabout, the short of it is that Louis CK has some pretty good jokes about being a parent. But I am a (way) better father than he is. I know where his nephew got that sand to dump into his Mother`s drink. He had it all along in his pocket or even his shoe. In fact go right now to look into your children's` winter coat pockets. I know what`s there.
I cried the day I lost the best, little, special pebble which went through all the slots at my daughter`s post office. But I dumped the pocketful of stones from her winter coat today into the garbage. Her little sister will get that coat hand me down in two years and it should be a clean slate for her.
Source cracked.
I was cleaning up this morning, my day with the kids. I was putting winter coats away into storage. I was checking the pockets to take out all the used Kleenex, old wrappers, plastic spoons, little dinosaur pictures... the list goes on. I stick my hand into this nice, bright pink heavy jacket of my older girl, now over 5 at this writing, and grab, a handful of gravel. Little stones. Ohhhhhhhh, OK. I get it, of course.
When my older girl was two to three she loved going to the railroad station and then a nearby park with a playground. She loved watching the trains come in and go out, but she also would look carefully over the stones on the railroad tracks, and then pick some up on a quieter track I would let her go to. She would hand me the best specimens and I would have to keep them in my pocket. Then we would go to the park. At this playground they used pebbles instead of sand in some places. She would take handful after handful of small stones and push them under this metal grid like playing post center, pushing letters under a glass to a post person. Again she would study the stones and hand me the best small ones which had no trouble going into these little pinholes and under the grid at her "postal office". "Daddy, keep these". Because I am a natural sentimental hoarder, you know those people that can`t throw out old socks or hol(e)y t shirts because they have "memories", I of course pocketed the stones. Also because I knew the moment after I dumped them, she would ask me for them and if I didn't have them she would have a tantrum. So in every coat, in multiple pockets, I have several little pebble collections myself. While she was under four she used to always ask me for the stones back when we got to her postal office. And I always had them. These were the special small ones which fit through all the holes.
In the summer it was acorns. "Daddy, keep this one".
I was at this higher class, fancy schmancy dinner party during that year when my daughter was 3 or more. I don`t know how I got invited to that one! I was wearing a decent, nice, black shirt which I didn`t wear that much, so, got some use out of it. I`m talking to someone at the dinner table and she asks me for my contact, so I pull my jot book out of my back pocket and some small stones drop on the floor from my pocket. But I don`t know what fell so I lean over from my chair and three acorns drop out of my breast pocket onto my contacts lap on her dress. Oh. She smiles, three nuts is kind of a symbol. She picks them up and is about to put them in her little pocketbook when I say, "oh, um, do you think I could have those back? I really need those." "Thanks". Her facial contortions turned stone cold. She didn`t talk to me anymore after that. Well, I really did need those acorns to avoid a tantrum. Besides those had special sentimental value to me.
I had to bring my daughter`s outdoor sneakers home from pre school last week to have for our trip to the woods on the weekend. I`m about to put one in her little backpack when some sand spills out. So I tilt it down and like a shovel full of sand pours out onto the coat room floor. I mean this was more than just getting sand in your shoe from playing in the sandbox. I am careful with the other sneaker and go out side and just tilt it a bit so it stays in the sneaker. The sand in the shoe could fill a big teacup.
"My little girl? What were you doing that you have shovels full of sand in your sneakers?"
"Daddy, I was digging with them in the sandbox."
Uhhhhh, Ummmm? Oh. Makes sense.
After that roundabout, the short of it is that Louis CK has some pretty good jokes about being a parent. But I am a (way) better father than he is. I know where his nephew got that sand to dump into his Mother`s drink. He had it all along in his pocket or even his shoe. In fact go right now to look into your children's` winter coat pockets. I know what`s there.
I cried the day I lost the best, little, special pebble which went through all the slots at my daughter`s post office. But I dumped the pocketful of stones from her winter coat today into the garbage. Her little sister will get that coat hand me down in two years and it should be a clean slate for her.
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