What I want to say:
“Zan, we’re going to go run a couple of errands and get our hair cut, OK,
pal?”
What I want to hear:
“OK, Daddy.”
BUT … when I say what I want to say, what I hear is:
“NOOOOoOooOOoOoOoOooooo Daddyyyyyy!!!!!!”
AND … after I say what I want to say, and hear what I don’t want to hear, I say:
“Yes, we are.”
A vigorous protest ensues, and Wonder Woman tells me that I’m going about it all wrong, because we have to approach things with our Explosive Child in a different manner than we would with your average, run-of-the-mill 5-year-old.
SO … based on her counsel, what I end up having to say instead is:
“Zan, how ’bout this: We’ll go to Home Depot and you can help me pick out a special trash barrel that the raccoons can’t get into. It’s a really important mission, and I need your help so that I can pick out the right one and we can stop Mr. Racoon from messing up our trash!”
The whining subsides slightly, but I haven’t made it into the end zone yet, so, based on Wonder Woman’s previously mentioned counsel, I up the ante:
“And you know how we were pretending to be carpenters in the basement the other day? Well, how about, while we’re at Home Depot, we get some wood that we can use when we get home for doing some real cutting and nailing. Cool?”
“Yeah!”
“Alright, and then we’ll go get our hair cut, OK?”
“Um, OK.”
Great … except that, now, instead of running into Home Depot and grabbing a couple of raccoon-resistant trash barrels (long story, coming soon) and then high-tailing it out of there to make it to our haircut appointment on time, I am lugging two barrels through the lumber department while I try to find a piece of wood that isn’t 12 feet long so that I can make good on my carpentry-project promise.
“I know, Daddy!” says Zan. “We can get a bunch of these pieces here and build a clubhouse!”
“Oh, ha ha, ho ho, chuckle chuckle. No, pal, I think this time we’re just going to build something small.”
I eventually find some short lengths of wood, use my Jedi mind trick to convince Zan that they are the perfect size for a perfect project of perfectly small scope, and hustle us back to the car.
The haircut appointment comes off without a hitch—except for the part where Mr. Ants In His Pants decides to go all jungle gym on the chair he’s sitting in while I’m getting my haircut, spinning it so hard that he slips off the seat and almost does a header onto the floor of the salon. He narrowly escapes injury, and we are soon freshly shorn and car bound.
What I want to say:
“We’re just going to stop at the post office for a few minutes so I can mail these packages.”
What I want to hear:
“Hot damn, Daddy! That sounds friggin’ awesome! Whatever you need, my man. I know your life these past five years has basically been one long, sleepless lesson in selflessness and sacrifice, all for the good of myself and my sister, so by no means do I want to make things any more difficult for you than they need to be.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Yeah, um, so … what I hear instead is:
“NOOOOooOOOoOOoooo. I don’t wanna go to the post ooooofffffffiiiiiiiiiicccccceeee.”
What I end up having to say instead is:
“Yeah, but, dude, the post office is closed, so we’ll probably be the only ones there, and I’m just going to use the machine in the lobby to mail everything. We can pretend it’s our secret base!”
“OK!”
We arrive at the post office, and my Jedi mind trick has already worn off.
“I don’t want to come in.”
“Well, I can’t leave you in the car, pal. It’s going to take a few minutes, and if I leave you in the car, the police might come and arrest me, which I’m really not up for, so I need you to come with me.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“I know, but look at the building. See it? That can be whatever we want: a secret base, or a space station—”
“Oh, I know! It can be a superhero fortress!”
“—or a superhero fortress! That’s exactly what I was thinking! Perfect! Let’s go!”
Inside the post office, I begin the ordeal of navigating through 10-levels-per-package of touch-screen goodness. (“Are you mailing any live plants used for the manufacturing of narcotics that are wrapped in a high-powered explosive you plan to detonate while carrying out a terrorist plot to overthrow the United States government? Press: Yes or No.”) I am like a touch-screen ninja, flying through the ridiculousness as rapidly as possible, but it takes this goddamn machine longer to print out the postage than it would for me to chisel my own stamp out of solid granite.
“I wanna touch the buttons, Daddy.”
Parental conflict: Of course he wants to touch the buttons, he’s a kid, heck, I’d wanna touch the buttons if I were him, so I should probably let him try … but if he hits the wrong thing in the midst of the 10 levels of touch-screen goodness, this is going to end up taking even longer, which means that both he and I are much more likely to have a meltdown … but still, don’t be a dick, dude.
“Um, OK, here, you can try. Touch that one.”
He taps the screen … but doesn’t remove his finger fast enough, which causes the machine to register a second tap on a different button! AGHHH!
“OK, wait, wait!” I say while I assess the damage. Hmmm. Looks like we can continue on without a problem. Phew.
I navigate to a screen on which there is only one button.
“OK, tap that one.”
He taps the screen again, and again doesn’t remove his finger fast enough, which results in him accidentally telling the machine that I’m all done with my transaction, even though I am so totally not done with my transaction, and, SWEET JESUS H. CHRIST, can someone please give me a break with this shit already??
Now I have to start a new transaction, get my wallet out again, re-enter my credit card, and be a dick.
“No, you can’t touch the screen again, buddy. Sorry. I need to do this myself so that we can get out of here.”
To his credit, he takes this surprisingly well … but now he really wants to get the hell out of here. I recall the superhero-fortress premise.
“OK, dude, so this is our superhero fortress, and I’m working on our super computer to try and track down the bad guys.”
“OK, I’m Wolverine, Daddy. Who are you?”
Me? I’m Aggravation Man, whose special power is the ability to trap himself in one nut-smashingly aggravating situation after another!
“I’m Mr. Fantastic, and he always works the computer, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“OK, I’ll help you,” he says as the slower-than-shit machine wheezes out another postage sticker. “Here, I’ll put the sticker on.” And, uh-oh, it’s stuck on his fingers, and the adhesive area might end up getting stuck to itself, and dear god, please, smote me down, right now, I beg of ye.
“Let me put the sticker on buddy,” I say, removing it from his fingers and sticking it on the package. Think … think … hmmm.
“Oh, you know what, buddy? I just figured something out: each sticker that comes out of the machine has a clue on it that will help us find the bad guys!”
“Yeah? Cool!”
I then finish printing postage for the remaining handful of packages, pretending to read a few words off of each sticker as it creeps its way out of the machine. “It says: ‘The bad guys …’
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, enter zip code, tap, tap, wait, wait, wait, wait, print …
‘are hiding out …’
More tapping and waiting.
‘in your …’
And still more tapping and waiting.
‘back yard.’”
Four packages down, four to go.
“But that’s not true, Daddy. That one’s a trick!”
OK, at least he’s into it.
“Alright, let’s see what the computer says next.”
Fingers, don’t fail me now. Tap faster, motherfucker. For the love of all things holy, tap faster.
“Now it says: ‘You’re right, Wolverine’—hey, you were right! It was a trick!—‘the bad guys are … [tapping, waiting] actually in the … [tapping, waiting] back room.’ Holy smokes, buddy, they’re in the back room of the post office!”
“Whoah! What are we gonna do?”
Um … great question. My best answer is: “Well, I don’t know about you, but returning to psychotherapy some time soon sounds like a great idea to me,” but he’s probably looking for something a little less lofty. And then the machine throws me a bone: It prints out the mile-long receipt, which I forgot would be coming at the end of this ordeal.
“Hey, we finished reading all the clues to find the bad guys, so the machine is printing out the instructions for what we need to do to beat them!” I ad lib.
“Sweeeeet! What does it say???”
“It says: ‘Place the power cells’—those must be the packages, dude!—‘in the metal container and dump them into the back room to trap the bad guys’!”
“Let’s do it!”
I hand him the packages one at a time as he loads them into the metal bin. Once full, we tip it to its upright position and hear the thudding of the packages landing on the other side of the wall.
“We did it! High five, buddy!”
I am exhausted. I don’t feel like I just mailed packages; I feel like I actually did just save the friggin’ universe from evil bad guys who hide out in the back rooms of post offices. Must. Get. Home.
Once home, I flop down in my office chair, because my office is my binky, my security blanket, the place where I go when I want to remember what it feels like to be an adult instead of a rodeo clown.
And if I had been able to just run a couple of errands and get a haircut, I’d probably be able to catch my breath for a few minutes … but I promised Sparky here that we would tackle a carpentry project when we got home, and he, of course, hasn’t forgotten that, no siree, not for a minute, so now it’s down to the basement for some sawing, and drilling, and fastening. Here’s our masterpiece:
I’m thinking about scaling it out to full size, placing it in the back yard and moving in.
eerie. you just described our day with our daughter.
but will the ‘explosive child’ book give us familial happiness?
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I presume you have the Greene book? Nate’s teacher recommended it to me. God help us.
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Ole: I’m on page 33.
Dave: No. Do tell.
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Parent Fatigue: Modern Scourge.
In the old days, parents took the wagon to town, and maybe a kid or two died while they were out. That’s why they had so many kids, you expected to lose a few. These days, this is generally frowned upon.
Today’s kid #1 has two parents micromanaging every diaper change. Every act meeting with disapproval is caught and immediately dealt with. With kid #2, we naturally miss some, well, stuff. Kid #2 will learn some bad behavior from kid #1 and may be slightly less clean/well-dressed/fed a macrobiotic diet. On the upside, they grow up with fewer neuroses than kid #1.
Let’s face it, we’re all a little more tired by the time kid #2 appears on the scene! My point being, I wonder what kid #2 has in store for you…
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Good points, all, Mari. The thing is: kid #2 is, comparatively, a cake walk … and is probably more the norm. It’s true that the first one gets smothered and micromanaged … but our #1 also has some unique and not-so-average character traits. We’re still figuring it all out … but, suffice to say, parenting #2 is one of the things that has taught us just how much more we have been dealing with since our first was born.
But, really, Parent Fatigue? C’mon, just because I haven’t experienced REM sleep since early 2003, you think I might be fatigued? Feh.
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I hear you! I have developed the ability to sleep anywhere at any time.
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thank you for that FANTASTIC story… I laughed so friggen hard!
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Mari: I had the ability to sleep anywhere when I was in the army and getting up at 4 a.m. every morning, then spending the day burning 5,000 calories … but now, I’m old and crotchety and I like my bed!
Missy: You are quite welcome. Thank you for the compliment. Knowing that you laughed that hard almost makes the whole experience worth it … almost … kinda.
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