Dress Up

When I came home from work the other day I was greeted to a sight that put a smile on my face. I walked in the door to find my four year old little boy, exhausted from a long hard day of playing, asleep on the couch. He had settled into a nice warm spot in the sun as it shone through the front window.

Now I had obviously seen the little terror sleeping like an angel before but this time he was picture worthy. Curled up with his knees tucked under his tummy and his little fanny in the air, he was a perfect little ballerina sleeping in a pink leotard and tutu.

This kid is all boy. Tools, trucks, trains and swords are his usual fare. We are talking about a boy who was into guns before he even had one. In some type of unconscious effort to raise a pacifist, we hadn’t bought him any toy guns.

Then we noticed he had a genetic desire to blow things away. He started with sticks he would pick up outside to use as makeshift guns. Simply point and shoot with a little “Pschew, Pschew” action and he was good to go.

That’s the noise ladies. Right men? It’s not “Bang Bang” if you’re a guy. You make a quick P sound and then you loudly whisper the word “chew” but with an ‘s’ mixed in. Little boys are born with this knowledge and I don’t know if it can be taught.

I finally bought my little man a space blaster when he bit his cheese into the shape of a revolver and started firing pretend cheddar bullets at us. A year later he has a small arsenal of neon orange and green firearms in addition to a light saber for space fights and a plastic sword and commando knife for close combat situations.

So it’s a rare occasion when my bruiser son lets the household majority talk him into a dress or a little makeup. But he’s a good sport and hangs up his machismo for a little while to have a good time.

The girls are all set with frilly dance clothes and bright princess attire, fancy high heel shoes and feather boas. They have so much dress-up that my house is like backstage at a musical when their little girlfriends come over.

The problem comes when its time for them to go home and we end up looking for the clothes they were wearing when they got here. We ask brilliant questions like, “Where did you take them off honey?” and stupidly expect rational answers that refer to rooms in the house instead of “On the trampoline.”, “In the front yard.” Or “On the roof.”

The great thing about kids here is that they don’t need a reason to play dress up or have fun with playtime. Us ‘responsible grown-up types’ get all hung up on clothes and are afraid to do things that are silly or things that some might label “insane”.

When was the last time you threw on a pink leotard with a tutu or donned a royal princess dress complete with tiara and wand? No, Halloween doesn’t count. Don’t you want to just spend a Saturday in nothing but a pair of red trimmed Spiderman underwear and a cape made from a blanket? Now I wouldn’t advocate going to town that way. But maybe mowing the lawn dressed up like Cinderella wouldn’t be out of the question.

There’s a guy in my own neighborhood that rides his bike around wearing a baby blue tuxedo. I remember a mother in my girl’s last school that used to walk her son to class every morning with bare feet in her Big Bird pajamas.

Sure, I don’t know these people personally, and I wouldn’t be inclined to spark up a conversation, or even make eye contact, or walk on the same side of the street. But they look like they’re having fun, so good for them.

We had a birthday party for the twins last year with a fairy theme. They were all issued your standard set of fairy wings and we all made wands together. Making fairy wands with ten kids at a party for six year olds was way more fun that a root canal. If you ever decide to do it yourself, let me caution you, do not…seriously…do not use a hot glue gun. Sometimes at night I think I can still smell my own burning flesh.

But when all the little fairies had their wings and wands, look out. Fairy dust everywhere. Smiling pixies and sprites flitting around the house, up the stairs, on the beds, in the closets, oh what joy. And of course, there was my boy, having a blast, flitting right along behind them, wings and all, using his ribbon covered magic wand as a sword.

Bingo

Transcript of an actual argument from the back of the minivan only a few days ago:

Oldest Singing (Eight year old red headed girl): There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o, B I (clap) G O, B I (clap) G O, B I (clap) G O, and Bingo was his name-o.

Younger sister (Stubborn six year old) twin: You’re doing it wrong, it starts out (clap) I N G O, (clap) I N G O, (clap) I N G O, and Bingo was his name-o.

Oldest Laughs: Oh yeah, G O, (clap) I N G O, (clap)…

Younger interrupts: No, No, No. You have to start over from the beginning or it doesn’t make sense.

Oldest is miffed: It doesn’t matter; I already sang that part so I’m just starting here. (Clap) I N…

Younger yells as loud as she can while sitting only eight feet away in an enclosed space smaller that your average walk in closet, (not that we have a walk in closet, but I’ve seen them.): MOMMM! SHE’S SINGING THE BINGO SONG WRONG!

Oldest, also screaming: I ALREADY SANG THAT PART.

Dad: DON’T YELL.  Then to Mom with wonder and amazement in his voice: They are arguing about the Bingo song.

Mom: Yeah, welcome to my world, and they get out of school in two weeks.

Then, for some unexplained reason only children understand, there is peace. A great reconciliation is made. An armistice is in force and sisterly love reigns throughout the van as they sing Bingo together. Another fine example of the arts bringing two factions together in love and harmony.

Our children love to sing. They will sing in the car, at church, in bed, at the table, in the tub, on the trampoline; everywhere. It is wonderful when they are singing and getting along. It’s like the Sound of Music with a Dad who sings like Oscar the Grouch. Its all fun and games of course, until someone gets their eye poked out.

Only a few minutes after a gentle musical peace was established, the cease fire was broken once again with fighting words: “You’re Rude”.

In a house where words like hate and shut up are considered ‘bad words’ worthy of a soapy mouth, the statement of one having been rude is the worst possible accusation a sibling can legally make to another. I have seen those words bring tears. Of course I didn’t see it very clearly, what with all the tears clouding up my vision.

Now you parents know that there comes a time in every childhood argument when the parents, fair as they try to be, finally give up with the “What happened?” and the “Why did you call your sister rude?” type questions and just say, in your very loud voice, “OK, Everybody just be quiet. No more talking. Hey. I said no more talking. Shall we have spankings right now?” (What, you don’t spank your kids? To bad, you’re really missing out.)

Then there is an enforced peace. It sounds like peace because its quiet, but you can almost hear the laser beams shooting out of their eyes and into the back of your own head. But the quietness is worth a few laser burns. The hair grows right back.

So its quiet for about 30 seconds and the two married people in the front of the school bus, I mean van, start to do something they hardly ever get to do in a car full of the constantly talking proof of their love and affection for each other. That’s right, they start to talk. They talk about the news, money, yard work, the future, and many other wonderful things that grown up types talk about when they are on the open road. It’s glorious.

After only two or three minutes of this the rebels start to stir and begin little conversations of their own. It goes unnoticed so the stirring and talking and quiet singing build while the oblivious lovebirds in the front forget they are trying to run a concentration camp behind them and continue to converse like big people. Fools!

A few weeks ago my genius children discovered that the tune to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and the ABC song is the same. Being the musically talented terrors that they are they realized that they could sing these songs all at once. Each girl picks a song and the oldest boy jumps in wherever. It sounds like: “Twinkle C D E F Star, How I J K L You Are, Q R S The World So High, W X, In The Sky, Now I Know My Little Star, Next Time Wonder Sing With Star.” Yeah, it was really cute the first time. Not such a big deal the billionth.

So they are all singing this now while my beloved and I are rapidly being drown out by the festivities. Of course they are not fighting so we don’t mind. Then someone is singing someone else’s part, or someone said Star when they should have said Far and we hear another “You’re Rude!” rumble through the mini echo chamber. Voices erupt in argument.

I look over at the holder of wisdom.

Silently, but with great deliberation, she rolls down the windows then reaches over and turns up the radio.

Tantrums

Have you ever been to a grocery store?  Have you ever seen a lady that looks normal but you know she has to be crazy because she brought five little monkeys dressed in children’s clothing? You know that lady?  That lady is my wife.

When I come home from work and I see a trail of spilled produce from the minivan to the front door and shredded grocery sack plastic scattered all over the lawn, I know that I did indeed marry a crazy woman.  I know she’s crazy because as soon as I walk through the door she tells me that she took all the kids grocery shopping and they were terrible. At which point I’m thinking, “Duh.”

Apparently she thought that this trip would be different from the previous four thousand trips where the kids were terrible in the grocery store.  She thought this would be the day when reason and calm finally seeped into their little sugared up heads and they would behave like normal people.

I keep telling her kids aren’t normal people.  I keep telling her to wait until I get home and she can go shop all by herself or, worst case scenario, I go with her.  But the crazy lady has to do it her way and try to keep track of eight little hands grabbing ramen, gum, dried pineapple, escargot shells, spaghetti noodles, raw fish, lemon heads, and $25 bottles of wine.

We have good kids.  Sure they’re still kids and they do the normal kid stuff, but for the most part, they are pretty neat people.  I mean, I really like them. And I think its good for a father to like his kids.

But when you take them into a store, especially a grocery store, something happens.  I don’t know if any studies have been done but I would venture to say that there is a chemical in the brain of children, storaphoze or hypershopstaphin, that is released by shiny linoleum and tall aisles with bright packages.  This stuff makes my kids forget all the brainwashing, I mean manners, that we have spent years teaching them.

They get in that store and all five of them start heading in different directions. Once you get them rounded up again you parade them through the place yelling like a cattle herder: “Hya! Don’t touch that.  Wooe! Put that back. Ho! Come on back hear little doggie. Ya! Don’t bite the stock clerk! Com’on now.”

So the whole store knows that you’re shopping with kids and you are obviously a terrible parent because they are running all over the place and you can’t keep them under control.

And then the thing happens that you knew would happen.  The thing that you have been dreading since you walked through the door.  One of them sees an item they have just now decided is key to their continued existence. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, can we get new beef jerky flavor soda pop?”  And you have to say no. And then it comes. All the bones in the child’s body melt at once.  You don’t even see her decent to the floor.  One second she is standing.  The next second she is on the floor with no will to continue living.  Just a sobbing, hysterical pile of kid.

Upon realizing that this is not going to get her the sugar, caffeine or booze containing item she so desires, the young strategist decides that her argument lacks volume and movement.  So limbs and lungs kick into high. The verbal abuse starts with things like “You never buy us anything we want. You only care about yourself.” Or, our favorite, “You don’t even like us, you only have us because Grandma likes us.”

While these things may be true, it’s no fun to have them yelled at a billion decibels in front of the meat counter. And the arms and legs attacking the air make it almost impossible to pick that kid up.  It’s like a two-foot defense perimeter that is bound to send you to the hospital the moment you breach it.

So you try to negotiate with them when you really wish you could just spank them and move on to the frozen veggies.  But you can’t spank them because you’re afraid you’ll end up in an eight by ten cell for six years with a murderous drug-dealing roommate who’s father obviously spanked him in the middle of a grocery store.

Eventually they give up. Yep, after about ten minutes they realize that they are not going to get those beer battered gummy worms and they get up and brush themselves off like nothing happened. So you start to move on down the isle just in time to see their brother or sister start the same routine in front of the donuts.

So last week we found ourselves in the cereal isle when my wife responded negatively to a question about cola soaked sugar coated chocolate cookie caramel flaky flakes.

Of course someone instantly dropped to the floor in a crying hysterical mess.  Arms impossibly flailing in every direction.  Legs kicking, or maybe peddling the air. Voice screaming about injustice and the lack of love and never buying stuff that tastes good.

Calmly, and with reason that only comes with experience, my loving wife simply looked down at me and said “Honey, if you don’t get up off the floor right now I’m leaving you forever…and I’m not taking the kids.”  Yeah, I got up.

The Magic Word

The word ‘Please’ in our house is just another one of those make-believe polite words that we only use when company is over.  Saying “Please” ranks right up there with “Thank you”, “Excuse Me”, and “Sorry I spilled hot soup on your lap Dad.”

In our house we have the magic word that puts please to shame.  This magic word is not so much a word as a phrase. Not so much a phrase as a concept. Here is a scenario when the magic word might be applied in our house:

Any one of my five children, lets say one of the twins, walks through a room being a perfect little angel and minding her own business.  The sweet and unsuspecting child’s only mistake is entering a room where I, her loving and devious father, am sitting.

Her next moment of awareness is a tight grip on her ankle as I drag her toward me while my other hand is tickling her with no mercy.  Her eyes widen in surprise and her hands fan the air in attempts to fend off my darting fingers, as an excited scream leaps out of her smile and melts into the tumbling laughter of an extreme tickle attack.

At the first chance she has to catch a quick breath she yells the Magic Word: “Daddy’s the best!”  Then she is free to go on about her business or launch a return attack of tickling fingers on her poor defenseless Dad.

I am proud to say that I am the inventor of this magic word.  I cannot claim that it struck me like a bolt of lightning, that one day I just came up with the concept of Daddy’s the best.  No, this indeed has been a labor of love that has taken over 20 years to develop.

My research began in the early days of life with my parents where I had the foresight of being born first.  My youngest brother was ten years lower on the food chain and was a key component to the development of the magic word concept.  My little brother would often ‘volunteer’ for the important tests we undertook.

We began with the obvious word ‘Uncle’ that would free him from what he now affectionately calls living death.  As this word is blatantly too short and quick conclusion offers no satisfaction to the tickler, the new magic word to be spoken by the victim (I mean subject) quickly became “Ben is the best!” Me being the Ben in question.

While this is the original idea behind the current magic word employed by my children, (and on certain special occasions, my wife, wink wink) my brother and I did experiment with alternate magic words such as “Ben is the best, I will name my first born child after you.”

That last one became the standard for years until my brother’s age and level of intelligence allowed for use of more sophisticated and poetic magic words, or phrases if you will.  There is nothing like tickling someone while they are trying to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, in Spanish  “Yo prometo (pause for laughter) fidelidad (pause for breath) de la bandera,(more laughter) delosEstadosUnidosdeAmerica (so fast its all one word).”  That’s just good clean fun.  And with research like that, how can you go wrong.  Hey, that’s how my brother learned the Gettysburg Address.

So as my children developed from babies to little people I began to implement my years of magic word research in our home.  Of course it just starts out as a garbled “Daddy Best!” but you know how it goes, one step at a time.

Now our family enjoys the magic word on a nearly daily basis.  As I mentioned earlier, it is a concept that can be applied to any family member, not just Daddy.  If my oldest is exercising her first born right to tease her younger siblings then they can escape her by yelling out the magic word; “Maddy is the Best!”

On occasion, or more like every single day, my loving little ones gang up for an attack on their Dad.  This is my opportunity to use the magic word and tell them they are the best.  Of course with five kids trying to tickle you with fingers that dig into your ribs like little railroad spikes, it takes awhile to get through all the names.

Someday I know they will start to grow out of the use of the magic word and we’ll have to start behaving like adults.  How will I know when that time is near?  Will it be when they mutter the Magic Word every time they enter a room I’m in?  When I drop them off at college or attend their wedding?  Or when they hit the teens and refuse to laugh, stare into space, and coldly say “Daddy’s the best” through gritted teeth?

I’m sure I’ll recognize that time when it comes.  For now I’ll just enjoy the magic word and the fun we have with it.  Besides, I think its time to start working on that Gettysburg thingy.