Keys

I can barely convey to you with words how well these two simple phone-snapped pictures capture the wonderful differences between my two boys. So I'll hush and let the pictures talk.

The Clock Goes Tock-Tick-Tock-Tick

Here's a skill I admire in a person: the ability to take a normal situation and add a creepy twist to it. I think my five-year-old made his first attempt at this the other night. And he did a pretty nice job of it.

In the ongoing battle to get our three-year-old to eat (see, perfectly normal situation, right?), we have of course resorted to the age-old strategy of pointing out to him that if he doesn't eat, he won't get bigger, stronger, faster, smarter i.e. he'll never become the Six Million Dollar Man. However, as social scientists have proven time and time again, the simple presentation of facts does little to sway most people or cause them to change their behavior. As such, it becomes necessary to employ a measure of propaganda.

"If you don't eat, you're going to start getting smaller."

I don't remember who said it first, me or my wife, but big brother totally ran with it. Every meal, if little brother wasn't eating, big brother was there to remind him that it was his very size, strength, and speed that he was putting at risk. And then he added another element to it: age. If he didn't eat the food that had been placed in front of him, not only would he get smaller, but he would start to age backwards.

Then the other night at dinner, he put this all together in a way that I can only describe as masterful. We were all eating, all of us but youngest, who sat just picking at his food and babbling.

"You're never gonna turn four if you don't eat," said eldest.

"But my birthday's coming!" said his brother. It's true, but then again, when isn't a person's birthday coming?

"That's right," said big brother, eyes growing wide. "And we're gonna have a party-"

"A party!?"

"Yeah. And there's gonna be a cake-"

"A cake!"

"Mmm-hmmm." He spoke in a low voice now. "And mama's gonna bring it out, and everybody's gonna sing 'Happy Birthday' and on top of the cake, there's gonna be a candle on it for how many you're gonna be, and it's gonna be a two."

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo....

Preventative Measures

The best part of having a little brother is that he’s slower than me because I’m faster than him because I’m bigger because I’m five and he’s only three. I was born before he was. He came out of my mommy’s tummy after I did, when I was three, and then I turned four, but now I’m five. Simie is three.

I can run faster than him because I’m bigger and I have superfast shoes. Simie has Spider Man on his shoes, but mine are still faster. They’re superfast.

When Daddy chases us, he can catch Simie easier than he can catch me because Simie is slower than me, so Daddy can catch him first. Sometimes Daddy does The Monster and he chases us. When I’m big, I’m going to be faster than Daddy and he won’t be able to pick me up anymore and I’ll be able to pick him up because I’ll be bigger than him. I’ll be able to pick up Simie too.

Ack-shoo-uh-lee, I can already pick up Simie. The other day I picked him up and put him on the potty so he could go poop but then Daddy had to come wipe him because I can’t do that yet.

Sometimes people that are not as old as you can be bigger than you and that’s okay. Like my friend Bella. She was born after I was, so she’s not as many as me yet. She was born in April. She’s four. But she’s a little bit bigger than me, but I’m faster because I’m superfast.

I used to be four, but now I’m five.

I’m really good at Legos. For Christmas, Santa Claus brought me a whole bunch of Legos that were still in their boxes and they came with restructions. I got a castle and a spaceship from Star Wars. It’s Luke’s spaceship with R2-D2. He says bee-boop bop-boo-beep flurp!

Luke Skywalker has a lightsaber. It goes ggzzzzhhhh.

When I was little I used to drink milk out of bottles like a baby but now I drink milk out of a mug because I’m a big boy. Mommy and Daddy use mugs to drink coffee but I drink milk.

Luke is a Jedi. Obi-wan Kenobi is his daddy.

Sometimes I help Mommy in the garden. I like to do that. We grew tomatoes and broccoli. And kale. And we grew a watermelon in the summer but the chickens ate the other watermelon and we ate, uh, we ate the big watermelon. It was like the ones you buy in the store except we grew it in our yard.

The other day when we were working in the garden, um, Simie hit me in the head with a shovel and it made me drop my shovel and I was crying. I thew a rake at him but it missed so I threw a rock and it hit him in the face and he started crying and then we were both crying so Mommy took us inside and gave us a snack and we watched a Spongebob.

We had to put a fence around the garden so the chickens wouldn’t eat it all. Some of the chickens lay blue eggs but they taste the same.

I made the Luke Skywalker spaceship all by myself with my Daddy’s help. He helps me find the pieces and I put them together like it says in the restructions. We made the wings and then put them all together so they looked like a X. That’s why it’s called a X-wing.

The wings shoot lasers at the bad guys. The Death Star shoots big lasers.

We didn’t have a garden at our old house. Simie was born when we were living in our new house so he came from that garden and then he was in Mommy’s belly and then he came out, but I must have been in another garden, and then I was in Mommy’s belly because I was teeny-tiny. But now I’m big.

The castle is big too! My Mommy helped me make it. And Daddy, but first it was Mommy, but then Mommy had to go run some errands so it was me and Daddy and Simie. Simie was playing with his trains in his room while me and Daddy made the castle. He was in his underwear because he took his pants off. Simie sometimes pees his pants and runs around with his pee-pee out. And his butt! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Simie broke the train track that we made in our room. Me and Daddy made it together and Simie helped but then while we were making the castle, Simie broke the train tracks and we could hear him throwing the pieces in the box and if he breaks them there won’t be anymore and we won’t have them to play with because they cost a lot of pennies.

I think there were some babies in the garden by where the watermelon used to be. Mommy said that babies come from gardens like the garden we have, so first they’re in the garden and then they’re in their Mommy’s tummies. So I had to get rid of them.

Simie came downstairs and he picked up my Luke Skywalker spaceship and he went zhhooom zhhoom! And then he threw it and it hit the floor and broke into a hundred million pieces. They went everywhere. Daddy yelled and Simie ran back upstairs. Daddy said Simie probably thought the spaceship could really fly.

If I had a spaceship, I would shoot lasers at the bad guys. They’d go pee-ew pee-ew pee-ew! Darth Vader is a bad guy. He lives at the Death Star. He says hhhhoooohhh hhhhaaaaahhh. The Death Star is his house.

Daddy mostly fixed the spaceship, but there was a piece we couldn’t find, but it’ll probably turn up because it has to be around here somewhere. It didn’t just walk off by itself.

Then Simie came downstairs and he took a piece off of my castle and I told him to stop but he wouldn’t stop because he wasn’t listening.

Aren’t you listening, Simie? How is that helping? Do you hear me?

Spongebob has a snail named Gary. He says meow because he thinks he’s a cat.

Sometimes the chickens get in the garden and Mommy and Daddy have to get them out before they eat all of our food. They’ll eat all of it because they like everything. I like broccoli. It’s good for you. It gives you muscles and makes you superfast. Like me.

I always eat all my dinner. You have to eat a good dinner or you’ll shrink and turn back into a baby. Sometimes Simie doesn’t eat a good dinner and Mommy and Daddy tell him that he needs to eat his dinner or he’ll turn back into a baby and have to go back into Mommy’s tummy. Or maybe he’ll have to go back to the garden.

Simie likes to pick up the chickens and Mommy always yells at him because she says he’s going to break their little chicken necks and then they won’t be able to lay eggs for us anymore because they’ll be dead.

Put the chicken down, Simie. Put it down. Aren’t you listening?

I don’t know if any of the chickens ate any of the babies in the garden. If a chicken ate a baby, then it would have the baby in its tummy. And then it would have a baby in an egg.

Simie broke my favorite mug. It had a picture of an owl on it and I used it to drink my milk out of before bed. He threw it from the top of the stairs and it hit the ground and broke into a million pieces and Mommy said we couldn’t fix it because it was broken into too many pieces. Simie said he was sorry but I’m not sorry. Mommy said they would get me another one but that one was my favorite so I’m not sorry.

Mommy and Daddy were still asleep this morning when I came downstairs and Simie was at the Lego table and he had broken my castle because he breaks everything. Mommy and Daddy told him not to mess with the castle but he did anyway so I went outside to the garden and pulled up all the plants so there wouldn’t be anymore babies because babies break everything.

There were keys in the door so I just turned it like Mommy and Daddy do and it unlocked the door so I could go outside. The gate to the garden was already open but I know how to open it. I’m not sure which plants were the babies so I just pulled them all up and threw them on the ground for the chickens. Mommy said the ones by the fence were tomatoes, but tomatoes are red and these had green balls on them, so I pulled them up out of the ground because they might be babies.

I pulled up the ones that Mommy said were broccoli because I didn’t see any broccoli on them because we have broccoli in the freezer so I know what it looks like.

I let the chickens out of their coop so they could come into the garden and eat it up. They came in and started eating it aaaall up.

Then Mommy came outside and she saw me and she yelled at me to stop, but there was another plant that I needed to pull up so I pulled it up and threw it to the chickens and she yelled at me to stop again and then she ran after me and I ran out the gate. The other gate that goes to the front yard. I’m big enough to open it now. She yelled at me to stop, but I kept running because I’m fast.

I’m superfast.

The Hamster And The Bear

The post you see in front of you is a surrender, a surrender by me to the irrefutable fact that I’m just not going to be able to make it happen. My brain just doesn’t have it in it. You see, a few nights ago, I wrote a post all about how my boys fight a lot, how they beat the hell out of each other sometimes, but how they can also be really sweet to each other, especially when it really matters. And I really liked this post. It felt good to write and good to read when I was done with it. It included a reference to midget MMA, the thoughts of a mourning fighting cock, a sweet little scene between my boys in one of their better moments, nice transitions. I just felt really good about it.

You probably know where this is going.

Long story short, thanks to the treachery of this insolent Macbook upon which I write, I lost the post. I closed my laptop, and instead of just easing back its battery suckage and leaving everything else intact, it decided to restart, and do away with all unsaved work. Fuck me, right?

So this morning, I attempted to recreate it. I had no illusions that I would like it as much as the lost original, but I thought I’d at least be able to come up with something post-worthy. I remembered the midget MMA bit, the crying fighting cock, etc. But again and again, as I tried to make it happen, it just wouldn’t. I couldn’t get past four lousy lines. And so I wimped out and wrote this instead, a post about a lost post that will hopefully convey some of the thoughts contained in the original.

Look at this picture:

I don't know what it is about this picture, but for me, it has come to symbolize all the reasons there are to hope for a better world. It's true, my boys often beat the hell out of each other. And I know, I know, it's like some sort of law of nature that brothers are supposed to battle it out. But then there are moments like this where they feel nothing but joy in themselves and each other, where it's just the two of them in their little sibling bubble that no one else can enter.

A couple of weeks ago, the youngest one had a minor surgical procedure to help ease his breathing. Minor as it was, he didn't feel too great for a few days afterwards. At one point, we were sitting on the couch with him, trying to ease his suffering. He was in one of those states where all he could do was cry, and we were trying everything we could think of to help him, but to no avail. Big brother asked, "What's wrong with my baby?" This is what he calls him when he's in a nurturing mood: my baby. We told him that his baby wasn't feeling good. So he went and got his prized toy Lightning McQueen car, the one that he usually freaks out about if he sees it in his brother's grubby paws, and handed it over to his baby brother. The crying promptly stopped. True, it might have been out of shock that his older brother was actually letting him play with one of his favorite toys, but whatever. It was a sweet gesture, and it brought some measure of relief. It gives me hope that, even though these two will undoubtedly beat the crap out of each other more and more over the years, they'll still be there for each other when it counts.

Sometimes things work out exactly as you expect them to

Case in point:

This is the first Christmas where Henry has been the one to bring up Santa Claus. For the last couple of weeks, he's been talking about wanting to go see Santa, a feat we've never attempted before because, well, see above. Still, he insisted he wanted to go so that he could tell Santa what he wants for Christmas. And do you know what he wants, what he has said over and over and over he wants to find when he wakes up Christmas morning? No, not a Red Ryder beebee gun. No, even better: cookies! Like, the kind you eat! Score, yo. I'll swing by the grocery store on the way home. It'll be the best Christmas ever.

As you can see, Simon is, as usual, unfazed.

Hand-me-downs

More of this, please

Bring the ruckus

So in case you didn't see the news on The Ash's blog or over on DadCentric, the verdict is in and the verdict is boy! Boys actually, seeing as how now we will have two of them running around and plotting their little boy stratagems against us and nature and the world. It'll be like my boy scout summer camp counselor days, except now it's year-round, and when they break something, I'm the schmo that gets to pay for it. Seriously though, I can't wait to meet the new little dude, and I really can't wait for Henry to meet him.

Wow. So this is that part of life, huh? Freaky weird, man. Love it.