The rare double: wearing someone else’s shoes on the wrong feet.
Here’s something to chew on: Why are little kids prone to putting their shoes on the wrong feet? It seems that randomly grabbing two shoes and randomly placing them on two feet would lead to results that were closer to 50-50 success/fail, but our old-enough-to-dress-themselves shorties put their shoes on the wrong feet around 98% of the time. (I know that some mathie out there is going to break out probability pyscho-babble suggessting that a 98% fail rate is no less likely than a 50% fail rate, to which I say there is a 103% likelihood that sound, statistically-proven math principles are not welcome at this blog. Ever.)
Our children’s uncanny aptitude for putting their shoes on the wrong feet nearly rivals their innate ability to completely miss their mouths with the contents of a Go-GURT. (FINE PRINT ON THE PACKAGING: “Seriously? You think giving your kid a flimsy plastic tube of yogurt is a sound parenting decision? He could make a sticky mess gnawing on a rock! Good luck with that.”)
Don’t get me wrong: I’m really pleased that we have a few kids who are capable of putting their own shoes on the wrong feet. There was a point in time when the simple act of finding a pair of matching shoes for each child, corraling each child long enough to wrangle the shoes on, then turning around less than three seconds later to find that he or she had already taken the shoes off had led me to explore the ethical ramifications of having rubber soles sewn directly to the botttoms of their feet.
This is particularly maddening in the vehicle. We show up somewhere late as usual, caused in no small part by trying to get shoes on the mini humans before leaving the house, only to open the back doors of the Burb and find that three of the four have removed them, the two miles we’ve driven apparently too great a distance for their toes to suffer such confinement.
Forehead, I’d like you to meet rear quarter panel. Rear quarter panel, my forehead.
So it’s good they’ve started to put their own shoes on.
And who’s to say: maybe we adults are the ones putting our shoes on the wrong feet.
I’d say there’s about a 50% chance that’s the case.
I admit, the doomsday scenario I envisioned may have been a bit exaggerated. Here are some proofs from the shoot if you’d like to judge for yourself: http://www.alissaferullophotography.com/.
Today is World Gratitude Day (check out the post ”Words Cannot Express” over at Etiquette from the Trenches), and it’s pretty obvious from these photos that I have a lot to be thankful for. In fact, I should probably make a point today of letting my kids know that they don’t always drive me crazy. It’s probably like a 80/20 insanity-to-magical-moments ratio, but, at the end of the day, that 20 percent carries a hell of a lot of weight.
Special thanks to my wife for such awesome birthing and deciding, not once but four times, to procreate with a twit like me. Surprisingly, the results have been pretty spectacular considering that I contributed half the DNA.
Okay, that little inner-sensitivity voice in my head is saying that didn’t come off as especially “special.” Honey, you know how I feel about you. Thanks for tolerating my “humor.” (The fact that the posts on this blog are intended to be humourous may come as a shock to many of you.)
Also, thanks to Alissa, the photographer. She is a very talented individual. I was hoping that she could have done a little more with my hair, perhaps Phot0shopped in Patrick Dempsey‘s mane, or better yet his entire head, but overall the portraits were amazing.
I’m not sure what her “hazard pay” charge will be, but whatever it is, it was worth it.
My wife was a tad put out by Saturday’s post concerning our family photo shoot scheduled for yesterday (“Monkeycheese and looting: Must be family pictures.”) She felt that my description may have come off a bit apocalyptic and possibly portrayed our children in an unflattering manner. So, in fairness to her and the kids, here’s an update on how the shoot actually played out.
It was exactly how I described it in Saturday’s post!
The fact is, I went Nostradamus on this thing. From the 18-Month Old Boy vapor-locking his diaper at the exact moment I was putting him in his car seat twenty minutes after we were supposed to meet the photographer downtown to the widespread anarchy which ensued once we got there, my description was spot-on.
With one notable exception: it ended up being The 3-Year Old Girl mounting a statue of a fox rather than the 18-Month Old Boy sidling up behind a bronze casting of a pig. Seriously.
Oh, and the kids spotted, of all things, a bat hanging on the side of one of the buildings downtown, and you can only imagine the effect that had on their already non-existent ability to stop moving for more than a tenth of a second. They were like miniature parkour practitioners, running and bouncing and flipping, daring the photographer to catch them in a frame.
And by the way, the photographer thought they were awesome. And they were. And so was she. It wasn’t too bad.
Bring it on, Monday.
My attitude today is that of The 18-Month Old Boy in this video. I’m just gonna go with it. I encourage you to do the same.
Tomorrow morning we will load up the crew (eventually) and head downtown for our first family photos. We had talked about scheduling a family picture before, but every time we’d get ready to book an appointment another kid would end up falling out of my wife. (Hey, hey, hey! Keep your feet in the stirrups, ladies. I’m just joking about the “falling out” part. Believe me, I, of all people, know labor is involved. I was sitting right there in an uncomfortable hospital chair watching basketball on a grainy television on four separate occasions. I get it.)
Closest thing we have to a family photo. Not sure if the photographer will want crotch grabbing or not.
But now that we are officially done with the birthing phase of family development (read: snippage), my wife decided it’s time to capture a lasting image of the McFadden Six. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little unsure about this. I’m fully unsure about this .
Number one, getting everyone ready for the pictures and out the door is going to involve some major-league teeth grinding. With four little kids, we’re talking mass showering, hair fixing, tooth brushing, and dressing. On a good day that’s a one or two-hour ordeal. Plus, my wife and I have to be presentable. Now, I’m not certain that there’ll be a swimsuit portion of the shoot, but I plan on wearing the banana hammock under my jeans just in case. And if there is, obviously I want to look my best, so I plan on doing a little manscaping south of the border (if you know what I mean), which tends to be a tedious affair with the tweezers and duct tape and all.
It’s a five-minute drive downtown, so if we’re supposed to be there at nine, we’re going to have to start thinking about loading up no later than 6:30. As I’ve mentioned before, actually leaving our house tends to induce migraines, whether we are going to be gone for ten minutes or two weeks. We get two kids loaded up, then Perpetual Motion spots a rabbit and takes after it, so I go get him. Upon returning, the Hellcat has disappeared. I find her shoeless (and likely shirtless), bouncing on the trampoline. Snatch her, back to the vehicle, and then catch a whiff of #4, who was locked and loaded, smelling like one of the Garbage Pail Kids. Unbuckle and into the house for a diapersectomy. On the way I spot Slim glued to the television, watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode 71, “Yoda Opens a Can,” for the 500th time, but he just can’t miss thispart. And he’s right: you really can’t miss this part. So I plop down on the couch with him, and then the wife finds me, the Mini Jedi, and Small Boy with Caustic Diaper watching tv. Cue angry eyes. Like I said, it’s just hard to leave the house.
Number two, the shoot is literally going to take place downtown, as in out in front of the buildings and out in front of the public. I’m already envisioning a nightmarish scene where the photographer snaps a series of pictures capturing the true essence of our children: fighting, rioting, looting, rocks and hard-plastic horses and sippy cups shattering storefront windows, the kids scrambling back out through the shards of glass with armfuls of Laffy Taffy and Mark Teague books, parked cars overturned and set ablaze, innocent pedestrians pestered incessantly by rabid, snot-nosed minis shouting random gems like, ”MY BROTHER GOT A BUNNY LAST WEEK! HE POOPS A LOT!,” and a chain reaction of motorists rear-ending one another as they gawk at #4 dry-humping the pig statue on the corner. The kind of chaotic scene one might witness if The Backyardigans were to win the NBA championship.
Natural look for The 4-Year Old Boy. Nice.
Number three, and what worries me more than the potential for lawsuits filed by the citizenry, is that our kids might say, “Cheese!” Parents know that this dirty little six-letter word has made many a small child look like he or she was straining to take a crap in volume after volume of family photo albums, yet we parents don’t have anyone to blame for this but ourselves (although that probably won’t stop us from blaming the President).
Cheese!
It doesn’t take long to figure out that yelling ”Cheese!” is the last thing that you want to teach your kids (actually, teaching them to hotwire a car is probably the last thing you want to teach them, but you get my point). We’ve tried to break our kids of the habit, but they’re too well conditioned. As soon as they see someone unbuckling a camera bag they start screaming “CHEESE!,” chins jutted out like Jay Leno, neck tendons stretched to the point of snapping. We’ve tried to get them to say “Monkey!” because I read somewhere that words starting with “M” are supposed to be more photo-friendly for mouths, but then they just started shouting “MONKEYCHEESE!,” which is far worse from a photogenic standpoint and, frankly, sounds pretty disturbing.
Monkeycheese!
This photographic dilemma comes on the heels of The 6-Year Old Boy’s elementary school pictures, although I was actually encouraging him to say “Cheese!” in that setting. Kids are supposed to look dorky in those photos, and shouting the six-letter word pretty much ensures it.
So, if you happen to find yourself sitting in a pile-up tomorrow morning watching a band of miscreants running around screaming “MONKEYCHEESE!” and violating the statuary, don’t be alarmed. It’s just our family pictures.
This video from our trip to Oregon was previously used in another post (Is it much further, Papa Smurf?). It’s funny. I snort-laugh every time I watch it. But as I viewed the footage again this morning, I realized that The 3-Year Old Girl going Deliverance on a hapless farm animal is more than just humorous; it’s inspirational, as well. (Make sure your volume is turned up as you watch the clip, and if you can hum “Dueling Banjos” and “Chariots of Fire” simultaneously, it should set the mood perfectly.)
There are important lessons for all of humanity in Pip’s unrelenting quest to pick up (MAIM) a goat.
Lesson #1: Set a Goal
The goal: pick up a mini goat.
Maybe your goal is to lose a few pounds, hoping to squeeze back into those parachute pants that you rocked in 8th grade. Or maybe your goal is to get promoted at work, possibly even rise to CEO, from which position you will mindlessly and soullessly blow shareholders’ money on lavishly asinine perks, like a stuffed Pinta Island tortoise head that dispenses Ecstacy-laced Pez mounted just outside your $5.2 million executive bathroom.
Or maybe, just maybe, your goal is to write a blog about your incredibly average life with your wife and four children that will start out being only occasionally perused by your mom and a handful of other relatives. But you keep writin’, keep grindin’, keep on keepin’ on, Rocky theme playing on a continuous loop in your head, and slowly but surely your view stats reflect a couple hundred loyal followers per day, and you keep poundin’ the keyboard, keep rackin’ the thesaurus looking for the perfect word, keep shamelessly self-promotin’ on Facebook and Twitter, and then BOOM!!! You’re “Freshly Pressed.”
THE BLOG. FREAKING. BLOWS. UP. It practically goes viral! Tens of thousands of readers worldwide now, some of whom don’t even know English but just want to be able to say that they hit the “Like” button on your latest post as they sit and sip their morning mug of yak milk with their fellow herders. Oprah comes back for one more show just so she can have the personal satisfaction that you were the absolute last person ever to make a fool of yourself jumping on her couch.
And then websites and advertisers line up and start throwing money at you, seriousmoney, the type of green that NFL teams fill dump trucks with and back up to the doorsteps of franchise quarterbacks. NBC runs a primetime special hosted by Dan Patrick, Blogcision 2010, during which you announce the website you will be taking your blogging talents to. Then you quit your day job, and you blog. That’s what you do. Just blog, baby.
But pretty soon, the pressure builds. The posts have to be funnier, wittier, more heartfelt, more grandma-friendly, less trivial, less offensive to people who live in Colorado. The fanatical denizens of the Blogosphere want more and more and more, until it reaches the point where nothing less than your soul, stripped, seasoned, sautéed, and served with a buttered Blogroll, will appease their insatiable appetite for more. You have to have the perfect post. Every. Time. And finally you snap.
We’re not talking sob-on-your-wife’s-shoulder-who-has-pretty-much-decided-that-your-a-narcissistic-a-hole-anyways snap.
Your family? Gone. The wife dashed like Usain Bolt after that whole donkeys and hookers thing, took the kids with her. Big money websites and advertisers? You kiddin’ me? They dropped you like a bad habit (donkeys and hookers is actually a pretty good example of one). Hell, you haven’t posted in a month, too busy looking behind the abandoned toy box for Map, just knowing that insanely repetitive little bastard is going to “Slip you a shiv, slip you a shiv, SLIP YOU A SHIV!” the moment you turn your back on him.
You hit rock bottom. And then you bounce up and hit a ledge. And then you richocet back to the bottom. Then the ledge again. Back and forth, the granite much springier than you would expect rock to be. You are the Wile E. Coyote of burnt-out bloggers. Super genius? Hardly.
But then it hits you. Not the ledge again. An enlightening, walk-out-of-the-darkness epiphany: you had it all when it was just you and your incredibly average life with your beautiful, loving wife and your four adorable-if-sometimes-maddening kids. A handful of devoted readers and your mom was enough.
So you start over. You drop to an unworthy knee and beg forgiveness of your wife with a sincerity she can’t dismiss. She flinches, and you have her back. You get the kids a dog, so they’re cool with it. And then you go in front of Congress and admit that you used blog-enhancing drugs, even though you didn’t, because the public and media always forgive the guy who does that. You’re back in their good graces. And then you start blogging again.
Pretty soon, VH1 features your rags-to-riches-to-rags story on Behind the Blog. Then a made-for-television movie detailing your life airs on Lifetime. Your kids are played by the Jonas Brothers and Dakota Fanning. Your wife is portrayed by Valerie Bertinelli because she always plays the wife in those movies. And Chuck Norris plays you, just because the guy is a Grade-A, upper echelon badass, which is in no way representative of you, but it’s your life story and that’s who you want. And the movie is a hit as far as made-for-television movies go. The websites and advertisers start to come back. And before long, you’re rolling in the dough again.
Woohoo! Bring on the donkeys and hookers!
So maybe that’s your goal. But if you’re The 3-Year Old Girl, you just really want to pick up a miniature goat.
Lesson #2: Find a Mentor
Experience is invaluable.
There is infinite value in seeking out the wisdom and expertise of someone who’s “been there, done that” to help you achieve your goals. For instance, your 6-Year Old Brother just might have a wealth of knowledge to share in the area of farm animal hefting. Tap into that. Follow his lead. If he suggests putting your arms out, by all means, put your arms out. He’s the expert.
Lesson #3: Stay Focused
Baby deer? C'mon! Get back in the game!
Don’t let yourself become distracted from your goal, or goat. If your 4-Year Old Brother spots a baby deer, who cares? Your dad has to honk the car horn to get the baby deer to move out of the driveway at home. Focus. And if you do get distracted, quickly lock back on. Remember, your relentless pursuit of a miniature goat will pay off in the end.
Lesson #4: Reassess and Re-establish
From time to time, you may need to stop and reassess your goal, and possibly even establish a new one. If the goat you’re after is the Gale Sayers of petting zoo herbivores, start chasing a less elusive one. If the goat of your dreams is outsmarting you, pursue a less intelligent one, like the one over in the corner reading Us Weekly. If the goat you’re after is too lively, look for a dead one.
Lesson #5: Overcome Obstacles
Obstacle? How about a slice of forearm shiver.
There are often roadblocks on the path to obtaining your goal: self-doubt, apathy, having to go to the bathroom really bad. But sometimes the roadblock is literally a larger goat. If need be, give that goat a forearm shiver; channel some Jack Tatum. Then go around it.
Lesson #6: Accept Help from Others
What's gonna work? TEAMWORK!
Collaboration and teamwork may be the missing element in reaching your goal. The Wonder Pets have been preaching this for years, and if anybody would know, it would be a turtle, a duckling, and a guinea pig. You may just need your 4-Year Old Brother to snake his arm into the deer pen, yank out a handful of grass, and distract the goat of your dreams with an enticing snack while you slink up behind it and put it in a sleeper hold.
Lesson #7: Cross the Finish Line
Well done.
You did it! All you’d ever dreamed of since you saw a miniature goat for the first time in your life five minutes earlier was deadlifting one and carrying it around. So what if it is approximately the same size as you? And filthy? And smells like dusty fecal matter fired in a kiln? Congratulations. Tote your trophy around for a couple of seconds; celebrate your accomplishment. You deserve it.
Lesson #8: The Letdown
Maybe lifting a goat wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He hurted your leg. Little bastard. Now go wash your hands.
Of course, the lesson for goats themselves is to run like hell if you see The 3-Year Old Girl coming your way. Believe me, she’s going to go Randy Couture on your ass.
Yesterday I was hiding out in Kyndal The 3-Year Old Girl’s room trying to concentrate on some writing (for the record, it’s pretty humbling when the bedroom of your 3-year old daughter is your personal writing den).
Stacie walked in and told me that Kyndal and Reed The 4-Year Old Boy were downstairs playing their own version of The Newlywed Game. Kyndal, outfitted in a beautiful maiden’s dress, and Reed, sporting a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume (Raphael, I believe), were playing “wedding.”
“Can I really marry Kyndal someday?” Reed murmured through his Turtle mask.
“No, but it’s fun that you guys are having a pretend wedding.”
Reed was not satisfied with this response. “Mom, I really am going to marry Kyndal and then she’s going to lay a baby girl and Nolan is going to marry that baby and she’s going to lay another baby girl and Finn is going to marry that baby.”
This type of turtle on maiden action is perfectly acceptable in (insert state name here).
Nolan and Finn would be our other two sons, 6-Year Old Boy and 17-Month Old Boy. Ideally, Stacie’s reply at this point would have been to say something like, “Reed, brothers only marry the baby daughters that their sisters lay in (insert name of state here),” but she whiffed on that lob.
Instead, Stacie said, “Well, we don’t marry our brothers or sisters. Mom and Dad aren’t brother and sister. But someday you’ll marry a girl who isn’t your sister.”
Wow. That’s really setting the bar high for your children. I’m guessing that “Someday you’ll marry a girl who isn’t your sister” is a fairly common sentiment shared by parents of young boys worldwide. With the exception of parents in (insert name of state previously used here). See how easy that is? I don’t know how my wife misses that stuff.
Anyway, Stacie said the kids continued to play and have their “wedding” and then moved on from that game and were headed out the door when Reed stopped, ran back to her, and gave her a hug. “You know, Mom, I think I’ll just marry Kyndal.”
Friday night we had a campout in the backyard, complete with tent, campfire, and (cringe/wince/twitch) s’mores.
Don’t get me wrong. S’mores are delicious. My wife is a complete and total s’mores groupie. The combination of crisp graham cracker, gooey, sweet marshmallow, and soft milk chocolate is one of the finest trios ever assembled, the Three Stooges of scrumptiousness, the Bee Gees of delectability, the Charlie’s Angels of lip-smacking lusciousness.
Mouth watering: engage.
Sounds like a perfect treat to give a 4-year old.
Somebody else’s 4-year old.
But I and other parents world-wide realize, begrudgingly, that making s’mores is an essential thread in the chocolate-smeared tapestry that is being a kid. Our parents did it for us, and it is now our duty to do it for our brood, regardless of the mess and rapidly accelerated hair loss which results.
So Friday evening we s’moresed. First, I got the fire going with the “help” of the kids.
Nolan The 6-Year Old: “Dad, here, I thought you might need the axe. ”
Reed The 4-Year Old: “Dad, I’m going to put more water (LIGHTER FLUID) on it.”
Kyndal The 3-Year Old: “Daddy, it’s my turn to throw the sticks on.”
Nolan: “Dad, now can I axe the wood?’
Reed: “Dad, you sure it doesn’t need more water?”
Kyndal: “Daddy, why are you drinking so much?”
Fire + sharp stick + marshmallow = happy kid
At our house we have some pretty strict rules concerning open flames, such as, “You may not catch yourself or one of your siblings on fire,” and, “I said BACK UP!” Like most strict rules, these dictums are challenged, circumvented, and/or ignored completely by our children, and in fact only serve to encourage unruly behavior. So, to distract the kids from the temptation of the fire, I gave each of them a sharp stick.
Now, everyone knows that a s’more is best prepared with a perfectly-browned marshmallow. Perfectly browning a marshmallow takes patience, steely concentration, and a steady hand. There is no chance in hell of perfectly browning a marshmallow with small children. The three most-likely scenarios with kids and roasting marshmallows are: one, the marshmallow bursts into flames; two, the marshmallow falls into the fire; or three, the marshmallow bursts into flames and then falls into the fire. The first scenario results in Dad eating around 35 char-mallows, while scenarios two and three most often lead to tears being shed, sometimes by the kids.
But, two-and-a-half packages of marshmallows later, we did get four s’mores prepared. We handed them to the kids, and within seconds they looked like the innocent bystanders lining the streets when the Ghostbusters incinerated the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. White goo with flecks of chocolate and cracker covered their hands and happy faces.
Ray, did you bring the graham crackers?
Then they turned to burning the ends of their roasting sticks and using them as torches, because if you’re a kid and there’s a fire available, that’s what you do. At one point Reed was chasing Kyndal around the play set whooping and hollering, crazed eyes glowing behind a mask of crusted filthiness, flaming roasting stick thrust in the air. It was a scene straight from Lord of the Flies.
Eventually, though, the fire fizzled out and so did the kids. I herded the three oldest into the tent and tucked them in under the sleeping bag. Without prompting, each of them said, “Thanks for the campout, Dad.”
“You bet, guys. It’s always fun.” And I meant it. Not easy, but fun. I leaned over and gave each of them a kiss, careful to avoid the leaves and woodchips and insects which had adhered to their cheeks and foreheads.
Then I laid back, and the four of us gazed up through the top of the tent at the stars. And I thought to myself, ”I guess s’mores are the perfect treat.”
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