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Posts Tagged ‘Will’

Forgone Festivity

03 Jan

I’m no Scrooge. I give money to the kids who hock candy door-to-door (seems as good a time as any to clean out the couch cushions), and this past Christmas season, I broke my tradition of not decorating our house with lights.

I had previously chosen not to decorate the house out of a desire to not test the generosity of my health-insurance plan (you fell off the roof from 30 feet up because you were dangling from the gutter by one hand while you tried to hook an 8-foot-tall snowman onto your roof? Do I have that right, Sir? Just want to make sure I have all the details right for the heckling–I mean–the adjustor’s benefit).

But when your five-year-old son comes up to you and says,”Dad, how come everyone else on the block has lights and our house is dark?–his voice equal parts Eeyore and person who was just told he has cancer–what are you going to do?

Recognizing that I was, once again, a pushover when it comes to making my kids happy, I started planning my display, and after much toiling, brow furrowing, pacing, swearing, and soul-searching, I finished my 15-minute planning session, bought a bunch of stuff at Menards, and started the project.

Having waited too long to have the benefit of warm weather, I found myself on our roof, snapping C9-bulb clips onto the gutters, blowing into my hands in-between bulbs like I was the freakin’ Big Bad Wolf, desperately trying to maintain some functionality.

Took me eight hours to get everything up, but I completed the display. Following is a summary of those eight hours.

Wrapping the bush in our front yard.

“Kids, get away from the street.”

Winding rope light around the two front porch supports.

“Kids, leave the extension cords alone.”

Festooning (that’s right: festooning. Knew Lord of the Flies would come in handy some day) strings between the support posts.

“Kids, stay off the railings. I don’t want to spend Christmas in the hospital.”

Staking lighted candy canes and snowmen on either side of the walkway leading to the porch.

“Kids, stay away from the street!”

Adding icicle lights on the porch roof gutters to complement the C9 lights on the second-level gutters.

“Stay off the ladder, please.”

Topping it all off with a running-lights wreath outside the attic windows, a wreath I attached to the house with steel brackets and bent clothes hanger wire. Freak hurricane preparation, ya see.

“STAY OFF THE LADDER!!!”

I got the display done, tested out the effectiveness of all the singing I’ve been doing (translation: LOTS of yelling), spent some … quality time with the kids, made our house shine, and witnessed pure joy on Will and Anna’s faces when I plugged everything in.

Hell, freakin’, yeah, Man!

Despite my years of choosing inactivity regarding outdoor holiday decor, I was proud of my accomplishment, and found myself planning what to do the following year.

Though I knew my modest 1,000-light display kicked the ass of every other display in the city, it was a family tradition to drive around with Amy’s parents and look at other, inferior displays, so a few days after I finished mine, a-driving we went.

There were some cool displays–a guy who’d sheathed his entire roof in lights, creating a pixel landscape on which he was running the lights back and forth in wave-like motion; someone who, without an inch to spare in his yard, may or may not have been advertising for the manufacturers of inflatable-figurines–and the kids seemed to be enjoying it.

So at one point somebody asked Will if he was going to decorate his house when he got older.

“No,” he said flatly.

“Why?” we all asked.

“Because it’s a lot of work, and you get really cold.”

My spirit is undampened, for I have raised a realist. Yes, Will, it is a lot of work, and you do get really cold, but when you see the light from your display reflected in the eyes of your children, things will change.

What we do for others defines us, and the joy of giving joy can only be experienced through unselfish action–well, maybe a little selfishness is ok.

After all, next year my display has to smoke all the bastards on my street.

 
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Posted in Fathers & Daughters, Fathers & Sons

 

American Cheapskate

18 Nov

We got an American Girl catalog a few days ago. I didn’t order it, but I thought Anna would like to look at it, so I gave it to her. Thus began the lighting of the million candle-power spotlight that would showcase mine and Amy’s cheapness as parents.

Anna loved the catalog. Wanted everything. Buuut, it turned out everything is crazy expensive, like $100 for a doll expensive, like brush up on your bank robbing skills expensive. Like, no way, duuude.

When Will and Anna passed level one swimming, we bought them each a few new things. Will got John Deere tractors; Anna, Disney princess dresses, so hoping she could turn Anna’s attempted robbery of the family purse into an incentive, the following exchange occurred:

“Maybe you can get a cheaper doll for passing level two,” Amy said.

“Where can I get it?” Anna asked.

“Target, K-Mart, Walmart.”

Later, talking excitedly to Will, Anna said, “Will, when I pass level two swimming, I’m gonna get a cheap doll from Walmart!”

Hey, as long as it doesn’t involve career aspirations on the front-end, I’m ok if Walmart gets my daughter excited. Cheapskate wins again.

 
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Posted in Cheapskate

 

Buffered Conceit

15 Nov

I take my kids to Sunday school every week. I take them to vacation Bible school every summer. I read Bible stories to them regularly (read: more often than when I “accidentally” drop the f-bomb in their presence, which hasn’t happened, yet, but I do own a computer, so …).

Still, sometimes the best laid plans are doomed to FAIL status. Example:

Will: Come see my new [train] track, Dad. It’s better than yours.

Me: OK, but you know, you probably shouldn’t say things like that. It’s kind of conceited. Just ask me to come see your track. Making a point that yours is better than someone else’s isn’t very nice.

Will: (over at track) Do you like my track, Dad?

Me: I do.

Will: Don’t worry about that it’s better than yours. Never mind that.

Gee, thanks, I thought. Guess I’ll try harder tomorrow, unless Will has a better idea.

 
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Posted in Fathers & Sons

 

‘[P]od’

09 Nov

The boy gets his hands on a new acquisition, and he smiles, for nothing physical touches his extremities. This latest addition to the arsenal of power over his rival could be the final surge that pushes his enemy past the breaking point, and since this tool, this sacred relic of dominance, exists only under the articulating governance of his mind’s deft fingers, victory is all but assured.

Within the walls of his contemporaries, a simple signal for relief will suffice, but not for the boy. It matters not that his enemy shares the same blood in her veins, sleeps down the hall, eats at the same table. The war of words and their ability to produce and implement spells on the enemy is of paramount importance.

It is not only ego at stake–but life, the life of a five-year-old boy, who can only hope that when he signals intent to use the relief chamber by saying, “I’m going pod,” cutting out an entire syllable with his cunning, his sister will answer,”Huh?”–and the smile will achieve new meaning.

I thought Will was talking to me when he made the above abbreviated comment about going to the bathroom, following it up by asking if his message was understood, but when I answered that I got it, and he said, “No, I’m asking Anna,” I think his military mental preparations were close to what I’ve described.

How did he fare on stumping Anna? Honestly, I can’t remember, and perhaps that should worry me, but it doesn’t. They try to kill each other every day, so why should it rankle my sleep that my son is traveling a path that will eventually include game theory as a weapon to wield against his sister? Anna is close behind, I’m sure.

What worries me is that I don’t have an efficient method of harnessing these stumping abbreviations from Will’s brain, which I absolutely must do before he embarrasses me in front of my friends by, say, discussing Phineus and Ferb in an abbreviated form I don’t understand.

That would be a sad day, because everybody in this household knows who’s the bigger fan (words acting as an arrow point outward to the author of this post). We’ll see how it goes. It’s only so long before the abbreviated battlefield of the mind turns dad into a target.

I may have to overdose on Disney to avoid defeat, but I’ll be ready.

 
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Posted in Fathers & Sons

 

Humane Muggers

27 Oct

I made some extra money a few weeks ago playing a gig. I put the cash away in a safe place for future, needed expenses, like more gear, but when I went to check my “safe place” the other day, my money had been pilfered, and the culprits were running around in my house wearing their ill-gotten gain.

Oh, the audacity! If there weren’t a blood relation, I’d be tempted to call the cops. But if I did, the cops would, while calling ahead for a psych eval, review my records, interview witnesses, and conclude that I had given the perpetrators the cash with which to buy their new coats.

Suspect #1: Will Kabala, son of Seth Kabala. Suspect #2: Anna Kabala, daughter of Seth Kabala. Accomplice and doesn’t yet know it: Ella Kabala.

Hey, I don’t care if Ella’s only a few weeks old, she was in on it. They all are, every other Friday, every time I get cash I get mugged.

I guess my consolation is that these muggers are of the humane variety, choosing hugs, kisses, and being glued to my side as their weapons for parting me with my money.

I’ve got the pre-cogs from Minority Report on my side, telling me the crime’s coming, and still I choose to endure the pain of killing trees with my monthly bank statement.

Actually, I don’t give a shit about the trees. It’s my back I’m worried about. There must be something else that keeps me from warding off these attackers. Something along these lines:

“I can wiggle them on.” –My four-year-old daughter, Anna, on her too-small flip flops.

Thanks for trying to be practical, Sweetie. Just let me go find my back brace before the next beat-down.

 
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Posted in Cheapskate

 

Tagalong

24 Oct

Last summer, we started Will in golf lessons. It’s an old joke, but I still maintain that having a retirement plan, even if it’s a fantasy, is better than nothing.

But this post is about my four-year-old daughter, Anna, who, upon seeing her brother’s increased interest in the sport, insists on tagging along to the backyard when we hit balls. She claims she wants to hit balls, but her participation goes something like this:

1. Anna sitting in the grass picking flowers.

2. Anna reaching through the fence to pet the huge dog we don’t know, belonging to the weird neighbor with the Dr. Who TARDIS in his backyard (no joke), a neighbor whom we no way in hell want to know without a steel fence barrier between us.

3. Anna nearly losing a tooth and/or an eye because she wasn’t paying attention to Will’s back-swing.

I can convince her to hit a couple, but only if I help her. She has this idea that holding the club like a pole-vault, uh, pole?, is the same as a well-executed back-swing and follow through, and only then when I help her swing the club.

Following her assisted power shot, she lights up like a drunk on payday (too far?) and proclaims her love for the game, insisting she always be included.

Yay me and Will.

Anna loves to dance. We’re getting her involved with a local studio, so I expect her enthusiasm for golf to wane, but who knows? I avoid gambling, but isn’t every day as a parent one big spin of the roulette wheel?

Will dance go anywhere? Dunno? Will she eventually take to golf like Will? Possibly. Is it annoying to have her in the backyard risking life and limb while she indulges a daydream? /p>

To a degree, yes, but I have to remember why she’s there. Connection. Quality time. Regardless of if 95% of her brain is fantasizing about being a Disney princess, the remainder is there with me, and I treat custody of that asset with extreme care.

I love my kids, but kids are annoying. It’s true. Admit it. Passing on a legacy without being declared insane is like trying to navigate class five rapids on a blow-up inner-tube. Still, doesn’t mean we don’t love ‘em, right? Just take deep breaths when you fall in the water.

Unbridled enthusiasm is something I will never break, no matter the cost.

Let those spirits run free.

 
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Posted in Fathers & Daughters

 

All that Dying Sucks

11 Oct

Parents: if your children behave like Beetlejuice when you say it’s time to go to swim class, monsters from a Stephen King novel replacing facial features, pay attention. There is cause for concern.

“The really super fun part, where you don’t die, … is life jackets.” –My son, Will, on swimming safety day, his hands splaying fingers out in front like he was casting a spell, arms in a T-rex bend, eyes like he’d aged to 13 and just seen his first naked woman.

It’s the antithesis to this happiness that you must watch out for, the regular dying and all, which has apparently been happening for over a year, the time he and Anna have been taking lessons.

The key to eternal youth is at a community aquatic center near you (hey, how do you think they came back to life?). All you have to do is scare a kid, die (every Saturday from 10:15a-11a), and you’ll have life everlasting.

And a piece of candy on safety day.

 
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Posted in Communication Conundrum

 

Brotherly Love

30 Sep

My son is a sadist. This has nothing to do with his waking up at 5:30a, when I still believe I am the last Viking king who can save the cheese factory from the evil ChapStick monsters. Nor does it relate to his jumping on me with the express intent of ensuring we have no more children.

He’s working his voodoo to make sure Honey I Blew Up the Kid installs him and his sisters as Kabala-household overlords.

Will: How many more days till Ella comes?

Amy: Eight.

Will: Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. That’s really close. I’m so excited to see what she looks like.

Amy: Me, too.

Will: I think she’s going to look like a good girl.

Amy: Yeah, a good little girl.

Will: (Impish grin assumed.) No … a good big girl.

Pause.

Amy: I hope not.

I’m pretty sure penis pumps don’t work, Son, so (ouch) please set down (ouch) your needle and doll and (ouch) pray that Ella is small little girl. Otherwise, guess I bought that baseball cup for nothing.

 
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Posted in Sibling Devilry

 

Vixens of Televised Crapdom–Episode One

28 Sep

As the lead agent for Vixens of Televised Crapdom, my wife is a vocal proponent for the show Vampire Diaries. She’s recruiting, and, I’m sad to say, my daughter Anna is among the misguided masses.

Still, at least my son has some sense, offering this comment to Anna when Amy and the kids were at her parent’s house, and she and Anna were absorbing brain-emulsifier through their eyes: “Don’t look over there (at Vampire Diaries),” Will said. “It’s scary.”

“I’m four, Will,” Anna said. “I can handle it.”

Anyone have an extra room available? Two refugees from this family may need a place to stay for a while. We’re being overrun.

 
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Posted in Sibling Devilry

 

Re-gifting

10 Sep

Certain messes in life are unavoidable. If you get a DUI and your hair is sufficiently mussed or you manage to jam your finger into the nearest outlet just prior to the mug-shot, chances are you’ll be a big-time celebrity some day.

If you want to be popular in high school, you’ll have to throw an insane party, complete with scantily-clad (oh, screw that) not-clad-at-all girl-girl Vaseline kiddie-pool wrestling; healthy amounts of the finest herbs … and, uh, cheeses; and a naked Will Ferrell running past your house down the street.

Those are the ingredients to the perfect party and the perfect, unavoidable mess.

But fast-forward a few years to when you are married with kids and your definition of a “party” is one glass of wine, so as not to irritate your touchy bowel, and staying awake all the way till the end of Conan, which occurs at the witching, inhabited by spirits of darkness hour of 11p. When you get to this point, avoiding messes becomes an art in precognition.

We’ve been renovating the downstairs kitchen and bathroom, which involved, among other “fucking piece of shit”-laden activities, removing the toilet to install ceramic tile. Once that apocalypse passed, I went to re-install the toilet, discovered the new, higher floor made the water-line too short to reach the floor valve, and started shutting things down for the night. I’ll get it tomorrow, I thought of the flex-hose I needed.

Then … a vision.

An innocent porcelain toilet, soiled by the how-in-the-world-can-such-a-tiny-body-fit-all-that? aftermath of a hurried youth. Better than on the kitchen floor (well, I do still have that pooper-scooper. … Wait, what am I saying?), but still stuck in a land that’s shiny and smooth but has no functional fluid (am I saying Heidi Montag is really a toilet? Possibly). And it all could have been avoided by making access impossible.

So I wrapped the lid in painter’s tape, preventing use until I could get the flex-hose, hoping diarrhea-inducing chemical-warfare didn’t hit anytime soon.

The plan worked. The toilet didn’t leak. As far as writing style goes, that’s as boring a sentence structure as you can get, but do you realize how momentous an accomplishment that was? To, as a parent, have a plan, a home-improvement plan no less, play out as you predicted (well, predicted while laughing, but predicted all the same)?

(Guess I can hit the broad side of a barn. Knew those shit-throwing monkeys would come in handy some day. Protection from the fan. You might want to pick up a couple–monkeys, that is.)

That just doesn’t happen.

Somehow through the process of re-installing the toilet manage to re-route the city’s water supply through my open sewer drain pipe and create the first self-renewing waste geyser? Yeah, that’s more like it. That’s what I would have expected.

(Telegraphing the point in bold so you can skip straight here if you don’t want to read everything above. But if you do skip to here, you won’t understand, so HA!)

I also would have expected a different response from my five-year-old son regarding what he wanted for his next birthday than when Will said this upon seeing me unwrap the tape from the toilet:

“It’s like opening a birthday present.”

So there you have it–a little practice in precognition and a way to achieve substantial savings on future birthday presents.

Granted you’ll have to go through the “fucking piece of shit”-laden activities to get there, but you’ll do anything to save a buck, (cool machine voice: “vision loading”) won’t you?

 
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Posted in Dad the Doofus, Fathers & Sons

 

Farcical Flying

31 Aug

The skies were clear, a slight breeze coming out of the north. A perfect day for flying. But the pilot decided, in another attempt to evade the shadow of his supervisor, he’d had enough of flying, so after checking all systems, making any necessary adjustments, he brought the 45lb ship in for a landing, and that’s when it all fell apart.

The tail of the plane hit first, an impact hard enough to flip the nose down like the up end of a teeter-totter after a sumo wrestler decided to try out the high-dive, got the location all wrong (drug-laced food and all, or maybe a backup of gas), and sent the raised teeter-totter board to the ground with a THUD.

The supervisor froze. Though only feet away, he flouted the rules of fiction and was illogically physically unaffected by the crash. Still his face was overcome with shock, and he hurried toward the pilot, who got up and said, “Looks like my landing skills are out of order.” And the day was saved.

Ok, so I cheated in the fictional version of this story, wrapping it up neater than a LOST plot-line, which is saying something, but since this post was based off reality, it’s not really cheating, is it? Guess it depends on the definition of the word “cheating.” Where’s Clinton when you need him?

I would like to some day earn a pilot’s license, and my five-year-old son, Will, the lucky pilot of this story, whose face-plant off the swings and into the sand at Camden Park ended up a lot like a Conan show (funny as hell, and you’re not sure why), has expressed a desire to do the same.

One step at a time, though. Once he masters the swings, I’m thinking a zip-line over thousand-foot canyon drops will really put his piloting skills to the test, though a tree may hurt more than some sand, I think.

 
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Posted in Fathers & Sons

 

Down With Up

04 Aug

Now there’s an interesting title for a grammarian to stew over. To capitalize or not? That is the question, and might not be worth the lowering of the schnoz from points north, but nevertheless encapsulates my wife’s attempts to sabotage correcting my son.

Commence Dick and Jane phrasing: Amy was giving Will a bath. Will didn’t want to take a bath. Amy wanted to stay dry. Will thought she should be soaked. Will thought she wanted to be a movie star. Will thought a cameo role in Pirates of the Caribbean was good. End Dick and Jane phrasing.

When I happened upon the scene, words were flying equal parts with water.

I yelled at Will to sit still, at which point Amy, testing whether her new gills worked, told him to stand up. He continued his imitation of a person riding the paint mixer at the hardware store, so I told him to stand still, at which point my wife, undermining water queen that she is (possibly not hearing me, but I’m going with the first one), told him to sit down.

Exasperation on my face, I explained my frustration to her and got a good laugh. She achieved a smirk similar to what you’d expect upon receiving massive Botox injections, and she hasn’t done that–not that she needs it :)–so I assumed she was either slightly amused or diverting me from the hand that she was dipping into the bathtub, preparing to soak me with its contents.

I didn’t stick around long enough to find out, for as I’ve found in many situations where the dubious smirk lurks just offstage, whipped cream pie in hand, it’s best to exit before Captain Hook drags you offstage and beats your ass with your cardboard sarcasm sword.

 
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Posted in Husbands & Wives

 

‘How *you* doin’?’

01 Jun

Ten bucks says most of you know the fictional character that spoke this trademark line. Well, let’s make that one dollar, since it’s all but assured.

It’s Joey’s pick-up-line of choice from Friends. You know, when he couldn’t go immediately to boinking and had to, with great effort, engage in pre-coital conversation. Actually, any intelligent conversation was a challenge where Joey was concerned, but we’ll save that for later.

I will use this line to write of things slightly more wholesomer. I know that’s incorrect, but it sounds so cool.

When I call home at lunch to talk to my wife, Will, my five-year-old, sometimes wants to talk. He’s well spoken in person, but over the phone I usually struggle to differentiate words from animal humping noises. He bumps the rpm’s to 150, scratches the needle across the grooves, and then gets annoyed when I don’t understand him.

On this occasion, though, I was thrown not because of lack of clarity, but because of it. I open these lunchtime chats with my own, I’m sure unique, line: “So how’s it going?” To which he responds by either imitating Chip and Dale or being surly. I think it depends on the stars aligning or those Netflix ads actually making sense.

But this time after he’d finished his story, Will said, “So how are you doing?” And then left the open air for me to fill. I was speechless for a moment, but managed to say something about walking outside during my lunch-break so as not to sound totally lame (I’m sequencing steps in a Macro, Son. Is your day as flippin’ fantastic as mine?).

I’m always so focused on keeping my kids safe that I don’t often think about how they worry about me. Do you do that? Probably you do. It’s just tough to comprehend that those little monsters who tied the dining room chairs together with yarn, making it impossible to pull them away from the table, could really care about your well-being.

But kids are smart, and if they care, I can tell you why.

Because you care.

 
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Posted in Family Time

 

Frickin’ Frostys

22 May

I introduced Will to golf last summer, and, wanting to keep him enthused in between lessons, I took the whole family to the driving range.

Oodles of sunshine, fresh breeze–it was the perfect day to work out the kinks on the links, or generally make a fool of yourself. Take your pick.

To further aid in keeping up enthusiasm, I offered the kids each a Wendy’s Frosty if they had good attitudes and practiced hard.

Three balls into the bucket, Will said, “I think I’m done. I’m just gonna watch you guys,” and he started harping on when we were gonna leave and get the Frosty, forgetting all about the work required of him to get said Frosty.

He eventually worked his way through the bucket, though I think some of those divots were intentional (those poor earthworms), and we went and got the Frostys.

Don’t get the wrong impression. I’m not a do-this-or-you’ll-trade-sleeping-places-with-the-dog kind of guy when it comes to my kids’ activities. I want them to have fun and be serious, engaging their developmental faculties with activities that are enjoyable and have long-term potential, not that boost my ego.

A year later, Will regularly asks to hit balls, I hope the result of my subtle suggestions, you know, like replacing all the carpet in our house with AstroTurf and building a chandelier made of old clubs. It appears he’s finding his way into the game because of personal interest and our encouragement. That’s a good thing.

When it comes to rewards, though, my finds-new-bones-to-crack-every-day older self now withholds specifics. To avoid the abdication scene of last summer for one, but for another, I’m cheap, and hoping one of us will forget.

 
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Posted in Parent Power

 
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