Uh Oh: The Boy Learns To Read

The Boy can read now, which is a side effect of attending kindergarten, or at least a kindergarten in a decent elementary school. And for the most part, this is a good thing.

Like most parents, I began working for this before The Boy even emerged from his mother's womb. We read to him constantly. And when we were done reading to him, we read some more. And I read everything -- books, magazines, newspaper articles, stuff I wrote (which, given that at the time it was about health care financing issues, probably wasn't the best idea), the prospectus from my 401K fund, road signs, ceiling fan installation instructions, everything.

Worse, I pointed out the words I was reading, as if my newborn infant would somehow magically begin reading the words even before he learned to make a noise other than screaming at the top of his lungs. My kid was going to learn to read, dammit, even if it killed me.

I said, to myself and others, that this was all in the name of "getting him prepared for kindergarten." It was my duty to make sure that he was ready to read by the time he reached school. But, really, it was all about competition. I'm a guy. I'm competitive. I really, really wanted my kid to read before anybody else's kid did. (I'm pretty certain that this is the case with much of overeager parenting; perhaps it should be called competitive parenting, as if somehow I'll get a gold medal if my kid is successful; talk about subjective criteria.)

Now he can read, though I hardly take credit -- peer pressure from his classmates did a far better job at getting him reading than me reading Dr. Seuss books. In any case, all is well and good now. He's across the literacy finish line. He's reading restaurant menus and books on his own and road signs. He's even reading to his little brother.

But now I sort-of miss my illiterate son. Yes, yes, yes. Reading is good, blah blah blah. But there's something to be said for keeping him in the dark about stuff. If The Wife and I wanted to talk about something with him nearby, we simply spelled the word -- like, say, "We should go get some C-A-N-D-Y." These days, we couldn't do that without him hearing and suddenly begging loudly for candy and thus spoiling the surprise, or at least my efforts to keep him from knowledge of candy's existence. This week The Wife couldn't go to the store for E-A-S-T-E-R B-A-S-K-E-T-S. She had to whisper "Easter Baskets" to me.

But that's not really the biggest problem. This one is: He now knows my blog.

Yup, that cat is out of the bag. One day, he came upon me while I was writing a post, and he read, "Dorky Dad," then he read the post as I wrote it. And then he asked me to read the rest of it to him, which I did.

The post described one of his fits at the grocery store, and as he listened to my description of the event, he looked at me and said, "WOW, DAD! WHAT A BAD KID!"

You said it, Boy, I didn't.

How To Get What You Want: A Toddler' s Guide

The Sequel has graduated from "infancy" to "toddlerdom." He can now walk, and he walks in all directions at top speed, usually toward some precipice or to the television and it's awesome power button or toward speeding cars or toward the guinea pig cage, which is apparently irresistible. (His favorite pastime is scaring the daylights out of the pigs while looking mischievously toward his parents as they rush to remove him from the temptation.)

The toddler years, much like the teenage years or adulthood, does not come with any sort of instruction manual, which is probably good because if it did The Sequel would just try eating it before crumbling it up and frantically waving it around. He'd then spill his juice upon it before moving onto something else more important. Like tormenting guinea pigs.

But if there was a Toddler Manual, it would likely have a chapter titled "Getting Your Way With Your Parents." It would look something like this:

How to Get What You Want, When You Want It
As a toddler, you are growing. You can walk. You can begin to say words. But, unfortunately, you have yet to master full speech capabilities. Nor have you perfected the art of pouting, which unfortunately will not come until you reach adulthood.

But you also have many more tools in your toolbox than you did as an infant, some of which are nearly irresistible to human parents, or grandparents or close relatives.

The Squeal. For most of your life, you've cried whenever you wanted something. Now you can squeal, which is more like a yell than a cry. Squeals are like fingernails on chalkboard to parents -- the louder you squeal when you want something, the quicker they will give you whatever you want.

The Fall. Yes! You're walking! But that dumb parent of yours wants you to walk in one direction, rather than aimlessly through a museum or a school or in the Sharp Knife Section of the department store. What do you do? Fall. They'll let go of your finger, and in the split second that you are free and they are trying to gather their senses, make a run for it! You just may get that shiny, expensive vase you always wanted to throw!

The Hurl. Your parents are holding you, but there are so many interesting things! Why won't they let you go? What kind of sadistic jerks are they? If you find yourself in this situation, just throw yourself in whatever direction you want to go. Sure, you might break a few bones as you plummet to the ground, but you'll be sending a message to your tyrannical jailer.

Just Do It. You have feet. You have hands. If you want something, go get it! An amazing number of items in this world are strategically placed at your eye level and are clearly meant for your consumption -- why would Target or Wal-Mart have all those neat, colorful things on the bottom shelves in aisles? Or all that delicious candy? All those adults are too tall, they'll hurt themselves bending over for it. Thus, it's all meant for you. Go get it!

The Point. Oh, these fingers can do wonders. Not only do they ample suckling opportunities, but you can use them to hold stuff and, when you want something, just point them in the general direction of whatever you want. Do so while making a cute question-like sound, and your parents will give you just about anything, which brings us to the last one.

Cuteness. This is the most effective weapon in your arsenal, and one that does not diminish with frequent use. So don't hold it back! Remember: No matter what you do, no matter how disgusting or wrong, your parents will think it's cute. By employing a cute look, or a strategically placed question or attempt at making a word, your parents will be physically unable to resist. Many a child has significantly increased his inheritance this way.

My Chlorinated, Neon-Filled Weekend

Some time ago, as winter tightened its icy grasp around my throat, I declared to the family that we're getting the heck out of here. I didn't care where we were going. We were just leaving. We'd spend some time in a location other than Minnesota and hope that spring would be here when we got back. In years past, this would have meant finding a cozy bed and breakfast or a hotel in a romantic locale. But we have kids, so we sought out neon and tackiness.

We live in the Midwest. All the neon and tackiness around here is located at the Wisconsin Dells.

For those of you who don't know what The Dells are, just imagine this beautiful, picturesque Midwest setting along a river that carves through limestone formations and is surrounded by untouched wilderness. Years ago, somebody happened by this gorgeous location and thought, "Hey, this would be a great spot for an obnoxious waterpark."

So the Dells evolved from a location so beautiful it lured travelers from around the area willing to pay money to view the scenery, into a place where the only scenery many visitors now see is made of brightly colored plastic. We fell into the latter category -- because, as I said, we have kids. If it isn't brightly lit, or makes loud noises, or jumps around like it's on speed, then to a kid it is not scenery. It's boring.

It is a rule that a child has an annual quota of obnoxiousness that must be filled, otherwise he will grow up feeling that he had a shortchanged childhood and will turn out to be an angry, bitter adult. Indeed, I never went to The Dells growing up. Nor did I go Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach, Atlantic City, all of Florida and any of those other plasticine places. This is why I'm angry and bitter right now. Grrrr.

I found a cheap hotel, because I'm cheap. It had a pool that was nice and a thing they called a "waterpark" that had a "pirate ship" with slides and things that shot water all over the place, plus a toddler area with a pelican that barfed water and more water-shooting items. The "waterpark" was no deeper than two feet.

Because it was shallow, any adults forced by their children to go there froze their butts off, which meant that I actively encouraged my eldest to remain in the pool, where I could actually immerse myself in water without looking like an idiot -- seriously, a goosebump-covered adult trying to immerse himself in two feet of water, or less, just never looks very good.

We went on Friday evening, spent the day there Saturday and left at noon Sunday -- a simple getaway weekend. We swam in the morning on Saturday, found a loud place for lunch, then walked around a downtown area that was mostly t-shirt shops.

How do you choose the right cheap tourist t-shirt shop, by the way? Because whether you're in the Wisconsin Dells or Myrtle Beach or New York City or Austin, Texas, or Charleston, SC, or San Francisco, these shops all look exactly the same. And each downtown has at least three on every block. And nobody is ever actually shopping there, making me think that they're all fronts for the Russian mob. (I'll probably be shot just for mentioning this on my blog.) This is why I never buy t-shirts from them. That, and my deep-seated fear that wearing any of those shirts would eat my skin.

Saturday proved to be too cold to walk around -- though not cold enough that we sought refuge in a t-shirt shop, so we went back and hung around in our hotel and swam some more, because nothing says relaxation like holing yourself up in a small room between periods in which you poison yourself with chlorine.

(But at least the chlorine is better than urine ... these are kids we're talking about, and nobody I saw went and used one of the nearby bathrooms.)

The next day was much nicer, but we didn't do anything outside because we had to return home -- meaning that we spent the bulk of the afternoon on the nicest day of the year so far driving in a minivan and cursing our stupid portable DVD player for breaking. Figures. The nicest weather on a vacation is usually reserved for the last day.

We got home on Sunday evening. What snow that had lingered when we left was gone. The Wife raked the yard. I finally took down the Christmas decorations that until a few days earlier had been encased in ice on my front lawn. So I guess it worked: I leave town, and spring arrives. Your welcome.

On the Midnight Flight to Minneapolis

I went to Las Vegas last week. I was there for only a day and a half to keep from gambling and drinking my life away or marrying a stripper. I spent most of the time in Caesar's Palace, which smells like cigarette smoke and cheap cologne, and ate expensive food and wondered why nobody was wearing tuxedos.

(Seriously, based upon all the movies about Las Vegas that I watch, it's populated by handsome guys who look like George Clooney and wear tuxes with the tie undone and hold small glasses of alcohol that they never drink. Instead, everybody there looked strangely like the rest of us. What a disappointment. But at least I didn't have to buy a tux. I hate those things.)

I went on Monday and Tuesday, which was fine except for the fact that I had to be home on Wednesday, and none of the flights out Tuesday would have done the job while keeping me in Sin City long enough to accomplish what I needed.

Well, almost none. There was the Redeye.

"Redeye" is airlinespeak for "really fricking late flight out." It left at 12:30 a.m. Las Vegas time, and got me home at 5:30 a.m. Minneapolis time. So if I was going to get any sleep that night, it would have to be done during a 2.5-hour window, and shoehorned into a seat that would be too small for a hobbit. Or an elf. Or Plankton.

I'm not much of a sleeper. Oh, don't get me wrong: I love me some sleep. But danged if I usually can't sleep, even in the best of circumstances. And here I was, 24 hours removed from a night comforted by expensive sheets and down pillows and a soft bed, forced to try and sleep in a sardine can.

And a full sardine can, at that. Upon my arrival I discovered that my plane would be well populated. Hey, what the heck are all these people doing flying to Minneapolis at midnight?

Oh.

Alas, my hopes of lifting the armrest and using all three seats as a makeshift bed were dashed by other people's plans. Stupid people. What the heck were they all doing on my plane?

(Note to self: Buy my own 747.)

(Second note to self: Become a billionaire before buying that 747.)

At the very least, my fellow passengers were quiet. There were several children on board, most of them undoubtedly had spent far more time in casinos during their visit to Vegas than I did, or that their parents would readily admit. And I had worried about them, because I have children, and I have children that frequently replace "sleep" with "scream, loudly" on their to-do list. So I was fearful. But then we got on and they were angels. Three hours in a plane and not one peep from any of them, which made me want to ask their parents what kind of drugs they gave their children to accomplish that goal, and whether I could score some. They all slept.

Which was more than I could say. Though I did everything possible, my body refused to let me sleep on the plane. Which is typical for me, because the more I want to sleep, the less likely I am to get it.

That doesn't make it any less maddening. When my body refuses to let me sleep, and I really, really want that sleep, it just makes me mad. The problem is that you only get mad at yourself, so it's not like you can send any kind of message or make any sort of statement. You're just mad for mad's sake. Which is just mad. "Dammit! Why can't I sleep? Stupid me. I'll never talk to me again. I'm so mad at me I can barely stand it." Doesn't quite sound right.

But I made it. I spent half a day fighting off sleep at work, then slept for the afternoon and then spent the evening using the "I was up all night because I took the redeye flight back home" excuse to get out of doing everything from making dinner to bathing the kids or anything else that would require me to remove my posterior from the sofa. In other words: Taking the redeye got me out of housework and child care.

You know, maybe it wasn't so bad, after all ...