A wise (sailor)man once said, "Enough is enough, and enough is too much!" I'm feeling that these days. I'm talking about my son's penchant for putting himself in predicaments where the possibility for bodily harm is much too high for comfort. His latest "injury" happened at his grandparents' in South Carolina, when he climbed into a half-filled clothes basket, tipped it over, and hit his head on the wall, giving himself a nice marble-sized knot above his right eyebrow. S and I put ice on it (no small feat), it went away, and he didn't seem to be experiencing any ill-effects thereafter (our doctor friend who was visiting took a quick look at it and said it was fine). But that's not really the point. The point is, how are we supposed to get this kid through his toddler years without him killing himself?
I know most little kids are adventurous in this way. Some would say little boys in particular.* But I think Lil' S is exceptionally bad. I don't remember my other friends and family with little boys having this much difficulty preventing their kids from maiming themselves. Lil' S just wanders around looking for something he can get on or in. As soon as he gets to an object -- table, chair, ottoman, clothes basket, gate, what have you -- one little leg goes up in the air to probe for a foothold. If he finds one, he tries to use it, no matter how precarious it is. And he's fast. One moment he's on the floor playing with Legos; the next, he's climbed onto an air mattress and then onto a TV stand, and he's rocking the TV back and forth. Kinda like this.
At first I thought it was cute, and I took some pride in the fact that my kid was so mobile at a young age, but now I just want him to chill a bit. It's impossible to keep a set of eyes on him every waking second, and it feels like that's what we have to do now. He really needs to develop some common sense or some "landing" coordination soon. (And being that he's a male, the former is probably too much to hope for.)
He's also gotten really into slamming his toys, which is especially unfortunate if you happen to be in range of his slamming hand as I've been on a few occasions lately. He nailed me on the head with an oversized Etch-a-Sketch a few days ago. And then yesterday he cracked me on the nose with this little drum. This one actually left a bruise and completely laid me out -- to the point I was writhing on the ground and howling in pain and S came running in to see what was going on. This morning as I was watching The Ultimate Fighter finale, I had a new-found respect for the participants and the punishment they can withstand. I got TKOed by a 20-lb. toddler, after all. (To be fair, his toy drum is made of some pretty hard plastic and gravity was on his side**.)
Anyway, we're back from the trip down south. It was great. The only downside is that we only got one night to spend with S's extended family. Everybody came in Thursday, and we left Friday. Initially we thought people were coming in Wednesday, but they waited until Thanksgiving Day to avoid some of the travel traffic. Probably a smart move, although I feel like Thanksgiving traffic is creeping to the entire weekend. Everybody knows that Wednesday and Sunday are awful travel days, so more and more people are traveling on the other days, causing them to get congested too. We drove home yesterday and the last 90 miles was pretty much stop-and-go the entire way, and it was 2:00 pm on a Saturday.
Travel always sucks, but it's worth it. Hanging out with S's family is always nice. She has two little cousins*** ages 4 and 9, who came up with their parents from Florida. They're both super cute, and they always want to spend time and play with me, which makes me feel all warm inside. I have good mojo with kids that age. They're still young enough to think all my corny jokes and tricks (which are just my dad's old corny jokes and tricks -- "Hey, kids, watch me take my finger off!") are cool. The older one is also into word and math games, and as you might know, those happen to be specialties of mine. I played a lot of hangman this weekend. The littler one just writes down whatever letters you say in a row -- that's her way of playing. The older one can play a legit game, but occasionally there will be a stray empty space, or two spaces will somehow merge into one as the game goes on, and sometimes you might have to guess a letter a few times to get it to show up. It's cute.
After we left SC, we stopped in Cary, NC to visit our friends and also to break the drive home up into two legs instead of one. (We flew down, and we're borrowing S's parents' car for a while, so we drove back.) It was nice to see them. They're a bit older than us, and they have two daughters, 13 and 11. It's remarkable how much worse I am at interacting with kids of that age than little kids. I think my kid mojo stops when the kids hit double digits. I had nothing to say. ("So ... How do you like attending whatever school it is that you attend in whatever grade it is that you are currently in?") When I did say something I got a confused look or a one-word answer in response. And it's not like these girls are rude or antisocial or anything like that; on the contrary they're incredibly polite and sweet. I just don't know how to relate to tweens -- especially female tweens. (Judging by the posters on their bedroom walls I should've studied up some sort of band of boys called One Direction.) Maybe I should work on this a little bit. I'll start by putting out a request on social media: 36-year old man seeks girls between the ages of 10-15 to hang out with. I can't think of anything that could go wrong with that plan.
Actually, the real issue, I do believe, is that kids that age -- even the nice ones -- don't want to hang out and converse with adults. I certainly didn't. I remember being 13 very well, more so than any other age from my childhood for some reason. The year was 1990-1991. I was in middle school, 7th grade. It was the last year of recess and the first year I wore deodorant. Culturally, Vanilla Ice was waxing chumps like a candle and things were heating up in Iraq for the first time, leading to the now forgotten collaborative tribute song Voices that Care.
Because I got kicked out of band for sucking at the saxophone so badly, I was in choir, and we had to sing this song in front of the older junior high kids. I really wanted to do the little Fresh Price rap solo, but our band teacher chose the only black kid in our class to do it instead, even though he a) didn't really want to do it, b) fucked it up every time, including during the performance. If you listen, the Fresh Prince comes in during the lyric, "To make the wrong things right." And he delivers the line, "Right or wrong, we're all praying you remain strong / That's why we're all here and singing along". He times his initial 'right' so that it overlaps with the terminal 'right' in the previous line. But the kid in my class would always wait until after the line before he started. So instead of hearing one layered 'right' like in the actual song, the audience would hear "... wrong things right. [Brief pause] Right or wrong ... " It drove me crazy, because I knew I could better. I just never got the chance to prove it.
Anyway, seeing our friends was good. They had a little party in honor of us coming to visit, which was fun, but in retrospect it didn't really make much sense. For one thing, parties in a new environment aren't super great for the sleep schedules of 15-month olds. For another, it's difficult to have a conversation with the hosts of a party, because they're busying hosting. We were only in town one night, so we didn't get much chance to catch up properly. In fact, the next morning one of our friends even said something like, "Yeah, I guess we forgot that parties aren't super fun for new parents." But whatever. Still a good time.
So, I'm just about to wrap things up, but before I do, I just wanted to say that I successfully avoided shopping over the holiday weekend. It wasn't hard, because I hate shopping and try to avoid it every weekend. Thank you. Thank you.
Until next time ...
* I would probably say this, unless I'm around certain friends who get really offended anytime you suggest that maybe, possibly, on the whole, there might be biological behavioral differences between little boys and little girls. In which case I wouldn't say it, because it's not an argument I like having.
** 32 feet-per-second-per-second -- that's the acceleration of gravity. Still remember that from freshman physics. That's 9.8 m/s^2, if you prefer SI units.
*** They are her cousins once-removed if you want to get technical about it.
I know most little kids are adventurous in this way. Some would say little boys in particular.* But I think Lil' S is exceptionally bad. I don't remember my other friends and family with little boys having this much difficulty preventing their kids from maiming themselves. Lil' S just wanders around looking for something he can get on or in. As soon as he gets to an object -- table, chair, ottoman, clothes basket, gate, what have you -- one little leg goes up in the air to probe for a foothold. If he finds one, he tries to use it, no matter how precarious it is. And he's fast. One moment he's on the floor playing with Legos; the next, he's climbed onto an air mattress and then onto a TV stand, and he's rocking the TV back and forth. Kinda like this.
At first I thought it was cute, and I took some pride in the fact that my kid was so mobile at a young age, but now I just want him to chill a bit. It's impossible to keep a set of eyes on him every waking second, and it feels like that's what we have to do now. He really needs to develop some common sense or some "landing" coordination soon. (And being that he's a male, the former is probably too much to hope for.)
He's also gotten really into slamming his toys, which is especially unfortunate if you happen to be in range of his slamming hand as I've been on a few occasions lately. He nailed me on the head with an oversized Etch-a-Sketch a few days ago. And then yesterday he cracked me on the nose with this little drum. This one actually left a bruise and completely laid me out -- to the point I was writhing on the ground and howling in pain and S came running in to see what was going on. This morning as I was watching The Ultimate Fighter finale, I had a new-found respect for the participants and the punishment they can withstand. I got TKOed by a 20-lb. toddler, after all. (To be fair, his toy drum is made of some pretty hard plastic and gravity was on his side**.)
Anyway, we're back from the trip down south. It was great. The only downside is that we only got one night to spend with S's extended family. Everybody came in Thursday, and we left Friday. Initially we thought people were coming in Wednesday, but they waited until Thanksgiving Day to avoid some of the travel traffic. Probably a smart move, although I feel like Thanksgiving traffic is creeping to the entire weekend. Everybody knows that Wednesday and Sunday are awful travel days, so more and more people are traveling on the other days, causing them to get congested too. We drove home yesterday and the last 90 miles was pretty much stop-and-go the entire way, and it was 2:00 pm on a Saturday.
Travel always sucks, but it's worth it. Hanging out with S's family is always nice. She has two little cousins*** ages 4 and 9, who came up with their parents from Florida. They're both super cute, and they always want to spend time and play with me, which makes me feel all warm inside. I have good mojo with kids that age. They're still young enough to think all my corny jokes and tricks (which are just my dad's old corny jokes and tricks -- "Hey, kids, watch me take my finger off!") are cool. The older one is also into word and math games, and as you might know, those happen to be specialties of mine. I played a lot of hangman this weekend. The littler one just writes down whatever letters you say in a row -- that's her way of playing. The older one can play a legit game, but occasionally there will be a stray empty space, or two spaces will somehow merge into one as the game goes on, and sometimes you might have to guess a letter a few times to get it to show up. It's cute.
After we left SC, we stopped in Cary, NC to visit our friends and also to break the drive home up into two legs instead of one. (We flew down, and we're borrowing S's parents' car for a while, so we drove back.) It was nice to see them. They're a bit older than us, and they have two daughters, 13 and 11. It's remarkable how much worse I am at interacting with kids of that age than little kids. I think my kid mojo stops when the kids hit double digits. I had nothing to say. ("So ... How do you like attending whatever school it is that you attend in whatever grade it is that you are currently in?") When I did say something I got a confused look or a one-word answer in response. And it's not like these girls are rude or antisocial or anything like that; on the contrary they're incredibly polite and sweet. I just don't know how to relate to tweens -- especially female tweens. (Judging by the posters on their bedroom walls I should've studied up some sort of band of boys called One Direction.) Maybe I should work on this a little bit. I'll start by putting out a request on social media: 36-year old man seeks girls between the ages of 10-15 to hang out with. I can't think of anything that could go wrong with that plan.
Actually, the real issue, I do believe, is that kids that age -- even the nice ones -- don't want to hang out and converse with adults. I certainly didn't. I remember being 13 very well, more so than any other age from my childhood for some reason. The year was 1990-1991. I was in middle school, 7th grade. It was the last year of recess and the first year I wore deodorant. Culturally, Vanilla Ice was waxing chumps like a candle and things were heating up in Iraq for the first time, leading to the now forgotten collaborative tribute song Voices that Care.
Because I got kicked out of band for sucking at the saxophone so badly, I was in choir, and we had to sing this song in front of the older junior high kids. I really wanted to do the little Fresh Price rap solo, but our band teacher chose the only black kid in our class to do it instead, even though he a) didn't really want to do it, b) fucked it up every time, including during the performance. If you listen, the Fresh Prince comes in during the lyric, "To make the wrong things right." And he delivers the line, "Right or wrong, we're all praying you remain strong / That's why we're all here and singing along". He times his initial 'right' so that it overlaps with the terminal 'right' in the previous line. But the kid in my class would always wait until after the line before he started. So instead of hearing one layered 'right' like in the actual song, the audience would hear "... wrong things right. [Brief pause] Right or wrong ... " It drove me crazy, because I knew I could better. I just never got the chance to prove it.
Anyway, seeing our friends was good. They had a little party in honor of us coming to visit, which was fun, but in retrospect it didn't really make much sense. For one thing, parties in a new environment aren't super great for the sleep schedules of 15-month olds. For another, it's difficult to have a conversation with the hosts of a party, because they're busying hosting. We were only in town one night, so we didn't get much chance to catch up properly. In fact, the next morning one of our friends even said something like, "Yeah, I guess we forgot that parties aren't super fun for new parents." But whatever. Still a good time.
So, I'm just about to wrap things up, but before I do, I just wanted to say that I successfully avoided shopping over the holiday weekend. It wasn't hard, because I hate shopping and try to avoid it every weekend. Thank you. Thank you.
Until next time ...
* I would probably say this, unless I'm around certain friends who get really offended anytime you suggest that maybe, possibly, on the whole, there might be biological behavioral differences between little boys and little girls. In which case I wouldn't say it, because it's not an argument I like having.
** 32 feet-per-second-per-second -- that's the acceleration of gravity. Still remember that from freshman physics. That's 9.8 m/s^2, if you prefer SI units.
*** They are her cousins once-removed if you want to get technical about it.
Lil S does seem to be more accident prone than the average toddler. As you know my boys active, but so far (fingers crossed) at the ages of 5 and 8 the only ER trips have been illness related. The energy level is overwhelming though. I find myself saying things like "please face front when you go down the stairs" and "let's see if you can walk two feet without pretending you are sliding into home plate" and "please stand still because trying to talk to you while you run around me in circles is making me dizzy," and "that's the last flip over Grandma's couch, I mean it!" Exhausting.
ReplyDeleteBut I remember you are a kid and you are in for it...
Oh wait, there was a choking incident that warranted an ER trip. Turned out to be a penny. A few days later he swallowed a dime. We stayed home that time.
ReplyDeleteYeah, nothing choking related for Lil' S, which is good as that scares me much more than a bonked head. He does shove an ungodly amount of food into his mouth at once (and then it sits in his mouth like a chaw), but I think that's common to most little kids. I definitely remember your boys doing that.
ReplyDelete