Parachuting

“Daddy, it's a great day to practice parachuting.”

You'd be surprised how such an innocent phrase can destroy a relaxing afternoon. I was sitting on our porch, enjoying the breeze and sun. Ever since I'd built the deck a couple of summers ago, my wife and I have enjoyed coffee in the morning or just taking a break to listen to the birds and the leaves rustle in the wind.

That's what I was doing this afternoon when my son and daughter came trooping out of the house with Wal-mart plastic bags on their shoulders. Now, I know they'd been planning somthing because both were far too happy. Usually when I catch them actively working together, they'll sheepishly admit to whatever bone breaking activity they've decided.

My son's proud declaration, without any prompting from me, left little doubt that we had a trip to the emergency room scheduled soon. Knowing him, and my daughter, it wouldn't be him with the cast(s) on tomorrow.

“Yes! We going parachuting!” His sister chimed in, clearly cutting off any objections I might raise, further proving that this was a grassroots uprising. She even added a little sass to those tiny hips as she sashayed after her brother. “Dear!” I called as I watched them clomp down the steps from the deck.

Last year, I'd finished chopping up the tree that had fallen across the yard, so they couldn't climb up on that to jump off. (Although there had been some really great places to climb, the tree had fallen directly across my hammock. It'd torn the straps loose and left the hammock itself relatively undamaged. Once I'd cut and split the tree past the hammock, my son and I dug it out from under the sawdust and branches. At first glance, it looked doubtful. But we stretched the hammock out, untangled the tangles and saw that it was savable. We just needed new straps to tie it to the tree. (The tree that fell took an evergreen tree, my hammock and at least of hundred feet of smaller trees and bushes, but didn't even graze the two trees holding the hammock, a sure sign that the hammock gods were watching over me.) But, being the careful planner that I am ( Stop snickering, that is just rude) I didn't automatically grab the duct tape. (All right, I did. But I stopped before I'd used the whole roll to secure the hammock. My daughter was standing there, hope and pride radiating from her blue eyes. She wanted her turn to rock with me in the hammock. I'll trust my life to duct tape anytime, but not hers.) I found the heavy duty straps that, according to the directions, were capable of securing the space shuttle. Several wraps around each tree and in the hooks on the hammock and we were back in business. I carefully slid in while my kids watched, each holding their breath for the swing test. The backwards somersault I did when the strap gave loose didn't knock the air out of my lungs. It was the sudden stop as I hit the wood pile that did that. My daughter rushed to make sure I was all right. I could just make out my son's giggling as she made sure I was alive. (He has a lot of ground to make up to get back in the will.))

“Your children are going to kill themselves!” I called from my seat on the deck.

“So?”

“Shouldn't one of us stop them?”

“I'm cooking dinner.” In the game of life, apparently “cooking dinner” trumps “sitting on the porch relaxing”.

My kids came trooping back across the porch, the parachutes still on their shoulders. But this time, they each had a stuffed animal outfitted with a parachute. Neither of them met my gaze as they walked by, but I could feel the panic radiating from the stuffed animals.

There was a fairly good chance that the stuffed animals would test the parachutes first... I relaxed for a few more minutes.

“Hey! I have an idea,” levitated me from the chair as my daughter disappeared around the corner. Her “ideas” while usually mechanically sound rarely take into full account the limitations of the human body.

“Daddy, we're just playing.” My son managed to sound persecuted as I ran up.

I could have used logic and explained that their body mass was more than the plastic of the wal-mart bags could slow, especially over a short distance. But that would have gotten me a blank stare until the short distance, then his sister would have figured out a way to get up on the roof just to prove me wrong.

Instead I fell back on parental rules. “No playing on the stairs, the deck, the roof, the kitchen table, the kitchen counter...(By the time I'd finished all the items they could climb on, by any stretch of the imagination, they'd both lost interest in the game and wandered off to find something else to do.) (that is one good thing about children. You learn to think again. Don't run with scissors makes sense to adults, but to a kid, it is full of loopholes. Don't run, don't walk really quickly, don't skip, don't jump, don't race, don't jump off the couch onto all the cushions, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals with scissors. Because I said so!)

Green Eggs and Ham

“Sam I am!” My daughter, at 3 has learned the final line by heart and knows most of the rest by now. I usually try to give my wife a break after dinner and read our children their bedtime stories.

When our son was born, I did the nighttime routine with him (except for the bath. I didn’t have the required doctorate in Babies and Water, so I wasn’t allowed near the bathroom during that time. However, the one night our son had a high fever I was the one that got to sit in the cold bathtub with him while my wife called the doctor, emergency room, her mother and Dr. Sears.) That meant swaddling and giving him his nighttime bottle. This was our bonding time.

Eventually the bottle changed to a cup of milk and crackers while I read him two stories. It had to be two stories, not one long book or three short books—two! Anything else and his little world was thrown into chaos. Now, you might be thinking that is a sign of future problems. Both sets of grandparents thought the same thing and delicately brought up that he needed to be evaluated. But this is my son. While he can be a little OCD about his Hot Wheels cars, the two books, when you add in my wife’s genes and mine, made perfect sense.

One book meant he was going to bed too early, because two is obviously more than one. But… he knew if he pushed it to three, he was skating on thin ice, especially after I’d had a bad day at work. So two was safe, and if he picked out thick ones, he could push the limit even further.

When our daughter graced us with her presence, I did her nighttime routine also. We moved from Washington, DC to Pennsylvania shortly after she was born. My daughter and I spent many a relaxing evening next to the fire, watching TV while she had her bottle(s). At least that was the plan. Usually, she’d wake up halfway through the bottle and decide that her tiny fingers needed to see how pliable my eyes were.

We had a nice routine for a while. Both the children would take their baths/showers then I’d separate my daughter from the pile of energy that raced around the house, wrestle her into her pajamas (I only made the mistake of telling her one time that she was getting her brother’s old pajamas. The, “They too big for me!” left no doubt what her opinion on the matter was.) and take her downstairs to rock. When she outgrew her bottle (an executive decision my wife and I made after she unscrewed the lid and poured the contents out) I decided it was time for her to join her brother during story time.

To make it fair, she picked one book and her brother picked another book. Since they are both adorers of Thomas the Train, we were guaranteed a book that took us to the isle of Sodor. The other book was usually a Dr. Seuss.

As a writer and teacher, I’ve always admired Dr. Seuss. He wrote books to help children learn through repetition of small recognizable words. And then managed to rhyme each sentence (no small feat but made somewhat easier by his knack of making up words.) As a father, who’d spent the day working on computers or teaching people and was drained, I’ve always carried an undying hatred for him. Getting my mouth to form those made up words and my eyes to focus on them in the early evening is a stretch. That is, until I found Green Eggs and Ham.

Pure and simple, this work should go down in history along side War and Peace. While it may not address the same social, economic and political issues that Tolstoy covered, it has saved my sanity. I know the words by heart and… every single word in the book is a… word! Fifty plus pages of rhymes with words that I knew.

After the first thirty or forty times of reading it, I sensed that my children were losing interest in the storyline. Now, I could have just let it go and moved on to another book, but I was still looking forward to our nightly reading. Our children are complete opposites when it comes to eating. Our daughter will eat anything (including strawberries dipped in mustard) and our son would make a picky eater jealous. So, thinking quick one night as both kids began wandering away when I reached for Green Eggs and Ham, I shouted, after the first refrain of, “I do not like Green eggs and Ham,” “Do you like green eggs and ham?” My daughter looked and me and shook her head, “No.” My son followed with “No!”

We had common ground now. I lead them both through the refrains, each time louder until the house shook with their screams of, “No, I do not like green eggs and ham!” (Yes, my wife also pointed out that getting them that riled up right before bed was not the brightest move I’ve made).

We finished with the revelation that green eggs and ham are good. I had no doubt my daughter would agree (remember the strawberries). I was shocked when my son answered, yes, he does like green eggs and ham. I was even more surprised when the next night at dinner, he did his normal balking at trying something new, until I brought up green eggs and ham. He tried the new dish. When I asked him how it was, he answered, “Not too terrible.”

Well… you can’t win all the time.