Cartoons

“Do not hit your brother with wood!”

Right off the bat, there are a couple things wrong with that statement.

Firstly, my wife knows that there is way more than just a piece of wood in the basement. By now, she should know not to limit my daughter's options. There's a doll house, a suitcase, motor cylce helmet and a large screen TV. All of those should have been included in the warning.

Normally, my wife saying something like this to our daughter would have gotten me moving, or at least starting to call 911. But, after a weekend of cats and chinchillas, I was in the midst of a Benadryl induced coma.

When I was growing up, we watched wholesome shows like Tom and Jerry and The Roadrunner. I know for a fact my mother never shouted at me not to hit my brother with wood. (She'd probably say something unrealistic like there was never enough delay for her to shout the warning. But since neither my brother nor I spent that much time in the emergency room, she obviously has a faulty memory.)

“I said not to HIT your brother with wood.”

There was defensive mumbling from the basement.

“I don't care who started it. Do Not Hit Your Brother With Wood!”

I have to admit, it was hard to hear my wife over the giggling. (Apparently, Benadryl gives me the giggles.)

Now, you may be wondering what awful TV show they were watching? What terrible cartoon was subverting their natural brother/sister love and turning them into such ruffians?

After several years of having Netflix, my wife had finally joined the new-fangle fad of streaming video. She was so proud of her discovery of how they had “hours” of movies and shows the kids would love. (My son had already found all the videos from my youth. Nothing quite beats macaroni and cheese and Koolade on a rainy Saturday with Voltron. We'd spent many car trips singing the theme songs to Spiderman (Yes, I googled it.) and Scooby Doo (The real Scooby Doo, not the water-down rehash out now.))

I learned a lesson with Netflix and movies. My son loved the first Transformers movie. When I saw that Netflix had, what I thought was, a prequel to the Transforms, my son and I sat down for a night of popcorn and wholesome mechanical violence. After the first five minutes of the movie, my son was white and curled up in a ball under a pillow and I was morally scared. After that, I check to make sure the program is kid-friendly.

So... back to the question, what horrible show had my children stumbled on? With the amount of Benadryl coursing through my system, I figured it would be a medical experiment to see if I was as susceptible to the obvious subliminal messages as them. I made my way down the stairs (this is harder than it sounds, especially when the stairs were warped (last I remembered they were straight) and kept changing their angle. (Benadryl, apparently, also distorts my spacial perceptions.))

All I can say is after watching ten minutes of the new My Little Pony, I hate Rainbow Daze and can totally sympathize with my daughter for wanting to hit something. We've since watched every episode and I know all the pony's names. That information has replaced important memories I will never get back. At least I still remember peaceful, quality TV like Tom and Jerry.

The Cure

“Gramps is not allowed in our house.”

This might sound like a rather harsh statement for my six-year old daughter to say, but she was not backing down. The “spot” on my lung turned out to be a spot on my rib. Apparently I'd broken it sometime in my past. Since I am well into middle-age now, (Going from “young and healthy” to “over forty and we need to run some tests” in one doctor's appointment ages you quickly.) I can't be expected to remember when this happened, but it probably had something to do with helping the insurgents cross war-torn Afghanistan. However, with age comes responsibility, so I followed up with my doctor who confirmed that there was nothing overly wrong with my lung. He also found why my shoulder and neck were “twitchy”.

The problem could be fixed with a local and 20 minutes under the knife. (In this case, knife meant “a chisel and hammer”. And local meant “you won't feel any pain, but you will feel everything else.”) So, an appointment was made for the next Saturday. There was just one problem... My daughter.

My daughter has a very deep and painful caring streak. Her view of of medicine is, “more is better”. (if she does become the doctor she is threatening, the pharmaceutical companies are going to LOVE her.) If one bandade would do the job, then my daughter will make sure that ten cover whatever real or imagined scratch you have. I've seen her dolls after a day of play and there is nothing sadder than seeing a stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog released from intensive care and only a few small patches of red showing through all the medical dressings.

“What happened to Clifford.”

“He got a scratch.”

“All those bandages for a scratch?” I shake my head.

“It was a bad one.” Then her medical attention would turn to me... “Daddy, you need a shot.”

So, I was torn, I could have the pain quickly and easily (Yeah, I took that with a grain of salt. Remember this the same profession that categorized explosive diarrhea as a “mild” side effect.) removed and then go home to the tender care of my daughter... Or I could live with the pain for the rest of my life, or until my daughter turned eighteen. In the end, my wife convinced me to have the “procedure”.

My daughter, in her most medically sincere voice, told me she would take care of me. (This was right after she jumped on shoulder. Apparently the tears were enough for her to ask if that was my bad shoulder...) That's when I had a brainstorm (or a stroke).

“I hope you do a better job than Mommy and Gramps did last time.” (This got her competitive streak up.)

“What did Gramps do?” There was a hint of disappointed suspicion in her voice.

“Well, last time, Gramps and Mommy were taking care of me. I couldn't bend my knees and I had socks on. Well, you know how slippery the floor in the kitchen is?”

“Oh yes!” She jumped off my lap, using my shoulder for leverage, and proceeded to demonstrate how well she can slide.

Once the tears cleared, she was back in my lap for the rest of the story. “Well, I had to go to the bathroom, and Mommy and Gramps wanted to help me get up. Except, my feet slipped on the floor and they dropped me!” (Well, drop may be a bit of an exaggeration... It was more, my socks started to slip on the hardwood floor, and rather than react in a medically safe and prudent manner, both let go. The icing on the cake was when my wife started to laugh and then my dad followed suit.)

One of the coolest things about children is their frame of reference. They haven't become inured to things yet.

My daughter listened to the story, then stood up, her tiny fists on her hips. “That Gramps! He dropped you! I'm not letting him anywhere near you.”

“But, he's going to want to get ice for my shoulder,” I warned her.

“I'll get your ice!”

“But what if he wants to see how I'm doing?”

“I'll keep him away from you, daddy.”

Mission accomplished.

Now, you might be wondering, how could I sell out my dad so easily? Well, the story I told my daughter is true. Both my wife and my dad defended their actions by saying they'd been up hours and were exhausted. I can see how sitting and drinking coffee while I had my kneecap removed and re-adjusted and bones chopped out of my knees can be an exhausting experience. Now, I only have a week to figure out how to keep my loving, caring and supportive wife as far away as possible. I'm going to check out the finer points of restraining orders...

An Old Sport's Injury

When I was in college, my best friend and I would play racketball on the weekends. Neither of us was great, but we didn't let that impede how hard we played. I remember one weekend. It might have been the after-effects of alchohol, or maybe too much studying (yeah... I don't buy that either, but had to include it to protect what little reputation I have left. Also, when I become famouse and historians review these articles, lines like that may cast enough doubt on what I actually did...) but we were showing off our “kill shots” (the serves that cannot be returned. They require a great deal of skill, timing and power. Or in our case, luck) (yeah, there were girls working out in the gym too, but I highly doubt that crossed our mind.)

We both went for the racketball at the same time. I hit the ball and it was a beautiful shot. My best friend hit my thumb and it was also a beautiful shot.

That's the only sports injury that I can really remember. It's not even a good one, because it doesn't bother me on cold and rainy days.

I started thinking about this recently when I woke up one morning and my big toe was having issues. After work, those issues had grown into a full blow “I'm-never-walking-again-so-just-put-me-out-of-misery” tenderness...

This all happened at Thanksgiving and we were travelling to both sets of grandparents. That meant at least five hundred years of combined medical experience. The only problem when you combine that many years of folk-lorish medical knowledge amoung 5 people (my parents, my wife's parents and my wife's grandmother) the results are always elderly afflications. The suggestions as to the cause of my limp ranged from:

“Fallen arches.”

“Eh? What did he say?”

“You need to wear a truss.”

“Arthritis?”

“Eh? What did he say?”

“What happened to your foot?”

“I can't find my dentures.”

However, it was my own mother that showed a complete lack of compassion in a single email. She had the nerve to suggest it was gout. When I looked it up, I saw “it affects middle-aged men”. At 44, I am NOT middle-aged. Oh, there are days I feel old, but not middle-aged. The side effect to the email was my wife was off on a new witch hunt. Not only does middle-age cause gout, but apparently there's something about diet being important. By the day after Thanksgiving, I had a new diet planned out for me. (This is another affliction of middle-age, planned diet. The next step to old-age... one of those pill boxes with each day of the week)

Face with the horror of bran three times a day, I took my health into my own hands and went to the doctor and got x-rays. It turns out I was right and I'm not middle-aged. It was a stress facture. I guess, when I played dek hockey with my son's team, in addition to the bruised ankles and ego, I fracture my toe.

So, the past two weeks, my wife and I have been constantly warning our children and dogs not to jump on me and watch my toe. “Daddy hurt his toe,” is the common refrain.

“What did you do to your toe?” My daughter asked, concern lacing her voice.

“Put my cane back.”

“But it's my horsey.”

“No, I need it to walk.”

“Why?”

“I hurt my toe.”

“What did you do to your toe?”

“Put my cane back!”

“But it's my horsey.”...

What does this have to do with sport's injuries? Well, now I finally have an excuse for disappointing my children as well as people that irritate me. While, technically, it's not an “old sports injury”, my toe is old, dek hockey is both a sport and form of medieval combat, and a stress fracture is an injury.

When ever I need an excuse or that day after the huge snow storm, I can now cite my “old sports injury.”

Paintball

“So, daddy, do you think you maybe shouldn’t have gone to play with those kids?” My son asked, in a tone I’m sure his mother had been teaching him the previous five hours. The subject was raised by the state of my pants and my limp as we walked across the parking lot from the ice cream shop.

It had started very innocently four weeks ago. One of the kids (anyone closer to my son’s age than mine I guess is categorized as a kid now. I’m not sure when that happened. When your own son thinks a twenty-one year-old is a kid compared to you, it’s probably best not to think too hard about it. Instead, I added a few more pictures to the photo album I will show his first girlfriend.) invited me to play paintball. He and his friends were going for his twenty-first birthday.

Now, you might be thinking someone of my advanced age would be too old to play paintball. If so, you don’t need to tell me. My wife did, her mother did and so did several friends. I think I even got some spam about being too old, but I don’t read so well without my bifocals now. Another point that was raised is the well-publicized fact that it hurts when those little balls hit you.

When you’ve been hit in the crotch by a thirty-five pound missile yelling, “Daddy!” when she sees you, a paint ball doesn’t seem so intimidating. Add in two consecutive kids with springs in their legs and impeccable timing. You’d think I’d catch on the first time my son bounced straight up into my chin; or my nose, or my mouth, or my eye.

So, even with all the well-intentioned bashing of my failing health do to my age, I thought it’d be fun and asked my wife if I could go out and play with the other kids. With permission in hand, I RSVPed.

Being the senior citizen among this group, and twice the age of the guest of honor, I’ve started to feel my age. Maybe my step has a little less pep now than it did ten years ago. But damn it, I am not old. (It’s true, if you repeat a lie enough times you start to believe it.)

I put my orthopedic shoes on, trimmed my beard so the gray wasn’t as noticeable and got dressed for a fun afternoon of paintball last Sunday. I left the house with my travel mug of coffee. (I know it wasn’t that long ago that I had the conversation with my wife. “Why do your parents and my dad always have to have coffee when they go anywhere. If it’s midnight, we have to wait for them to find their travel mug, (always look in the car first) fill it, then creep out to the car." They never drank it, but they had to have it.)

Before I go any further, I should say there was one person that was supportive of my endeavor. My wife’s brother remarked that I should do well, since paintball requires cunning. I’m sure he didn’t mean that since I was old, it was a good thing I still had some of my senses left and would hopefully use them instead of trying to keep up with the kids.

There’s a paintball place right next to our house. It’s a huge building and there’s a field (notice the word field. Meaning, flat, open space, often with the complete absence of hills of any kind) right next to it. This is what I expected. I didn’t expect the overgrown trail that led into the Western Pennsylvania Jungle.

We were armed and given a bag of paint balls. After I picked up the ones I dropped, (Ok, you try and pour a stream of marbles into a small hole when your fingers are cold) I got loaded up and we were off. The course was, for lack of a better word, vertical. I’m pretty sure I saw mountain goats laughing at us as our team followed the path to our fort.

The objective was simple. Find the other team’s fort, capture their flag and bring it back to our fort. Whoever accomplished this; won. Then I realized what I’d gotten myself into. Someone actually asked, “Who wants to charge the other fort?”

Believe it or not, several people volunteered. I wasn’t one of them. I was looking for a comfortable place to sit, where I could watch and shoot the other team. The ideal place would have a table and a cup of coffee.

Our team won the first game. Our chargers had them pinned down and no one made it to our fort. After waiting for several minutes, I went to check it out. Apparently, a limp and muttered swearing at each rock you stumble over is the perfect camouflage for humans. I made it to a place right above their fort without anyone seeing me. From there, I was able to pick off the last of their defenders.

We played for five hours. I ended up covered in mud. I still have the bruise on my thigh and bubble on my knee from where I was hit. I’m sure I have several other bruises, but hopefully the overall pain will keep them masked until they heal.

On the way home, I lifted my travel mug, full of luke-warm coffee in a toast--I’d kept up with the kids. Next time, I’ll suggest we play on a Saturday, so I have a full day to recover. As I drove home, wincing at each bump, I drank my coffee. I may be old, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to not drink the coffee. Hopefully I’ll remember where my mug is tomorrow…

The $%$#$*&$ Threes

I’d heard about the Terrible Twos and survived both kids going through them. (And in case you wondering, the kids survived too.) Our son skipped that stage and lulled us into a false sense of confidence. I’ve come up with a groundbreaking thesis that the Terrible Twos is not based on age, but is genetically triggered. I’m sure that once this gets out, I’ll have several government grants to study it further. Until then, I’ll continue my practice of not letting facts and details influence my opinion.

You may be wondering why I say the Terrible Twos is genetically triggered. Look at how many families have more than one child. In our case, my wife and I had that fateful discussion one day. We saw how well behaved our son was. After the horror stories we’d heard and read about (Look at how many books Mr. Spock has written. If there wasn’t something terribly wrong with children as a species, I don’t think he would have sold nearly as many books, even with the help of Star Trek fame.) we understood that our genes (at least mine) needed to be passed along even more. He was well past his two-year mark and he wasn’t having the hourly temper tantrums. I hadn’t noticed his head spinning around at odd hours or him speaking in demonic voices. Yes, he was The Ideal Child, the one that mankind had been waiting for.

So, my wife said those fateful words one day…”Let’s have another.” Being a male, I naturally agreed.

Now that I look back, I don’t have any definite proof, but I’m positive that at the moment of conception, my son entered the Terrible Twos. Our innocent angel became the little monster I’d read about. This proves my point. If he’d entered the Terrible Twos when he turned two, like everyone warned us about, we would never have considered another ticking time bomb.

Now, you may be wondering how I survived my wife being pregnant and my son feeling his oats. Well, I’m sure you’d get the same answer from the people that run the lunatic asylum. Once you are used to dealing with one whacko, adding another isn’t too bad. Luckily for our sanity, shortly after our daughter was born, we decided to sell our house in Virginia and move to Pennsylvania.

The whole process, deciding to move, getting the house in order, packing, moving and unpacking took a little over six months. This is important because it was right after my son turned three. So while, again, we’d had the warning about the stages following the Terrible Twos, he had so many things going on that he never really settled into a “stage” after two.

This is important because this past weekend, my daughter came down with, this is in no way an exaggeration, The Plague from Hell. In three years, she’d never had a problem taking any kind of medicine. (For that matter, food and drink is her favorite past time. This is the same girl that brazenly dips fresh strawberries in mustard and honestly declares the combination is delicious. My son, on the other hand, makes a picky eater look like a glutton.) I was not concerned when it came time for bed. We had cough medicine for her and I knew she’d take it and sleep through the night. So, while my wife fretted and fussed, I was my normal calm and collected self.

I got her in her PJs and ready for bed while my wife hovered, sure that her daughter was in mortal danger and of coughing up a lung. Once she was ready for bed, I carefully measure out the proper dose of cough syrup. My daughter looked up at me with watery eyes, the bags making them soulful. “Do you want some medicine?” I asked

She gave a weak nod, probably using the last reserves of her energy. (She learned how to milk being sick from me.) I handed her the little container and told her to shoot it. I even had a cup of apple juice ready to wash the taste out of her mouth.

Now, this is nothing new. Whenever she takes medicine, I tell her to shoot it, she downs it in one swallow and we’re done. Why would this night be any different? Because she’s my daughter, that’s why.

She drank the cough syrup and then promptly spit it and dinner up. At least the cold hadn’t affected her appetite earlier…

What does this have to do with her being three? I spent the weekend up every couple of hours as she woke up coughing and crying. She was a pathetic sight, laying in her bed, her stuffed animals, dolls, books and whatever else a little girl needs, surrounding her, while she sniffled and cried. I tried more cough medicine, but the answer was always the same, “Too yucky.”

How did we survive? Purple. Some genius made a purple cough syrup and she reluctantly agreed that her favorite color would not let her down. Sunday night, she slept through the night without waking up. Unfortunately, I now had her cold…

Imagination

Lately, my daughter has developed a terrible affliction. She’ll be walking across the room and suddenly stop and look at me. “I stuck,” she’ll declare. Both hands will reach out for me, a desperate look in her eyes. “Pull me,” she’ll plead when I take her hands. Somehow, her foot will become unstuck. (I don’t know why, but it is always her left foot. I know it’s serious because she does this even when it’s not time for bed or some odious chore.) She’ll look back and in her best three-year old disgusted voice say, “There mud there.”

I find this interesting for several reasons. A: I’m pretty sure we don’t have patches of mud throughout the house. Second: I know I didn’t have that active an imagination when I was her age. Up until five, I lived in the inner city of Akron. My fondest memory is the neighborhood bully, on his tricycle, chasing me to kindergarten. I’m not sure, but everyone calling him Pukie might have led to his anger issues. On those lazy summer afternoons when we played with our friends, the game of choice was “whip your mamma.” (The “it” person had a stick or branch. If you were on the ground, you were fair game. That’s how I learned to climb trees. Face it, when a five-year old, tricycle-riding bully terrorizes the neighborhood, chances are, a tea party is not going to be the game of choice.)

But now, my kids amaze me with their creativity. I’m pretty sure the creativity doesn’t come from just the six-year old. Any unclaimed chair, box, crate or container is destined to become part of their newest train. (I think the last one started in the dining room, went through the living room and stretched to our family room. The length is important because, this time, they managed to block the front door, the stairs to the second floor, three doorways and a bathroom.)

The length also allowed them to seat almost all of my daughter’s dolls and stuffed animals. I know this because when it was bedtime, my daughter’s bed was empty. Usually I can barely see her peeking out from under the dolls and stuffed animals. (Yes, both grandmothers miss my subtle hints. “It’s a good thing we already have every stuffed animal ever made. I wouldn’t want either kid to feel underprivileged.” For some reason, they always come home with more fluffy lumps of animal-like dolls.)

Back to the bedtime. There’s PJ (her first doll that is still almost bigger than her), Baby (I don’t know why she picked that name either.), Pink Pony (the newest member of the collection, this time from my wife.) (She doesn’t listen to me either.) and Purple Monkey (Ok, this one is actually pretty cool. It has long arms with Velcro on the hands.). These were her usual companions when it came time for bed. This night, when she was sick, she looked up at me, her friends adding support and whispered, “Kayla. I need Kayla.”

She and her brother had raided every single doll and animal from both their rooms. I was vaguely aware that there was a doll called Kayla. (I think that is one of the babies at her preschool.) But, I’d given it my fatherly attention and had absolutely no idea which one it was. But, from the look in her eyes, I knew she and, more importantly, I would get no sleep until Kayla had been found.

So, it was back downstairs to the train. I grabbed two dolls that looked familiar, reasoning that if I recognized them, that meant she’d carried them around enough for me to notice and there was a good chance one was Kayla. “That not Kayla.” I was told as I put the first down. Well, it was a fifty/fifty shot. I honestly didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get it right the first time. “That not Kayla!” she announced at the second. I kept the mumbling under my breath and censored (see the article on self-editing) and headed back to the train. This time, I brought up as many dolls as I could carry.

Each shake of her head sent my hopes plummeting further. I was getting tired of going up and down the stairs. However, when her eyes lit up and she reached with a shout of, “Kayla!” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Tank you, daddy, for saving Kayla.” She smiled and snuggled up with her dolls and animals. I dumped the remaining armload of unnamed dolls on the foot of her bed and beat a hasty retreat.

With the rampant imagination, you’d think I’d be right at home. But… I’m not allowed to play. Thinking I’d turn the tables and get her to pull me along, one day I stopped and told her I was stuck. I got a very stern look and, “Daddy, there no mud there.” She didn’t even look back as she wandered off to torment her brother. (The tormenting she gets from me. The driving me crazy she gets from her mother.)