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12.31.2010

New Years CAN come more than once a year

How do you keep a 5 year old up until midnight on New Years eve?

It's simple. We turned the clocks back so we counted down to 12 at nine pm. Tio and Kit were in on the deal so we all counted down at 8:59. 10...9...8...7 right down to 1 with Doc leading the charge. He was so excited to get to stay up until the new year and then Buddy read him goodnight stories and the rest of us can stay up until the ball drops.

Happy new year everyone from all of us at Tricorn Acres.

12.30.2010

Am I That Out Of Touch?

Tio spent the afternoon at his girlfriend’s house. They went bowling and skating with a couple of other friends. He texted me around six asking if he could sleep over. I said no way and he sent a text asking me to call her mother to assure me it was okay. That caught me off guard and I’m not easily surprised. First, because why would this girl’s mother even consider it and second, wouldn’t the kids have any more sense than to ask?

Am I out of touch here? Did something profoundly change, in the past thirty years while I was all grown up, where adolescent boys and girls don’t need limits set with each other? Tish shook her head in disbelief at the idea and when Buddy came home and heard it his face contorted with complete incredulous surprise. So what kind of mother allows boys to stay over with their twelve year old daughters? Apparently, a girl friend of hers and her boyfriend were going to be there the night, too. So that makes three sets of parents that are okay with the idea.

Are we talking about complete parental ignorance, people who just don’t care, or parents who set absolutely no limits for their children? Or am I missing something else?

12.29.2010

The Bonds Of Shared Experience

We drove over an hour to the mall today, the boys and I. Kit and Doc had never been to a mall before and seeing all those stores indoors, with a merry-go-round and food court, was an overload especially for Doc. Tio wanted to buy clothes and Kit was set on a single ear piercing. But when we got to the jewelers, he was having doubts. He wanted it bad, just wasn’t sure about “having it done”.

He backed away from the hole punch, but didn't call it off either. The man behind the weapon was very kind and walked us through it explaining that it would only feel like a pinch and wouldn’t last, etc.. Kit was getting in a real panic, caught between real fear and genuine desire. I said we should just forget it. That made him wail louder.

POW! The stapler zapped his ear and left a pretty gold stud with a blue stone in it’s place. The poor boy was distraught and elated all at once. He’d survived to tell the tale and he had what he’d always wanted planted in his ear. Tio, who’d been watching and goading the whole time, paid him the highest compliment I’ve ever heard him utter to his younger brother, “You got balls. I’ll give you that.” Later on he even shook Kit’s hands still impressed that he actually went through with it. It was a bonding moment between them.

Near the end of the day, Doc decided to run off and hide in a huge electronics store. Fortunately, I had both other boys on all eyes duty so he was never out of anyone’s sight for more than a few seconds. Tio ran after him and I headed him off before he got far. I grabbed his shirt front and pulled him up so short and fast that it rattled his five year old brains. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever, run off from me in public. Do you understand! You will never play hide and seek or think its fun to get chased around in a public place. If you do it again I will leave you at home for all time and never take you on a trip again. Do you UNDERSTAND?” The words shot out between my clenched angry teeth accompanied by narrowed eyes and a hard fistful of shirt balled up under his quavering chin. A gulping nod, bulging frightened eyes, and completely limp arms and legs told me the point had been made. Losing one of them in a strange place was the one terror that lives at the bottom of my guts and I told him that my fierceness about this was fear for his safety. It didn’t matter if he didn’t understand that last point as long as he knew Grampy showed more anger at this than anything else he’d seen before.

We walked quietly down the aisle and met up with Tio. “Did Grampy grab you by the shirt and shake you, Doc?” he asked with a grin. “Welcome to the club. I remember when he did that to me. I think we were in a bookstore. I never did it again.”

Back in the CD department we caught up with Kit. Tio told him what happened. “Did Grampy shake you by the shirt?” Kit asked knowingly and demonstrated exactly what I’d done on his own shirt. “I ran off in the grocery store and hid. When I jumped out, he gave it to me. I think I was five.”

“Me, too.” Tio said and they both exchanged their war stories about it with Doc to make him feel better and understand why Grampy did that. I smiled, inwardly glad to see that my lesson had stuck so strongly. It meant Doc would keep hold of it, too. He’d clearly just passed an important initiation test that the older boys were proud to share.

It’s days like this that strengthen the bond between all three of them. They’re starting to look after each other as much as I am.

12.28.2010

Puppies Need Reinforcement

The picture moment of the day was this: I’m sitting in the middle of the sofa with the computer on my lap, Tio is crammed so hard next to me on the left I can’t move my elbow, Kit on the right with his legs draped over my lap, and Doc stretched along the back so his head hangs over my shoulder. There wasn’t anything to see particularly on the PC, they just crowd close to me like puppy dogs around their mamma wanting a part of whatever it is I’m doing. This is my place in their world. I’m the momma bear. When Tish got home and things were getting a bit wilder, she took Tio by the ear and sent him packing to his room, insisted that Kit stay downstairs until supper and basically kept law and order. She plays papa bear. I keep order, too, but a bit looser which exposes a gray area between having fun and showing disrespect towards me. It’s important that they don’t cross the line but I can’t do as good a job, keep as close an emotional eye on them, if I keep them at arms length. That’s where Tish comes in. She makes sure they give me some space and mind their p’s & q’s. As I say, it’s not that I don’t dish out the necessary, it just comes out differently and she keeps the line sharp.

I’m really glad that Tish is such a strong woman and female role model for them. Firm, kind, and fair. Without going into why and how, she’s the antithesis of all the other women the boys have been exposed to through their lives. Seeing a smart, capable woman help shape and lead them down the road is critical for them finding balance to understand women and men and the what the human world is really made of and their place as men in it.

12.27.2010

When You Lay Down With Dogs

Okay, I spoil my dog. For example she sleeps on the bed curled right up under my chin or back to back. Tish rolls her eyes because she never imagined I’d allow a dog on the bed, let along cuddled up like a teddy bear. I guess I didn’t either. When we go to bed we slip upstairs as lightly as possible trying not to wake wife nor beast. Especially Zoe who’s 14, which is like a million and six in Aussie dog years. If she gets up she’ll pace around and need another pee, drink a gallon of water, want a snack and then do it all again until she can finally settle down again.

Bunnie’s usually warming up the bed before I get up the stairs but the last few nights she met me at the landing looking indignant.
“What’s up?” I whisper to her.
‘That old sack of hair is on the bed again’ her expression says.
“Won’t she let you up?”
‘Are you kidding? She’s hogging the whole thing! Where are we going to sleep?’
I sigh. I know where this is headed.
‘Just kick her off,’ my dog’s expression says. Dogs are such mercenaries.
“You wait on the floor and let me handle it,” I say.
We go into the dark room and I slip under the covers working my legs awkwardly around the old girl, thinking ‘please don’t wake up - I really don’t want to go back downstairs for another half hour’. With Zoe satisfied by my moves, I slide back as far as I can without disturbing Tish while Bunnie jumps up with an impatient harrummph to stake out her territory practically lying on my chest.

So there I lie on my side spooled around these two dogs like the chain on a bike derailer. ‘Man,’ I think to myself, ‘how did it ever come to this?’

My smelly red dog leans her head back and laps my chin before letting out a long, slow sigh of satisfaction. ‘Hey,’ she says, ‘feel free to sleep on the sofa.’

12.26.2010

Boxing Day

What a day. Doc woke up with a headache and felt lousy all day. That's 4 sick in 3 days. I wonder who this fast moving little stomach bug will attack next. I spent hours trying to get our pellet stove unjammed - no luck. Buddy and I spent 6 solid hours cleaning out the garage so we can cram 4 cars into it before the snow flies. We were invited to a skating party but the garage took priority. After supper Doc finally threw up and felt much better. Tio and Kit are still recovering. Now a blizzard is settling in overnight to dump a foot of snow on our heads. I just hope my back holds up from all the lifting I did and shoveling I expect to do in the coming hours.

So begins school vacation week. We don't have any great plans for them but I guess snow will figure heavily into the mix. I'll be taking Kit to get a Christmas ear piercing, Tio got some gift certificates that he's itching to cash in, and Doc is still feeling all the holiday hubbub swirl around his head like a dream.

It should be a noisy, crazy week. Stay tuned.

12.24.2010

While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads...

It’s late at night and all is quiet. We’re hanging the stockings by the chimney with care and feeling St. Nick will soon be here.

The day didn’t start trouble free. Kit woke up with a stomach ache and both other boys seemed come down with it by noon. Nothing like the flu to put a crimp in our celebration, I thought. I came home at noon from the butchers with our Christmas roast that I’d ordered last week to discover that it was still frozen. Flu and raw meat for our Christmas Eve. Yum. I ran out for another beast and the butcher apologized, straightened it all out and I went home hoping we weren’t looking at a flu epidemic. By the time I arrived, Doc and Tio had recovered. Kit was still iffy.

The afternoon was energetic, everyone excited while presents appeared under the tree and the candles got placed on the table along with all the Christmas trimmings. All three boys wrapped themselves around the presents under the tree like it was a warm fire and stayed there sniffing and purring like heaven had settled on their shoulders. No one was ill. They dressed up nicely without having to be asked, agreed to read their passages from the gospels without question and were in splendid moods. Sugar and Danny arrived and we had a wonderful evening for one and all.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

12.23.2010

Does Bogey Count as Quality Time?

Tish has a few days off this week and we’ve actually found some time to spend together. It’s been hard with me not up until noon and her ready to crash by nine to find enough time between kids, dogs and work to just hang out for more than a half hour here and there. That just isn’t enough. We’re used to more. We need more. But the tornado that has become our lives seems to have left that in its ruinous wake more than anything else.

Spending time with your spouse or kids isn’t something you can do on a ‘quality’ schedule. The whole concept of quality time is vacuous. Being together is just that. It doesn’t matter that much what you do. You can’t pack a day’s worth of mindless adventures into an hour of peak performance and people who say you can are kidding themselves.

Since we haven’t had much time in months it took a couple of days of nodding off together, watching the tube, and talking about nothing to finally feel like we’re in the groove again. We still have another four days before we go back to our regularly scheduled programing we’ll soak up as much Tish time as we can over Christmas. A few weeks ago we started a Bogeython since I’ve built a great collection a lot of old movies over the years. Her fave is “The African Queen” and mine is either “To Have And Have Not” or “Beat the Devil”. We just finished them and are starting on Cary Grant.

Anytime we’re together is quality time because we’re together. Even curled up in front of Bogey & Bacall.

12.22.2010

Why Don't You Write About Bupkes?

That's what Tio said tonight when I was figuring out a post for the blog. Should I take him literally or figuratively?
A Man Called Bupkes
Bupkes is our family mascot. When school started this fall we got a white erase board for the kitchen to keep notes on. Of course, I couldn't help fiddling and the first thing I did was to invent a cartoon character to leave messages for the kids in speech balloons, a beatnik with a goatee and small fedora I called Bupkes. He'd remind the boys who had projects after school, what note needed to go to a teacher, various forms of encouragement or a joke. I like putting a caption under him spoofing a movie or song title. "Rudolph the Red Nosed Bupkes", "A Fistful of Bupkes" or "Dial M for Bupkes" etc.. Last week I started drawing him in silly looking different hats. He looked miserable under them always asking where his own hat went. Finally, looking the most idiotic under a Mandarin tassel cap Kit asked, "Will Bupkes ever find his hat?"

When the older boys were small I used to tell them every December that "Uncle Fuzzy" lived in the Christmas decoration chest and if we opened it carefully, we might actually see him. It was magical watching their eyes bulge with excitement wondering what kind of creature Uncle Fuzzy was to live in a steamer trunk. Alas, he never did appear and I suggested he always went to Florida around Christmas time. This year there was a note waiting for Doc in the chest, "Sorry I missed you, I had to leave for Florida early ï¾– Uncle Fuzzy." We'll leave a note back to him after we pack all the stuff away again next week.

A healthy fantasy life is a good thing. It gets their brains simmering with some imagination and creativity of their own. We used to fly our tree fort to the planet Fbiblinar and make board games based on our biking adventures playing pizza delivery shop on the lanes of the local graveyard. There's a potting shed there that I always called "Dan's House" and as young as 3 years old Tio and I would knock on his door to see if he was home. Then we'd create excuses for where he might be and what kind of life "Dan" led. During the election season this year I drove with Tio to a neighbor's house to do some canvassing.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Dan lives here," I replied.
"So we finally find out where Dan really lives," he laughed like it gave him closure, years after he came to know that the tool shed in the stoneyard was just that.

These things may not be very important but they sure aren't bupkes. Maybe we should have a contest to design the poor boy a better hat.

12.21.2010

STOLLEN: (noun) stó-lun 1. A traditional German cake eaten at Christmas time, made with nuts, raisins and other dried fruits.

My mother and her siblings were close without ever living near one another and even though her two sisters have passed away leaving only mom and her brother, their collective love still shines at Christmas time. You see, when we were kids magical things arrived from the other aunts and uncles that still linger in our Christmas hearts even though we’ve all grown and raised kids of our own. It was rekindled this week during a facebook exchange when Margo sent her family’s stollen recipe to the families.
“I'd love to have the stollen recipe,” I said, “When the Bendix stollen arrived, it meant Christmas had arrived.”
“The Bendix stollen and the Lunn cheese always meant Christmastime was here at the Swobodas!” Our cousin Katherine chimed in.
“And the Virginia ham from your family!” I sent back to her.
“Don’t forget the Lunn fudge and the currant cakes!” Margo added.
It was wonderful to share this collective childhood Christmas magic with cousins I haven’t seen face to face in years.

One of these traditions has survived through the years when Margo’s brother Matt and his wife Josie make stollen and ship it off to one and all. It’s a high point of my Christmas. I figured with the recipe making the rounds, that meant it was time to start looking to the oven, instead of the mailbox for a taste of our mothers German Christmas’s past.

But this morning a box from NY arrived with a collective taste of 50 Christmas’s all wrapped up in the form of a sweet round powdered cake like none other the world over.

Christmas has arrived. Thank you Matt and Josie.

12.20.2010

What We Really Control

Silver Lunn flute section detail
The one room that has stayed the same through the renovations that made room for our extended family to move in is my small workshop. It’s an 8x12 room with built in benches, tools and a window. I head down there late most nights and turn on the TV for background while I start working and shaping silver into pieces of art and flutes. This is my sanctuary, an oasis of ancient familiarity. All things in my life may change and swirl around but for 35 years I’ve been forming silver and gold into flutes and it’s the one thing I count on to be the same. The tools and benches and feel of the metal, the magnifiers on my head, the movies I listen to like favorite records over and over, enjoying the best lines and letting the rest flow past like tunes on the stereo. All of this is peaceful, even if there is stress in the work or a deadline to meet because the craft is consistent, unlike the behavior of children or the uncertainty of business and town life. Behind that door, I’m in control of this environment.

I work until three a.m.. The house is still when Bunnie and I emerge. I hang a last bit of laundry, make sure the boys are sleeping well, turn off any lights, and let the older dogs out for a pee and a snack. If the weather is clear I step out to watch the night go by for a couple of minutes. The stars and moon lighting the hills in white, perhaps a planet might be gracing the sky along with the constellations that are as familiar to me as the streets I drive by day. We live on an amazing little wet rock in a universe so huge that I take comfort in our insignificance. I want no control over that.

Everything in between is up for grabs.

12.19.2010

Being Hard Isn’t Always Bad

I had a rough time with Kit over his homework last Tuesday. He tries hard, gets confused and really struggles with his frustration. I had to push him to pay attention and take some lip in return to keep him on target with math, spelling, and whatever else was on the books. Supper was quiet and we went back at it until we were both fed up with each other. By the time we closed the books I felt crappy for having to play the heavy. Tish got home from work and I got ready for a meeting at the middle school. Going out would give him some space to himself and I figured he’d be glad to see the back of me for the night.

But when I got to the door he called out plaintively, “Can I come with you? Will you be back in time to put me to bed?”
“Of course I will, Sweetie,” I said.

I guess we're doing something right.

12.18.2010

You Know You’re Reparenting (Returned to Parenting) When...

As a grampy I saw the kids most weeks all their lives and indulged them when I did. That’s the beauty part of taking them for an afternoon and handing them back before going home. Your time is their time until you return to the sanity of your quiet life. For those of us who’s bubble got burst and the kids descended for keeps and you’re not sure if they’ll ever leave, here are some clues to help figure that out:

- The Yahtzee dice cup is full of milk at the dinner table.
- You haven’t seen the news on TV in weeks and know the name of the squirrel on Spongebob (Come on...you know who she is.).
- You can’t believe you’re arguing with a nine year old about staying up an extra 5 minutes.
- You start feeling guilty about spending money only on yourself.
- You've started a project in your “workshop”, that special getaway room in the cellar that you hadn’t seen the previous god knows how many years.
- That indistinguishable mass of faces you saw when picking your gandkids up at school are getting so familiar you’re starting saying hi.
- You realize while eating a half finished sandwich that it didn’t come from your plate.
- The name ‘grampy’ or ‘gramma’ doesn’t roll off their tongues with quite so much affection as it used to.
- While grooming, you work around the globs of toothpaste surrounding the bathroom sink instead of automatically cleaning them up.
- You can’t remember when there wasn’t a baby seat in your car.
- You automatically give the sofa a once over for foreign objects before sitting down.
- There’s a big stain on your shirt and you go to the store without changing saying ‘to hell with it’.
- You prefer hearing  “thank you, Grampy” and “Yes, Nana” to “I love you, Grandma.” (This is a close one but you know what I mean!)

To Be Continued....

12.17.2010

Atheism At Christmastime.

I guess by definition I’m a true atheist. My parents were raised Christian and started churchgoing with my older brothers but by the time it got to me and Katrina they’d lapsed completely and Christmas was all about the toys and food. I never entered a church until I was a teenager. In public school when we had to put our religion on forms we filled out, I put RC without a clue what it meant. That’s what the other kids put. After all of us were grown and gone my mom returned to the church but none of my siblings ever became practicing Christians.

I will never be a Christian in the sense of believing that Jesus Christ was the son of God. My mind is too pragmatic and I can’t wrap my heart around that concept. It doesn’t mean that I can’t accept that it could be true, it’s just that I can’t believe it myself. At the same time, I do accept that Christ was a great man and his inspiration is genuine. I live my life by his standard as much as anyone can, flawed human being that I am.

Here we are again facing Christmas with children who aren’t really Christians and I struggle with that each year. Tish is a catholic and while our children made their first communion they didn’t grow up in the church, either. But I really would like to be able to celebrate Christ in some real way. I’d like the boys to understand who Christ was and why his birth is worth all this attention two thousand years later.

But without believing in divine birth, how do we create a sense of wonder and majesty? We don’t bake a zillion cookies and make gingerbread mansions, pickles, and chocolates for weeks on end, with countless gifts to buy on a list longer than 5th Avenue, and 300 cards to send out before a million visitors show up for a weeks worth of eating and ho-ho-ing. Our lives are not turned upside-down in an attempt to recreate the Christmas we grew up with a half century ago. We have a tree, modest gifts, and celebrate on Christmas Eve. Even then the nativity doesn’t get much play.

I’d like to introduce a couple of new Christmas traditions now that we have our family here year round. If anyone has any favorite Christian Christmas passages we might read at our table, I’d love to hear them.

Maybe I’m not so much of an atheist as I think.

12.16.2010

Like Herding Cats

I took all three boys Christmas shopping today to buy the gifts they’re giving to others. It being the first time they've done this, I expected it to be awkward and a bit confusing. They wrote their lists and checked them twice before we zoomed to Walmart with a quick snack stop at McD’s to gird our spirits. It was an interesting experiment. The two older boys had a budget between 10 and 15 bucks and I told Doc he could get something for his mom and dad for around a dollar. Tio grabbed whatever. You know, get it over with. Kit wanted to look at CDs for himself and Doc reached for anything that he wanted figuring mom or dad would go for it.
“Is that something your mom would use?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, Armor All isn't very Christmasy.”
"What is it?"

And so it went. We pawed through trinkets and toys and candy and jewelry while I worked their brains fairly hard asking them if what they’d latched on to was something the receiving party would like. In the end, I really had to give Doc a hand. After all, you can only keep a 5 year old focused for so long. But he really did try. Tio settled on a couple of practical things and I got him and Kit to go together on Doc's gift so they could upgrade to a slightly higher price.

By the time I figured they were burned out, we’d done fairly well. They stayed in budget, found stuff for both sides of the family and felt pretty good about it. They even managed to get something for each other. I’ll sort it all out and see who didn’t get covered so we can finish it off in one more round.

Then we’ll all sit down with colored paper, scissors and tape to wrap everything up. That’s when it really hits home that Christmas is coming and you’re a part of it. I’ll make sure we have candy canes, cocoa, popcorn and a roaring fire to make this first time stays special for a long time.

12.15.2010

The Roads We Travel

Katrina left today. She’s on her way to Miami for a week of Cuban music then off to Mexico for a month and then down the Keys and on to who knows what else after that. She spent the fall in France and Spain and the summer camping and traveling in Ontario. She worked hard and stayed faithful to a teaching career for 25 years and took an early retirement last June to be a nomadic wanderer for as long as the world will have her before making any choices about a new future.

It’s a life I’ll never live. I used to dream of traveling, wandering, even just moving away from a land where snow falls half the year. But I never made it. I don’t envy her, but I can understand its appeal. Most people itch to travel and visit exotic places. But we don’t even take vacations away from here. Raising kids, work, and inertia have kept me rooted in New England since I was young. But I don’t mind not having seen the pyramids, the Sistine Chapel, or Victoria Falls.

My universe is in my imagination. I’ve traveled to the rings of Saturn, the Pacific ocean’s floor, the high seas and an unimaginable distance into the future. Albeit, those places don’t bring much of a challenge in real life and I suspect most people would think it is a pale alternative to even Niagara Falls - which I have seen. So how’s this for real challenge: Raising hyperactive children, developing new art forms, writing novels, raising grandchildren, and staying sane while making a marriage succeed through all of it. There is nothing escapist in any of that. In fact, it’s a reality many people flee from at the first sign of trouble. It’s much harder to make a marriage last and raise troubled children than climb Everest. Believe me the rewards are bigger and the summit is higher but only for those who truly participate in the climb.

If for some reason I left this world tomorrow (I don’t know... maybe a coach ticket to Jupiter suddenly became available) I can honestly say the adventures and roads I’ve taken have been breathtaking and mind blowing. I haven’t missed a thing this world has to offer.

And I didn’t even have to leave home.

12.14.2010

What does it mean when you see your dog wearing your wife’s panties?

We have 2 intact bitches and one intact male. Several times a year our females go into heat and since they all live together in the house we have to separate them. They can’t all sleep in the same room, can’t hang around together and can’t go outside, either. Add on that our 2 females don’t like each other and have to be separated all the time anyway. Add on that Gulliver starts fighting over food, Bunnie fights over me, and Maddie won’t back down if she’s challenged so we have baby gates blocking the kitchen, the back hall, the bottom of the stairs, the top landing and both bedrooms.

Okay, scene set. Now picture this. To keep the menstrual blood from dribbling all over the floor the whole time we pull some old underwear up over their bums. Imagine 2 red Australian Shepherds strutting around the house in flower pattern satin panties that used to decorate Tish’s lovely behind. Believe me, the first time you see your wife’s underpants on the dog you need a stiff drink, if not psychotherapy. It kind of changes the outlook in the bedroom, if you know what I mean. Not that Tish would ever be wearing those particular garments again, but I’d enjoyed the sight of them before and now ---- well, not so much. The sight of the wagging butts while we pull them on and off all day to go outside adds a whole new dimension to the experience.

I guess it proves that I really do love the dogs. Nothing subliminal going on there.

P.S. I think Lisa at grandmasbriefs.com should hang some of these on her line :O)

12.13.2010

Don’t be Rude...

A couple of weeks ago Kit was coming home every day with black marks for misbehaving in school. He has a hard time paying attention, acts out and rude to his teacher. He had been doing better but it went downhill and he just couldn’t settle down. Finally, I asked him if he even knew what disrespectful even meant when it came to his teachers. I figured if he can’t define it, he may not know he’s doing it. So we spent the homework hour one night going over disrespect and being rude and defining it but it didn’t add up for him.

I said, “If I told you it’s time to do your homework, how would you response to be rude and disrespectful?“
He wouldn’t say. I didn’t know if he didn’t know or couldn’t understand or was being obtuse because he didn’t want to. It was hard. I couldn’t get him to be rude. We went around it until Tio came up for supper.

I asked him the same question. “Kit seems to be having a problem understanding disrespect. If I said it’s time to do your homework, how would you response to be rude and disrespectful?”
“Bite me” he said without pause. Nice to know one of the boys is on top of his game.

Incidentally, Kit has been doing better since then.

12.12.2010

Maybe Boys Can Be Angels Too.

Today was one of those days where everything went well. Kit opened the advent calendar to discover we were going to a hockey game in the afternoon. I slept in a bit because Tish fed the boys breakfast in their apartment and kept them down there until Katrina and I both got up. My sister played chess and cards with them, we had grilled cheese and then headed off for some Christmas shopping and college hockey. No one argued. No one fought. No one complained about being treated unfairly or anything. They’re all in bed now. The colorful tree is beautiful reflecting in the picture window. It’s raining cats and dogs and we’re quieting down for the night.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas....

Old Habits Die Hard

My sister came to stay last night for a few days. She’s a retired elementary school teacher who is magical with kids so of course our three boys fall in love with her every time they see her. She made plans to take them shopping today and the advent calendar was going to surprise them with a tree trimming party complete with take out Chinese supper.

At 9 am I was woken abruptly by Kit screaming bloody murder at his dad. “NO. YOU CAN’T. DOOOOONNN’TT...” etc. while Buddy yelled back about staying downstairs and not waking Grampy or Grammo would make trouble. No such luck there. I didn’t want them to wake Katrina so I had to get up or it wouldn’t stop. Kit looked up red faced from the bottom of the stairs and denied it all while Buddy told me that Tio had been swearing at him. This was typical Saturday behavior - for a couple of months ago. We’d been doing so much better. I’d felt their respect for Buddy was getting better.

But it wasn’t really that. It was the injection of someone new into their world which created confusion. They were feeling their oats with Katrina here and fell back into old behavior patterns of trying to boss their dad around to reconfigure the pecking order. I canceled the day’s outings and said I’d be spending the day with my sis and we’d all regroup for tree decorations and supper.

It really is amazing how a change in environment can throw everyone. The boys were taken aback at losing a shopping day with her but realized they’d screwed up and things snapped back to normal very fast. Sugar and Danny came over and we had a great family supper, trimmed the tree, and celebrated some great news we got on Friday.

I expect things will go back to normal tomorrow and they can all go on a spree with Katrina and have another great advent calendar excursion.

12.10.2010

When One Hand Doesn’t Know What The Other One Is Doing.

We’ve all searched endlessly for lost glasses and pencils we can’t find. Many of us discover the glasses are on our heads or the pencil in our pocket. I’ve hunted my desktop on tax prep day for my pencil only to realize through my mumbled cursing that the damn thing was between my teeth. Today, though, is a potential chart topper. I settled down on the sofa with my mug of coffee and some Licorice Allsorts (if you haven’t had them - scoot out to your store! Yummy). I was reading email on my laptop and reached for my coffee. It wasn’t there. I searched the table, the windowsill, the arm rest. Everything short of getting up.

“Tish! Did I leave my mug over there?”
Before she could answer, I laughed. “Never mind. It’s in my other hand.”
I could hear her admonishing voice all the way from the kitchen. “You see? This is why you need to take some time for yourself away from the kids. You’re going crazy.”

GOING crazy?

12.09.2010

Does Humble Pie Come In Chocolate?

“I finally found my snowboarding socks,” Tio said last night while we were watching TV.
“Where? On your feet?” I replied with a tinge of sarcasm. After all, he doesn’t look very hard for anything.
“No,” he said, pointing ankleward. “They’re on your feet.”
Oops.   “Are these yours? Sorry. Shall I wash ‘em for you?”

12.08.2010

Can We Talk? Do We Have To?

This afternoon I was making tea for the volunteers who work for our town library. I boiled up the water and hotted the pots and so forth in the kitchen while everyone ate cookies and shared stories on a cold afternoon. Several people came back for this and that and asked me if I was coming out to mingle. “No thanks,” I told them, “I think I’ve run out of small talk.”

That may present a problem as the kids grow and make friends and do sports and theater and find the crowd they socialize with because behind all of that lurks all the parents creating their own social network alongside their youngsters while driving them around, ensuring their safety, meeting at events, and getting them through school. I don’t think I can keep up with the who’s who of parents that spans 7 years and 3 kids and 6 grade levels. I’ve already been through a baseball and football season watching the same crowd gather and yak and cheer their boys on. It’ll be the same next year and evermore. I was pretty aloof which probably makes me seem callous or remote. It’s not that I can’t do all that, I’m just not in that frame of mind. Will it be better for the kids if I do?

Besides, I’m a bit tired of conventional wisdom dictating all this networking, support groups, chat rooms, listservs and social confab, like the only way to stay sane is to find people to commiserate and form a like minded bond with. They say it when you’re a parent, they say it for writers, say it for students, cops, survivors, librarians, and I’ll bet there’s someone out there saying mass murderers need support groups, too. Conventional wisdom is gospel truth - until it isn’t. If I had a support group for every endeavor I take on, I’d need group therapy to survive it.

Sometimes, I wonder if there’s isn’t just a bit too much talk about talk. Then again, I’m the one writing this blog so who am I to talk?

12.07.2010

Better Watch What You Say, You Never Know Who’s Listening!

Everyone has favorite movies and movie lines that become part of family lexicon. You repeat them with each other like a family joke whenever it seems to fit in. One such movie for us is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. There are lots of funny scenes and dialog and we repeat them like any other expression in regular speech. In one scene, the school’s dean of students, Ed Rooney, puts his foot in his mouth by saying over the phone to a bereaving man that he should come on over and smooch his big old white butt. “Pucker Up, Buttercup!” he says. Don’t know why but that phrase has stuck with us.

Doc came home from kindergarten the other day and out of the blue said he’d been telling everyone on the bus to “Buckle up, Buttercup!”

Nice paraphrasing. No need to correct that.

12.06.2010

Tish

The only person that hasn’t had an honorable mention in my story so far is my wife, Tish. She’s the backbone of our world, the courage in my bones, and the sunlight in my day. I can’t believe I was so lucky that our paths crossed and we went for each other hook, line, rod, reel, and the whole bait shop thrown in. Here at the family madhouse we’re team Grams and there ain’t a ounce ‘a daylight between what she say and I mean or vice versa.

She gets up every day at the crack of morn to let Maddie out and get some coffee. An hour or so later she gets the boys up and ready for school so I can sleep in. She pitches in where she can other times and works as hard as I do to make this ship sail smoothly. She’s not as involved in the minutia of the boys lives as Buddy or I. Her mom dumped three small brothers in her lap to raise through her teen years. Then she raised Buddy and Sug. She’s not so keen on being on the front lines a third time around and I can’t blame her for that. So the boys don’t give Grammo any grief. She the common sense in the room.

In the larger world, everyone loves Tish. She’s practical, outgoing, warmhearted and intuitive in everything she does. She spends her days working with dogs, understanding their behavior and needs, to solve problems between them and their owners. Then she comes home and keeps some sanity amongst the wild animals that live in this place (including the human ones). She doesn’t care particularly about a well ordered house but she has a very well ordered mind and her woman’s perspective is much needed in this houseful of testosterone.

She also knows when to drag me out and save me from myself when I get buried under the kid’s needs and day to day goings on. She sends them all downstairs with orders not to bother Grampy. She hands the house over to Buddy and hauls me off for a pizza or lunch out. She tells me not to think too hard, some things sort themselves out. She’s right.

Christmas is on the horizon and we still haven’t got her a bathroom of her own!

12.05.2010

Rolling Rover Over

Me 'n Bunnie 'n Zoe
A few days ago I wrote about the hectic life of living with four dogs. It came off sounding like all they are is trouble. While bounding high energy and noise is one side of it, here’s the up side.

Bunnie is my sweetie and a great cuddler (can you tell from the picture?). She was born here. At about a year old we became inseparable. She’s smart and thinks she’s better than the other dogs. She is way too protective of me. Her dad, Gulliver, has been with us since he was 8 weeks old. Unlike Bunnie, Gully is all dog. He loves to romp and play and has no subtlety. Both he and Bunnie are a joy to watch running. He uses his noodle to get food and get along. That’s it. He's great to everyone. Same thing with Maddie. At 2 she’s just getting over puppyhood. She goes to work with Tish, works for her at the training center, and stands on our kitchen table for a better look out the window. She’s all over everyone with affection.

Last and most amazing is Zoe, the one Tish calls “Miss P” the perfect girl. She’s a natural dominant dog which meant she always kept the other dogs in line like a kind but firm den mother. An amazing instinct and brain all wrapped up in one dog. For years Tish took her into schools and nursing homes as visiting companion and for dog bite safety classes. She learned agility and tricks and was so bright eyed that you could see her brains working while she figured out some really complex puzzles. I drew the line on teaching her to open the fridge. She’s 14 now. All her littermates are gone but she's still healthy, clear eyed and keeps up with the other dogs running around the yard. She’s developed some serious anxieties in old age (who hasn’t) which makes her pace and pant and fret.

Kit especially loves the dogs and they love him back. He plays with them and buries them with affection. Tio has always been wary of their noise and high energy but he’s warming up, too. Even Doc is learning how to tell them to sit, go away, and settle down.

Having this many dogs living in one house is always a challenge because of proximity but we’ve got a good group. As three-fifths of our household along with the humans that make up our madhouse, we jostle and fit and get along and bug each other to death all at the same time. You know, a family.

What else is new?

12.04.2010

Sticks and Stones.

Kit went to his first dance tonight. Very different from the one Tio was at last month. A bigger space, not so crowded, and younger kids. I dropped them both off  to come back after I got Doc in bed Tish got out of work. I was there for most of it and, after two hours of loud music, stomping, running and laughter, we all drove home.

They got in the front door and Tio raised a high five saying, “Thanks for not being a total spaz tonight.”

Kit ignored the high five and backhanded compliment. Instead, he curled up on the sofa looking reflectively despondent. Even Gulliver didn’t jump up to sit in his lap, which is unusual because that dog loves the boy. I finished up a couple of things, asked a couple of perfunctory questions, got nods in return and then sat down with him. I wasn’t sure if I should prod or just sit quietly with him. We were silent for at least 20 minutes. An eternity in Kit time.

Finally, I leaned in and asked what happened and if I could help. He started to talk. It turned out for the few minutes I wasn’t there at the beginning of the dance a couple of kids started calling him names and telling his best friend that he shouldn’t hang around with him. It hurt deeply and Kit was in tears. A couple of teachers broke it up and set things straight.

Kit is very individual. He does things his own way. He likes to dress differently, play different things and think differently. Being unique makes him an easy target for the bullies and feebs at school. At his age, I was like him for very different reasons. I had a cleft lip that gave the bullies all the ammo they needed to beat on me. So I know what he’s going through and I know he doesn’t know why.

I wish Tio was more supportive but his own troubled relationship with Kit doesn’t help. He probably thought his cutting remark was a compliment. My brother’s had my back when I came home bruised or completely confused. There was no question that home was a safety zone for me. Kit doesn’t get that from his brothers.

I love the boy as if his heart was beating in my chest. I told him so and gave him hugs to feel better. That only helps some. He’s going to have to take some serious lumps as his school years go by. He’ll develop a thick skin but his heart and his already fragile ego will take some serious beatings.

We can’t protect our kids from everything there is out there and that’s got to be the biggest hurt there is for a parent.

12.02.2010

She shoots...she SCORES!

We got our first snowfall this week. My mind went to skating and I recalled something from a couple of years ago. I may have mentioned that Tio is a real boy’s boy. Loves sports, loves gaming, loves to tussle and show off with his buds. I took him to his first hockey game at Dartmouth College. It was spur of the moment and got the tickets at the arena. It was women’s hockey. No problem for me, but I wasn’t sure if he’d like it simply because they were girls and he was 9.

We’d had a couple of talks about respect for women and girls before that when he, like generations of boys before him, put girls down as being inferior simply because of their gender. I hoped he’d be okay because it was a live sport. When the teams raced out for warm ups they were all bulked up in padding, black skates, gloves, and helmet with face guard, you couldn’t tell them from droids except for a lot of ponytails.

After watching them work the rink for a couple of minutes Tio said, “Hey, Grampy! I think these are women.”
I looked at the tickets like I was making sure, “Hmm, you’re right! This is women’s hockey,” was all I said.
We watched in silence for a few more minutes and then he said, “Man, they’re really good!”

That’s the last word we heard on that. The game went into 4 overtime periods and he screamed his head off for the local girls. The following season I had to duck to avoid a puck in the head that one of those women shot into the stands. Tio still has that puck. I think we should go again soon. We’ve seen some great games.

12.01.2010

On The First Day of Christmas...

I was up into the wee hours this morning making this non-denominational advent calendar to start off the Christmas season for the boys. It’s a big foamcore board with some fun stuff to do behind 24 removable doors hidden in his beard and hat. I didn't plan Santa to look so much like an aging biker but after ridin’ that sleigh all these years, the old buff must be getting a bit rough around the edges.

Today’s treat? Pizza night!