Christmas cheer

A few weeks ago, I told you I would have my Christmas decorations up early. So, any guesses on how I did?
Wow, thanks for your vote of confidence. I will have you know that even before Thanksgiving, I had most of my lights up, and the day after I flipped the switch. I added a few items the following weekend and essentially completed my holiday decorating, as promised. So, how did I do it? A few simple tricks:
1. Organization — A few years ago, my wife bought a bunch of plastic storage crates for all of our holiday decorations.
She bought green and red ones for Christmas and orange and black ones for Halloween. I told her that festively color coding our attic was a little much even for her. “But you know what holiday each box belongs to, don’t you?”
Point taken. Plus it also keeps everything neatly stored together and allows me to avoid what had become my annual ritual of coming down the attic staircase only to have the bottom of a Wild Turkey box fly open, spilling ornaments and Nativity pieces everywhere.
2. Planning — Most years, I grab a strand of lights and hang them up. And then I grab another strand and hang them up.
Repeat until there are no more lights to hang. I then go to the street and look at my house, only to realize I have covered one tree, two azaleas, and a third of my garage.
This year, I spread out all of the lights and took an inventory of what we had and where it should go. My wife also got involved, since I did not opt to do it as I had in years past, at 11:30 at night when I couldn’t sleep.
At one point, she actually had a tape measure out and was figuring out if certain light strands would fill up certain parts of the house.
I told her that was an amazing idea. She looked at me with equal parts disdain and sadness.
3. Involving the children — I would prefer that my kids have pleasant Christmas memories, not one of their father being red faced and screaming, “UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO CANCEL CHRISTMAS DON’T TOUCH THE LIGHTS AGAIN!!!”
So I took a deep breath and pulled out the decorations knowing that my helpers would have (a) the gentle touch of a blender and (b) the attention span of a spastic cat.
Yes, we had a few tangles and a bulb or two got broken, but the kids had a good time, in particular when, without them realizing, I strung lights on them. (For what it’s worth, that may or may not have been a reason for the tangles/breakage.)
4. Patience on the tree hunt — We still get a real tree, and we will continue to do so, as that is one of the basic things I have to have in my house.
I know most people have gone to artificial — I think I’m the last one in my family who still goes real — and that’s fine.
But there is something about a real tree that I absolutely can’t go without. My guess is it dates back to 2001, when my cat tried to climb our real tree and it went crashing down on top of her. Relax, she was fine.
But once the shock of the destroyed ornaments, the ripped couch, and the water everywhere subsided, I had to concede that it was one of the funniest thing ever to occur. (You would be amazed at the sound a cat can produce.)
Of course, it’s not easy to find the right tree. We went to five different places. Around stop #3, I was pretty much good to go with whatever tree was there.
ME: (grabbing a tree) Come on — let’s get it and go.
MY WIFE: Uh, that’s a magnolia tree. And it’s planted.
However, I suppressed that urge, and continued to investigate every tree we saw, and even actually paid attention when my wife asked me questions about fullness and gaps and the like. When we got home, she said, “Thanks for not being you today.” I will just assume that was a compliment.
5. Enjoying the experience — Because of the previous items, I was able to focus on this one, which is really critical. Now, you may say, “Mike, you should always enjoy this, because it’s Christmas and it’s a special time.”
And then you may drone on and on and on about the little things and keeping perspective and blah blah blah.
And THAT will make me not enjoy it. Rather, let me have my quirks, and work incredibly hard to make sure that Christmas is merry and the season is bright.
Except for where the bulbs are broken.
So my decorations are up and I am fully in the holiday season, well before the last-minute rush I am accustomed to.
If you are a chronically late Christmas decorator, I encourage you to get it in gear and make things simple for yourself. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself in the same boat again — struggling to untangle the lights and get the ornaments on the magnolia tree.

She shoots, she scores

I love sports. Anyone who knows me knows that. And as I am sure my wife will tell you, I sometimes get carried away. I invest a tremendous — if not occasionally ridiculous — amount of emotional capital into sports. For example:
1. I threw my back out in 1995 celebrating the Braves winning the World Series. (I was at Game 6, so I was doubly pumped.)
2. Two of my friends were watching a Bama game with me recently when they made a wager on whether I would accidentally put my hand into the ceiling fan above me if we scored.
3. I see nothing wrong with being lifted in the air by another man, assuming your cornerback just picked off a critical interception.
4. A friend and I once had a very serious conversation on how many years off our life we would forego if the Minnesota Vikings’ Gary Anderson would miss a field goal in 1999. (It will cost us both four years.)
That said, all of my excitement and zeal for sports was totally trumped last weekend when I experienced the single greatest moment in my sports fan career: watching my 7-year-old make a basket.
Allie is playing on a basketball team for the first time, and the first time she touched the ball, she dribbled a few times, stopped, popped and dropped. (That’s sports fan talk for made a basket. Aren’t I hip?)
She has loved basketball for a while. We go out in the driveway and shoot hoops all the time, and she has gotten pretty good at making baskets, even on a regulation 10-foot goal. (Per edict from the commissioner, I am no longer allowed to swat her shot out of the air and scream, “YOU GOTTA BRING MORE THAN THAT IN HERE!!!”) Our usual game is HORSE, although she will often try and amend the game to HORSES mid-play, the little weasel.
When she decided she wanted to play on a team, I was excited, as she is at the age where she can really enjoy getting into team sports. She played soccer when she was 5, but her main strengths were cartwheels and hugging people she knew on the other team. I was pretty sure she was ready to advance to the next level.
At the game, I try not to be THAT dad. You know, the one whose mood for the next week will depend on whether or not his kid’s team wins. I am just excited to see Allie playing and having a good time. I did tell her that winning = dinner, but that’s just a little incentive. Ha! Little sports dad humor. They don’t even keep score, so how would she know if she won or not? (She’ll know based on whether she gets dinner.) Ha! Little more sports-dad craziness there.
At the game, I try to cheer and encourage but not to coach her too much from the bleachers. After all, that’s why she has a coach, and he does a great job of teaching the kids about the game and teamwork. Granted, at her first scrimmage, I did slide over to the bench and remind her that just because she was not on the court, it did not mean that she should hold animated meetings about Hannah Montana or Chick-fil-A or whatever it was with her teammates. Watch the game, for crying out loud.
She eventually got her head in the game during the scrimmage (only one cartwheel on the court), so I was excited about the first real game. The coach has numbers assigned to each player and calls out the play to the players each time down court. When I heard “1-4,” I was excited, because we originally were going to name Allie “4.” No, wait, it was because Allie was playing the 4-position, so that meant that she would get the ball, dribble a couple of times and throw one up. When the ball hit her hands, I was just happy to see that it didn’t go through her hands and smack her in the nose, because I know quite well that tends to put a damper on a basketball game with her.
One of the more humorous times in the game was when she was on defense. Allie is one of the smaller kids in the league, as the age range starts at 7 and goes to, from what I can tell, 32.
At one point, Allie was guarding a player on the other team who is slightly larger than I am. All you could see behind him were two little hands poking out from behind his shoulders. Fortunately, they did not throw him the ball when she was guarding him.
Oh, and a tip of the cap to the referees in the game, who understood that the kids are all learning the game and did things such as reminding them to dribble the ball. No fouls were called in our game. Word is that a foul was called earlier in the morning, and it made a little girl cry, so they stopped calling fouls. Based on the speed of the game, I think that was probably the right call.
She had fun the rest of the game, and even grabbed a rebound. But the most important thing is that she is learning to be part of a team. And isn’t that the most important thing? I mean, after you know you’ll get dinner.

Forming memories

When I was little, we used to go to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to visit my family. I have a picture of me, probably about 2 years old, holding my great-grandfather’s hand, walking in the backyard picking pecans.
When I was in college, I was talking with my grandmother about the picture. She stared at me for a second. “Michael,” she said, “you do remember when you used to come here to visit, right?”
I thought about it for a second. “Christmas.”
“And you know pecans are not on the ground at Christmas, right?”
I had never done the math. Turns out, my great-grandfather would collect the pecans and put them in a freezer, and then spread them out just before we got there so that we could go and pick them up.
Yes, you can cue the “awwwws.” A sweet and kind Christmas memory indeed.
Reflecting on this, I realized that we all twist and tweak the truth in order to better serve kids. My parents did it. As a parent, I do it. Some of them – like the pecan story – are done to generate fond childhood memories. Others are done for parental convenience.
For example, when I was little, there were three shows that no child should ever, ever, ever watch: “Barney Miller,” “Hill Street Blues” and “Dallas.” When those shows came on, my parents forbade us from being anywhere near. “You will NOT watch this show, mister!”
I always assumed they were really looking out for mine and my sisters’ delicate moral shapings, and that these shows were REALLY hard core. And while some of the content may have pushed the age-appropriate boundaries on occasion, it’s pretty tame compared to today’s standards.
As my parents confessed to me recently, that was not the driving force behind our banishment. They wanted an hour to themselves, without four kids swarming about screaming, “SHE BROKE MY RUBIK’S CUBE!!!”
I find myself doing similar things, and there are certain shows where my children are simply not allowed in the room.
I tell them they need to scoot on to their own rooms, as it is an adult show. Truth of the matter, it’s not that they’re bawdy or anything. I just want an hour on the couch to watch “Chuck.” Hey, I don’t pretend to be a complex guy.
Of course, I also try and do the fond memory side, too. For example, I have a routine I do every night with my daughter for bedtime. We have a back-and-forth exchange:
HER: Light on?
ME: Check.
HER: Door shut?
ME: Check.
HER: See you when I wake up.
ME: Check.
Yes, she leaves the light on. But it’s her routine. But every morning, when she wakes up, the light is off. “Guess you turned it off, hon” is my reply. She shrugs this off, accepting that she must have done that. Not only does she not realize we turned her light off, she doesn’t realize that leaving it on actually makes our life easier.
Why? Because she sleeps like a load of concrete and we can come in her room and put up laundry, clean out closets, practice trumpets, etc. Nothing wakes her. But she will have the memory (I hope) of a peaceful bedtime routine.
I imagine my children will have a host of memories of these things, things they will realize as adults that I had set up, staged or otherwise packaged in a deceptive manner. Of course, this time of year is one of the ultimate examples of that, and I will keep it in vague, general terms, since a certain 7-year-old has been known to read Daddy’s column.
This will most likely be the last year of that phase. In fact, some in her school have already been planting seeds of doubt. (I hope those little Johnny Buzzkillseeds get coal in their stockings.)
When the seeds sprout, I will explain to her that belief in the spirit of things is what is important. And tell her that her mother and I still believe. And we also believe that ruining it for her little brother will amount to television restriction.
When you think about it, it’s all in the perspective. It doesn’t matter what the reality is. When I see the picture of me holding my great-grandfather’s hand, it doesn’t matter that the pecans didn’t fall out of the tree the day before.
In some ways, it’s kinda cool to learn that. Similarly, it was nice to see that when I was kid, my parents were ACTUAL married people who occasionally wanted a few minutes without the kids around.
Of course, my kids are more than welcome to take their time learning the realities of things. Especially this time of year. Take your time.

Giving thanks

So we’re a day before Thanksgiving and as a columnist, I will share with you what I am thankful for, as is required by the U.S. Constitution. (Columnists who do not write such a column are ordered to write TWO Christmas wish columns.)
That said:
1. I am thankful for my daughter, Allie, who is now at the age where she gets embarrassed by her father, meaning I get to see the priceless look of horror on her face when we run into a classmate in public and I say, “So, are you her boyfriend?”
2. I am thankful for my son Parker, who is still at the age where he has little cares, and may wander into a room wearing nothing and say, “Daddy, I got tired of wearing pants.”
3. I am thankful for my wife, who tells me I talk in my sleep but says I only babble. She has a prime opportunity to have some fun at my expense, yet never does.
4. I am thankful for each and every one of you who returns your shopping cart to the corral (double thanks for actually taking it back to the store). For those of you who leave them in parking spaces, I hope you step in something.
5. I am thankful that my mother-in-law forced me to watch a show on the Food Network a while back, as I was introduced to the world of Hot Brown sandwiches, something I will make with my leftover turkey.
6. I am thankful for college football coaching rumors not involving Alabama. Sure, Nick Saban’s name gets dropped out on some fringe elements, but to see the fans in College Station, Baton Rouge, Ann Arbor, Auburn and Columbia teetering on the verge of insanity is... well, having endured it too much recently, it’s quite enjoyable.
7. I am thankful that Tom Glavine is back in a Braves uniform, as his five-year prison sentence has concluded.
8. I am thankful that Britney Spears makes $700,000 a month. It reminds me that if great things can happen to pointless people, then certainly moderately good things can happen to me.
9. I am thankful for Sirius satellite radio, as it is one of the greatest inventions of all time, and anyone against the merger between XM and Sirius not only hates America, they hate puppies. It’s a fact.
10. I am thankful for the opportunity to share songs that are stuck in my head. For example, all morning I have been singing the Slinky commercial song. Now you are. “It’s Slinky! It’s Slinky!”
11. I am thankful for YouTube, as it allows such little-known shows as “Exit 57” to live on. Most of you are not familiar with the show, but it’s a sketch comedy group from about a decade ago. Stephen Colbert was on it, and let me tell you – his work as a Dancing Muchacho is second to none.
12. I am thankful for my dogs, who remind me that sleeping away your day can be a very rewarding experience.
13. I am thankful for my memories of the time I drove down to the coast to cover Hurricane Fran in 1996, because I believe that is the last stinking time it rained in South Carolina, and I would hate to forget what rain is.
14. I am thankful for Coke in a glass bottle. I am not sure what the difference is, but it definitely tastes better.
15. I am thankful that Downtown continues to grow. Having grown up in Aiken, it’s nice to see a far different Downtown than years ago, in particular in terms of restaurants. Oh, and as for the parking problems? My neighbor said it best: If you can hit a golf ball from your car to the front door of the business, you didn’t have to park far away. That said, I do not recommend actually testing this.
16. I am thankful for you, dear reader, who is kind enough to offer the occasional nice word on a column. Or call me a parasite. Which I haven’t forgotten. Thanks, sir.
17. I am thankful for stuffing. It is the single greatest food ever created, and it is a tragedy that it gets one, maybe two appearances a year on America’s dinner tables.
18. I am thankful for TiVo, because I can watch “Boston Legal” when I want to, and I have yet to see a commercial during it. Also, I have a never-ending supply of “Go, Diego, Go” at my fingertips.
19. I am thankful for wireless internet, as my home office is wherever I want it to be.
20. I am thankful that we have reached No. 20, as I have to go. I feel the need to go buy a Slinky.

Card shark

It’s a simple matter of order.
Things have a place where they should go. And if they are NOT in said place, they will not be found. Am I right? Finally, some people agree with me.
It all started the other day when I went to the store. When I opened my wallet to pull out my credit card, I was a little miffed to find nothing but a lonely leather pocket. (I assume my wallet is leather. I have no idea, since I bought it some time around the Clinton administration, and let’s be honest – I’m not the most discerning consumer when it comes to buying items, much less something that will spend the bulk of its time in a back pocket or a car console.)
Most people’s first reaction in not finding their credit card would be to assume someone stole it.
My first reaction was to hurriedly move stuff off the counter and apologize to the people behind me, lest I be That Guy, the one who (a) picks his lottery numbers while holding up the line or (b) waits until reaching the counter until even looking at the fast food menu that has barely changed in 20 years or (c) writes a check on the counter right next to the “NO PERSONAL CHECKS” sign. You know, That Guy.
Anyhow, I ended up going to a nearby cash machine to get out money to pay for my purchase, as I knew full well where my credit card was: in my wife’s clutches.
I remembered earlier in the day when we had been at the store with the kids. The kids decided it was a perfect time for freeze tag, so I decided it was time to leave public shopping areas with them. I pitched my wife my wallet to pay for our purchase and took the kids outside to run free as nature intended.
My wife returned my wallet when we got in the van, and I failed to check for my credit card as I should have, but I was distracted (and frozen). So it never occurred to me that the card would not be there. Of course, I planned to address the issue immediately when I got home. Unfortunately, I have the attention span of a hyperactive terrier, so forgot by the time I was home, which was all of about two blocks away.
Just to prove a point side note: I keep index cards in my car visor so that I can jot down things I need to do. On the occasion people have seen them, they think I am, well, off my rocker. They will say something like, “Crazy Brad Pitt; gluttony; popcorn” and I will have to explain that I was listening to the radio and I heard someone talking about Brad Pitt, which made me try and remember the name of the movie where he played the crazy guy, and I’ll need to look it up later. (It was “12 Monkeys.”) And that will then make me think of the movie “Se7en,” which had me trying to name the seven deadly sins and blanking on “wrath” so I had to remind myself to look THAT up. And then all of the movie talk has me thinking popcorn, so I remember that we’re out at home so I start an impromptu shopping list. It’s not a world you want to visit, folks.
OK, anyhow, I did not write down to get my card back, so it floated out of my brain. It occurred to me about two days later when I needed it.
I swung by my wife’s school to get it from her. She insisted that she did not have it, and that she had put it back in my wallet. I told her she was clearly delusional, and I would go find it in her purse. Nothing.
I told her that she must have quite irresponsibly left it sitting in her car. She assured me that she had put it back in my wallet. I told her a search of her car would prove her wrong. Nothing.
Just to humor her, I flipped open my wallet. Nothing.
And then I looked in the middle pocket, the one behind where I normally keep my card, and there I saw what certainly did resemble a Master Card logo. Indeed, my card had been there the whole time. But, as I maintained, it was not where it was supposed to be. Therefore, there was no reason I should have been able to find it.
“If I go to get my mail and open up the box, and you have instead delivered my mail to a neighbor’s tree, I will NOT find my mail!!!” I stated with great confidence that everyone would be on my side.
Unfortunately, they turned on me: “That is true,” offered one of my non-supporters, “but in this case, it’s like your mail is usually on the right side of the mailbox, and one day I put it on the left side. It’s still in the mailbox.”
I refuse to accept their flawed reasoning. I am a change fearin’ habit creature. If it’s supposed to be in the front right pocket, that’s where I’m looking. No more. And you see where that’s getting me.
I know you’re thinking I should have looked a little closer. And perhaps you’re right. Maybe I need to break some of my routine on occasion. It could be good for the soul to get out of my repetitive ways. I’ll write myself a note.

Christmas cheer

I suppose there is nothing groundbreaking about letting you know that I, like most of you, feel that Christmas should be celebrated during Christmas.
Trust me, I do not claim to be the first to bring this forward. Little known fact: There are cave drawings of cavemen lamenting the fact that the holiday season had leached over into the mammoth hunting festival.
Christmas coming earlier and earlier and earlier is one of those accepted things now, where everyone enjoys making the observation, myself included.
I did my first observation of the year in the middle of a home improvement store a week before Halloween.
There, surrounded by Christmas decorations stacked to the ceiling and Christmas music ringing through the aisles, I made this lovely announcement to my children: “STOP SINGING CHRISTMAS SONGS!!!”
Plenty of customers turned and eyed me and my grumpy edict to my kids. They also were a little suspect when they then saw me shopping for axes.
A quick side note for those of you who cast those odd looks at me: We came to the store looking for an ax, as mine broke.
When it gets to be fire time, I would like to be able to split the wood in the woodpile, so I would appreciate it if you would not stare at me as though I am homicidal.
But back to the Christmas songs. That is the one thing I can continue to control.
You can throw up enormous inflatable snow globes at every store in the middle of June for all I care.
I can still not allow Christmas songs to be sung until the day after Thanksgiving.
And I can shout it in the middle of a home improvement store, drawing curious stares from other people, in particular ones who don’t see my kids but just see me, several aisles away, shouting, “NO JINGLE BELLS!!!”
I guess am sort of giving into the early Christmas season this year, as I am planning on getting my Christmas decorations put up early this year. Not saying I will turn them on. But I want them up by the time my neighbor’s lights come on.
His house is two doors down, and each Christmas he puts up the most beautiful and classy Christmas display you will see, brilliant and organized, the entire house awash in Christmas cheer.
And it’s always fired up before anyone else’s.
Invariably what happens is I come home one night, turn the corner and see the display. And then I look at the dark void that is my house, and realize that not only am I not showing Christmas cheer, I am actually creating a cheer vortex, where joy and happiness get sucked away into the abyss.
Then I end up trying to decorate frantically at 10:30 at night just to try and light the darkness.
So this year, I plan to bring all of the lights and decorations down from the attic early and start sorting.
First off, I will pull out all of the net lights, the single greatest Christmas decoration invention since that big tube thingee that Christmas tree places use to wrap up your tree in net.
I currently have enough nets to cover the bushes along the front of my house.
However, I have a fairly large azalea bed that, by my estimate, I could cover with about 50 more net lights.
I am fairly certain I will not get the OK to proceed with that acquisition because (a) it will be a little pricey and (b) it will look like my front yard is on fire.
But I will look for some strategic places to put new lights and head out and buy them (pending management approval).
One thing I will NOT do is anything involving the roof line. As I have told you in years past, my roof is no longer a place for lights.
I applaud anyone and everyone who wants to do it at their home. Knock yourself out. Heck, if it means that much to you, you’re more than welcome to come do mine.
And it has nothing to do with heights. Heights don’t bother me, even after I saw my neighbor, while trying to hang Christmas lights, plummet from his roof and break his ankle a few years ago.
Rather, it is the extreme annoyance that I get from having to wiggle the ladder between bushes, and then fight tree branches near the house, and then lean all the way back to reach back to the roofline, only to have the long string of lights pull free of the clasps and go crashing to the ground, leaving me to spread some very un-Christmas cheer through the neighborhood.
Hopefully my early preparation will pay off, and I will be able to sit back and enjoy the true Christmas season.
But if I do it right, once I plug the lights in and see the house light up, it will mean it is officially Christmas season.
And I guess that means I can let the kids sing again.

Life lessons

Before my first child was born, my wife and I went to parenting classes. They taught us all kinds of valuable things such as the names of various body parts that I did not even know existed.
Sure, they touched on some of the basics of child care (you should feed them, etc.). Don’t get me wrong – it was all important information. It’s just that nothing can ever truly prepare you for being a parent.
It’s just something you have to experience, like the Grand Canyon or shingles. And now that I reflect on my years as a parent, I think it may be time to perhaps add some more sections to the classes.
Or, perhaps, another class, one that kicks in after your child can walk and talk (and therefore run from you and argue with you). Among those added sections:

1. Hairstyles for Little Girls: For those of you who are not females or fathers of daughters, you may not know that little girls’ hair contraptions are among the most complicated devices on the planet. Used incorrectly, they will inflict exceptional pain on a little girl, leaving you to try and convince her to wear a baseball cap to school.
2. Interpreting Children’s Clothes Sizes: I am still lost here, based on conversations such as this:
MY WIFE: Look at the tag. It says 6. So it’s for a 6-year-old.
ME: So I can get rid of the 5s and shelve the 7s?
MY WIFE: No, some of the 5s and 7s fit, too, and some of the 6s don’t.
ME:
I am guessing there is a better way to figure it out other than dressing your child and having your wife or mother or a random gas station attendant ask why you dressed your son in Capri pants.
3. Reasoning With Children: This would be a short section. “Don’t bother.”
4. Answering Impossible Questions: You don’t need to come up with an answer.
You just need to figure out a way out of it.
For example., the other day, my son said, “Daddy, if yellow and blue make green, what makes yellow?” “Excellent question!” I said. And then I followed up with, “Hey, let’s go buy a puppy!!!!”
5. Naming Pets: This would help you take proactive approaches to making sure you don’t have a goldfish named “Goldie,” a dog named “Doggie” or a Chewbacca action figure named “Yoda.”
6. Sports, and Why It’s OK Not to Start Them Out When They are Two Weeks Old: By my estimate, Allie was in roughly 8,000 organized sporting activities by the time she was 5. And when she finally said, “Uh, is it OK if I don’t play soccer/basketball/bobsledding this year?” we realized we were maybe stretching her a little thin.
Parker has done a few activities, but would much rather spend his time kicking around in the backyard climbing trees and looking for bugs.
Don’t get me wrong – if it works for your kid, great. But there’s nothing requiring you to put your child in sports from day one. It’ll wait. I promise.
7. Parenting Books, And What To Do When They Are Wrong: Parenting books are fine guides. But there will come a time when the book does not agree with your child. And you cannot reason with your child (see No. 3) and say, “Uh, yeah, you need to go back to sleep, because page 234 says that you should be sleeping through the night.” As a supplement to all of your parenting books, I recommend you pick up my best selling parenting advice which I will reprint in its entirety here: “Figure out what works for your kid. Do that. The End.”
8. What Baby Food Tastes Like: They should go ahead and just do a tasting so you get that little inquisition out of the way ASAP, rather than stretching it out for the duration of the food introduction. Oh, and in case you’re wondering – it tastes gross.
9. Screams of Pain, And How To Determine What Is Real: To the untrained ear, screams of children all sound equally horrible. But with a little work and practice, you will have no trouble determining the scream of “I am pretty sure my knee doesn’t bend this way” between the scream of “Hey, that’s my Barbie!”
10. Helping Siblings Get Along: If my wife had her say, this would be the part where you learn to sit down and talk with your children and iron out the issues. I would refer you to No. 3 and say, “Let ’em fight it out. Last man standing wins.”

I am sure there are many other things that could help parents as they journey down the path.
Of course, part of the joy of parenting is finding out what you know and you don’t know, and teaching and molding your children. I guess it’s something I learned from my parents. I just wish they’d taught me where yellow comes from.

Back on the field

A few years ago, I announced my retirement from competitive sports. My wife was pleased with this, as she was tired of having a husband who would wake up in the morning and asked to be carried down the stairs.
So it had been a few years since I played sports on a regular basis, unless you count front-yard wiffle ball with children.
I had been telling my wife for a while that I wanted to get back into some sort of regular physical activity, so when the opportunity to play flag football arose, I thought it was a perfect fit.
I was quite excited when I told my wife.
“Are you nuts?” was her response.
She then began to remind me of the very long list of ailments and injuries directly attributable to my career in flag football: Pulled muscles, broken ribs, shredded knees, crushed toes, black eyes.
I assured her that I was older and wiser. She agreed with half of the statement.
I promised her that I would (a) stretch a ton before each game, ensuring that I would not injure myself while playing and (b) I would not take it so seriously that a loss would put a dark cloud over the next few days.
When I went out for the first game, I was somewhat concerned what several years’ hiatus had done to me. Had I lost a step? Could I still catch the ball? Have they come up with the next generation forward pass?
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I could still run and catch. I was also pleased to find out that I was less out of shape than I thought.
I came to realize that, although I thought I had been inactive for the past seven years, I had actually been engaging in a fairly intensive workout. It involved:
1. Wind sprints: “Parker, get back in the cart and put down the cantaloupe — WE ARE IN A GROCERY STORE!!!”
2. Overhead presses: “Fine, touch the ceiling once more and then it’s bedtime.”
3. Leg lifts: “OK, one more airplane ride. And then Daddy has to collapse for a few minutes.”
4. Intense cardio: Also known as the “Just stepped on a Thomas the Tank hop”
Basically, unbeknownst to me, I was in some of the best shape of my life. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration. But I was far off from where I thought I would be, which was a good sign. The next day I was sore, but it was a good sore.
And you can guess how long that joy ride lasted. The next time we practiced, I made the egregious error of attempting to punt the ball, something that my leg decided was not going to happen.
I felt a sharp pull on the inside of my thigh. I tried to run a few times, and my leg informed me that if I continued to try that, it would make me fall on the ground.
A pulled muscle, I figured. Those happen. I’ll rest it and wrap it really tight for the next game. Sure enough, a few days later I was game ready again.
I stretched like crazy, wrapped up my leg tight as a drum, and was having a banner, pain-free day. Joy ride 2, prepare for your screeching halt.
There was a play across the middle, and a guy near me caught the ball.
I was a few yards away and tried to make up some ground and grab his flag. I’m not really sure how I did this, but I ended up planting my knee firmly in the ground and twisting my entire body to the left. I hobbled to the side, my knee throbbing in pain. After a few plays, I was able to come back in, thinking I was no worse for wear.
Let’s fast forward to the next morning, when I made the ridiculous mistake of trying to get out of bed.
The scream and subsequent roll off of the bed onto the floor let my wife know that something might be a tad wrong. I apparently pulled a muscle in my chest or rib cage. And if you are not familiar with those kinds of pulls, I recommend that every time you go to take breath, you stab yourself in the side with a steak knife.
Here we are a week later, and I appear to be on the mend. (I can actually brush my teeth without crying!) I haven’t set foot back on the field yet, but I am hoping to be there soon.
After all, I was in far better shape than I realized. And surely these were just freak accidents that could have happened to anyone.
I am sure the next game will be fine. I just hope my wife will carry me downstairs the next morning.

Fly guy

So there I was, staring down my enemy, prepared for combat. We were locked in a fight of epic proportions. Two entered the cage. Only one would emerge. Then, I heard the door open.
ALLIE: Daddy! I need to go! Get out of the bathroom!
ME: (slamming the door shut) YOU’LL LET THE FLY OUT!
ALLIE: Daaaa-ddy!
ME: There are two other bathrooms. I’M AT WAR HERE!!!!
And so goes my insane fascination with hunting down flies when they enter my house. I refer to myself as a warrior. My wife has several other terms, none quite so noble.
For some reason, when a fly enters the house, I absolutely lose it. I have a set strategy for killing them, which starts with ordering everyone out of the room. I shut off all of the lights, save for the one in the bathroom near the kitchen. Often, I taunt the flies. In short order, they buzz on into the bathroom. Then it is Go time. For the record, I am undefeated. No fly escapes on my watch. With my trusty fly swatter, The Big Green Death Machine, I have vanquished many a fly foe. I even have different strategies. Sometimes, I lie in wait. Other times, I am the aggressor. And other times, I opt for style points, only attempting to take the fly out of midair.
You may think that I am somewhat odd for this ritualistic fly killing I take part in. You would be wrong. For one thing, I have found that several other people – including a certain president of a certain United States of America – are also avid fly hunters. Doubt me? Would U.S. News or Newsweek or Globe or wherever it was I read it lie to you?
But I also have found that it is possibly genetic. I was over at my parents’ house this summer, and we noted an inordinate number of flies zooming around out back. (This may or may not have had anything to do with the beached whale carcass.) Over several visits, we had been fending off flies the old-fashioned way – fans turned on high, newspapers rolled up, and repeatedly pawing at the air while trying to stifle your comments lest the 4-year-old hear them and repeat them.
Eventually, we took the logical step. What’s that you say – did we go inside? Oh, no. That is not the logical step. That is the coward’s step! We went on the offensive. We went shopping. And we armed ourselves with the Big Blue, Yellow and Pink Death Machines. Bring it on, flies.
At first, we simply kept the swatters handy for standard swatting. Fly lands, fly dies. You don’t want to rush into a big fly hunt production until you’re sure everyone is on board. But after a while, it became evident that this was not just for utility purposes. And how did this become evident? Probably when my dad said, “You’re sister’s got more than you.” When you start keeping tabs, it is officially on.
From then on, we became consumed with the flies. Once we had wiped out the flies (or they had gotten the message, as I prefer to think), we actually found ourselves wishing more flies would arrive, which I have to say is a weird place to arrive at.
After a few sessions, simply stalking the flies was not enough. We began to develop rules. Among them:
– Flies on someone’s head are fair game.
– Rule 1 does not apply if Mom is the someone.
– Double points if you hit a fly on your own person.
– Fly on a drink? Just shoo it away (that lesson learned the hard way).
We even began to try trick shots and developed fly-killing jargon. At one point, I was sitting there and one landed on my swatter. I simply said to my dad, “High five.” And he immediately knew what I was talking about. In a flash of blue plastic – WHAP! Fly sandwich. To completely go off the deep end, I have even designed my ultimate fly swatter. (Viking inspired, made from skulls, and shooting fire. It will so rock.)
And in case you were wondering – yes, my wife does sigh. A lot.
Oh, during this very grown-up process, we learned one interesting thing about my son: he can catch flies. We were complaining that there were no flies to sway, and Parker said he’d go get us one. He ran away and came back about 15 seconds later, fist clenched. He opened his hand, and sure enough – out it flew. He did it several more times. Not sure how he did it. I am guessing he picked them off the whale.

A-maze-ing

We were lost. I was willing to admit it, especially when I saw my daughter, Allie, drawing the words “HELP US” in huge letters in the dirt. Dire times.
But my wife was not going to take defeat. “This way,” she said. “And Parker, don’t pick the corn.”
Yes, we were well into a corn maze, which is far bigger than you think it will be. A reader sent me information on this particular maze, located in Gilbert, just off I-20 exit 51. (I am not positive, but I got the sense the reader felt confident that I would lose at least one if not two kids if I went.)
My wife and I had pitched around the idea of going for a while, and when a Saturday morning came free with nothing on the agenda, we decided it was time to take the challenge. We loaded up the kids and were there in no time. This particular corn maze is part of Maize Quest, a rather sprawling network of corn mazes around the country. From what I can gather from the website, if you have the land, they will come and build you a big ol’ corn maze just for you. Of course, you don’t have to stick with corn. As they tell you, “Fence mazes, rope mazes, stone mazes, cornfield mazes, labyrinths, mist mazes, bamboo mazes, hedge mazes, hybrid mazes.” In fact, at the farm in Gilbert, they also have a tire maze and a “marshmallow” maze, which I believe was comprised of bails of hay wrapped in white plastic. Or giant marshmallows, which if true is probably quite a sight after a heavy rain.
Anywho, the corn maze sprawls over eight acres. To give you an idea how big eight acres is, it is twice the size of a four-acre plot of land. The maze boasts three miles of pathways, which means you will, without a doubt, be carrying at least one child by the end of it.
This particular maze had a pirate theme, and from an aerial shot you could see that detailed pirate scene that had been carved out of the giant field of corn. In the middle of the corn were two observation decks, and a third, taller deck was at the perimeter. Each deck was staffed with people whose job it was to get you out of the maze should you become hopelessly lost. They arm you with a big flag that you wave when you are ready to quit. Or about to wet your pants. They offer different colors of flags, but I think they should just stick with white surrender flags.
You are given a map to start with, but you can only see the map when you hold it under red transparency. (It’s kinda like those fast food game pieces, only in this instance, you don’t win a Big Mac, but rather your freedom from a corn maze.) There are five stations throughout the maze that have map readers. So, if you can make it to the station, you can put your map under the reader and chart out the path to the next station, which leads to this conversation:
MY WIFE: OK, left, second right, third right, left, left, third right, double back, over the bridge, left, right, second right.
ME: Uh...
MY WIFE: Put down the flag.
Somehow, my wife managed to get us from station to station. She is a far better map reader than I am, so I took the role of chief distracter during map reads. My wife would be plotting our course, and I would be saying one of two things:
1. “Allie, it’s a grasshopper. It’s not going to ‘get you.’”
2. “Parker, it’s a grasshopper. Leave it alone.”
If you have a fear of grasshoppers, I would recommend against a corn maze. Grasshoppers love corn. Or mazes. But there are plenty of them.
When we got to the fifth and final station, my wife told me we were almost at the end. (And made me erase Allie’s “Help Us” sign.) Sure enough, following her lead, we soon saw the exit. After a little more than an hour, the kids sprinted out of the exit victorious. One of the workers the main observation deck announces via loudspeaker when you complete the maze, which the kids found very cool.
I highly recommend a day at the corn maze with your family. If I can go and not only complete the maze but also return with the same two children I entered the maze with, surely you can do this as well. They also let you do it at night, using flashlights. Yeah, no chance I don’t lose a kid that way. If you go, just remember to follow the map, work as a team and, most importantly, remember — the grasshoppers are not going to get you.
For more information, visit www.cornmaze.com.

Aging out

It’s official: I’m old.
Granted, I don’t FEEL old, but the folks in product marketing and advertising have decided I am no longer young, as they have kicked me out of their coveted 18-34 demographic, simply because I made the decision to turn 35.
When I was a kid, 35 was WAY old. Like as old as my parents. I now realize that my parents were actually younger than this when I was born.
Being able to wrap your arms around the fact that your parents were once – gasp – younger is a disturbing concept.
So since we are so focused on number when it comes to age, I will focus on some important numbers during my 35 years logged here on Earth:
5: Number of places I have lived. The bulk of my years are here in Aiken (including my first ones). My second longest tenure was in college at Alabama. Throw in a year in Michigan, a year in D.C. and a year in Orlando and I have just enough experience in life to know that I would rather live deep in a well than in a big city.
2: The number of children I have.
4: The number of children my parents had.
Countless: The number of times I have questioned how, as the fourth child, I made it here. Don’t get me wrong: Love my two children. I just couldn’t imagine leaving man-to-man coverage and playing a zone defense.
11: The number of ways my children think babies come to the planet.
0: Number of children that will be produced in those ways, which include shaving baby monkeys, alien landings, and finding “baby nests” in trees.
8: The number of pet dogs I have had.
3: The number of pet opossums I have had.
1: The number of pet raccoons I have had.
0: The number of pet manatees I have had, due to unfair laws and unreasonable spouses.
4: The number of cars I have owned my life.
1: The number of new cars I have owned in my life.
13: The number of years I drove that new car before selling it last year.
20: The average number of new cars most of my friends seem to have owned since college.
59: Cost, in cents, of a gallon of gas when I got my driver’s license.
11: Age I looked when I got my license.
3: Times I got pulled over because a police officer thought I was some sixth grader out on a joy ride in mom’s car.
240: Length, in feet, of my mother’s Mercury Grand Marquis, which made me look even more diminutive.
5: Years my wife and I dated before getting married.
9: Years we have been married.
52: Years my wife feels like we have been together.
11: Milliseconds it took me to accept my first job offer out of college.
3: Number of times the person offering the job told me to stop accepting the position before I knew the salary, location, etc.
15,900: My annual salary out of college.
7: An hourly wage I thought was AWESOME when in college.
10: Cents the Tooth Fairy paid out when I was a kid.
3: Dollars the Tooth Fairy now pays out, which seems to be outpacing inflation.
0: The number of times I have been called for jury duty.
1: The number of times I have been a Nielsen viewer.
2: Seconds it takes you to realize there is a flaw when people are getting asked to record their viewing habits more often than to determine their fellow citizens’ guilt or innocence.
6: Minutes that we shot for in running a mile when I played high school soccer.
6: Minutes that, I guarantee you, will not be even attempted when running a mile unless a bear is chasing me.
4: Number of football National Championships Alabama has won in football in my lifetime.
20: Number of football National Championships that Alabama fans, including myself, expect Nick Saban to win over the next 20 years (after this year, of course, which is a warm-up).
575: Number of “Mike’s Life” columns I estimate that I have written.
500ish: Number of times someone has asked, “Does your wife get mad about your columns?”
0: Number of times she has gotten mad about a column.
1: Number of times I have been called a “parasite” as a result of a column.
So there you have it. A very random sampling of key numbers OTHER than 35.
Frankly, getting older doesn’t bother me that much, even if I have been kicked out of the cool kids’ demographic.
But I am sure my new club – the 35-55 demographic – can be a happening club, too.
After all, we are the ones who can really make a difference in this world. First order – I’m getting a manatee.

Fire. Fire on the legs.

So there we were, having a delightful time by the pool. Allie was swimming and singing, Parker was splashing around and laughing, and I was sitting on the side. Probably whistling. A bluebird may have even perched on my shoulder. Suburban utopia.
Parker decided to hop out and come over to where I was. He stopped about 10 feet from me and got a curious look on his face. It was a mix between confusion and fear. And then came the dance. It was a dance I know well. It was the dance of someone being mauled by fire ants.
In a blur, I went over to grab Parker, all the while he was speeding up the dance and swatting at his legs, screaming, “ANTS! DADDY! ANTS!!!”
I grabbed Parker by the arms and dipped him in the pool. Allie did a backstroke, making sure she was as far removed from any ants as possible. I was holding Parker by the wrists and had him in the water, and he was kicking furiously in the water, screaming in pain. I am fairly certain the bluebird flew away.
My wife wrapped him in a towel and took him inside. I told Allie it was time to get out of the pool, and she looked at me as if I told her it was time to cut off her own ear. “Uh, Daddy – there are ANTS over there.”
I assured her she would be fine, and that I would lift her over the ants in question. After some minor negotiation (“Fine. A pony. And you can get your driver’s license. Yes, and a tattoo.”) I got Allie inside. Parker was sitting on the couch with my wife, and it was clear the ants had not held back. All over his legs were huge welts, and the area around each welt was turning a bright red. And they hurt. Bad. For those of you who have never been bitten by a fire ant, I offer this comparable experience: Heat up a metal shish kabob to 1,000 degrees. Now jab it into your flesh. Repeat.
We tried to put ice on the wounds, but Parker wanted none of that. As bad as the bites felt, he said the ice felt worse. He had close to 20 bites, and his little legs looked just brutal. Eventually, we got him somewhat calmed down.
We gave him some Benadryl, which makes some children sleepy. Parker is not some children. If we could figure out a way to hook Parker up to an energy grid, we could easily power a city the size of Seattle. He was in fast forward mode. He would run to the den, hop on the couch, jump to the table, sprint upstairs, say something like, DaddycanIhaveajuiceboxIlovedinosaursweneedanotherpuppy!” Eventually, we were able to settle him down (I was amazed at my wife’s accuracy with a dart gun), at which point it was time to finish the battle the ants had started.
Sure, I’ve had run-ins with fire ants. The last major one I had with was courtesy of a nest that had taken up in an extension ladder. When I raised the ladder, the ants came raining down on me, bringing about their exceptionally unnecessary viciousness. But I’m a grown-up. I can take it. We settled it like men. Or, at least, one man armed with poison.
But NOBODY bites my kids repeatedly. Except my kids. But I think we have gotten through the biting phases. This was going to be more than straight up poison. This was going to be a message to the other ants.
I went out on the pool deck and found where they were coming from. That was easy because they were coming from, well, everywhere. In between the concrete slabs of the pool deck are these little white plastic spacers. They are apparently hollow, because streaming out of both ends were ants. There are eight of the spacers around the pool, and each of them had a steady stream of ants going from the pool area to the yard. I can only assume that they have a nice little colony underneath my pool area, which I also hope does not suddenly collapse in on itself as a result of their efforts.
So I armed myself with some ant killer and a thirst for vengeance. At each opening, I put a little bit of the powder in, filling the gap.
Normally, that would be enough to take care of it. But they attacked my son. They would pay.
As the ants returned to find their pathway blocked by a deadly white powder, they would begin to cluster around in little groups, clearly not knowing what to do.
So, I took the powder and made little circles around the clusters, trapping in groups of 20 or so ants in a little poison death corral. I then would scream, “NOT SO TOUGH NOW, HUH?” or “ They may bite our children, but they’ll never take ... OUR FREEDOM!!!”
I continued to taunt and isolate the ants, all the while lecturing them on coming in to my yard and disrupting our Rockwellian pool time.
After about an hour, my wife told me to come inside, as she needed my help. And the neighbors were unsettled with my warpaint.
Parker was pretty much healed up after a couple of days, and I think I have cured the ant problem. And hopefully any other ants in the vicinity got the message, leaving me to focus on other issues. Such as how to get Allie a driver’s license.

Life's a beach

It took us a while to figure out — it had been about five years since my wife and I had taken a weekend for just the two of us.
Time flies when you’re knee-deep in diapers.
True, most years we make a pilgrimage back to Alabama for a football game sans kids, but I think most people would agree that a weekend at a fraternity house does not constitute a romantic getaway.
The maid of honor at our wedding was getting married in Hilton Head, and we saw this as a perfect time to enjoy a weekend at the beach.
The wedding was going to be a small affair, with dinner Friday night and the wedding Saturday night, so we would have much of the daytime to spend doing things that did not involve finding a restaurant with a playground.
The wedding itself was to be at a very nice resort right on the beach.
I had made reservations several months prior, at a hotel I was told was “next door.” Apparently, I should have asked for them to be more specific, because “next door” was about a mile away.
Two days before we left, this came to our attention. Actually, it came to my attention via this message from my wife: “Do you know how far away we’re staying from the wedding?”
By her tone, I was fairly certain that she was not actually looking for a measurement.
Instead, I opted for the counter argument of telling her that the rooms at the resort were way more expensive. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. After all, why splurge a little since we get to go out of town every five whole years.”
Clearly, I had some work to do.
So I called the resort and spoke to a very nice woman in Texas named Lisa.
I know she was in Texas because I asked her. I always enjoy hearing someone cheerily answer the phone, tell me her name is something like “Janeane,” and then having her confess that she, in fact, was in New Dehli. I don’t have a problem with call centers being stationed overseas. I just always find it humorous.
So Lisa asked what she could do for me. I laid it out for her in plain terms: “I’m in the doghouse. We’re going to a wedding in Hilton Head, and I tried to book a room on the cheap. My wife is not very happy with me.”
Lisa told me that they did have rooms, but the wedding rate deadline had passed. I asked how much the rate would be. Way more than twice our current reservation rate at the Walk-a-Ways Inn.
I sighed. I was ready to bite the bullet when I figured it was worth asking: “Are there any rate discounts you might be able to give me? I am both cheap and in the doghouse, which presents a rather difficult dilemma.”
I heard her pecking away on her keyboard. “Let’s see.” Peck, peck, peck. When she came back with a new rate, I asked her to repeat it. Indeed, it was only a few bucks more than our current reservation.
She asked me if we wanted a king size or two queens. I told her that I felt confident a king would suffice.
Showing she had a good sense of humor, she told me that, as a precaution, she would have extra blankets sent to the room in case I needed to use the floor.
When we got into Hilton Head, we checked into our room and found that Lisa had done us right — we had a nice big balcony, overlooking the pool area and the ocean.
The dinner that night was nice, a cookout on a deck overlooking the ocean during which my wife got to catch up with lots of friends from high school.
That night, we both went to sleep looking forward to sleeping in as late as we possibly could. No alarms, no atomic elbow drops from a flying 4-year-old.
And cue 7 a.m. Apparently, we can’t sleep in like we used to.
After a nice breakfast (again, by the beach), we headed out to go shopping in Hilton Head. We went to Harbour Town and found that the Hilton Head approach to stores is to (a) make them as small as possible (b) fill them with as much merchandise as possible and (c) encourage people who like to stand still for 10-12 minutes at a time to block the entranceways.
I’m all for quaint, but I have no desire to be blocked in a tiny, round store just so that I get my son a shirt with an alligator on it.
The wedding itself was on the beach and was a beautiful and scenic affair. Another wedding had ended a while earlier and was holding their reception at a nearby pavilion.
It was a touching scene to see the bride and groom exchange rings as “Macarena” blared from next door.
After the reception, my wife and I concluded the evening in the most perfect way possible — we sat on our balcony overlooking the ocean for a while, and then retired inside and fell asleep to the soothing sounds of South Florida beating Auburn in overtime.
It was a well deserved and relaxing vacation, although we both were ready to get back to the kids by Sunday.
I think it’s important that couples on occasion take time for themselves. I can’t wait to do it again in 2012.

A swimming success

Victory is mine. Parker can swim.
At the beginning of the summer, I told my wife that I would have him swimming by the end of the summer. And we both stuck to it and accomplished our goal, meaning he can start having dinner again.
Ha! Little parenting humor there! Moving on...
Having a pool in our backyard is a tremendous amount of fun. It is also tremendously terrifying. When we bought the house, the pool was just sitting there, a 20,000-gallon rectangular pond in my backyard. When Allie was about two, we were walking around the side of the pool, and, despite the fact that I was holding her hand, she was doing one of those staggering, leaning walks that two-year olds do, and stepped right off the edge into the pool. We were at the shallow end, and I immediately pulled her out, but the split second shot of her looking up at me from under the water terrifies me to this day. The next day, my wife and I were shopping for fences to put around the pool deck.
Despite the comfort of the fence around the pool, we still had very strict rules on pool use. They can only go out there with adults, no running, keep the jet ski under 40 mph, etc.
Allie is a very good swimmer which is a comforting fact. However, at the beginning of the summer, Parker was, well, not. He wore a little life vest when he swam, which we referred to as his “bubble” for some reason. One thing that always disturbed me about “bubbles” and the like is that it gives the kids the false confidence they can swim. The bubble is a lot of fun, though, because he can just paddle around the pool, floating here and there. However, it’s not swimming, and it was key that we get him in fish mode.
In order to wean him off the bubble, I started with a rule: He could not go in the deep end unless he had his bubble on. He could touch at the shallow end, so he would sometimes opt to go without the bubble and just hang in the shallow end. But the allure of the deep blue deep end was great, and he would yearn to travel out there where his sister was swimming around. In order to encourage him to swim, I would stand down at the deep end and say, “WHAT’S THE MATTER, LITTLE BABY – CAN’T SWIM!?!?! BOO-HOO, BABY!!!” And then Allie and I would point and laugh.
Ha! A little more parenting humor there! (I cannot vouch for whether or not Big Sister may have mocked just a smidge.)
So when Parker said he wanted to swim to the deep end, I told him he had to start swimming on his own before he could go. We started in the shallow end, where I would stand about five feet away, and he would stand on the steps. He would launch himself toward me, flailing his arms and legs, slowly sinking underwater. He would stand up, spewing water, hacking and snorting as he emerged. Not exactly a stellar beginning. We kept trying and he eventually got to where he would go for about 8-10 feet, although he always concluded with sinking to the bottom at the end. Fine at the shallow end. Not so fine for someone wanting to go to the deep end.
When Allie learned to swim, there was a point when it just sort of clicked. All at once, everything fell into place for her, and she started gliding across the water. I kept waiting for that moment with the Parker. Then, one day, he was standing on the steps and he said, “Daddy, watch this!” I was about 10 feet from him, expecting him to have that click-on moment. Instead, what he did is, well, odd. He dove underwater, belly almost touching the bottom, and swam, kicking his feet together like a dolphin all the way to me, and popped out of the water still holding his breath. Sure that it was an accident, I put him back on the steps and told him to do it again. Again, down underwater, and he just dolphined on over to me, not coming up for air until he reached me. Perhaps this is normal, but it sure seems odd to me that he could swim UNDER the water, but not ON TOP of the water.
We kept working on the above water swimming, but every time he would start to sink, he would just go into Flipper mode and go torpedoing underwater. Again, all well and good when you can stand up when you get done.
So the other day, he asked if I could carry him on my back into the deep end. We swam to the other side, and he grabbed onto the wall. Just to see what happened, I pushed back way from the wall and told Parker to swim to me. CLICK. He pushed off and starting furiously paddling toward me, his head high above water. I kept swimming backwards, and he kept swimming toward me, until before he knew it we were in the shallow end. The next step was to master jumping into the deep end and swimming. I told him to jump and swim to me, as I treaded water in the deep end. “Will I sink?” he asked me.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” I told him.
He jumped and, with a few quick strokes, was on top of the water, swimming furiously toward me. He could swim.
While I will never feel comfortable letting children swim without an adult present, it’s nice to know that both of them are at the level where they can hold their own. Next summer, Parker will continue to improve, and the pool will be more and more fun. For one thing, he’ll now be able to take the jet ski to the deep end.

Swing town

Allie's eyes lit up when she opened the birthday present and saw the multi-colored wooden swing, which we told her we would hang at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

I am fortunate in that my kids love the basic toys. Fire trucks, swings, blocks, etc. I am sure they would love video games given the option, but since I told them video games do not exist and that anyone saying they had one was telling lies seems to have stemmed that tide.

When we got over to my parents' house, my dad and I pulled the swing out of the box in preparation of finding the perfect tree to hang it from. Unfortunately, the swing only came with an 8 foot rope, and anyone who knows anything about swings knows that 8 feet is nowhere near enough rope to be able to get you to a dangerous - and therefore fun - height.

So my dad went into the garage and found some more rope, and then we set off to find the perfect tree. We stood there in the backyard, and we were both thinking the same thing - man, I wish that tree was still there.

My parents' backyard has a nice, gentle slope. There are woods in the back, and when I was a kid, there was a path right thorough the middle of the woods. About halfway down the path was a great big tree that towered up into the canopy and gently arched over the pathway. I remember vividly as a kid when my dad shimmied to the part of the arching tree just over the path - easily 40 feet up - and tied a rope to the tree. At the other end we attached a tire and had the quintessential makeshift American swing.

The beauty of the swing is that you could get a nice running start and swoop down the hill, so that at the apex of the swing, you were quite high up. (I would give an estimate, but someone far better at geometry than I would probably correct me based on my guess of the tree height.) Regardless, you were quite high up, high enough to break my sister's arm when she plummeted from the tire swing as a kid. Good times.

But alas, Mother Nature had taken that tree down, and the path has grown up somewhat, so that even if you DID manage to swing through there, you would be playing a rather painful game of woodland pinball.

My dad and I agreed that we would consider clearing a new path in the near future, but for now we would find a slightly less awesome tree branch to attach the swing to. We found one close to the house, probably about 15-20 feet high. We attached the swing, and Allie was swinging away in no time, having an absolute blast. Of course, then my wife and mom had to come out and ruin the fun by asking, "Why is she jumping from a ladder onto the swing?"

Clearly, they aren't even trying to enjoy the swing experience. "To get more air," I responded casually. You see, you back the ladder up, climb up a few steps, and launch - a good enough swing and you can even come back and hit the ladder on your return flight.

I tried to calm my wife by explaining to her that our swing when we were kids was even higher and more dangerous. Apparently, she doesn't accept the argument that the one we had as children actually broke children's bones, so this was safe.

Of course, plenty of the playground stuff we had as kids was awesomely dangerous and, in fact, tire-related. I remember in elementary school when two of the most coveted playground toys were giant tractor tires. We would curl up in them and push each other around the playground. Occasionally, we would line up and roll into each other. Last tire standing won! Ah, nothing like the fun of spinning inside a tractor tire that, if it fell on you, would probably crush you.

Oh, and if memory serves, one of the first things you learn in giant tire spinning was to check for water. Most everyone at some point hopped in, tucked in their arms and legs, got a push from a friend and - SPLASH!!! - about 10 gallons of nasty, fetid mosquito-infested water dumped on your back.

My dad and I are still scouting out some new locations for the swing. We may end up leaving it where it is now, but we may try to track down an old tire and maybe have two swings. Who knows, maybe we can get a good deal on a couple of tractor tires while we're at it. The key thing is to make sure the kids get good, wholesome tire experience, just like we had as kids. Except for my sister. We'll try to avoid that.

Bring the pain

Always nice to come up with a new and exciting way to injure myself.

Anyone who has known me for a while knows that I can injure myself in the most unorthodox ways, including:

1. Shooting myself in the hand with a BB gun

2. Extending a ladder only to have a nest of fire ants fall on my head

3. Breaking my hand on my headboard in my sleep

4. Smashing my shoulder while trying to "ski" down a very wet, steep road

5. Having a pet snake escape from his cage and then bite my finger while I tried to retrieve him from under a shelf, and having to get my mother to pry his mouth open with a screwdriver while the snake did its level best to wrap itself around the shelf.

So, in short, if there is a moronic injury to have, I'll get it. I figured at 34 years old, I was finally beyond some of the dumber ways of injuring myself. Sounds like a challenge, huh?

I was in the pool with my kids, and we were having a big ol' time. My daughter, Allie, was very excited because she had finally learned how to do handstands and underwater somersaults.

I was in the pool with her, watching her do her handstands, somersaults, and occasional gulping of water when she stopped the somersault while upside down.

She asked me how many somersaults I could do underwater. "Ten," I told her confidently.

Let's just say that at about spin number eight, I (a) had roughly a third of the pool in my nose and (b) had no idea which way was up, which is always a good thing in the pool. (Just to let you know, my wife was there, so an adult was present.)

"So," you say, "that doesn't sound like a bad injury, Mike!" And I say you are right. Because that was not the injury. That just illustrates to you that my judgment had already been turned off.

The injury occurred a while later. Allie was again doing handstands, and I asked her how high she could push herself out of the water. She looked at me with a puzzled look on her face, and asked what I meant. I told her that when she was underwater on her hands, she should do what amounted to a vertical push-up and see just how far out of the water she could push herself. Still a blank stare.

It was time to show her. "Watch," I said. I went underwater and into a handstand. As I lowered myself to the bottom, I prepared to push off, springing myself out of the water, upside down. No, I wasn't expecting to spring fully out of the water, but figured with a good push I could get my legs out, and maybe a little ways past the waist.

As I prepared to push off, I felt myself drifting back a little, so I adjusted my hands underneath me to make sure I was completely vertical. I did this a few more times, just to steady myself, and I was ready.

With a mighty push, I launched myself as hard as I could. And about one second later is when I had about as close to a blackout from pain as I recall. During my shifting, I had drifted toward the side and in brilliant fashion I launched myself up over the side of the pool, and my legs came crashing down on the concrete.

I hit the concrete just above my knees. I had a feeling similar to the one when I broke my ribs playing flag football. (You know how they say some athletes "leave it all on the field"? I left it ALL on the field that day.)

My wife had a look of horror on her face, and she started immediately apologizing to me. As I hobbled around, stifling the primal vocabulary trying to erupt from me, I said through clenched teeth, "What are you sorry for?"

Apparently, my wife sorta saw the whole thing unfold, and felt as though there was something she could have done from the other side of the pool.

Perhaps she could have shot some Aquaman-style rings at me, except that rather than calling fish, these would have somehow made me not an idiot. She later told me that she should have put a stop to it when I first thought of trying it, because she should have known that it would have played out like that. I concur.

So my legs felt GREAT for the next couple of days. When I woke up the next morning, it was a real blast getting out of bed. My wife asked me how my legs felt. "They feel like someone hit me with a concrete pool deck."

Pretty much everything I did hurt. I tried to kneel down to help my son get his bike helmet. I considered just staying knelt for the rest of the day. When I was sitting on the couch later and Parker jumped in my lap, he seemed quite perplexed by the tiny little whimpers I was letting out.

By the next day, the bruises had started developing quite nicely. A true badge of dishonor. The pain has pretty much gone away at this point, and I am guessing I will not have any lasting damage, save for the damage to my pride. Hopefully, this will be the last moronic injury I sustain. Assuming my wife stops me in time.

Contact Michael Gibbons at mgibbons

Gone fishin'

A big sign out front of the building said “Live Bait,” but that was the only thing giving the slightest hint that the ramshackle building was anything more than an abandoned storage shed.
I slowed down, to the point where a motorist behind me honked his horn, probably cursing at the stinking South Carolina tourist who was always ruining his beloved Emerald Coast. “No way that’s it,” I told Parker. He didn’t care, as we had just stopped at the drugstore for a few items, and he had scored a box of Tic-Tacs. Tic-Tacs — half mint, half maracas. Double score.
I pulled into the parking lot, which was more of a carved-out corner of the lot where the building sat. The sign on the door told me they were open. Guess this was the place my mother-in-law had sent me.
Inside were three guys who looked as though they ran a bait shop. And I actually mean that in a nice way. They were somewhat rough around the edges, but in a manner of men who had spent a lot of time in the elements. They were courteous to me, but especially chatty with Parker, asking him what he planned to catch. (“Shark or gator” was his answer.)
The oldest man behind the counter approached me. It became evident quickly that I had very little idea what I was doing.
HIM: So what are you looking for?
ME: Bait.
HIM: UH, yeah, what kind?
ME: Worms.
HIM: OK, what kind?
ME: There’s more than one kind of worm?
HIM: Yeah, we’ve got wigglers, earthworms and nightcrawlers.
ME:
HIM: What are you fishing for?
ME: Look, it’s for him and his sister, and we’re looking to bait a Shrek fishing pole and a Barbie fishing pole.
HIM: Then wigglers it is.
He handed me a blue tub with some holes punched in the lid. Parker opened, grabbed a few worms out and examined them. Parker approved.
We got back to my in-laws’ house and readied for our fishing trip. My father-in-law prepared the rods for the trip, and we headed out on the dock, about a hundred yards into the bay. We baited both of the kids’ hooks, and they dropped their lines in the water. Parker, on occasion, got a little distracted at what his sister was doing and would wander over to where she was fishing, dragging the line behind him, so that the only fish he would be able to catch would be one that flopped up on the dock and got snagged by the hook.
Allie, however, was very focused. She stood, her eyes glued to the bobber. A couple of times it moved a little, a sure sign something was down below checking out he very tasty wiggler offering. Then — poof! It was gone.
There are several things someone might utter when their bobber goes under. “I got one!” Perhaps, “Caught a fish!” Maybe even, “Here we go!” Allie, opted for, “AHHHHHH!” And then she dropped the fishing pole and looked at me and her granddaddy. “Get it,” she said, to either of us in particular.
I picked up the Barbie fishing rod and went to lift the line to the dock. And what did I find at the other end? A six-hour fight that would yield a 400-pound marlin.
Oh, wait, my mistake. It was about a 4-inch fish that I will say was a bluegill. Allie showed her enthusiasm by standing behind granddaddy, clutching his legs, because if there is one thing to be scared of, it’s a 4-inch fish with a hook sticking through the top of its head.
Parker, a lover of animals, rushed over to check out Allie’s catch. I had to keep him at bay because I did not want him to get stabbed by the fish’s fin or the hook.
When I finally got the hook out of the mouth, I held it up for Allie to see. “That’s nice. Now put it in the water.” I am not sure, but she may have been bullied by a fish at some point in life.
She ended up catching a couple more fish over the next few days, and Parker found that fishing required a patience that he had not quite mastered. He found his evening hermit crab hunt was far more rewarding. Not only were the catches frequent and easy, but you could also chunk your catch back into the water in a way that was not only satisfying but, as we convinced ourselves, harmless to the crab.
So while my kids may never be the weathered old souls at the bait shop, it is good to know they have a little bit of water loving in them. Next time we head down there, we may upgrade Allie to a less Barbie-themed fishing pole. And Parker? It may be time to graduate from wigglers to something more designed to snag shark or gator.

Lucky number 7

There will only be one day in my life where I am woken up by my daughter saying this: “I’M SEVEN!!!”
Ah, the vault-you-out-of-bed power of your seventh birthday. Better than coffee.
Allie embraced her day and was quick to remind everyone that it was HER birthday:
– “Daddy, it’s my birthday, so I want cake for breakfast.”
– “Mommy, it’s my birthday, so I’ll wear what I want and you can’t say it doesn’t match.”
– “Parker, it’s my birthday, so go draw on the walls and don’t tell anyone I told you to do it. And give the dog a haircut.”
We asked Allie what she wanted, party-wise, and she said that she wanted a family picnic. Yes, yes, cue the “Awws.” But I think this was thought out. Allie knows how big her family is. Remember – this is the child who has a photograph from when she was 20 minutes old with her six – SIX – grandparents lined up behind the proud parents and new baby. A family picnic can mean a good two or three dozen people. I think this was calculated, the little weasel.
Her seventh birthday was, of course, pause for reflection for my wife and me. For one thing, it was seven years ago to this day, I said the dumbest thing I have ever said: “I have GOT to get some sleep.” You see, it was that day, Aug. 8, 2000, that we brought home Allie from the hospital. And guess what – Mommy was a little tired. And Mommy made it pretty clear that the previous couple of nights, when I was at home in my bed, NOT being woken up by nurses every few hours to be poked and prodded and have a little wiggly creature thrown in my lap, I could have banked a few hours of shuteye.
But before we knew it, we were in a routine. And the sleepless nights are distant memories at this point. Rather, I reflect on some fond memories of the past seven years:
1. Convincing my daughter that we were not going to be eaten by sharks. We were in the Florida Keys, and for some reason my wife let me take my daughter parasailing. “Are there sharks down there, Daddy?” “God I hope not,” I replied confidently.
2. Seeing my daughter enjoy the effects of anesthesia. After roughly 43,000 ear infections, Allie had her adenoids removed. After they gave her something to relax her before the surgery, she laughed at how the nurses were twins. (There was only one nurse.) And Daddy? Three hands. (I am pretty sure I have only two.)
3. Seeing her first haircut. And the look on her mother’s face when she saw her first haircut. Oh, did I mention that I gave her the haircut?
4. Having the realization that children will mimic their parents, which is very flattering, until you realize how they will mimic without discrimination, including when Daddy is working on the pipe under the sink and bumps his head.
5. Seeing her reaction to her new baby brother, which was one of extreme joy and pride, rather than what it could have been, which was to test her skills at hiding things.
6. Realizing that she thinks Daddy can fix ANYTHING, as she hands me a Barbie doll with a missing leg and no hair.
7. Realizing that I can still do a sleight of hand with a different Barbie doll and make her think I can fix ANYTHING.
8. Having to relinquish any responsibilities I have for picking out my daughter’s clothes because, as she put it, “Daddy, I want to wear something pretty.” Well excuse me if a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt isn’t pretty. It’s all I know.
9. Realizing that, even though they may scrap on occasions, she loves her brother. I base this on the fact that whenever he hurts himself (which is far more often than Allie does), she tries to drown out his crying by singing at the top of her lungs, often making up such song lyrics as:
Parker, please stop crying
I wish he would stop
I don’t like it when cries
Mommy, Daddy do something
Stop crying. Stop crying.
If you don’t make him stop you have to get me a pony.
10. Knowing that, even though she – as she is quick to remind us – is already 7 years old, there is still a lot of little girl in her. Take, for example, the look on her face when she saw her new bike. That will forever be etched in my memory – the eyes wide open, the mouth agape, the sheer and utter shock at what she saw. Come to think of it, it’s the same look her mother gave when she saw Allie’s first haircut.

Hannah vs. Elvis

Children are always going to say embarrassing things in public. It’s what they do. Among some of my children’s finest moments:
At the grocery store: “DADDY!!! Let’s get beer!!!”
At Lowe’s: “Why can’t we go to Home Depot?”
At a department store: “Daddy, I forgot underwear.”
But the one that truly had me anticipating odd looks of other patrons was in the grocery store when my daughter, without prompt, announced, “Dad, Hannah Montana is WAY cooler than Elvis.”
I looked around and saw several people staring at me, probably wondering what in the world led to this conversation. What led to the conversation was a mistake I frequently make: I tried to teach my kids something.
Earlier in the day, we were cleaning the house. I had some music playing a random disc of songs. My music choices are rather wide-ranging, so the songs may go from Marshall Tucker Band to Pearl Jam to George Strait to Metallica. When Allie came into the room, the Elvis Presley song “In the Ghetto” was playing. As you know, “In the Ghetto” is an uplifting song about a young man getting shot and killed after stealing a car, so what better song to sing to your 6-year-old.
She asked me who was singing, and I told her Elvis. I told her that Elvis was one of the most popular singers ever. I showed her some pictures of him online, and told her how Grandma had seen him in concert years ago. Kinda fun to show your kid concert clips of Elvis and the crowd going nuts, and watching her try to picture Grandma in the mix.
She didn’t seem to grasp just how big Elvis was (insert your own later-years Elvis joke here). I tried to relate, so I went the Hannah Montana rout. For those of you not familiar, Hannah Montana is a show on the Disney Channel about a ninth-grade girl who has a secret life as a pop singer. It’s actually a well-done show, and I have probably watched more episodes of Hannah Montana in the last year than anything I would opt for on my own. The show stars Miley Cyrus, the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, who plays her dad on the show as well. The show writers obviously keep in mind parents are watching, because they throw in a mullet haircut joke just for us once in a while.
Anyhow, Hannah Montana is the hot thing right now, at least as far as 6-year-old girls go. She is SOOOO cool, probably the coolest thing EVER. So we had this conversation:
ME: Allie, do you think Hannah Montana is cool?
HER: She is the coolest!
ME: No, I am, but let’s stay on track here. Elvis is about a thousand times cooler than Hannah Montana. THAT’S how cool he was.
HER:
ME: Understand?
HER:
ME: Look, Elvis is the coolest. Or one of the coolest. Along with Frank Sinatra, Han Solo, Rick Blaine, Chili Palmer, John Wayne and George Clooney’s character in “Out of Sight.”
HER: Uh, can I go play now?
So I figured we were done with our pop culture lesson until the grocery store. I tried to remain calm, understanding that she is a child, and she cannot expect to grasp such things. I tried to explain again. I held my hand about waist level. “Allie, if this is Hannah Montana’s level of cool, Elvis’ level would be somewhere up in the sky. It’s not a knock on Hannah. But you’ve got to understand how cool Elvis was.”
“I think Hannah’s cooler.”
“Allie, he wore jumpsuits — and made it work.”
(For what’s it’s worth, Parker’s on my side. Granted, he’s 4, so if you just present it in an excited manner, you can get him on board: “Parker, you know what’s cool — OATMEAL!!!! YEAH!!!!!”)
Perhaps I should just let her have her icon of Hannah Montana. Hannah Montana could, I suppose, grow to super celebrity status one day. (Please, please, please, in the name of Disney teen stars, take the Hillary Duff route, rather than the Lindsay Lohan one.) Who knows, one day she may be explaining to her kids about the iconic status of Hannah Montana. All the while explaining to other shoppers that she does not, in fact, plan to get her kids beer.

Circus tume

At some point in the near future, I will find my son in a contorted position, his leg stuck behind his head. And I will find my daughter dangling from a chandelier, trying to figure out how to get down.
And I will blame Ringling.
I took my kids to the circus twice this weekend, which is two times more than I normally go to the circus in a weekend.
Parker’s favorite was the contortionists, a father-son team who made me very uncomfortable. I don’t know much about the human body, but I know how it is NOT supposed to bend. During the act, my wife nudged me. I looked over and saw my son trying to pull his foot up over his head, a la the plastic men on the arena floor. He got his foot up to his forehead, and then became a little frustrated when he couldn’t get it all the way over his head. For those of you familiar with 4-year-olds, think about how they channel frustration. Take, for example, when two puzzle pieces will not fit together. Rather than consider the possibility that they were not the right pieces, kids will opt for brute force. Parker will often offer a growl for maximum effect. He took the same approach here, pushing harder and growling loudly, the only result being a sandal imprint on his forehead.
Allie, meanwhile, was fascinated by the woman who grabbed hold of a big silver circle and was pulled up high above the floor where she spun, twisted, flipped and flopped. It was quite graceful and even more unsettling. The most disturbing part for me was when she hung by her heels. You know what the heel’s purpose is? I can assure that its purpose is NOT to dangle upside down from. As she sat there and spun in the air, I looked over at Allie, saw the big grin on her face and thought, “Uh-oh.”
A few other random thoughts from our double circus duty:
1. I heard several complaints about traffic going into the Convocation Center. I had the same reaction as when I hear complaints about traffic around town, and that is to shudder about Atlanta. Every time I go there, I long for the traffic of Aiken. And a few-minute wait into the Convocation Center? When I go to Falcons games with my father-in-law, the wait is brutal, and the folks who constructed the Georgia Dome not only opted for one of the more frightening areas of Atlanta, but you also have to traverse several mountains and valleys to get into the stadium. Basically, the wait into the circus was not that bad, and you didn’t need a Sherpa to get you in.
2. Be careful what you use as a reasoning chip. As everyone now knows, the elephant did not fit in the Convocation Center. They opted to set the elephant outside for folks to see after the circus. After the first night, we started to head out, and my wife opened the can of worms by saying, “Who wants to see the elephant?” Apparently, my vote of “Not me” did not matter. As we were moving with the masses to the elephant, I had this conversation with the kids:
ME: Let’s not battle the crowds to see the elephant.
KIDS: BUT WE WAAAAAAANT TO!!!!
ME: Kids, we have a season pass to the zoo. We can see elephants — and a whole lot more — whenever we want.
KIDS: WE’RE GOING TO THE ZOO!!!!
3. Be careful what you agree to without all of the details. The kids wanted a snow cone. Sure, I said. Everyone should have a snow cone! Let’s just put it this way: The cups the snow cones come in better be in use WELL into their college years. And the clown hat Parker got? Don’t even think of taking it off, bub.
4. Cut clowns some slack. It has become too easy to offer up the “creepy” clown aspect. Truth of the matter is, a serial killer and a crazed Stephen King psycho have given the hardworking lovable clowns a bad rap.
5. Trapeze should be an Olympic sport. Or even remove the net and put it in the X-Games. But either way, the stuff they do is way more entertaining than most Olympic offerings, in particular USA basketball.
All in all, I consider the circus a big success. It passed the one and only test I require for family events — did the kids have a good time? The answer was a resounding yes. We will certainly be back the next time the circus is in town. Assuming we get Parker unstuck and Allie off the ceiling.

Face off

Here’s a great phone call to receive at work: I answer the phone, and it’s my wife. “Come home now. Or meet me at the doctor. Just start driving this way.” Click.
My first reaction was to say, “HELLO? HELLO? HELLO?” even though I heard her hang up. It’s as though people think saying “HELLO?” louder and louder will somehow reconnect the call.
I headed out of the office and called my wife with my cell phone. We had this exchange:
HER: Are you on your way?
ME: Yes, what happened?
HER: Parker cut his head.
ME: How?
HER: Just get here. Or meet me at the doctor.
Click.
ME: HELLO? HELLO?
A few moments later my phone rang. It was my wife, calling to provide a few more details. Turns out she needed to get me in motion but didn’t have a lot of time to talk because she was working to stop the geyser of blood coming out of The Dude’s forehead. He apparently opted for a head butting contest with the corner of a couch. The couch, it appears, won.
She had put in a call to the doctor’s office, who said to bring him in. I was near the house, so I went there to help with loading the kids up.
When I came in the door, my wife was on the phone again with the doctor, and a neighbor was sitting with Parker. Parker looked like he had just finished a bar-room tough man competition. He was wearing a pair of blue jean shorts and about four pints of blood. I walked in and saw him, and he looked up at me. Did he cry? Did he whimper? No way. The Dude lifted the cold compress off his head and said, “Daddy -- look.” This is the kid who, when he was two, got a shot from a nurse. She put the Band-Aid on his leg, and he responded my peeling it off and handing it back to her, along with an icy stare.
Underneath the compress was a big nasty gash, even bigger than the one I gave myself a few months ago when I went a round with a door (the door won). Naturally, my caring and compassionate nature led me to respond with, “Cool! We’re gonna have matching scars!” Parker thought that was cool, too. Based on the stares from my wife and my neighbor, we were alone in that feeling.
When we got to the doctor’s office, I went to unload the kids. In putting Parker in the car, I guess I kinda focused a little too much on the whole not bleeding over everything component. My wife asked where his shirt was. Uh... Shoes? Hmmm.
So there we were, blue jeans shorts and a head wound. As I was carrying him in, I am sure it looked far worse, as though I were just carrying him from a disaster scene. “Forgot the shoes!” I said to several people I walked past, as if this would somehow explain to people why my four-year-old son was covered in blood.
Parker was very calm, and seemed to almost wonder what all the fuss was about. When the doctor started looking at his head, he looked over at me and said, “Daddy, should I close my eyes or not?”
The doctor said we would probably be able to fix the wound with glue, rather than stitches. Allie, who is almost seven, has never been a fan of doctor’s office, and she was even less of a fan of watching her brother get super glued back together. “Uh, I’ll just go sit in the waiting room,” she told us as she tried to bolt the room. I told her that everything was OK, and that the super glue could also be used to keep little girls in their seats. She was not entirely certain I was kidding.
We were told that he had to keep his head dry for five days, which is not a very fair sentence for a kid in the summer who lives at a house with a pool. My wife and I weren’t trying to punish Allie, but it would be pretty unfair to let her go swimming while Parker sat at the window watching. We sat both kids down and explained to them that the pool, unfortunately, had sharks in it for a few days.
One nice thing about head wounds on children is that people immediately assume you took a hatchet to your child. I for one make a point of NOT justifying the wound to anyone. When they stare at me with that look, I just stare back and say, “You want some?” And then my wife jabs her elbow in my ribs.
During the healing process, my wife and I did distinguish ourselves as either very creative or very bad parents (the jury is split on it). Any time Parker would fuss, fidget, sass or otherwise be a four-year-old, I would say, “CAREFUL PARKER! Your cut will open up!” And he would freeze. It’s amazing what the fear of your brain oozing out of your head will do for behavior.
The wound is slowly healing up, although it is still rather nasty. He’s definitely going to have a scar, but it should (a) be mostly covered by his hair and (b) add an air of mystery later in life. Maybe he and I can stroll along, our matching scars, people wondering if it was a father-son run-in with ninjas or something. Oh, and for what it’s worth, the healing has occured at just the right time -- I finally got the sharks out of the pool.

Water world

Some notes you don’t want to find posted to your door:
“Took the kids for a drive. See you soon. – Britney Spears”
“Sorry I missed you. By the way, you left the liquor cabinet unlocked – Lindsey Lohan”
“The City of Aiken has detected a massive leak on your side of the water line and disconnected your water.”
Imagine my joy at seeing the latter. We had received a note the prior month that we had a small leak and that we should check around the house.
I contacted the water folks and asked if sprinkler use could have something to do with this. Indeed it could, they said. This made tremendous sense, as I had not used my sprinkler system in two years.
On occasion, I would drag out the hose and a sprinkler, but this was (a) a pain and (b) a reason for me to resent my neighbors, as their timed zones mocked me by evenly watering their yards.
So I assumed that the uptick in my water bill was simply because I was not making my yard die of thirst any more.
The bill came, and it was about $10 higher than normal. A ten-spot for my plants, I told my wife. They’ve earned it.
Then the next bill came. Apparently, the plants had upped their allowance considerably. It had been extremely dry and I had been watering my yard a considerable amount.
I decided I would monitor my water usage a little more closely, and also refrain from my all-day Tuesday showers. And then a few days later the note hit my door. It was a Friday afternoon, so I was starting to panic, thinking I would not have water for the entire weekend.
I managed to get through to someone, and someone from the City met me at the house. I told him about my sprinkler usage thoughts, and he explained to me that, over the month of June, I had essentially filled four swimming pools up with my water usage.
My sprinklers were not capable of that. He and I went around the house, searching again for the elusive leak, to no avail. I called a plumbing company and found one that, thankfully, considered Saturday a regular ol’ working day.
So the plumber rolled up bright and early on Saturday morning. I went out to meet him, eager to find his high-tech leak detection device. I assumed it would look like a ray gun.
I was very disappointed when he pulled out a long stick. He looked around, took a few steps inside my azaleas, and plunged it into the ground. “Found it,” he said, pulling the stick out and showing me how it was wet.
I took a step inside my azaleas to peer in, and at that point I, too, found the leak, as my foot went about calf-deep into mud.
(QUICK BREAK FOR A GARDENING TIP: Want beautiful green azaleas that grow at a rate unlike any you’ve ever seen? Pump about 100,000 gallons of water underneath them for a month! And when you’re asked for wise comments on how half of your azaleas are growing at a freakish rate, just shrug and say, “Yep. Crazy, huh?”
Back to the column: So he finds the general area where the leak is coming from.
I go in the back to play with the kids, confident my problem will be solved in no time. About an hour later, I came back out front and found there was now a small pond in my front yard, and I am fairly certain that I did not have a small pond an hour prior.
The plumber told me that he had finally found the leak, but it was far worse than he thought. In addition to the line being roughly 400 feet underground, it had apparently been attacked by tree roots that were not content being tree roots, but were actually setting out to destroy my pipes and checkbook.
We had two options: Bring in a backhoe and dig up half of my azalea bed or completely reroute my water line, bringing it into the house from an area away from the vicious attack trees.
We opted for the latter, mainly because they were going to have to dig a big trench across my yard, and that would save me hours of future yard work.
Now, I could ignore the bare spots, and if anyone should comment that my yard looks somewhat like a sandlot, I can say, “Yeah, had some plumbing work done. Dug it up good.” Hopefully, they would not ask, “Did the plumber plant all of the dandelions, too?”
It took him the better part of a day, but eventually my water line had been rerouted, and the underground ocean was put to an end. I guess I should be thankful that the water underneath didn’t cause extensive damage to my yard and house.
I guess what I’m saying is that it could be worse. Britney could have the kids.