Defragging My Childhood Hard Drive

(Disclaimer: The incidents in the article are meant to be recollections from the perspective of a child aged 0-6. They may not be 100% accurate, which is the point of the article to begin with. No children were actually harmed in the publishing of this story)

Childhood memories are strange things, but parents who work tirelessly to forge those memories for their children might be even stranger.

It’s kind of sad when you look at that from the perspective of the parents. Here you are, trying your best to give your little pre-school kids memories that last a lifetime, yet in the end who knows what they’ll remember? Your legacy as a parent is really at the mercy of a few scattered moments. I recently searched the deepest recesses of my 40+ year old brain in an attempt to uncover my earliest memory...it was a long, painful process, equivalent to defragging a 40GB hard drive in search of missing or corrupt sectors. By my recollection, the earliest memory I can retrieve from my dusty old brain is a very vague remembrance of my grandfather's funeral when I was 5 years old in 1973. I'm pretty sure one of my crazy uncles allowed me to illegally sit on his lap and hold the steering wheel of the van while driving on a highway to the cemetery. That is definitely the farthest back my memory bank will go. Everything before that is a default. Maybe I had some good times with my family from ages 0-5, maybe my parents took me to some cool places and did some fun and exciting things with me, but really...who knows? All I can do is take their word for it. About all I know for sure is, I survived those years...that's about it.

Beyond my earliest memory of my grandfather’s funeral, I do have some kindergarten memories...but only of the strangest events. For instance, I remember a kid named Jerry Gray, who somehow managed to stab himself with a pencil somewhere near his eye. My classmates were screaming, my teacher was in panic mode...and blood was definitely a prominent part of that memory.

And then I remember nap time. I grew up in an era in which kindergarten teachers were allowed to take an extended coffee break for themselves and force their energetic students to take mandatory naps. I don't know how long these naps were, and I highly doubt any child ever actually fell asleep, but I do remember we each had a little rug to sleep on and we could lay it wherever we wanted to on the floor. I was apparently a frisky 5 year old because I definitely remember purposely positioning my little brown rug directly in front of my very attractive kindergarten teacher's desk so I could stare at her legs. Saddest day of my life was when I discovered that Miss McGinness wasn't going to be my teacher EVERY year. So those are my earliest memories...a little blood, a death, and some skin. Sounds more like a cheap B-movie than a childhood, if you ask me, but that's all the material I have to work with.

But then there are my earliest memories of my mom and dad. I'm not quite sure how to put this delicately, especially since they're both still alive and well, but if we were just going by the evidence saved in my earliest memories, my parents would either be locked up in prison somewhere serving life sentences as abusive parents, or at the very least they would have been stripped of custody of all 5 of their children by DEFAX. I'm sure both mom and dad had loving moments with me, after all, there are a few old picture slides which show me looking pretty happy, and the pictures look genuine enough...but the core of my earliest memories only seem to recall some horrible moments. For instance, there was the time my brothers and I got in big trouble for innocently walking a few miles down the creek in our backyard without telling anyone about it. What should have been a real brotherly-bonding, "Huck Finn" type adventure for us instead turned into one of the harshest parental yellings ever heaped upon unsuspecting children in the history of the world. I COULD tell you the punishment we received from that incident, because that I DO remember, but it would probably result in the FBI hunting down my father like he was some sort of war criminal...so I'll spare him that humiliation.

Then, painfully, I remember that my parents, for whatever unknown reason, did not sign me up to play ice hockey when I was 6 years old...even though my 2 older brothers were allowed to continue playing, and even though I had just earned a trophy for "Most Improved Player" the previous season. As a classic middle child always struggling with feelings of neglect, I can tell you I'm still in therapy to this day for this sad injustice. In fact, the reason I'm still playing hockey today, as a 43 year old adult, is just to prove to my parents that they should have never pulled me out of hockey.

And finally, in very general terms, I'm fairly confident that my mom yelled at me or my siblings for something each and every day of my childhood, and only took a break from yelling at us when my dad pulled into the driveway, at which point she provided him with the daily report and a litany of all of our wrongdoings...and then HE resumed the yelling where she left off. Again, if we're just going by my vague early memories, this is the way it happened in my childhood.

Of course, I'm willing to acknowledge today that there may be some holes to these stories. Maybe my memory has exaggerated some of these details. I'm not a psychologist, but I would venture a guess that traumatic, or really negative memories probably stick out amongst the endless stream of repetitive joyous and happy memories. The bad memories may linger in our dusty old brains for years and years and shape some of our childhood stories, but those joyous and happy memories are really what form our lives.

As parents of 3 boys, while running ourselves completely ragged in ridiculous efforts to forge an endless stream of happy memories for our kids...my wife and I sure hope that's the way it works. Otherwise, we'll end up on an FBI "Most Wanted" list some time in the future as well.

The Great Outdoors

I thought I enjoyed camping. With 3 sons, all in Scouts, it was inevitable that sleeping outside on hard earth with just a thin layer of nylon held up by a couple of poles as protection would emerge as a favorite thing to do. My two older sons are Boy Scouts now, and they camp at least once a month. They've hiked the Appalachian Trail (where bears also hike), they've slept in caves (where bats also sleep upside-down), they've eaten meals in swamps (where crocodiles also eat their meals), and they've slept through some of the wildest, most intense southern thunderstorms imaginable (like the kind of storm that sent Dr. Emmett Brown back to 1885 in "Back to the Future 2"). Yes, there are inherent dangers to sleeping in the great outdoors...bears top the list, followed closely by snakes, skunks and lightning strikes. Further down the list you'll find racoons, poison ivy, falling tree limbs, and ridiculously loud snoring.

But camping, at its core, is really an exercise in tolerance. How much can you tolerate, and for how long? My wife Laurie refuses to camp under any of the conditions I've highlighted above. Her tolerance level is at the low end of the spectrum, virtually non-existant. In fact, to get her to camp outside, I would need to provide electricity (for her hairdryer and curling iron), and I'd have to guarantee mild temperatures in the range of 62-78 degrees. I would also have to guarantee that no other human being besides our immediate family would lay eyes on her in the morning until she's had a chance to do her hair or fix her makeup. And one last caveat, there would need to be a shopping mall within 15 minutes of the campsite...otherwise we're in far too remote of an area for her comfort level.

My youngest son is 7, and he's yet to experience a full campout. He's new to Scouting, and there will be plenty of opportunities very soon, but he was envious of his 2 older brothers this Summer when they disappeared for a week at Summer Camp in North Georgia. I felt bad for him, so I decided to offer him the "sampler" version of camping in the Great Outdoors...namely the "Backyard Campout". We set up our tent no more than 15 feet from our back door. To prepare for the night away from the comfort of our home, we loaded the tent with a laptop and DVDs and books and fresh microwaved popcorn. We inflated air mattresses and threw in our fluffiest pillows and most comfortable blankets. And then, since it was the middle of summer, we brought in our battery-operated heavy-duty industrial-strengthed fan to be placed somewhere in the vicinity of our heads all night long. It was gonna be great!

We set the tent up before sunset and decided to keep the rain fly off since it promised to be a warm, clear night. After sunset, Christopher was busy playing a video game, and I was watching a pretty good ballgame on TV, so we delayed our outing until after 9PM. When the time came, we kissed Laurie goodnight and headed for the long trek from our back door to the tent. Took about 8 seconds, door to door. Once inside the tent, after watching a movie, eating some popcorn,

and reading some books, we turned off the light and attempted to sleep. Christopher was excited to be out there, but eventually he faded off to sleep.

Then the noises began. First, a wild animal brushed up against the side of the tent near my head. Skunk? Racoon? Or that most-dreaded of all residential rodents...the grotesque Opossum with the cone-shaped head and the evil, beady red eyes? No, just Jack...our curious pet cat. His purring gave his identity away. He was attempting to test his claws on my brand new over-priced tent from REI, so I smacked his back leg through the tent. Disaster averted. I laid my head back down on my pillow. 10 minutes later I noticed faint flashes of lightning. Stupid weather forecaster said no chance of rain. I intently watched the skies...measuring the frequency and intensity of the lightning. After determining that the storm was indeed getting closer, I

gathered the laptop, the DVDs and the books and took them into the house. I returned to the tent and, for a few minutes, contemplated picking up Christopher and taking him to his bed and calling it a rainout. He would have never known the difference...but I just couldn't do that to the kid. So I crawled back in the tent and, now wide awake, tried to fall asleep. Naturally, I couldn't. I turned the fan off to see if that would help me fall asleep. The lightning faded away and stopped, but next I heard the amazing sound of an owl in the woods down my street...sounded like it was 2 or 3 houses down. Cool sound! But a few minutes later I heard another owl, much closer in the woods behind my home, but this owl didn't sound "real". In fact, to me it sounded like a human trying to immitate an owl..."woo, woo-hoo". Every time the real owl hooted down the road, the phoney owl in my backyard gave its awkward reply. And each time, it sounded more and more like a fake owl..."woo, woo-hooo". As fascinated as I was by this, I began to

wonder, "Is there some sort of deranged stalker lurking in my backyard woods pretending to be a nocturnal bird?" Has he been doing this for years without us knowing about it? An escaped asylum patient perhaps? (I'm not sure where the closest Asylum is, or if they're still called "Asylums" for that matter, but the mind does strange things when camping).

Eventually I think I drifted off to sleep. Only to be awoken by the sound of an animal walking through the pinestraw of my backyard woods. No mistake about it, this was a heavy-sounding animal. Then suddenly the walking turned to an all-out sprint through the woods with a trailing beast-like growling noise. Definitely not one of our cats. Perhaps a coyote or a fox? But honestly, to me it sounded more like a half-man/half-wolf of some sort...either that or a prehistoric raptor.

Or was it that escaped Asylum patient, up to his old tricks?

Now I was wide awake...and we weren't even close to sunrise. Christopher of course was sound asleep. I couldn't get comfortable. To make matters worse, the $75 inflated mattress pad under my sleeping bag obviously had a leak, because I was now pretty much sleeping on solid earth. I turned the fan back on, to try to drown out the noises of my ridiculously weird and annoyingly loud backyard. Backyards are a lot like neighbors...the more you learn about them, the less you wished you knew.

As dawn approached, a stark reality dawned on me. There's a reason I sleep inside my house. There's a reason I sleep on a firm mattress. There's a reason I lock the doors at night. There's a reason I don't go for walks in my woods after sunset. And there's a reason camping is fun ANYWHERE BUT your own backyard!

The Battle of Atlanta; The Siege of Dacula-burg

Civil War history lesson: The Confederate Army had a bad week in early July, 1863. They gambled and lost in the "Battle of Gettysburg"; and they yielded their last Mississippi River stronghold in the "Siege of Vicksburg". Both simultaneous events all but sealed the fate of the Confederate cause. You can read all about those pivotal moments on Wikipedia if you like, I won't bore you with the geeky details, but there's one thing I've always wondered... what's the difference between a "Battle" and a "Siege"? Well, last month here in the south, Atlanta witnessed a menacing attack from the north reminiscent of Sherman's March to the Sea. And for one full week I discovered firsthand the answer to my question.

Snowstorms in Atlanta are prefaced by a week's worth of pregame hype, comparable to Super Bowls and Election Night. It's comical for my northern-bred wife and I to watch the buildup for a storm that wouldn't even register as a blip on local news in our native Buffalo, New York. We got caught up in the hype this time and on the Sunday morning before the storm was scheduled to arrive, we desperately ran out to find a sled. I was embarrassed to stoop to that level of desperation, but truthfully I was even more embarrassed that a family with Buffalo blood didn't have a legitimate sled somewhere in their attic. I refuse to allow my kids to even attempt sledding in a laundry basket or on top of a lid to some plastic tub. I have some pride.

Well, my pride went out the window when the clerk at the hardware store laughed and told me sleds have been sold out in the metro area since Wednesday. So we went home, emptied the laundry baskets, and waited for the snow to arrive...which it did, almost on cue with what the weatherman told us all week. The weathermen, by the way, have taken all the fun out of weather. I miss being surprised. Would it be so bad to be surprised by the weather?

Anyway, it started snowing around 10PM on Sunday, and by 11PM school's were closed. The kids ran outside in euphoria and played till after midnight. They awoke the next morning and played some more, but then realized playing in the snow when it's really cold, without proper winter clothing, is really not that much fun afterall. And with that realization, the Siege at home began.

This winter storm was legitimate, even by Buffalo standards. Many roads were treacherous and impassable. I weathered the Siege at home for two days. The purpose of a Siege is to surround a fortified place and isolate it from reinforcement. At one point, out of pure boredom, my son Adam and I contemplated walking a couple of miles to get food...even though we had plenty of food at home, and most likely the places we wanted to get food weren't open anyway. But that's what a Siege can do to you, those are the tricks a Siege will play with your mind!

By Wednesday I had had enough, and decided to flee the Siege at home and join the Battle on the streets of Atlanta. After two days of wathching the Battle unfold on all the local news channels, I just had to go out to see for myself how bad it was. My wife Laurie kissed me goodbye as I headed out to the Battlefield. And truth be told, it was bad. Cars driven by inexperienced drivers, on icy roads untouched by plows, contributed to an overall sense of chaos and lawlessness. Spinning tires from cars trying to climb uphill, skidding cars with wheels turned and locked in desperation going downhill. I drove to work with a full awareness of every car around me, fully expecting to get hit at any moment. That's what a Battle is all about.

As the week wore on, more and more soldiers joined the Battle, which of course only contributed to the mayhem. The new soldiers were like new recruits joining the frontlines with zero Battle experience. Driving on icy roads is an artform, but it became clear by Thursday and Friday that not all Atlanta drivers are art lovers. Meanwhile, the Siege at home was taking its toll. School was closed for the entire week, and the kids had lost all interest in the white stuff outside on the ground. They became bored with video games, and then they turned on eachother, becoming abusive and ill-tempered. Meals were becoming a daily challenge as we dipped into the canned soups that had been sitting in our pantry since 2006. The snow was winning, there was no doubt about it.

But then, just before waving the white flag, the sun came out and temperature's warmed. The Battle ended, the Siege lifted. And I finally figured out the difference between the two...and decided they're equally unpleasant.

Anger Management, 1st Grade Style

It's hard to say if today's kids are under more stress than kids from, say, 35 years ago. I mean when you really look at it, the world's not THAT different. Sure technology has added a few wrinkles, and bad news is more readily available, but the core stress-inducing elements are relatively unchanged. In fact, there's a timelessness to many of them. Afterall, we had a long drawn-out war with unclear objectives in the 1970's too. We had Middle East hostilities to worry about. We had shady political practices, corruption and unhealthy bipartisan cooperation. This generation may have Wikileaks, but we had Watergate. We had stagnant home values, and lifeless stock markets. Heck, I can remember many sleepless nights in 1st Grade worrying about rising oil prices and the potential effects of inflation on an already overburdened economy. My kids seem so proud of these difficult days they live in, almost like these are Historic Days or something, a badge of honor. "Hey, we had massive, crippling National Debt back when I was a kid, too, you know, not to mention really bad fashion!", I proudly tell my children.

Here's the difference, though. Today's kids are being taught how to handle these crises, while my generation was pretty much clueless. The fact that I came from a clueless generation is not too surprising, considering this is the same generation that thought nothing of the dangers of second-hand smoke from cigarrettes. I also proudly boast to my kids that I survived an era in which seat belts in cars were not used to save lives, instead they were just those annoying straps that were designed to be shoved into the seat cushions to allow all 5 of my siblings to fit in the back seat of our Ford Country Squire station wagon...while my Mom and Dad puffed away on cigarrettes in the front seats. I also survived an era in which I was allowed to go outside in my neighborhood without adult supervision and without any means whatsoever of getting in touch with adult supervision, other than yelling as loud as I could yell. Those were dangerous days in the 1970s. How any of us survivied I'll never know. Thank goodness for cell phones!

But anyway, I'm getting sarcastic AND digressing...let's get back to sarcasm and handling stress. Gwinnett County schools weren't voted #1 Urban School System in America for nothing. The other day our over-burdened 6 year old Christopher came home from school with his first psychotherapy self-assessment. You may think that sounds a bit excessive for a 1st grader, but Gwinnett County understands today's children. As part of his usual collection of paperwork in his Friday Folder my wife Laurie found a crazy piece of dark, scribbled artwork. Fearing that Christopher had suddenly regressed to Pre-K art skill levels, Laurie questioned him on it. His answer: "My teacher told us when we're in a bad mood we should either 'scribble it out' or punch a pillow". The dark scribbled artwork, it turns out, was Christopher's interpretation of a very bad day. While technically that still qualifies as "art", it served more as "therapy" in this case.

"Brilliant!", was my reaction. I never had an outlet like that when I was a kid. All I had for venting frustrations were my 3 brothers, and believe me, we vented our frustrations on eachother on a daily basis. Which occassionally led to our Mom or Dad venting their frustrations on us, but the system seemed to balance itself correctly. Thankfully, not one of us ever dealt with bouts of Depression.

I'm not too worried about our 2 older Middle School sons, Alex and Adam. I'm confident that if they're in a bad mood they'll find a way to let us know. They'll text us, or tweet us, or post it on FB for 200 friends to read, and one of our distant cousins who "friended" them will email my brother, who will tell his wife, who will call my wife, who will let me know the second it happens. That's a system I'm confident will work. It usually takes about 10 minutes for all those pieces to fall into place.

But now with Christopher, in addition to checking his progress with reading, writing, and arithmetic, Laurie and I have the added responsibility of assessing his artwork to determine if his mind is in a positive or negative place. Is that an "Angry Scribble", a "Draw for Help" or just an accidental wandering crayon mark? Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Did he mean to use excessive black crayon marks, or is he trying to tell us something? I'm really not sure if I'm up for this added parental responsibility. Art was never one of my strong points.

The good news is, we'll know for sure when Christopher comes home from school in a good mood. When we flip through his Friday Folder and see one of his old favorite drawings of the doomed Titanic sinking into the abyss of the deadly dark sea, we'll know he's in one of his usual great moods! Nothing to worry about.

Transitions

Our youngest son Christopher came home from school during that first week and grimly declared, "1st Grade is SO much harder than kindergarten". He somberly talked to us about the amount of work he has to do during the day. He sadly reminded us about all the work he brings home each afternoon...work he knows he must complete before any playtime. And then, the final straw, he told us about the lack of toys in the classroom, and the sad fact that the only time he gets to play in school is during recess. I'm guessing not once during kindergarten did they warn him about these possibilities. Poor kid. He's finding out the hard way, some years are just tougher than others.

Our other sons complained of similar circumstances. Our 8th grader Alex proclaimed the first week of 8th grade was harder than all of 7th grade put together. And our 7th grader Adam was placed, not just in Honors Math, but in Honors Math Accelerated! That’s basically Math on Steroids. He’s in 7th grade and he’s already ventured well beyond the friendly confines of the math my wife and I ever retained. So he’s on his own.

When Christopher complained about how hard 1st grade is, I didn't have the heart to tell him that it'll only get worse...that kindergarten may have been his peak. Nobody likes to hear that their best days are behind them. I had a similar discovery myself recently. It started innocently enough. I was cleaning up some of the strewn cables behind our television. One of those projects that needs to be addressed once every decade or so. In the shuffling of cables, I accidentally unplugged some of the left/right audio cables from the back of the TV. So now I really had to commit to this project. I squirmed my way completely behind the television in the corner of our family room. The dust back there could choke you. I found a few random, long-forgotten toys and tossed them into the middle of the room, much to the joy of Christopher. It’s like Christmas again when lost toys are rediscovered. The Prodigal Toys returned! Lying on my side I grabbed the red and white audio cable and arched my neck to see where I needed to plug them back in. Our TV, like any TV, has about 75 input and output jacks on the back. Finding the right one to plug into needed a closer look. I didn’t have a flashlight on me, and the odds of me crawling back behind this TV anytime soon were highly unlikely, so I arched my neck even further to try to read the raised all-black text on our all-black TV (c’mon, don’t they have white paint in Taiwan?), hoping to make out the words “Audio In” or “Audio Out”. Five years ago this is a task I could have handled in my sleep. But something has happened to my eyes since then. Depending on the lighting, my eyes now require that awkward “backward/forward” shifting thing that you see elderly people do when reading small print. Well, because of the placement of my head and the immovable wall behind my head, I had no room to do the “backward/forward” shifting thing. I tried. I gave it some time for adjustment. But I couldn’t read the words on the back of my TV to save my life. Desperately, I tried to read the raised lettering like a blind man would read Braille, feeling with my fingers to see if I can tell the difference between IN and OUT. That didn’t work. Defeated, I crawled back out from behind the TV and resorted to sliding the TV away from the wall for a clearer view. Suspecting the worst, I calmly walked to the bathroom to look in the mirror. What I saw confirmed my fears. Wrinkles have formed around my eyes. I have some gray hairs on top of my head. It’s official, I’m aging.

From this point, there were 3 teachable lessons I could pass on to Christopher about his 1st Grade predicament: 1) Accept and embrace the challenges ahead of you because you’re capable of it; 2) No matter what, never admit your best days are behind you; or 3) Don’t bother cleaning behind your TV because no one will ever notice the difference and you may not like what you find. Christopher’s response to this: “But daddy, I liked the toys you found”. And that comforted me. Because really, a good parent is only as old as his youngest child.

All Burnt Out?

Last week I changed a light bulb in our living room. The box which held the new bulb claimed it could last 10 years. Ten years! My mind was spinning trying to comprehend that kind of light bulb lifespan. Americans can only deal with a maximum of 4-year cycles. Our brains aren't trained to comprehend beyond that. Elementary school, 4 years. Middle school, 4 years. High School, 4 years. College, 4 years. Presidential terms, 4 years. Olympics, 4 years. World Wars, 4 years. And now light bulb manufacturers are expecting us to imagine a bulb lasting a full decade? According to GE, my little kindergartener, Christopher, will be a sophomore in high school the next time I have to change that bulb. He might even be driving a car...right now he just plays with the Matchbox versions. My oldest son, Alex, will be 24, hopefully done with college, hopefully gainfully employed, maybe even married...right now he's finding his way through the 7th grade, complaining about doing basic household chores, begging us to give in to his need for a cell phone, and he still thinks girls are germ-carriers. Clearly this new light bulb is destined to shed some light on some incredible changes in the next decade.

As you can see, it doesn’t take much for me to ponder deep thoughts. A simple light bulb swap in an effort to "Go Green" can lead to some sobering realizations. Everyone warns you that the child-raising years go by way too fast. And they do. Our three sons run us ragged with extra-curricular activities, and I would say we’re a relatively low-activity family by today’s standards. First of all, we’re living in an all-boy world, which means we don’t even worry about activities that involve dancing, singing, cheerleading, or looking attractive. That eliminates a lot of running around. And besides that, our boys are kind of old-school home-bodies compared to most other kids. I know people who have some sort of extra-curricular activity with their kids every single night of the week, quite often multiple activities that involve complicated, split-parenting “drop-off/pick-up” strategies, using cell phones like walkie-talkies. Like wartime generals, they're consumed with the logistics of getting the troops in place, all fed and nourished, ready for the next battle. Whereas, Laurie and I actually get an occasional night off from all the running around. We circle those nights on our calendar like major holidays and plan intimate movie date nights around them. Of course, these romantic “date nights” typically include 3 entertainingly noisy boys who require frequent feedings, help with homework, etc. Before we know it, "movie night" quickly dissolves into falling fast asleep on the couch to the soothing sound of the dishwasher churning away in the kitchen, all within minutes of the movie’s opening credits. We're often awoken by the not-so-soothing sound of late-night TV poker chips around 2AM, but hey, at least we’ve spent some quality time together snoozing on the sofa.

When it comes to the kids extra activities, I’ve tried not to be a “drop off” dad. If my kids are involved in something I strangely feel compelled to get involved with them. So this means when they sign up for cub scouts, even though I couldn’t tell a square knot from a slip knot if my life depended on it, I somehow end up the Pack Cubmaster . When they sign up for hockey, I put on my skates, grab a whistle and eraser board, and become the Head Coach. When they go to religious education classes, I suddenly turn into a theologist-in-training and become a catechist. Of course, all this really proves is how easy it is to volunteer for something. It seems they’ll take anybody. I credit (or blame) my own mom and dad for this desire to take on new challenges. They were the same way.

And so our lives are a blur of activity. A ton of taxi-cab driving all over town without the meters or fares or tips, while we live our lives vicariously through our children, who are either doing the things we loved to do as kids, or are doing the things we never got to do as kids. Either way, our lives are shaped by their lives. Our new friendships are formed through their circles of activities. We think we’re living our own lives, but in reality we’re living through our children’s lives. Every now and then, in the midst of all the shuttling, coaching, teaching, cheering, worrying, and lamenting, I try to stop, take a deep breath, and appreciate the insanity and joy of raising kids in the modern age. We take pictures like crazy. The advent of digital cameras means I’ve taken thousands upon thousands of pictures, deleted hundreds upon hundreds of bad ones, and saved the good ones to the great spinning scrapbooks on our desktops, also called a hard drive.

Someday, after these whirlwind rollercoaster years quiet down, after debates over household chores and cell phone usage have faded away, and probably after that new bulb in our living room burns out again, we’ll look back at the pictures, remember the details, and we’ll undoubtedly realize all the insanity was worth the joy, all the frustration was worth the fun. And hopefully we’ll agree we wouldn’t have done it any other way. At the very least I'm hoping that long-lasting light bulb is somehow saving our environment.

The Saints Come Marching In

I've always felt a sign of a healthy marriage is robust theological debate.

My wife and I are both Catholic...we're on the same team, which makes debating relatively unoffensive, but nonetheless we can often find areas of disagreement within our own faith. It's fun. We both seem to enjoy it.

One such area of debate is prayer. Laurie grew up on priveleged (and expensive) Catholic schooling, so she is well versed in the concept of praying to Patron Saints. It doesn't matter the problem, she knows she is always one Google search away from finding the proper prayer channel. An engine malfunction indicator light on the car dashboard? No problem, just Google the Patron Saint of Automobiles and instantly prayers can be expedited for a speedy, uncostly repair job. Turns out it was just a loose gas cap...$8.99 at Auto Zone. A big math test for our math-challenged oldest son? No problem, just Google the Patron Saint of Students (Thomas Aquinas) and instantly she knows someone is looking out for him, filling his brain with math knowledge. He got an 88 on the test, thanks Tom! Can't find the car keys? St. Anthony will turn your house inside out to find them. And when Google fails to find a specific patron Saint, there's always the fallback, Saint Jude, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes and Hopeless Cases. Laurie has abused poor Saint Jude over the years. He must roll his eyes anytime he gets a call from my wife, and whisper to the other Saints, "Hmmm...looks like yet another Lost Cause for the Galucki family...BIG surprise!". Some people think Laurie's frequent calling upon Saint Jude inspired the Beatles classic hit, "Hey Jude". It didn't...Laurie was 3 months old when that song came out. Fortunately the Saints have not unionized yet, otherwise their rates would be off the charts, considering weekends, holidays and time-and-a-half. Of course, Laurie doesn't limit herself to merely reaching out to the Saints. She calls on Mary for the big stuff, like when she needs nice weather for a big event, often hanging a Rosary in a tree outside. Our non-Catholic friends think we're crazy. We find ourselves constantly explaining ourselves.

Whereas I grew up on secular (and cheap) public schooling, so my prayer philoshophy is less complicated. I've never been comfortable with the idea of bothering the Saints with all my petty problems. I've always felt that as long as I have a roof over my head, food for my family, and good health...I really don't have anything to pray for. It's not that I don't think my prayers would be answered, it's more about the fact that I'm a guy, and guys don't like asking for help...just like we don't like asking for directions. It's in our DNA. And besides that, it gets confusing. When do you call on the Saints versus, you know, The Big Cheese, Mr. Head Honcho? Where does Mary fall into all this? If you're praying for someone to have a safe trip, is it better to call on St. Christopher, Patron Saint of Travelers, or go directly to God? Would God feel slighted if you didn't go directly to the top? Would he wonder, "What Am I, Chopped Liver?" Is there some sort of Prayer Quota? If it's exceeded, what happens? The confusion of it all can be discouraging.

And then last weekend the Saints won the Super Bowl. Just when I was about to give up on the whole "praying to the Saints" thing, my faith was restored. If the Saints can do that for New Orleans, what CAN"T they do for the rest of us? Now I'm back on the Saints bandwagon. Since I'm travelling this weekend and will be away from my wife on that famous Hallmark holiday, I guess my next visit is with St. Valentine. And if that doesn't work out well for me, next month I'll probably raise a toast to St. Patrick!

Only in the Movies!

I'm sometimes accused of giving too much significance to movies. For instance, I was recently flying home from a business trip and read an article about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The article went on to point out all the key factors in the demise of Communism and the Soviet Union. To my dismay, nowhere in the article did they mention Rocky Balboa's stunning upset victory over Ivan Drago in Rocky IV (1986). I mean, c'mon...isn't that the first moment when most Americans first believed we could topple the Soviets? It was definitely mine! Rocky's improbable knockout, followed by that historic "If we can change, you can change!" speech, single-handedly altered the mood of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II get all the credit, but really they simply picked up on Rocky's cue and put the final nail in the coffin. Within three years the Soviet Union was gone. And what about the Titanic? Am I the only person who believes they might have been able to steer that ship around the iceberg if only the lookout man hadn't been distracted by Jack and Rose kissing below on the deck right before spotting the iceberg? Those were precious seconds wasted. Other examples: I believe, were it not for Forrest Gump of Greenbow, Alabama, Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal might never have been exposed. And while I've never set foot in Kansas, I firmly believe that when I do, it'll be in black and white.

The business trip I mentioned was one of those tough ones. I travel a good bit for work, like many other dads, and while there's never a good time to be away from your family, Halloween is one of those days I really hate to miss. To me, Halloween is really the ultimate family holiday. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving are great for the extended families...you know, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins...and also great for the soul; but Halloween seems designed just for families, and just for fun. When I was a kid, my Mom, who still loves Halloween, stayed home and handed out candy dressed as a witch, while my Dad put on his bald monkey mask and took us trick or treating in the neighborhood. We walked from house to house, swooshing our feet through the piles of dead, dry leaves. My brothers and I still remember to this day the way my Dad would use this one night of the year as his chance to catch up with all our neighbors. Each house would take 15 minutes! He would stand on each porch, still wearing his monkey mask, and have full conversations with every neighbor! Meanwhile me and my brothers and sister would patiently sit on the porch steps counting our candy, waiting to move on to the next house. I'm sure our neighbors would always wonder, "Who was that talkative monkey?" Our neighborhood was small, lots of trees and long driveways...and the houses were spread apart, so trick or treating was a combination of a lot of walking, a lot of waiting, and few rewards. But it was always fun. And it always ended dramatically. After the last house, our Dad would walk us over to the cemetery behind the church. By now most other trick or treaters were done for the night. The streets were empty. The wind usually picked up at night and the sound of those blowing leaves would add a level of spookiness to the chilly night air. We would get to the fence at the front of the cemetery and our annual game would begin. Each of us would venture deep into the dark, wooded cemetery alone, one at a time...to see who could go the deepest. There was one particular tombstone we each tried to reach..."Toma" was the name inscribed on it. If you could make it to "Toma", you did pretty good. Sometimes my Dad would sneak around the side, try to make some noise to scare us, as we ventured alone in the cemetery. That's what Halloween is all about..family togetherness against all the evil spirits of the world. What a holiday!

I've since tried to make Halloween special for my kids. As they get older I've come to realize what a small window Halloween can be in "kid years". Really, the trick or treating career is incredibly short. It starts around age 4 and is over by 12. That's it. As a dad, I hate missing any of those years. A couple of weeks ago I had to break the news to my 5 year-old Christopher that I had to travel on Halloween. His eyes watered, his lips quivered, as he told me in a shaky voice, "It's OK daddy". I felt awful. As Halloween got closer, I couldn't even talk about it with him anymore...I felt too much guilt, too much sadness.

Just a few days before my trip I sat down with Christopher for our annual viewing of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". (The Galucki family is a Peanuts kind of family!) And then it hit me. This year, I was Linus. I explained to Christopher that this year for Halloween I was going to skip trick or treating in search of the Great Pumpkin in Washington DC. I told him I would take a sign saying "Welcome Great Pumpkin" and I would look for the most sincere pumpkin patch I could find. His eyes brightened. He loved the idea. In fact, he added his own wrinkle. He would go trick or treating and ask each house for an extra piece of candy for his "silly" father who was sitting in a pumpkin patch in Washington DC on Halloween night. I sent pictures to him via Facebook of me holding my sign; and he collected extra candy for me while trick or treating. Even though we weren't together, we found a way to connect for Halloween '09.

Sometimes, putting too much significance in movies has its benefits. Here's to you, Charlie Brown!

Parental Guilt Strikes Again

It’s looking like Christopher is going to make it through Preschool. Barring a complete meltdown on his final exams and report cards, he’ll soon be on his way to Kindergarten. It’s been an incredible 3-year journey. When Laurie and I think back to the beginning, we remember the little two-year old who couldn’t talk, couldn’t count, couldn’t color, couldn’t go to the bathroom outside his own pants, and couldn’t speak a lick of Spanish. We remember the irrational temper tantrums, the illogical Titanic obsession, and the irrepressible controlling nature to his personality. Now, after making considerable progress on all of those fronts, Christopher is poised for the next phase of his life. But the real question is, are his parents ready?

One thing I’ve noticed about parenting, and I’m not sure if all parents experience this, but I never feel fully comfortable that I’ve done all that I could for my kids. Part of the problem is I’ve surrounded myself with friends and family who really seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to raising kids, and this in turn makes me feel like I still just don’t have a clue. They have kids who go to bed on time, kids who play musical instruments, kids who are always well-mannered, well-rounded, good in school, good in sports, good at everything. They spend their weekends doing cool, creative things like Friday Family Game Night or Saturday Morning Family Hiking. It seems I’m constantly being reminded of things I meant to do with my kids or things I wish I had long ago taught them.

At last month’s preschool trike-athon, I was reminded of yet another of my botched parental assignments. Christopher was so excited to get out and do some laps, and I was just as excited to watch him, but one slight problem quickly emerged…he really didn’t know how to ride his bike. Some dad I am…I basically sent him into battle without basic training. This year he upgraded from his tri-cycle to a two-wheeler with training wheels, but we really didn’t spend much time practicing, other than a couple laps in the garage. He got out there and caused so many mini-wrecks and traffic jams I was afraid they were going to black flag him for reckless driving. In a moment of panic, I quickly called my State Farm agent and increased my liability coverage. Christopher didn’t like the 0.5% downhill grade in the parking lot, he didn’t like turning in the corners, and he didn’t like dealing with Atlanta traffic. He dragged his feet instead of using his brakes, and he didn’t put much effort into peddling uphill. Traffic piled up on both sides of him and behind him. He was like a magnet for all the other bikes, one slow moving blob of bikes. I really thought I was going to witness a road rage episode at one point. Meanwhile he was being lapped by kids half his size zipping around on bikes without training wheels. Where had I failed? My oldest son Alex is on the verge of earning his Merit Badge for Bicycling in Boy Scouts, having biked nearly 150 miles in recent months. How could there be such a discrepancy?

Parental guilt is nothing new. Like the trike-athon itself, there really isn’t a Finish Line in parenting, you just kind of go around and around in circles and hope to avoid the wrecks. And because there’s no finish line, you never fully escape the feeling that there’s always more to do with your kids...more work, more play, more teaching. And there’s never enough time. This summer I’m going to work with Christopher on his biking skills, and who knows, someday he may be the next Lance Armstrong. Or who knows, given his recent fascination with space travel, he may be the next Neil Armstrong. That’s the great thing about kids…they’re full of so much promise. In the end, it’s the parent’s job to foster all that potential until the kids get old enough to figure it out themselves. And I can proudly tell you, despite all my grumblings these last three years, my kids are loaded with strengths. Someone once advised me, “Work on their Weaknesses, but Focus on their Strengths”. And just maybe, later in life, they’ll return the favor.

Applying Lessons to Appliance Dependence

My three kids have united. Like the great coalition of Allied powers in World War II, Churchill, Stalin and FDR, they have witnessed injustice, barbarism, and inhumane conditions, they’ve put aside their political differences and they’ve formed an unlikely bond because they feel their cause is just, and they fear inaction is far too risky. Our kids do not unite very often. In fact, these are the same kids who spend much of their time disowning one another for every reason imaginable. I’ve lost track how many times Christopher, at 4, has angrily uttered the words “You’re not my brudder!” to Alex or Adam. He has already learned how to cleverly play one brudder against the other in order to get some sort of favorable result.

The root of this UBF (United Brudderly Front) is a rapidly failing television set, and a ruthless dictatorial-like father who appears unwilling to remedy it. Yes, our 17 year old TV set is on the fritz. It’s a 38-inch Mitsubishi console set. Yes, a Mitsubishi! Stop laughing. (Any company ambitious enough to make cars and TVs deserves some respect – I’ll bet Ford or Chrysler wishes they had a TV Division to fall back on these days!). By sheer cubic volume, it’s the biggest piece of furniture in our house. It’s a monstrous TV set by today’s standards. It’s so big, our entire family hides behind it during tornado warnings. But now, after years of faithful service, the old set is on its last legs. The picture, particularly during DVDs and their beloved Wii games, randomly switches off and goes black. The sound is still there, just no picture. This has been going on for the better part of this year. Now most dads would relish this opportunity, especially dads who have yet to join the Flat Screen LCD Plasma High-Def Blue Ray revolution which is all the rage. In fact, I know there are dozens of dads who would give anything to be in my position right now…a legitimate excuse to run out to Best Buy and pick up the TV of their Dreams.

But my kids are going up against history and a time honored parental lesson trap. This lesson is the quintessential parental fallback: “Nothing Should Come Too Easily”. When I was 12 or so, my family had a similar TV situation. We had this classic TV which stood on four legs. I grew up convinced it was the original color TV from 1952. But toward the end, this TV required hours of warm-up before working, and even then there were no guarantees it would ever turn on. As kids, we would sit and stare at this thin rainbow-like line of colors running across the middle of the black screen. Same kind of problem my kids are facing today…we could hear it, we just couldn’t see it. The only difference was we couldn’t play our Atari video games. And it just so happened, it started doing this during one of my Buffalo Bills’ rare magical football seasons. They didn’t have many of those in the 1980s. Me and my 3 brothers spent that entire football season “listening” to games in front of our TV. Very frustrating. Now, looking back, I don’t think my dad was trying to teach us some sort of lesson. This was, if I recall, right before Reagan-omics kicked in, and there are financial realities that TV-loving children just can never fully understand. In hindsight, our lack of a quality TV was tied more directly to the ineffective economic policies of Jimmy Carter, Inflation, a stagnant stock market, and the Mid-East oil embargo. But at the time, it sure felt like Dad was teaching us a lesson. And now that my kids are in a similar situation, I feel obligated to pass that phantom lesson on to them…for their own good I guess.

Well, I’ve since learned this lesson doesn’t apply to all household appliances. In a rare “Perfect Storm” scenario in our household, our clothes dryer suddenly stopped drying clothes at the same time our television set stopped televising visuals. I procrastinated for a day or two, then ordered a new heating element (from eBay, to save a few bucks). It took 3 or 4 days for the part to arrive. I’m here to tell you, a week without a dryer can have a devastating effect on a household. There have been many infamous work stoppages throughout history…the 1977 Sanitation Strike in NYC, the Air Traffic Controllers strike in 1981…none compare to the Galucki Clothes Dryer Stoppage of 2009. Like some sort of perverse Doctor Seuss story, the clothes in our house piled up and multiplied in the most unlikely places. Clean clothes that wouldn’t dry hung from light fixtures; dirty clothes that couldn’t be washed bulged out of overstuffed hampers; our garage was converted into some sort of makeshift Dry Cleaners with power tools holding up clotheslines; and my wife Laurie actually resorted to drying clothes in the oven!…complete, unimaginable chaos gripped our home. The scramble to find a clean, dry, matching pair of socks each morning became a life or death struggle.

Finally the part arrived and the dryer was repaired. And many lessons were learned by all parties involved. The UBF eventually got the new TV they struggled for and seemed to appreciate it even more (the bad news is we now have to find a new hiding place during tornado warnings since flat screens don’t offer very much protection); our empty closets are once again full of clean, dry clothes; and I have a new appreciation for the volume of laundry my wife deals with on a daily basis. Although, I secretly must admit, I really do miss the heavenly aroma of fresh baked socks! I prefer mine extra crunchy!

Language Barrier

It was destined to happen. It was on our radar years ago. We knew there was no avoiding it. All the early projections pointed to these next 4 months as a critical time for us. It will make us, or break us. It’s official: we now have a teenager and a preschooler living under the same roof. (Cue the scary music)

Our oldest son Alex turned 13 this week. First he gets sent to Middle School, and now this. The effects of having a teenage Middle Schooler in our household have already been exhausting. It started with the hair. Alex has decided to make a statement by growing out his hair. He essentially hasn’t had a haircut since June. We were warned that this might happen, and we were advised to allow for the minor rebellions, resist the major ones. So his hair is getting long…and he doesn’t really comb it either. On its own, this wouldn’t be a problem, but when you throw a preschooler into the mix, things get complicated. Christopher doesn’t understand why Mom and Dad allow such radical behavior, not to mention why Mom and Dad don’t allow the preschooler to skip a haircut or two.

Another complication is bedtime. With a Middle Schooler, an Elementary Schooler, and a Preschooler in our home, we have been forced to develop an intricate Flex-Schedule Bedtime Program© sponsored by Timex. And shortly after the Bedtime Program shuts down for the night, it seems the Flex-Wake-Up Process© sponsored by Eggo Waffles begins the day anew again.

And then, it was just a few weeks into his Middle School career when Alex informed us his first major Middle School observation: Everyone Swears!. It seems the transition from 5th grade to 6th grade is so traumatic that the kids are overcome with innovative expletives and overly expressive vocabulary additions. Now this, of course, didn’t come as a surprise to me and Laurie. We vaguely remember 6th grade. That’s the age of Expanding Boundaries. The problem is, on one hand we have a teenager testing his expanding boundaries, and on the other hand we still have a preschooler just learning his boundaries. That combination can be very confusing. Now when it comes to bad language in our household, we really don’t have a problem. It’s impossible to shelter your kids from foul language. They hear it in movies, they hear it at sporting events, and they hear it from their mother in the split seconds right before near car wrecks. But Christopher does his best to keep his older brothers innocent. He’s developed a cute little self-sensoring technique which has become a great reminder to his brothers that his ears are still not ready for Middle School. Whenever he sees or hears something shocking, he will suddenly exclaim, "What the beeeeeeep!" Our drive home from Buffalo, NY over the holidays produced one such moment. It was late at night and the kids were sound asleep. I stopped to fill up for gas one last time in South Carolina. I noticed how filthy our car had become from the salty roads up north, so I decided to go through the car wash. The noise of the car wash must have startled Christopher, because all of a sudden Laurie and I heard Christopher calmly say, "What the Beeeeeeeep!" We turned to see Christopher wide-eyed and in a state of shock. I’m not sure where he learned to sensor himself...but the effect in our household is we're still Rated G for General Audiences.

And I guess that’s the beauty of having such a range of children’s ages in one house. You really never know which child is going to step forward and lead the way.

Daddy's Desk - Nov, 2008 "Thanksgiving"

We know the end is near. This magical world of “Pre-School” can’t last forever. As much as we would like to press some sort of “Pause” button and freeze Christopher at this wonderful age of 4, we know he will soon be venturing into another phase of his life. We’ve reached an incredible comfort level with Christopher as a 4 year old. Laurie and I have had debates on the subject of “favorite age for kids”, and we could definitely make a strong case for 4. Gone are the uncontrollable tyrannical outbursts of the 2’s and 3’s. Oh, he still gets upset at times, but there’s a certain degree of rationality to his temper now. He understands the difference between acceptable behavior and questionable behavior. Yet he’s still only 4, which means he still has that unlimited capacity for joy and excitement. He still has all that boundless energy and enthusiasm working for him. When I come home from work each night, he still comes running to the door yelling, “DADDY’S HOME!!!”

But Christopher, in his infinite wisdom, is starting to foreshadow that which is coming. He’s been watching his two older brothers, studying their lifestyles, and I think he’s ready to join them. For instance, he’s seen his brothers hop on a school bus all of his life, and now he’s quick to remind us that that will be him next year. He can’t wait to strap on a backpack and step on a school bus for the first time. He can’t wait to eat in the school cafeteria, if you can believe that! He can’t wait to play sports and do homework. He’s even starting to take part in their daily scuffles around the house, dishing it out as if he realizes it’s his Right of Passage.

We tend to measure life in 4-year segments. We elect presidents for 4 years, we go to college for 4 years, we renew our driver’s license every 4 years. It seems like a convenient number to measure progress.

On the first day of school this year, I dropped Christopher off and met his teachers. I was mildly amused by the usual chaotic scene of crying kids and crying moms. The staff handed out Kleenexes and Hershey Kisses as consolation. I laughed it off. Then I got in my car, glanced in my rear view mirror as I backed out, and caught a glimpse of Christopher’s now-empty car seat…and it hit me. My rear view mirror was no longer showing me what was behind my car, it was showing me 4 years worth of wonderful memories. It was showing me the amazingly relentless forward progress of these little kids, and the small, tiny window we have to enjoy them. My rear view mirror was showing me the cold, hard truth about parenting. If the front windshield represents the vast, unlimited future, the tiny rear view mirror represents our scant memories. Now where’d I put those Kleenexes?
This Thanksgiving finds me thankful for these past 4 years of wonder and awe. These pre-schoolers are truly a Blessing beyond compare!

Daddy's Desk - Oct, 2008 "Cleanliness"

I'm not sure when it happened. Some time around 2004 I would guess. That's when my wife and I officially stopped trying to clean our house faster than our 3 boys could mess it. It seems once they outnumbered us, it was a losing battle from then on. Throughout history there are fine examples of outnumbered military units staging heroic stands against incredible odds...the Battle of the Bulge, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, to name a few.

But when parents are outnumbered by their children, the odds for cleanliness are not good. Las Vegas bookies list it at a conservative 25:1. Now I'm not saying our house is a disaster area, in fact, at first glance it appears to be fairly neat. But Laurie and I adopted the "First Glance" Strategy of Cleaning out of pure necessity years ago. First Glances typically don't look in closets or under beds. First Glances certainly don't look in our attic. If they did, they'd find a seemingly endless stack of plastic tubs filled with outdated toys and clothes no longer needed. The key to our First Glance deception is my semi-monthly ritual of hauling a new tub up to the attic. In fact, I noticed recently our attic is starting to resemble that endless warehouse as seen as the end of the original Indiana Jones movie, "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

Some day in the next millennium or so an archaeologist will uncover the remains of our house deep in the layers of the earth's crust and they'll label this time period as the "Platic-aseus Period", in honor of the countless plastic action figures, happy meal toys, and lego blocks hiding in plastic tubs.
Now I thought my wife and I were handling this dramatic transition from cleanliness to disorderliness with relative grace, but a recent event tells me I might have underestimated the power of pent-up cleanliness frustrations. We recently borrowed our neighbor's pressure washer to clean our back patio. I took a turn first and began blasting away at the grime and muck of 12 years. It was a liberating experience to say the least. Then Laurie took a turn. She moved from the back patio to the front sidewalk, to the front bricks, to the gutters, and everything else she could blast. She became wild with power, blasting everything in sight. At one point she walked through some bushes and must have disturbed a wasp's nest.

Dozens of wasps circled around her. Unfazed by the swarming wasps she actually turned the sprayer toward random wasps in an attempt to pick them off one by one...either that or give them a cleaning they would never forget. I had to put an end to it. I slowly turned the water pressure off as she eased down on the trigger. The crisis ended.

It was at this moment I realized Laurie and I may both be suffering from a severe case of Cleanliness Suppression.

Daddy's Desk - Sept, 2008 "Keep Dropping"

Little kids today seem so much more connected to the world around them. Maybe it’s the CNN Effect. When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s I had absolutely no clue what was going on outside the confines of my own home. U.S. Presidents were being impeached and resigning, war was raging in Vietnam, horrendous fashion trends were sweeping the country, Russians were busy spreading Communism, and oil embargoes were causing massive fuel shortages. But as long as I had my favorite Six Million Dollar Man action figure (with that creepy, rubber skin which folded up his arm to reveal his hidden bionics), all was right with the world. I lived such a simple childhood.
But my kids, including my worldly 4 year old son Christopher, have just spent an entire summer lamenting the rising prices of fuel and food, all the while fretting over the lack of rainfall in the Atlanta region. In fact, if I had to title the Summer of ’08, I would be inclined to call it the Summer of "Keep Dropping". Every time we pass a gas station, Christopher reads off the numbers on the signs, "three-nine-seven", "four-zero-nine". And of course, our older sons quickly correct him, "No Christopher, that’s three-ninety-seven!" My wife and I would be real impressed at his mastery of our number system were it not for the depressing reality of the numbers he’s telling us. And then he gets my older sons to join him in our new favorite chant, "Keep Dropping! Keep Dropping!". Before the hurricane season, his plea seemed to be working…"three-two-nine" was the highlight of the summer. But now, as we pass gas station after gas station with no numbers at all, Christopher doesn’t know what to make of the madness.
And then we have the issue of water, or lack thereof. Christopher will wander around our front yard and report to me that "our grass is turning brown, we need rain". When rain comes, he reverts back to our favorite chant, "Keep Dropping! Keep Dropping!" (as in, raindrops of course). In truth, no 4 year old should have to deal with these heavy burdens. His tiny shoulders can only hold so much. His only worries should be "which episode of "Super Why" is going to be on tomorrow?"
I’m not exactly sure why he is so connected to the headlines. Believe me, I am not reading him Newsweek or the Wall Street Journal for bedtime stories. We still try to keep it light…you know, fluffy stuff like Charlie Brown and his penchant for somber self-analysis…or Curious George with his mischievous, disobedient mannerisms. His two older brothers are probably his best source for information, but even that doesn’t explain his grasp of reality. At this rate, my son will probably need therapy by the time he’s 6! He’ll lay down on the couch and tell the therapist, "…it all started when my parents introduced me to the doomed ship called Titanic".
As "Government Bailout Mania" sweeps the Nation, I’m doing my best to keep this disturbing news from reaching Christopher’s ears. I’m trying to keep his 4 year old spirits exactly where every 4 year old should be. We may be running low on water and gas, but we have to remember our preschoolers possess an unlimited supply of our greatest natural resource . . . Pure happiness. Besides, if I showed him the collapsing financial sector and housing value numbers, I’d have to teach him a new chant…"Stop Dropping! Stop Dropping!"

Daddy's Desk - May, 2008 "Aidan"

My wife Laurie and I like to amaze the kids with tales from the good old days. We tell them about .89 cent gasoline and telephone booths. We tell them we used to take pictures with cameras that captured images on “film”, and then we’d wait weeks later to see how the pictures turned out. We tell them about the days before email and the internet, and how our version of “texting” included a pen, a piece of paper, and a postage stamp. Laurie and I actually used to hand-write letters to each other to keep our long-distance relationship going. Their jaws drop open at the thought of such primitive, archaic communication. So when I see my 3 year old Christopher navigating his way around our computer, using a mouse as easily as he uses his own hand, I can’t help but be amazed.

I think it’s human nature to resist change. We get comfortable with the way things are, so we don’t see a need for change. Whether it’s news of a favorite priest moving on to a new assignment, or news of a beloved preschool director relocating their family, we never seem to embrace change. But I think our kids can actually help us in this regard.

As the school year winds down, it’s easy to look back and see how much the kids have changed. Christopher, for example, has moved through many different phases this year…thankfully the “Titanic” phase is now a distant memory. His latest is being called the “Aidan” phase. Neither of our other boys ever felt the need to create an imaginary friend, but for some reason, Christopher has given us a mysterious 4th son named “Aidan”. He’s only about two inches tall, blue eyes and blonde hair, but let me tell you this kid is nothing but trouble. If there’s a drink spill on the living room carpet, odds are pretty good it was Aidan who caused it. If Christopher is refusing to do something we’re asking him to do, it’s likely Aidan is whispering defiant words in his ear. If Alex or Adam are complaining about being hit by someone in the back seat of the car, it seems to always be Aidan doing the hitting (though I question how hard a two-inch tall kid can hit?). And Aidan is so portable (he fits in the palm of Christopher’s hand!), he seems to show up everywhere…long trips in the car, in church, at the playground. Even when we think we’ve left him at home, Aidan always seems to track us down. And, most annoyingly, Aidan is constantly bringing toys into Christopher’s bed at night. Many of Christopher’s phases have been cute, even in an obnoxious way, and we’ve all become attached to Aidan in some small way, but the “Aidan” phase is one phase we can’t wait to disappear. And I’m sure it will soon. I hope it will soon!

Next Fall, when the kids return to school, they’ll all be doing completely new things. Our oldest son, Alex, will be moving on to Middle School. Laurie and I recently attended the Middle School orientation, and the way they prepped us you would’ve thought we were sending our child to the battlefield. They tried to ease our minds by telling us the 6th graders would be completely isolated from the 7th and 8th graders at all times, as if those 7th and 8th graders were caged, wild animals or something. I assured Laurie Middle School today is no different than Middle School in the (gulp!) early 80’s. In fact, the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. I can remember vividly my 6th Grade Middle School teacher scaring us about the effects of global warming and America’s over-dependence on foreign oil. Who knew that would still be a topic of discussion 30 years later? Alex will do just fine in Middle School. And Christopher, like all the other preschoolers, will return to preschool next year with dozens of new adventures under his belt.
So exactly how can our kids help us adults cope with change? Maybe not so much in how they change, but perhaps more in the way they handle change. Earlier this year I wrote about Christopher’s “diaper” bag dependence. While it no longer carried “diapers”, it carried an endless supply of his favorite toys and books. Laurie recently made a change and stopped carting that bag everywhere she goes. She felt it was time for Christopher to learn to live without all of his favorite playthings at his constant disposal. This was a major change to Christopher’s way of life. And guess what? Christopher has accepted the change and moved on.
Now Aidan, on the other hand, is not a happy camper!

Daddy's Desk - Apr, 2008 "Diaper Bag"

There are few things more pathetic than an over-confident father taking his 3 year old son out for an afternoon alone. Yet it takes such an afternoon for the over-confident father to realize his limitations and the value of a really good wife with a really good system.

One recent Saturday I had some typical Saturday errands to run and decided on a whim to take Christopher along with me. You know, some quality father-son bonding time at Home Depot and Best Buy, that kind of stuff. What could be the harm? I left the house with my keys, my wallet, my sunglasses and…and…oh yeah, my son. And off we went. Before I had even pulled out of the driveway, I had already doomed my trip to failure.
For I, of course, made the critical mistake of leaving the comfort of my own home without that Magic Bag my wife has been slinging around her shoulder the last 11 years. You know the bag…formerly referred to as the “diaper bag”? It’s the bag of tricks, toys, cardboard books, snacks, sippy cups, backup clothing, and medical necessities. It’s that bag which seems to have endless pockets lined with gooey old raisins, stale Cheerios, Goldfish, and foul odors. In that bag is a virtual Life Support System for every toddler, and without it, no parent stands a chance. A soldier could be dropped behind enemy lines without a weapon and he would stand a better chance of survival than a father taking his 3 year old son out for an afternoon without that Survival Bag.
I realized my mistake the second Christopher uttered the words, “Daddy, I want juice”. My heart sank. I didn’t have the bag! And Christopher suddenly wanted everything that was in that Survival Bag…he knew the exact contents: cars, goldfish, even the gooey old raisins. I instantly realized what I was up against. Whatever the original intent of my Saturday afternoon with Christopher, I now had to scrap the mission and reformulate a new survival plan. And being a most perceptive 3 year old, Christopher instantly realized the power he now possessed. He could have anything he wanted, and I would have to appease him. But like they learned with Hitler in World War II, appeasement never contains the aggressor. So after an expensive afternoon of entertaining, dining, and keeping my 3 year old content, I returned home a defeated father. My wife Laurie took one look and said, “You forgot his bag, didn’t you?”
Daddy’s inadvertent payback came later. The last few weeks at church I’ve noticed Christopher’s growing interest in participating in Holy Communion. It started innocently with slight whimpering about wanting a “taste” or wanting a “sip”, but each subsequent week he’s begun to push the envelope with me further and further, sometimes lunging out for a Communion wafer from the unsuspecting Communion Distributor. He was quietly becoming a Communion wafer terrorist. Since I normally hold him when we go up for Communion, Laurie was unaware of this growing problem. In fact, I dismissed it as extreme Christian devotion, probably from that fine Catholic Pre-School education he’s been getting. Well, I was out of town for work recently and apparently Christopher’s “slight interest” blossomed into a pure obsession while daddy was gone. At 5PM Mass Laurie walked with him toward the altar and Christopher made his move. After being denied access to Communion yet again, Christopher dropped to the floor in front of the altar and yelled out, “But it’s snack time!!”, “Everybody’s eating a snack!!”, “I WANT SNACK!!!!”. Laurie’s cute little magical bag of tricks had nothing in it for a situation like this. After all, the new signs outside the sanctuary clearly state: “No food or beverage beyond this point” (except the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, written in very small print). Laurie had to drag Christopher back to the pews, later having to explain that Jesus didn’t die for us to be offered up as snack food, like some bag of Doritos out of a vending machine.I think the bottom line to all this: the two-parent system really does work.