Mario: the Once and Future King

While social media might bring together families in the here and now, it takes a video game company like Nintendo to draw families together in the past. Don’t understand that? Yeah, me either but let me try and explain it to both of us.

I grew up on Nintendo. We had a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) back in the late eighties and I played Super Mario Bros more or less 27 hours a day. Mario and me stomped on Koopas, beat up Bowser and saved the princess more times then I really want to get into now, mainly because it’s depressing how much of a loser I was (also: don’t mention to a Gen Xer that in a few years the NES will be 30 years old, unless you want to see that Gen Xer cry). And I wasn’t the only one if the amazing amount of Mario and Nintendo references in all modern media are to be believed. If you don’t believe me, go find a large sewer pipe sticking out of the ground and paint it green. Then sit back and see how many thirtysomethings have someone take a picture of them squatting down on it. When people start coming dressed in overalls, red hats and fake mustaches you can come to my house and apologize for not believing me in the first place.

Of course, Mario is still around and kids today can play with him not only as he saves Princess Peach but while he races go carts, plays a vast number of sports or goes head to head with other Nintendo characters and they beat the crap out of each other. And there are my kids playing with Mario and his brother Luigi, the patron saint of younger siblings all around the world. Of course, the games that the kids play today make the ones I played at their age look…well, crappy.

And thanks to Nintendo, I can show them EXACTLY how crappy. For those of you not in the know, Nintendo’s current gaming console, the Wii, offers you the chance to download old games from their past, including Super Mario Bros, the game that started it all. So now, kids that have fun with Mario moving all around a world filled with everything imaginable, with amazing colors and sounds, get to see what I had as a kid: a big bowl of suck.

Super Mario Bros is a side-scrolling platformer. You can only go forward and are stuck to one path through the level, which is timed. This is the anti-modern game, where you can go to almost any level you want, stay as long as you want and go where you want. The boys thought it was broken the first time they played it.

“Dad, something’s wrong! I can’t go back,” Big Bits told me the first time he played it.

“Yeah, that’s how it was back then,” I told him. He just stared at me for a moment.

“Na-uh,” he finally laughed. It took me a while to convince him otherwise. It also took me a while to convince him that the little, pixelated mess of a character was the same Mario he knew and loved from the nearly 3D animated games he played before.

“Na-uh. It doesn’t even sound like him.” I just shook my head.

“Games didn’t talk back then,” I told. He stared at me some more before coming back with a witty retort.

“Na-uh!”

Yes, son, I was born in the dark ages, count yourself amongst the lucky ones.

The Middle Aged to Oldish Man and The Creek

Kids look to their parents as gods and the Bits are no exceptions. We control when they sleep, when and what they eat, where they go and just about every aspect of their lives. We have god like power over them and for the most part parents like this arrangement (Yes, I realize this will all go out the window when the kids hit puberty but let me bask in the glow of my deity status while I still can). There are times when it comes to bite me in the butt though. Now Big Bits is going to The St. Louis Language Immersion School, he wants to know what things are called in French. My knowledge of French ends at omelette du fromage but when he asks “How do you say this is French?” and I say, “I don’t know” he looks at me for a moment and then laughs, “Yes, you do!” I have one other place where my knowledge is lacking but so far I’ve been able to hide it from him: I know next to nothing about fishing.

This lack of knowledge is not restricted to fishing; there is a lot of things I don’t know about but Big Bits has not asked about how a carburetor works or how a DVD plays a movie so I’ve been in the clear. But he has asked about fishing. And so far, I’ve been able to fake it.

It started last year when Big Bits was deep into “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess,” an amazing video game everyone should play. In it, Link, the hero, finds time while saving the land of Hyrule from slipping into ever lasting darkness to take in some fishing, a hobby Big Bits decided he wanted to try in real life. And here starts our problem.

I’ve been fishing before but it had been almost thirty years so my “skills” were rusty (“Lacking in their entirety” might be a more apt description). Luckily we have relatives who LOVE to fish so off to my sister- and brother-in-law’s we went. Sarah and Chuck took us out to their favorite fishing hole and we set up to fish.

Before going out, we bought Big Bits and Little Bits fishing rods, Spiderman for Big and Lightening McQueen for Little (Little Bits didn’t really care about fishing but if Big Bits wants to do something so does Little Bits, even if he has no idea what it is). Armed with their superhero fishing rods, they were ready to do battle with the fish.

First we had to bait the hooks which entailed impaling fairly innocent looking worms on big hooks. I’m generally against this, both as a Buddhist and as a person who doesn’t like things he would describe as “icky-poo.” Luckily Chuck did the impaling so my karma and stomach were feeling good. I helped Big Bits cast out a few times and got him into a good rhythm before helping Little Bits but he had found rocks were near the water and really couldn’t care less about fishing. He had a goal get ALL the rocks into the water and would rather be left alone.

With Big Bits doing well, I grabbed one of the many poles Chuck already had in water and took a cast of my own. The bait hit the water (already passing my wildest dreams for this entire trip) and I started reeling it in. Suddenly, the line got heavy, the pole began to bend and, low and behold, I had caught a fish! A epic struggle only Ernest Hemingway his own drunken self could properly describe began but I shall try to paraphrase: after a fight lasting at least seconds, I wound up with a three inch long fish on the end of my pole.

Big Bits’ eyes just about popped out of his head. I was a better fisherman of not only his uncle but of Link too! We cast the fish back out and let Big Bits reel him in a few times before Uncle Chuck took the fish off the hook (another icky-poo moment) and threw him back in the water. I was elevated to god like status in my child’s eyes and so the rest of the day was great as far as I concerned (no one else caught anything and I didn’t have kill any worms—woot!). We got home later and put the fishing poles in the basement, never to be seen again and my secret shame would be safe from the light of day.

Or so I thought.

Earlier this summer I was puttering around the basement and suddenly found Big Bits standing behind me. He, of course, saw the fishing poles and immediately wanted to go fishing again. With a sigh, I tried to think of a way out. Spotting my tool box nearby, I had an idea: practice. We could tie weights on the end of the line and go in the back yard to practice casting. The chances of catching a fish or having to torture a worm to death were slim, plus if we didn’t use hooks there was also little chance of the kids hooking their ears or eyes. I realized there were still a slight chance of all these things happening (our backyard is a strange place) but I was willing to take a chance.

So moments later the four of us were standing in the backyard (Tiny Bits joined us but mostly to play with the epic weeds growing near the fence) and with washers tied to the end our lines, we practiced casting. What should have been a relaxing afternoon of throwing nearly invisible plastic wire around the lawn became an unending quest to untangle invisible plastic wire from around fence posts, trees limbs and telephone lines. One time we even got the line into a tree on the far end of our neighbor’s yard. While it’s impressive Little Bits could cast a line that long, it was a pain in my rear to get it out of the tree.

So, did that placate Big Bits (Little Bits gave up pretty much the moment he realized there was going to be no body of water nor any rocks to throw into it)? Well, no: he wanted to know where MY fishing pole was and when were WE going to go fishing, as he put it, “With, like, water and stuff.” My fear was growing but not as much as my desire to make my boy happy. So, a day later we were standing in a large department store which shall remain nameless (but really likes the color red. That about hits it right in the bull’s eye) and I found myself buying a rod, reel and small collection of multi-colored, bug shaped lure thingies. So we had the equipment and were ready for some HARD CORE FISHING ACTION (but hopefully without catching any fish)!

My father-in-law grew up in a picturesque valley with a creek running down the middle, large trees and a actual log cabin built back in log cabin times. This place makes Little House on the Prairie look like an abandoned Detroit slum. It’s just a hour or so outside the city and so we go there every few months to chill out. This time we went with my in-laws for a camping adventure…and fishing. We hadn’t even gotten out of the car when the cries of “Can we go to the creek?” were echoing through our car and I could hear similar cries coming from my brother-in-law’s car as my nieces, Niece Bits and Cousin Bits, the 12 and 11 year old dynamic duo are the Bits’ favorite people, were chanting the same thing. So we switched into swim wear, bathed in sun screen and grabbed the billion and one toys, towels and sundries needed to go swimming in a six foot deep creek with five kids. I was hoping to leave my shame in the car but Big Bits shouted as we started walking, “Dad, don’t forget the fishing poles!”

Once everyone else was swimming (I’m not a big fan of swimming in natural water; it’s murky and murky water can hide things…things that can hurt you: sharp toothed fish, crawdads, whales…it’s all very frightening) I headed off down the creek to where the water was calm and clear enough you could see the little fish swimming around. Cousin Bits, an avid fisherwoman, came with me with Little Bits’ fishing pole in hand. I cast into the creek (hit the water again!) and let the little, yellow, bug looking lure with it’s sharp, fish catching hook sink into the water and with it any hope my son would not know how much of “a neo maxi zoom dweebie” I really am.

But maybe not. For once again the moment I started reeling in the line my rod bent and I had hooked another fish. Cousin Bits let out a cheer and Big Bits came running. My father-in-law called the four inch, quarter pound wiggler Blue Phil but I thought he looked more like a Green Carl. We let Big Bits take a close look at my trophy fish and then my father-in-law unhooked him and let him go. My son looked up at me with admiration and that’s the best trophy of all.

I’m an a-hole

To followers of my blog: Sorry about the last few weeks but our “carefree, happy go lucky summer” as been busy as shit. I remember being busy before we had kids but what the hell did we do? I’ll endeavor to have something this Wednesday.

Don’t make me count to three! No, really, don’t make me…

While I try to be open minded when raising our three young boys and not fall back on out dated parenting tricks just because my parents used it, I still find myself suddenly saying things to the kids that I have no idea where they came from (for intense, after telling Big Bits to go to his bed for being bad, he refused and so I told him “Fine, you go to double bed!” He did as I said and while he napped, I sat downstairs and wondered what the hell “double bed” was supposed to mean). Like counting to three when they are doing something they shouldn’t be. Why do I do that? Why does it effect them so?

It is amazing to see the boys when my hand goes up and I start counting off the numbers. The crying begins and what sounds like: “Holy God, the world is coming to an end, Dad is counting! Stop whatever you’re doing and run to the hills cause Dad is already at two! Kiss your ideas of having a future goodbye because you know what happens if he gets to three…!” starts to spill out of their mouths. At least I think that’s what they’re saying, it mostly sounds like screaming, crying and inarticulate babble to me but they might be using that frequency that only kids can hear (I like to think of the boys as more eloquent than that and if this lets me continue that belief, so be it). But I don’t have to get very far for the screaming to start and the begging to stop to commence; it’s all a bit over the top.

Especially Big Bits; he’s over acting is extreme. He’ll either be the William Shatner of his generation or just the worse Emo Kid off all time (and don’t tell me there won’t be Emo Kids in a few years. The Sixties had Doors fans, the Eighties had the Cure, the Nineties had Nine Inch Nails and girls who took Pearl Jam songs way too seriously; they aren’t always called Emo Kids but there’s always depressed kids obsessed with their own sadness). The falling on the floor, the tears…it is just a bit too much sometimes. “Dude, all I said was it’s Little Bits’ turn to pick a game to play. This isn’t ‘Sophie’s Choice’, now shut it.” I used to chant “Fake cry! Fake cry!” when he started a fit but this made it worse and I learned to shut up.

Speaking of Little Bits…man, he’s good. He might be the star of the “Sophie’s Choice” remake that I’m sure someone is planning right now. His tears fall as big summer rain drops; the kind that sound like hail when they hit your windshield (the rain, not his tears). He can turn on the water works instantly and, instantly, you want them to stop. Which, of course, he does since it’s all an act. Not that you can call him on it, at least in public. You want to look like a bad parent? Tell a child who’s heart is obviously breaking right there in the toy aisle to “Shut it” and you will get looks from other parents that could melt steel.

And Tiny Bits? He only fake cries when he wants something. He hasn’t really grasped that sometimes I want him to stop doing whatever it is he’s doing. He’ll just keep on breaking stuff until I take it from him. He doesn’t seem to mind, there are other things to break in easy reach. He’s only limited by his vast imagination.

But all this doesn’t answer the main question: Why does counting to three garner such crazy reactions from my two eldest? My wife and I have never sat them down and told them what would happen when we reach “3.” I’ve never gotten to “3” and immediately broken out the Taser. In fact, I’ve never gotten to “3”, although I’ve had some very long “1s” and “2s.” By the time I get to “2 and a half,” I usually have to stop and hold one of them to calm them down. They still stop what they were doing wrong, so I guess it works but…WTF?

I often wonder what would happen if I did get to the magical “3”. I don’t really know what I would do. I’ve even used that as a threat: “Go ahead and keep this up. Do you want to see what happens when I get to ‘3’? I’m not really sure what will happen but do you want to find out together?” They’ve never taken me up on the offer. Maybe one day…but I hope not, I don’t want to have my bluff called this early. I was hoping to make it at least to their teenage years before I lose total control.

I’m Just Glad It Impresses Somebody

Kids are little tape recorders; they hear something once and they can repeat it ad nauseam. Of course, it would be nice if they would remember the time you quoted David Hume or made a witty and articulate come back to a verbal slight but most of the time they only remember when you broke your foot and stood in the living room swearing for five minutes. And sometimes it isn’t what they say but when they say it that makes it rememberable.

When our eldest boy, Big Bits, was three he had a major crush on our good friend. She is grandma aged, and since both my wife and I have mothers that live many hours away, she became his Nana. Everything she said was like words from God Him(and/or Her)self. One phrase that caught on was “Big and Strong,” as in “eat this so you can grow up Big and Strong” or “Walking around the block will make us Big and Strong.” Soon every other word out of his mouth was “Big and Stong this” or “Big and Stong that.” He usually punctuated saying this with putting his arms up and flexing his biceps. He’s always been a funny kid; “ha-ha” funny not “that boy ain’t right” funny.

Big Bits has always been a Daddy’s Boy and has been my shadow since the time he could walk. I’ve gotten used to this and so when he followed me into the bathroom at a restaurant I didn’t think twice about it. There was an older man washing his hands when we entered but otherwise we were alone. We slipped into a stall (I didn’t need the stall but using the urinal leaves him free to wander off and see what the other men in the bathroom might be up to) and I got down to business.

I should also mention that it took nearly three years for Big Bits to talk but once he got going it was nearly impossible to shut him up. It’s like he has no filter between his eyes and his mouth: he sees it and he has to state it, usually with a running commentary. “Look, a tree. It’s tall. Oh, look, a bird. It’s flying. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy…look, a rock. It’s…a rock” While I was happy that he was finally speaking, I sometimes wondered if there was a way to shut him up.

So there I was, “peeing” for lack of a better term, and Big Bits stood next to me, strangely silent. Finally, as I was getting ready to pack up and go he nearly shouts, “Daddy, you have a Big and Strong penis!” I couldn’t help but guffaw but not as much as the old man washing his hands. I smiled down at Big Bits, patted him on the head and headed out to the sink. There the old man was trying to recover from his laughing fit, which had developed into a coughing jag. I waited for him to calm down and move so I could wash up.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said once he had recovered.

I shrugged before I answered. “That’s OK, I’m just glad it impresses somebody.” We left him still laughing/coughing and red in the face after we washed our hands. I just hope it only looked like he was having heart attack. If not, at least his family will now know he died happy.

I have become Jesus

Kids make their parents feel special. It’s an evolutionary trait that, along with cuteness, allows them to make it past their second birthday. They have no point of reference; you are the smartest/greatest person in their world, therefore the smartest/greatest thing in the world. They can make you feel like Einstein, Brad Pitt and Albert Pujols all in one afternoon. But lately, my boys have been making me feel like Jesus.

Like most kids, my boys tend to hurt themselves a lot. Not cutting themselves, jumping off the roof or voting Republican—just the normal things kids do to damage their bodies. We’ve seen our fair share of scrapped knees, bruises and knocks to the head in our house. Luckily, no one has been permanently damaged but it doesn’t sound like it. The amount of screaming that goes into simply falling down while running through the living room is epic and the speed at which that crying can stop once they feel “healed” can snap your neck. It is these “boo-boos” that has made me feel like the Messiah.

It started with our eldest, Big Bits. He was just getting to perfect the whole walking thing and when he would fall down, he would come screaming up to me and show me his “wound” and I would have to kiss it to get the yelling and carrying on to calm down. This seemed to happen nearly hourly. But, to be honest, it got old; I’m nearly six and a half feet tall and when he would stub his toe he expected me to bend down and kiss his foot. Yeah, that ain’t happening, kid. Plus we had our second child, Little Bits, when Big Bits was two years old and then I didn’t have the time or patience to put up with this malarkey so I took to kissing my fingers and then touching his wounds. This worked, both for him and me.

So Little Bits grew up seeing that if you fell down, Daddy kissed his own fingers and touched your owie and the world was a better place. He’s a second child and therefore learned to roll with the punches; he’s definitely the most chilled out of our kids. But when we had our third, Tiny Bits, I didn’t have the time for even that. Three kids of my own—and by that time I was babysitting our Godchild, Borrowed Bits—running through the house, all of them falling down all the time, I was happy to have time to breathe, let along play “kissy-kissy” with “boo-boos” left and right. Something had to change.

And something did: I became the Lord Christ.

It was Tiny Bits fault. He has been walking for several months but doesn’t have what you would call world class balance. Falling was a way of life for him. And although he falls down on all of his body, it is always his head that he grabs after getting up and says, “Owwwww…” He has gotten to the point where he doesn’t even cry; he just put his hand on the side of his head and comes to find me. The time when he made me divine I was working hard to get the dishes done before we had to go pick up Big Bits from school so that I could start on dinner as soon as we got back. I still had to empty and refill the dishwasher, make sure Little Bits, Borrowed Bits and Tiny Bits were dressed and shoed and I was running late. I was in a rush.

I heard Tiny Bits running from the living room to the kitchen (no matter how many times I try to convince him that running really is too advanced for him he won’t listen). His footfalls are my soundtrack lately. “Thump…thump…thump…bang!” I waited for the required three seconds and then came his call, “Owww…” I rolled my eyes and kept filling the dishwasher and soon enough he came into the kitchen, holding his head. “Owwww…”I saw him out of the corner of my eye and without thinking just held out my hand and grazed the top of his head as I dropped a plate into the dishwasher and went to grab another. I realized I hadn’t kissed my hand first (a capital offense to our older boys) and I went to correct my error but he was no where to be seen. I went to the hall and saw him running back into the living room, all filled with giggles and 18 month old happiness.

I looked down at my hand, almost for the first time. I had healed with a barely a touch. I didn’t need the medicine/magic of a Daddy Kiss. I didn’t need a bandage or major medical insurance. I could heal the sick with my touch. I was one with God/The Universe/Flying Spaghetti Monster (fill in your deity/non-deity of choice)!

I had to rethink my god-like status a few moments later when I realized that Tiny Bits and Borrowed Bits had both dropped major stinkies and we were really running late now. I grabbed babies, diapers and wipes and got down to work. Something tells me a god could have finished this job faster and better than I did. I guess an almost god’s work is never done.

A Proud Family of St. Louis

For many, summer is here and each weekend is precious. There are only a few weekends in the summer months and numerous events, fairs, happenings, parades and fests vying for your time, but there is one that is a must see for all families. A fun, exciting and even educational weekend (and the kind of educational event that kids will never see coming. They’re having fun and then BAM!, they’re more educated. Awesome). Yes, mark your calendar for June 26 and take the whole family down to Tower Grove Park for the St Louis PrideFest parade and party.

If you’ve never heard of St. Louis PrideFest, you’re missing out on one of the social events of the year. This is a event that my wife and I have been going to for more than a dozen years. Back before kids, we would go to the parade for adult reasons: shaking hands with the mayor, police chief, fire chief and any elected officials that are proud of St. Louis; celebrating our St. Louisan pride with float after wonderfully decorated float; and educating ourselves with the many information booths set up in the park after the parade. Who knew there were so many great things to learn about our amazing city?

Now we have kids, and it’s better than ever. The kids love the parade: the big groups of motorcycles, the fire trucks and police cars, the floats full of happy people throwing candy and beads to everyone lining up and down Grand Boulevard. There are marching bands, talented performers and lots of fun dance music. Sure, there are lots of shirtless men on the floats but no more than you would see at an afternoon Cardinals game or a day at Six Flags.

And post parade, we head into the park and the fun continues. Besides the numerous informational booths, there is great food, classic cars, and people selling all kinds of goods. And live music! Real live music up on the big stage and BandTogether, a local concert band, not only marches in the parade but plays under the trees afterward. There are few things our kids love more than live music, and PrideFest delivers. From famous classic rockers to entertaining local groups, we can spend hours there and never get bored of the music.

But the best part of the day is the people. Families of all colors and sizes take over the park. The diversity is amazing. It seems that families come from all over the area come to meet up with old friends and make new ones. There isn’t a time or place you can’t see or hear kids running and giggling. And the dogs! Seemingly everyone brings a dog with them to PrideFest. If you are a dog fan, you could spend many hours just picking out the rare breeds filling the park.

So make sure to mark your calendar on June 26 for the St. Louis Gay PrideFest in Tower Grove Park. The parade starts at noon but you will want to stay for a long time after. For the food, the music but mostly for the diverse group of St. Louisians there to enjoy the day. It is an event that can make everyone — gay or straight or somewhere in between — proud to live in St. Louis.

Originally published on Stltoday.com

Koi pond: Is it real or Fish TV for kids?

My kids are obsessed with animals. We have three at our house: a cat who thinks he’s a dog, a cat who thinks she’s a god and a rabbit, Capt. Jack Remmington, III, Esq, the world’s only rabbit/pirate/lawyer. That isn’t enough; we have stuffed animals and we watch videos about animals and since they’ve discovered YouTube, we watch animals bloopers until I want to throw up (because it’s the internet and of course I watch it with them. I’ve seen the news and I know internet predators can now reach through the monitor and take your children right off the couch. You can’t fool me). And now they’ve found something even better: our neighbor has Fish TV.

My kids’ other obsession is water. Any water will do: baths, rain, sprinklers and especially ponds and rivers — anything they can fall into and possibly die. And now the kids have discovered our neighbor has his own pond in his backyard, complete with koi fish and almost scarily large goldfish.

We were out playing in our front garden: the wife and roommate were planting, the boys were searching for worms and I was being grunt labor, dragging yard waste to the alley Dumpsters. Our neighbor was also working on his (much nicer) front garden and offered to show off his newly sodded backyard, which looks like the grounds crew at Busch Stadium did it. I went back to take a look and while my neighbor and I discussed sod and sod care, the boys quickly discovered his koi pond, a beautiful little pond surrounded by expertly placed flat, gray stones. The boys were mesmerized quickly as the two dozen or so fish swam around.

I don’t know if my sons knew what to think of this situation. They’d seen ponds, but those were what ducks swam in — everyone knows that — and they’d seen fish in fish tanks but those were up on tables and normally surrounded by crab rangoon and fried rice (we go to a lot of Chinese restaurants). They had seen TVs embedded into the floor at their favorite burger restaurant and I have a feeling this is what they thought they were seeing: an outside TV stuck in the ground that only showed a fish show.

That was until Tiny Bits, our curious 18-month-old, decided the best thing to do to TVs stuck in the ground is to throw a stick at it (this is his go-to move for most things). This fish reacted by swimming up and seeing if they could eat it. This widened all the boys’ eyes; sure, they’ve seen Dora and Elmo talk to them but never has a TV show reacted to what they had done. They quickly figured out this was no TV show but real, live animals right in front of them and what do you to with real, live animals? Pet them!

This was when I discovered the stones surrounding the pond were not all glued down (or grouted or nailed or whatever you do to keep stones from falling into a pond they are surrounding). Tiny Bits decided petting the fish was something he needed to experience RIGHT NOW and nearly threw himself bodily into the depths of the pond but I was able to keep him and the stones safely dry. Then my neighbor, not knowing my children quite as well as I do, showed the boys what happens when you feed the fish. Mainly, they go crazy nuts — the fish and the kids — and the boys immediately wanted to feed them more. I don’t know a lot about fish, but I’ve heard if you feed them too much they die or explode or something so we had to put a stop to our little visit before one of them stole some fish food and decide to feed the fish themselves. Or before they got bored with trying to kill the fish and decided to see what it would take to wipe out the sod.

Originally published on Stltoday.com

Quiet can be a scary thing

Child rearing is filled with numerous moments of abject horror. From the moment when they handed me my first child and I couldn’t stop thinking I was going to drop him to major media reminding me daily that my children are about to be kidnapped by terrorists and made to do Un-American things in foreign lands, every moment is another second where I’m sure I or society at large is going to kill the kids. I’m a nervous wreck. And the kids aren’t helping.

As any stay-at-home parent with more than one child will tell you, a few seconds of peace and quiet is worth its weight in gold. But that same moment of quiet can be terrifying if it takes place when you are out of the room. My older two boys were at school and it was just Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old, and me hanging out. It’s nice to have some one-on-one time with the little guy; time where I can watch him grow, develop and even see his little mind working out how the world works. We had played the morning away, and it was time for a snack. Leaving him on the living room floor playing with his teddy bear, I ran to the kitchen to rustle up some chow.

I wasn’t worried about leaving him alone for a few minutes because he’s going through a “screaming phase,” one of the more “enjoyable” phases of development where children are learning vocal control — and therefore how to scream — quite happily, ALL THE TIME. Luckily this is something they grow out of pretty quickly (or they never do and grow up to be lead singers in heavy metal bands). In other words, I could hear him very well at the other end of our house. And that is why, as I was finishing chopping up his apple, I suddenly froze. I couldn’t hear the baby. The living room was quiet. A little too quiet.

My mind was awash with Wes Craven-fueled images as I ran around the couch to see exactly what he was doing. Had he turned the cat inside out? Had he suddenly figured out how to use the front door and was now out playing in traffic? Had he fallen into an interdimensional gate and now I would have to search the universe for him (that is exactly the kind of thing he would do)? No, he had discovered his toes. He was sitting on the floor, playing with toes. Apparently his toes can hear very well and don’t need to be screamed at. I, on the the other hand, am completely deaf since he looked up at me, saw the bowl of apple slices and happily screamed his head off.

This screaming phase had better stop soon or I’m going to start screaming soon myself.

Originally published on Stltoday.com

Wind experiments and a spray can of cheese, and thus a love of science begins

I’ve always been a scientist at heart. From a very early age I was fascinated with space and biology and just about anything I could get my hands on. Carl Sagan and Nikola Tesla were my Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky. My days were like the TV show “Mythbusters” only with less explosions. And after the last few weeks, I can see my boys are well on their way to follow in my footsteps.

The first time I saw this scientific inclination was just after the recent 40 days and nights of rain. The sun was out, the windows were down and the car filled with cut-grass-scented air. On the highway, wind buffeted us violently, but we were all so happy to see the sun again no one cared. My two oldest boys were in the very back of our station wagon, watching the world speed away from them. The air flowing into the car circulates wildly in the back, and the boys love it: their hair flies this way and that and they giggle as we travel. So much better than the bickering I hear when the windows are up and they’re bored.

An empty shopping bag was in the back of the car with them, and the wind caught it, showing us all exactly how wildly the air was flowing. It whipped around the boys, faster and faster until it wrapped itself around one of their seat belts. This caused them to erupt with laughter, grab the bag and send it flying. Again and again they got the bag into the air until the poor bag finally escaped their torture and jumped into the back seat, hiding down under my chair.

The collective sigh that signaled all the fun in the world was dead echoed through the car until Big Bits, our 6-year-old, grabbed some paper from his backpack and sent it into the air. It flew about too, not quite as crazily as the bag but it was still fun. Someone in Big Bit’s kindergarten class had recently taught him about paper airplanes, which of course he loved (what kid doesn’t?), but he still wasn’t 100 percent sure about how to fold paper into an airplane shape. That didn’t stop him from randomly folding paper and seeing if it flew any better. This met with varying degrees of success. Little Bits, who will enthusiastically tell you he’s 4 if you give him half a second, did his big brother one better and just wadded up the paper into a ball. This didn’t work at all.

But that didn’t stop him in the least. Everything in their reach was tossed into the air, from toy cars to their shoes. Little Bits held his teddy bear up in the air several times, each time dropping it to see if his little friend would fly around the car. I think the little bear’s arms and legs wiggling in the wind gave him hope he might just take flight. I knew the observation stage had ended and they were ready for more advanced tests when they found an empty chip bag, and it flew around nearly as well as the shopping bag. And they started preparing for future funding requests when Big Bits said, “Dad, can we stop for some chips? I’m really hungry.”

This wasn’t the only time their minds have shown signs of scientific curiosity. One day at the store I happened to see a can of spray cheese, that cheese-like “food” substance that comes in a can and is easily spread on crackers. I remembered liking it when I was a kid, so why not spread the joy to the next generation?

I took it home and let each of the kids have some on a cracker. Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old, took the first one and although none actually made it into his mouth, he did have fun with it (took me forever to get it out of his hair). Little Bits took one, barely licked it and politely put it back on the table. I don’t know if he’s the smartest one of us, but he might have the best taste.

To Big Bits, this was a revelation, a whole new world of flavor opened up before him. “I like slimy cheese!” he shouted several times. I had to cut him off before he made himself sick. It was time for bed anyway. As he was brushing his teeth, staring at his reflection in the mirror, he suddenly turned to me.

“Dad, slimy cheese causes freckles.” I stopped getting Tiny Bits dressed and just stared at him.

“What?!” The incredulous “What?!” is said a lot around our house.

“Well, I like slimy cheese and Little Bits doesn’t.”

“Yup,” I agreed.

“And I have freckles and Little Bits doesn’t.” I couldn’t argue with him on this one, at least this close to bed time. I would have liked to sit him down and explain the truth but when our roommate told him she liked slimy cheese too (and, of course, she has freckles as well) that gave him all the proof he needed. Seeing was believing.

I’m going to keep encouraging their apparent love of science and maybe one of them will be the next Einstein or Hawking. Or, if we’re really lucky, the next generation of Mythbusters.

Originally published on Stltoday.com