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 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.