A Normal Part of American Parenthood

Seamus is freaking out. It is ten of five on Tuesday evening, Mary is running late to whisk Booker off to gymnastics, but is also trying to seize her only chance to catch up with Carol about the day’s events with a quick chat in the kitchen. So I have yanked the boys out of the dining room, jammed their feet into their crocs and trundled them into the car. By the time Mary comes out, Seamus is in full meltdown and she stops to inquire: “Seamus, what do you want?”

“I want mine bed!”

“Your bed? Seamus, it’s only five o’clock, we’re taking Booker to gymnastics, no one is going to bed.”

“No! I want mine bed!”

“Seamus, what is it you want? Your bag?”

Seamus, red-faced and indignant: “No! Mine BEEEDuh!”

Mary, halfway in the car: “Seamus, stop crying and talk normally.”

Seamus, screwing up his features in apoplectic concentration: “Beyad!”

Mary, exasperated: “Okay Seamus, tell me, what does it look like?”

Seamus, tears running down his cheeks: “It’s on mine sandwich...”

After Mary stops laughing, she gets the boy his bread.

The photos show quieter moments: Booker and Seamus waiting for Mary to take the lemon squares out of the oven--Booker intently watching the second-hand to make sure he is not forced to wait a moment longer then necessary. And then, moments later, Booker and Puff preparing to slice the squares, no doubt using special magic dragon method. (The stuffed dragon can be used as a knife, but this is generally not advisable when the stuffed dragon belongs to your two-year old neighbor, and has been borrowed on delicate terms.)

When I came home Friday evening, I found that Seamus had thrown several dollar bills in the toilet, where they floated soggily undisturbed. I mentioned this to Mary, and she remarked, “Oh yeah, Booker told me about that, but then I forgot about it.” She was busy containing the consequences of the next adventure. There are several aspects of parenthood that I thought were merely metaphorical until I experienced them for myself--things like being tired of having your kids hanging on you, or trying in vain to stop them from bouncing off the walls. I want to thank Seamus for clarifying for me that throwing your money down the toilet, also, is not a figure of speech, but a normal part of American parenthood.

Who's Fightiest Now?

Ice cream makes a good clock, observes Booker, and Seamus prefers his melted. He gave full indication of this preference at Clyde’s, where Grandpa Ray and Grandma took us on Saturday evening. Seamus was better than he ever has been at a restaurant, giving us a full hour of relative peace. Gluttony is not always conducive to good behavior, but in this case it mostly was, and Seamus was content to eat everything within arm’s length while simultaneously playing with his toys, not bothering the rest of us so much. At dessert, as is his wont, he waited for his ice cream to melt into soup, then added the scraps of whatever else was left of his meal, and hoisted the bowl to his lips. Grandpa Ray was much amused. Grandma not so much.

Grandma also gave three matchbox cars apiece to Booker and Seamus. They promptly bestowed nicknames on each—Super Wheel, Super Orange, Mini Cooper (known to Seamus as Mini Tooper), and so on. The best nickname was Fightiest, for the car most capable of holding off all comers in a car fight. When Seamus says it, it sounds like Fi-ee-us. “I want mine Fi-ee-us! I want mine Fi-ee-us Tar!” But they could not agree on which one was Fightiest: Booker insisted it was the blue Pagani Zonda C12, whereas Seamus held—quite irrationally, I believe—that it was the gray BMW Z4. How can a convertible be fightiest?

The advantage of this dispute, I thought, is that they would not need to fight over who got to hold onto Fightiest. But I was wrong: fighting over who is Fightiest is just as consuming as fighting over keeping him. We brokered short-term ceasefires by convincing them to build a parking garage with blocks, where they could each, in turn, rent Fightiest, Mini Tooper and their pals, for ten-minute periods. That worked for twenty minutes. 

The social peace that reigned during Grandma’s visit was shortlived but memorable. We slept soundly that night, knowing that through their shared passion they were building a foundation that would outlast their momentary quarrels, that they were stitched into the weave of generations of love and protection, and that Seamus would wake us at 5:30 demanding to know where Fightiest was. That’s early by any clock, ice cream or no.

"I" in Art

This past weekend we had balmy weather for the first time in months, and we were all buoyed by the rising energy born from the first, false promise of spring. Booker and Seamus, as usual, were the very first to arrive in Wheaton Regional Park early Sunday morning, and spent a good hour or so running from the Monster (me) around the various jungle-gyms, until finally other children began to trickle in. And then in the afternoon they rode up and down the sidewalk, chased by or chasing Finn and Xin Re, Booker on his two-wheeler, Seamus on his Skuut velocipede, the breeze pressing flat the forelocks peeking underneath their plastic shells.

With all this outdoor time, there was less brawling and bawling this weekend than anytime in recent memory. Everything was going swimmingly until we decided to go swimming, which required packing everyone into the car. On the way there, for reasons unfathomable to the adult mind, Seamus proferred his hand to Booker, reaching from one car seat to another across the narrow divide, and Booker gladly accepted, immediately taking it into his mouth and chomping down, leaving a complete but temporary impression of the upper anterior dental arcade. We were so wearied and frazzled by this latest offensive that Booker actually took our admonishments to heart. He sulked repentantly for a few minutes, and then insisted that we remind him of how sad he was once we got home, so he could write Seamus an apology note. Here is the product:

It is all there: the outstretched hand, the capricious maw, the squalling and swollen-mitted Seamus, the repentant Booker, his urgent apology (tellingly rendered as "sore") traveling straight from his head to Seamus's ear. Signed, more with the flair of an artist than the humility of a penitent, in bold and scrawling vermilion above the scene.

This child, according to Montgomery County Public Schools, is not doing so well in Art. Booker brought home his first report card this past week. He got mostly "P"s (Proficient?) but a few scattered "I"s (In Progress). Some of these, like Athletic Execution, were if anything optimistic. But "I" in Art? Please. He cannot paste his patterns in a straight line, true, but how many five-year olds carry around a book of Rube Goldberg's drawings (courtesy of Aunt Minou and Uncle Sean) and imitate them? Below is his latest Goldberg variation, a recipe for lemon squares:

On the left are two men fighting over a lemon. The lemon falls down a chute and rolls rightward, passing under a bath of flour and butter dropped down a conjoining chute by a celestial sous-chef. Deep underground, a worker churns a gear that drives a belt, sending the floury lemon into the heat of an oven, from which it rises, baked now into a tasty lemon square, up a spiral tube back to the surface, where it is enjoyed by the same two gentlemen, who finish toasting it over a campfire. "I"? As Booker himself would put it, that is so freakin' freakin'.

For good measure, one from the master.

Scenes from a winter weekend

Scene 1: In the Honda, on the way to Jussara's new apartment in Crofton (aka, Nowheresville, MD).

Booker: Grrr Yap Yap Yap Arr Rrar Rrar, etc.

Booker: Seamus, do you know why I am making that noise?

Seamus: Naaaooo....I dayo.

Booker: Because I am a human, and humans are animals, and animals make wild noises.

Seamus: Oh.

Scene 2: In the Honda, several hours later, returning from Crofton, and after a disastrous family stop at the supermarket.

Seamus: Yi yi yi Aiiiiiiii! Auuuugh! Auuuugh!

Booker: Seamus! Stop that! That noise is hurting my ears!

Seamus: Ai yi yi yi yi!

Booker: Why are you making that stupid noise!?!

Seamus: Butuz I'm wiiiiiiild!

Booker: Seamus, a human is NOT an animal.

Scene 3: Dining Room. Seamus, rejecting Daddy's famous spinach/beef/cheese calzone.

Seamus: I don yike it! It has calzoon on it! (Face of repulsion and disgust.) I don yike calzoon.

Scene 4: Bedtime. Seamus, looking for an appropriate stuffed animal.

Seamus: Where's my fluffy! I want my fluffy!

Seamus (curled up, his last words before sleep): How 'bout a snuddle?