Back when I was a lad...

I mentioned that The Boy has gotten hooked on a new show call Olivia, based on the popular children's books. When I say "new" I actually mean new to us, since we recently moved and now have more channels than we did a while ago. Unfortunately, our Tivo couldn't handle the new stations until I ordered a lost sensor, so Olivia had to be watched live at 4:00 in the afternoon.

This seemed to confuse The Boy no end. After all these years of watching any of his shows on demand, he was now being told that he could only watch this talking pig girl at certain times of the day. He'd get pretty upset with us, thinking it was some sort of punishment that his cruel parents were inflicting on his innocent person. The fact that these shows didn't just magically appear when he demanded them was a foreign concept. Thank God the sensor finally arrived, so Olivia could join the esteemed ranks of Bob the Builder and Curious George in the magic box.

I recoil in horror at the memory of life before Tivo. Having to rush home to watch a show seems so primitive to me now. Hell, I don't even know when most of my shows actually air, or on what channel. I just tell Tivo to save them and that's it. I used to have a pretty fancy VCR, with the ability to record at several different times and days, but even that seems like a mockery of technology now.

Though it wasn't all bad. There was a certain amount of communal enjoyment back then. You knew that Friday was going to be spent talking about the previous night's Seinfeld episode. My roommates and I were religious about being home in time for Iron Chef. Thankfully it aired on Friday nights so where else would we be?

Nowadays you ask someone if they've seen the latest 30 Rock and the most likely response will be, "I'm three shows behind. I just spent the weekend catching up on all of last season's Lost episodes to clear up disk space."

Daydream believer

The Boy and I were hanging out one day when he suddenly asked me, "what is imagination?"

I pondered for a moment and replied, "it's being able to think of things that aren't real. Like I can imagine you growing wings and flying around the room."

The Boy nodded. "I'm imagining I'm watching Bob the Builder," he said.

I sighed, regretting the day I ever turned on a TV in his presence. "Can you imagine anything else? Something not Bob related?"

He thought for a moment, then responded, "I'm imagining I'm watching Olivia," which is a cartoon he only recently started to obsess over.

"Can you imagine anything not on TV?" I asked hopefully.

This was a toughie, but he finally had an answer. "I'm imagining I'm reading a Bob the Builder book!" he announced triumphantly.

Evil is as evil does

The elusive art of humor has... eluded me lately. Fortunately, one of my favorite webcomic artists recently mentioned A Funny Dad Story on his site that had me LOLling, and I don't LOL easily.

Puzzling Development

It's been interesting to watch The Boy develop the skills needed to put a jigsaw puzzle together. As an adult it seems bloody obvious where things go, especially when you're used to doing 3000 piece puzzles and the one in front of you only has a dozen giant pieces.

I didn't react very well at first. The Boy would hold a piece in his hands, stare at it, try it one way, try it another way, then try it the first way again. Even when he had two pieces that obviously connected he'd try every possible combination except for the two sides that actually fit. It was pretty uncanny how bad he was, and I often suspected he was doing it on purpose just to drive me crazy. I would explain over and over how an edge piece has to be next to another edge piece, then he'd try to cram it into the middle of the picture.

After a few months, though, I learned to take it easy and just let him do his thing. The shapes don't seem to influence him, but he's remarkably good at finding parts of a certain object in the picture. So we'll focus on the castle first, and he'll grab pieces with just a hint of crenelation and put it down right where it needs to go. I'll hang back and offer suggestions when he gets stuck, or subtly move missing pieces closer so he'll notice them, but he's getting pretty good on his own. Sometimes he'll even crank out several in a row with no discernible rhyme or reason, which makes me still suspect he's smarter than he lets on, but that's probably just the law of averages at work.

I'm looking forward to the day he can be trusted with a real puzzle. I've got several stashed away in storage, and each one is guaranteed to make a grown man cry.

Elementary, my dear Daddy!

Ever since I was a wee lad I enjoyed a homemade treat called Honey Milk Balls*. I got the craving yesterday so I picked up some honey at the grocery store while The Boy and I were shopping.

We started the drive home when The Boy, out of the blue, asked a dreaded question. "Why did we get honey?"

I gripped the steering wheel tighter. I give him a sample of my sinful indulgence every now and then, but being the health hypocrite that I am, he is discouraged from eating it. Him deducing my evening plans would put a crimp in my binging. But what were the odds that a three year old would be that smart?

"We're just out," I casually replied.

"What do we use honey for?" The Boy continued. Damn, I thought.

"Was it in the cookies you made with Mama?" I asked, hopefully, knowing full well it wasn't.

"Nooooo," he said slowly. The car went quiet as he mulled things over and I groped for the radio controls hoping some music would distract him.

"Tea," he finally said. "We use honey in tea."

"Yes," I replied solemnly. "We use honey in tea."

And now I'm writing a blog post well after midnight while waiting for my honey buzz to end.



* Two cups oatmeal, two cups powdered milk, one cup honey, and one cup peanut butter. Mix together and form into balls. Or, in my case, eat right out of the bowl while watching West Wing on DVD.

Number Crunching

My doctor recently mentioned his concerns about the swine flu vaccine and the lack of extensive testing. When you test on 600 subjects, and then give that drug to a hundred thousand, what is going to happen?

Well, that's an easy math problem. Let's assume that there's a one in a thousand chance that the vaccine has some serious side effects. That's a .1% chance. Not a likely event for any given individual, but still something that should never be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Testing measures differ from one drug company to the other, I'm sure, but the two brands of the H1N1 vaccine I Googled both mentioned using 600 subjects in their clinical trials. So, what are the odds that they'd miss that .1% chance? If the odds of an individual coming through okay is .999, then the odds of six hundred people not showing any symptoms is .999 to the power of 600. This comes out to .5486, so there is roughly a 55% chance that a potentially fatal side effect could be missed.

Not that a few more test subjects will make me feel warm and fuzzy. Doubling the number of subjects only gives a 70% chance of finding out your serum is poisonous. Tripling it gives an 83% chance.

This sums up in a nutshell my biggest concern about vaccinations. Before injecting something into millions of people, make sure the testing process is more vigorous than for cough drops and foot powder.

Christmas time is here by golly

The Boy had a pretty good holiday, though we didn't plan it very well. A large bulk of his presents came from my family, who we didn't see until three days after the officially appointed birth of Jesus Christ, superstar. Which means that on Christmas day he only got a few things. Then the next day we went to visit The Wife's sister, where The Boy only got a token gift and had to watch his cousins dive into a pile of festively-wrapped loot.

It's an interesting change from the last couple of years, where he was more interested in boxes and wrapping paper than in toys. This year was different, though, partly because he's old enough to grasp the whole concept and partly because we finally got around to getting a tree and putting his gifts under it a week before. This provided the appropriate holiday torture and whetted his appetite for days.

I was hoping for snow, either here or up in New Hampshire, so The Boy and I could do some serious frolicking. But the rain gods were against me. Then the wind gods. Then the oh-my-god-it's-cold gods.

Bubble Boy

There's an episode of 30 Rock where one character explains to another that attractive people live in a "bubble," where their good looks shield them from the less pleasant aspects of human behavior. Recently The Boy was at a birthday party and one of the mothers commented on him being the most adorable kid there. It struck me that, despite my genes, he may possibly grow up to be charismatic.

The thought worries me. I'm prepared for most talks about life. I'll be able to guide or bluff my way through most topics, but the ability to talk to someone to get what you want is pure sorcery to me. Making a good first impression is a wondrous thing, and will require a "with great power comes great responsibility" talk.

All Hallows Eve

The Boy's first official Trick-or-Treat event went very well. Dressed as Bob the Builder, he went door to door and mumbled until they gave him candy. His initial hesitation evaporated when we got caught in the wake of a mob of children and he became part of the crowd.

We didn't stay out long, since sugar is the Devil's work, and so went home to dole out candy of our own. This turned out to be The Boy's favorite part. We'd sit on the porch, keeping an eager eye out for interlopers, then I'd hold the bowl while The Boy would carefully put candy bars in each bag. He got so into it that he didn't even mind when I had to dip into his own stash when we ran low. As it is he still has some pieces left in his bag but doesn't seem all that interested in them. This strikes me as odd, considering his candy radar can pick up the smallest tic-tac buried under the couch cushions.

Cruel Tricks For Dear Friends

Fatherhood is full of little joys; your child's smile, watching him discover the world, yada yada yada. But my favorite moments are when I mess with his head.

It started innocently enough. We were taking a break from our usual game of Chase The Boy with Lego Vehicles, and I had Mister Plow (no relation to Homer Simpson) eat a Lego piece. It was a simple enough trick. I brought Mister Plow down and knocked the piece into my hand and palmed it. It wasn't up to David Copperfield's skill level but it was quick enough to fool The Boy.

He's three now, and wise in the ways of the world. He has a pretty good idea that inanimate objects don't eat each other. I then picked up the plow with both hands and spat the piece back out, another sleight of hand beyond his perception. He gave me a perfect "you're putting me on" look and insisted I do it again. And again. I eventually showed him the trick, which sparked his interest even more. So I spent a good ten minutes going over the moves until he got distracted by a piece of string.

I toyed briefly with the thought of keeping it a secret, just to make the world (and me) a bit more mysterious. But kids have enough to figure out in a Newtonian universe, much less a quantum one. I don't need to add magic to the mix.

Besides, Penn & Teller have made a living showing people that the joy isn't in seeing the trick, but in appreciating how it's done. But for The Boy's fourth birthday, when I pull a Lego rabbit out of a hat, that secret I'm taking with me to the grave.

Happy birthday to you

We had The Boy's third birthday party this weekend. Technically, his birthday was the week before and he woke up that day demanding cake. I had to explain to him that due to scheduling issues we were going to observe it on a different day, like President's Day, and if it was good enough for George Washington then it was damn well good enough for him.

That didn't seem to mollify him, though, so we went out to breakfast at the local diner and had cake for dessert. That was the highlight of the day, since he then proceeded to bang his head at the playground and get stung by a yellow jacket at the train museum, so all in all it wasn't a great b-day for him.

Anyway, the party went well and he really enjoys the gifts he got, including several Bob the Builder toys and a large concrete mixer. (You can tell he likes them because he's already trying to take them apart.)

Birthday gifts have always been a foreign concept to me. When I was a wee lad we'd have our cake and ice cream and that would be it. For a few years we'd get a buck or two in our birthday cards, during that sweet spot of our youths when the relatives thought we'd be old enough to appreciate cash and young enough to not be able to mow lawns to earn our bread. But presents were right out. I still remember one time, probably around age ten or so, when a friend of mine gave me a Peanuts puzzle for my birthday and I looked at him like he had two heads.

My neglected childhood aside, I do worry about how much is too much. As a New Englander it's been ingrained into me to resist frivolous spending, and a play room filled with unused toys constitutes "spoiling" the child. On the other hand, it wouldn't have killed me to get a freakin' Omega Supreme Transformer when I was a kid.

We've been pretty good up to this point, doling out gifts one at a time and only after The Boy has harped on it for several weeks, but I'm sure that'll get harder and harder as he grows up and learns how to push our buttons.

Or rather, push The Wife's buttons, since with me he'll be competing with several generations of New England breeding. Ayuh.

There be monsters!

The other night The Boy ran to his mother, claiming there was a monster outside, and jumped into her arms. Naturally, this didn't sit well with me. Pulling him away from his mother's comforting bosom, I put The Boy on my knee and explained the situation.

First, I'm twice his mother's size so if he's looking for someone to hide behind it's gonna be me. I mean really, all The Wife would be able to do is scream at the thing and flail her little arms. Whereas I am freakishly strong and could easily chuck furniture at anything foolish enough to come slobbering at my doorstep.

Second, and most important, I'm the one with the training. The Wife wouldn't know a ghost from the Bogeyman. Does she know the best times to hide under the blanket vs. whipping out the flashlight? Would she know what storybooks are best used as throwing stars at anything creeping out of the closet? I think not!


For some reason The Boy has become obsessed with monsters lately. Every dimly-lit room has a monster in it now, especially if it's the bedroom around bedtime. The Wife made a futile attempt at telling him there's no such thing as monsters, but I quickly undermined that by teaching him proper monster warfare. Every enemy has its weakness, and the typical monster can't defend itself against a good punch in the nose. Some toys can make good bludgeoning weapons, but really your best bet is to smack it in the schnoz.

I wasn't sure how effective my talks were until one night I heard him walk into the dark bedroom and shout, "Take that, monster!" It did my heart proud.

Whyfor why?

The Boy's favorite word lately is "why." I can't even get through a sentence before he blurts out "Why?" It leads to some awkward conversations, like:

"Simon, it's"

"Why?"

"going to be"

"Why?"

"a nice day so let's"

"Why?"

"go to the park."

"Wh--- okay!"


It's also forced me to do some soul searching, since it's not in my nature to just reply with "because." Why shouldn't he just push all his toys onto the floor? Do we really need to keep things up on shelves? It's only more effort to pick them up, and he's going to have them on the floor again soon enough. It's entropy at work, and there's no fighting it. Why dump more energy into a decaying system?

So then I look at him and say, "You're right. The second law of thermodynamics is on your side. The universe is slowly grinding us all to powder and our feeble attempts at stopping it only speed up our eventual return to nothingness."

To which The Wife will respond, "Why did you say that?!"

So you see, there's really no escaping that word.

Thammy the Theal and other thtories

Last time we moved we lost one of The Boy's books, and I was happy to find it last night wedged between two D&D tomes. It's an okay book, but the reason I like it is because I can use my Barry White voice when I read it.

Back when The Boy only had a few books around I developed voices for most of them. Corduroy was read with a British accent, Bubba and Beau had a Texan drawl, and Sammy the Seal was lisping and a wee bit flamboyant. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Most voices were selected after several readings, some were chosen right from the start. Leonardo the Terrible Monster, for example, is told in a deep, spooky voice despite the premise of the story being a monster who is too cute to actually scare anyone.

All these books are still around, but now we get a regular influx from the library so most of our nighttime reading is too transient for me to decide on a voice. I think The Boy prefers it that way, to be honest. When I tried reading Curious George in a Victorian Englishman's voice I only got as far as, "The curious case of George the monkey" before he demanded I "read it normal."

And no son of mine should know what "normal" means!

Our house, in the middle of our street

When I was young our house was the one where all the other kids would hang out. We had room to run around and my mother would always provide everyone with drinks or snacks.

The way things are looking, I doubt my place will become such a mecca for the neighborhood urchins. The Boy often plays with Christian, who lives next door and is a few years older than he. We made the mistake of feeding him snacks once or twice, and now he's a constant presence at our back door.

I, however, am a selfish bastard and see no reason why I should share my hard-earned grapes with this ragamuffin. So I'll dole out an extra portion when it's obvious The Boy wants something to eat, but there have been plenty of times when I've refused requests for apples or crackers because I could sense the invisible strings of a hungry eight year old puppet master lurking in the shadows.

I'm honestly amazed that Christian tries to mooch off us at all. At his house they get soda and candy bars. If I was him I wouldn't waste my digestive juices on lame old fruits and vegetables.

Day Care Blues

We recently put The Boy into day care. Or, as we optimistically refer to it around him, "play school."

I've got mixed feelings about it, but to be honest he could use the social interaction. The Wife and I have been slacking off with befriending other families in the neighborhood so The Boy hasn't acquired a cadre of friends his own age. With any luck being with a bunch of other boys who are more than willing to hit back when they are hit will help to curb his overly-enthusiastic playing style. Or at least get it out of his system during the day.

The biggest danger with day care is finding one you trust. We looked at a couple and found one nearby that looked good. It wasn't the biggest, or the best organized, but it had some charm to it and the kids looked lively. Unfortunately, the owner has a pretty low opinion of me.

I don't give much verbal feedback when someone is talking, especially if they're strangers. I'll stand and stare at them, waiting for them to finish whatever they're saying. Unfortunately, there are polar opposites to this, people who desperately need feedback during a conversation or they start to panic. And when these people panic, they usually talk even more. So we get stuck in this verbal sink hole from hell where they keep talking more and more and I get quieter and quieter because I'm paying less and less attention to their ramblings. The best case ending, the talker runs out of breath and faints. (Worst case ending, we both get run over by a bus.)

This was one of those sink hole moments, and I didn't have The Wife with me during the tour to provide backup, so the owner just kept going on and on and getting less and less impressed with me. It didn't help when she asked if The Boy could bring a stuffed animal or blanket that he cuddles with to provide security, and I told her that he usually curls up with construction toys. She obviously thinks I'm a typical clueless dad who thinks of his child as an alien pooping creature, but she's not the one who has to keep digging toy trucks and plastic hammers out from the bedsheets.

Anyway, The Boy adjusted well. His first day was great, and the teachers were amazed that he's never been in day care before. The second day wasn't as good, since he realized this wasn't just a one-shot event, so there was some crying. Now, after two weeks, it's hit or miss whether or not he gets upset when The Wife drops him off but he gets over it quickly enough. I give him another week before he's running the place.

All's fair in love and berries

We don't have room for a garden, but a couple months ago I bought a strawberry and a blueberry bush to keep on our back deck. Unfortunately, The Boy is a bit too enthusiastic about picking the berries off so we get a lot of green buds that will never live to see their juicy potential. I've had to keep a careful eye on him whenever he's outside.

Another drawback is I only bought one strawberry bush, and when you only get a single berry every couple of days The Boy is all over it. I swear he's rigged some kind of alarm to that plant, because he always knows when I try to sneak out to forage. I don't blame him, because the one piece of fruit I managed to keep from him was amazingly good. I had to force him to give The Wife a piece one day, practically at gun point.

It looks like strawberry season is over but the blueberries are finally coming in. After teasing us for months with little green balls it finally offered up a single perfectly blue berry just waiting to be picked. Naturally, I seized upon my chance and picked it, and it was amazingly good. (Okay, it could have done with another few days on the stem, but still...)

The rest of the berries are starting to turn blue, which makes me think I should install a cage around the thing to keep eager hands away before it's time. Heck, maybe he and I will even offer a few to The Wife... but don't hold your breath.

Snips and snails and puppy dogs tails

The Boy and I were at the beach the other day when a seagull landed nearby with an eel in its beak. They wrestled for quite a while, with the eel trying to squirm back into the water and the bird dragging it back onto the sand, until finally the seagull got the eel's head in its mouth and swallowed it whole in several gulps. And it wasn't a small eel, either.

You'd think The Boy would be fascinated by this, but he barely looked up from his bucket of seaweed and sand. I admit that as the gruesome scene played out I became less and less sure of my desire to have him watch, but it did amaze me that he and the other kids around didn't seem to care. The adults, on the other hand, were riveted and there was quite a crowd by the time it was over.

I mildly scolded him for not wanting to watch nature at its most disgusting, but maybe it was for the best. The last thing I need is for him to wake up in the middle of the night shouting, "Bird ate eel! Bird ate eel!"

Fair weather muse

Between crappy weather, work stress, and family health issues it hasn't been a great few weeks for me.

Now, a true writer of funny things would channel that angst into creating jokes. I, on the other hand, am no Jack Benny and prefer to wallow in my misery, so my evenings lately have been spent playing spider solitaire and watching Japanese animation on youtube.

But now I've come up for air and should sum up the last few weeks:


My descent into slothitude began when The Wife took The Boy to Florida to visit The In-Laws, leaving me free as a bird for a week. By the end of the first day I had caught up on all my Tivo shows and successfully conquered Alpha Centauri yet again, and for the rest of the week I was actually kinda bored. Not bored enough to do chores around the house, but still. After a week of decadence it was a relief to have the family back.


We brought The Boy to see the movie UP. This was his very first movie theater experience, and I was a little concerned about how he'd react. Would he sit still? Would he talk through the whole thing? Would he freak out at the giant screen? Would he scream when we didn't get him a bunch of snacks, or would he just mug some little girl for her Junior Mints?

Well, he did just fine. He stretched out in his seat, with a big bag of popcorn within reach, and grinned through the whole thing. All during the promos he kept saying, "I like this movie!" but settled down after a while. The only times he got restless was when the action slowed down for that lame "character development" stuff, but fortunately all the other kids in the theater also started to move around and talk during those bits so he wasn't alone. Now I'm wondering what our next theater experience will be. Maybe I'll take him to Wolverine.

Speaking of which, UP was a great film. I recommend it for all ages.


Sleeping has always been a challenge in our household, but I think we've finally come to some sort of arrangement. We have a small mattress for The Boy and it's next to our bed, so he's still within easy reach of cuddles if need be. But he will frequently wake up in the middle of the night and start talking to us. The Wife is also having trouble sleeping, since she's used to wedging herself in the corner with a mountain of pillows. Well, I woke up the other day to find The Boy sleeping next to me and The Wife on his mattress, wedged into the corner. Eh, whatever works.

Although I do wonder, from past experience, how a woman who usually takes up 90% of a queen bed can comfortably lie on a mattress a fraction of that size.


Speaking of sleep, that accursed sun isn't helping matters. All winter long I could reliably use the absence of sunlight to convince The Boy that it was time for bed. Now the wretched sphere is up far too long, and to make matters worse the neighbor kids have been spending more time outside, flagrantly enjoying themselves right outside our bedroom window. How am I supposed to compete with that at bedtime?

Total Recall

I frequently ponder The Boy's brain. Or rather, his mental development and how I can improve it, because if he's going to be evil then he'd better be an evil genius because I still expect him to support me in my old age.

His folks are fairly bright, but how big a factor hereditary plays in intelligence is up for debate so I want his environment to be optimal for memory and learning. When he gets older I'll hook him up to a little device I'm working on called Mister Quizzer to ensure he gets... proper motivation, but for now he's pretty much on his own.

His memory seems uncanny, recalling idle comments made days or weeks earlier, which is why I've stopped badmouthing people in front of him. Do all kids have this kind of recall at this age? I'm guessing most do. However, nature is a lazy slacker so I have a theory:

The brain requires energy, just like any other organ, and nature doesn't like to spend calories frivolously. If The Boy mentions throwing a sock at the cat three weeks ago at two in the morning, I do my best to remember and comment on it. I'll even ask for or remind him of more details, like the color of the sock or how the cat felt about clothing bombardment at that time of night. The more I blow these things off, the more some part of his brain may decide that it's not worth remembering every little detail, like historical dates and chemical equations, and his future as a historian or chemist may be ruined. I'm actually impressed with how much minutiae I can dredge up to keep up with him, considering how oblivious I am to the world around me.

I mentioned keeping an eye on what I say around him now, but to be honest I've always been cautious. With advances in medical science nowadays it's entirely possible that in The Boy's lifetime they could develop a drug that gives you total recall of your entire life, and fifty years from now I don't want him filing a lawsuit against me for our time with Mister Quizzer.