Bedtime Tactics

Technically, ‘filibusters’ can only take place on the congressional floor.  However, I have noticed a peculiar phenomenon around our house about the hour of bedtime.  My young ones seem intent on using the ‘art of delay’ to maximize the time they spend awake.  I’m not really sure why.  It’s not like we’re breaking out the party games and having a grand old time once they’re in bed.

Still, they’ve become quite the little masters at it.  There seems to be an unwritten checklist of activities that must be accomplished before they can be left to their slumber.  If even the smallest of items on that list is not met, they have grounds to stage a postponement.  A short list of activities includes, but is not limited to:  using the potty, kissing and hugging both mommy and daddy, brushing teeth, saying prayers, turning on the night light, picking up any random toy they see fit, and getting stuffed animals and blankets. 

On most nights, I somehow manage to forget one thing or another. 

Along the way, I’ve learned that you have to watch them closely when they go to amend a situation.  For instance, if they have not given Mommy goodnight love, you’ve got to stay on top of them and make sure they give her a hug AND a kiss.  If they intentionally leave out the kiss, they’ll begin howling about it as soon as you turn out the light and make to leave the room.  Tricky little devils, those two.

I’ve made some very concerted efforts to sweep the children into bed without running afoul of any rituals, only to have a new tactic thrown into play.  Griffin will always want to ask you a question before you leave the room.  When he was younger, they came across as something like, “Daddy, I wanted to ask you, if someone comes to our house, tell them that I love you.”  As he’s grown up, they’ve become more relevant to the activities of the day.

Gage’s modus operandi is the never-ending prayer.  It doesn’t take long to figure out when we’re headed into one.  He’ll begin praying for everyone he knows, by name, to have a ‘good sleep’.  Then we’ll start into cartoon characters he knows, the cast of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, the Little Einsteins, the Backyardigans, etc.  He’s very thorough.

Even passing all these obstacles doesn’t guarantee an instant win for the home team.  Gage isn’t quite potty trained yet, so it’s only Griffin that pulls the next move.  After about thirty-minutes to an hour, we’ll hear the bedroom door open, and out will come our bright-eyed five-year-old.  “I need to use the potty,” he’ll say with a smirk on his face.  He’s learned over the past year that he better actually need to go, or there will be consequences for telling a lie.  Thankfully, that has trailed off a bit in recent months.

I guess it’s just a fact of life that bedtime will occasionally be an ordeal.  

The Kid Wash

As a parent, I’ve always been open to new ways of getting my kids clean.  During Griffin’s potty training days, I found that an effective way to clean the poop off his hiney and underwear was to take him out in the yard and use the power spray option on the garden hose nozzle.  It was nice and cool in the summer and Griffin still talks about it, though whether or not it’s a fond memory for him I can’t tell.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when the kids came up with a new way to get themselves clean, last Tuesday evening.  At first, it irritated me a little, since I had already washed them and let the water out of the tub, but I’m thinking we could be on the tip of something big.

Worn out from the day, I went in to sit down with my wife, while the kid’s bathwater was spiraling down the drain.  I could hear normal bath time play going on, so I didn’t get too concerned about it.  When I heard a solid THUMP emanate from our bathroom followed by incessant giggling, I knew something was afoot.

Dragging myself out of my chair, I went to see what all the fun was about and if I needed to put a stop to it.  It turns out that the boys had taken a bar of soap and run it over the entire length of the damp bathtub.  They’d made enough suds to completely coat the inside of the tub and as a result, made it slicker than snot on a doorknob.

By the time I’d gotten there, they had managed to transfer the bubbly soap suds to their own bodies, and were having a blast slipping, sliding, and spinning in the empty tub.  From neck to toes, they had managed to do a better job soaping up than I did when I washed them.

It was a little more challenging to get them rinsed off the second time around.  Especially for Gage, who barely deigned to get more water on his body.  But, I think the idea has some merit to it.  Next time we get ready for bath, I’m going to wet the tub, give the boys a bar of soap and tell them to go to town.

Keep watch on this space to see which one is first to visit the ER with a busted head. 

Eyes In The Back Of My Head

As a child, I held my mom’s ability to sense what I was doing in high regard.  It never seemed to fail that when I was about to get into some mischief, she’d know exactly when to show up.  She always told me that she had eyes in the back of her head.  I knew that was a lie because I looked for them.  I finally pieced together that she was just good at listening for certain things.  As a child, you seem to miss the subtle clues that you give off. 

“Get off that bed,” she would yell, and you would freeze in wide-eyed disbelief of how she knew, from the other side of the house, what you were doing.  All the while, you were completely oblivious to the ka-THUMP, ka-THUMP, ka-THUMP sound the headboard was making as it slammed against the wall.  The wire of the box-springs screaming their protest somehow evaded your ears as well.  But not Momma’s ears.

Slowly I learned that it was these tell-tale sounds that gave me away, but it took even longer for me to learn that it was the sounds I didn’t make that also gave me away.  As a parent, I’ve learned that silence is golden, but too much is an indication of trouble afoot.  There is a certain spectrum of white noise that is always present in our home.  When that drops to pure stillness, it’s time to track down the boys.

 As we grow, life meanders on and we’ve become more accustomed to picking up on those clues.  Boys have accidents all the time.  There’s frequent crying from bumps and bruises that are unintentionally inflicted.  I don’t mind that, but I don’t want big brother using little brother as a punching bag.  Thankfully, it’s quite easy to tell when this sort of thing has happened.  Observe:

{A loud sound from the other room grabs our attention}

{Gage begins to wail}

Griffin then says to his little brother, “You’re not even hurt”

At this point, it’s safe to assume that whatever Gage is ‘not even hurt’ over was caused by his elder brother.

   

Also, toddlers and younger don’t seem to have a fully functional volume control.  A whisper from my five year old is just as audible across a room as if he were speaking normally.  And he’s genuinely surprised when I can tell him what he just said. 

One of my favorite applications of this occurred early one Saturday morning when Griffin wanted us awake.  The boys came in our room and I heard Griffin whisper to his brother, “Tell daddy that you want breakfast.”  Without opening my eyes, I said, “Griffin, quit trying to get your brother to wake us up.”  With an air of disbelief and defiance, he said “You didn’t even hear that.”  I couldn’t help but chuckle.  Obviously I had heard it.

Hopefully, it’s a good long while until our kids figure out the signs that give them away. 

Labor Day Camping

The boys and I celebrated Labor Day in style.  The weather had been so beautiful over the past few days, I decided to take them camping.  I didn’t want to go far, in case something happened with Tamara and the baby (oh, like the onset of an early labor).  So, I took them camping at mom and dad’s pond.

On Sunday afternoon, I ran over and set up the tent along with all my camping equipment.  And I’ve got to tell you, that five man tent wasn’t meant to be put up by one person.  Thankfully, it was a still day, and I didn’t get blown into the pond while attaching the rain-flap.

Sunday evening came, and I was really glad that I had put the tent up earlier.  By the time we got to our site and got a fire started, we could already see the first star of the evening.  Mammy and Pa came and roasted hot dogs with us, and then Uncle Russ and Aunt Charlotte dropped by to have a roasted marshmallow.  The boys were so excited that someone else had come by.

They got to stay up later than normal, and even when we went to bed, they weren’t really ready to go to sleep.  I told them stories about when I was a little boy, especially the stories about camping.  We slept alright for a couple of hours, and then the wildlife came out in full force.

I hate Screech Owls.  Hate them with a passion.  We had heard them earlier in the evening, but around midnight, one decided to land in a tree, RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR TENT, and screech all night.  And lest you think I’m exaggerating, I mean all night, from 12:00 to 5:00 am.  It was enough to keep waking me and Griffin up.

Every little noise that happened in the intervening periods woke me up as well.  As a father, you worry about the situation you’ve put your kids in.  I mean, we’re not technically in bear country, but what if one just happened to wander by.  I took the standard precaution of locking food in the vehicle so I wouldn’t attract predators, but seriously, aren’t we food to predators?  I couldn’t very well lock us inside the truck and still call it camping.  Of course we have a tent to protect us, but how much protection is a thin sheet of polymer going to provide?  When I see a food item wrapped in some sort of plastic, I don’t give up and go away.  I simply unwrap and eat it.  It’s what I call junk food.

It was nearly 3:00 am before I heard something crashing through the woods.  I’m sure it was a wee critter like a raccoon, armadillo, or opossum, but those things sure sound big in the middle of the night.

After a fitful night’s sleep, we all woke up about 6:30.  Instead of making our own breakfast, we trekked across the wet field to my parents house and had biscuits, eggs, and bacon, while the boys pants were drying.  Now that’s the way to camp!

I was genuinely surprised when they wanted to go back to the campsite instead of staying at Mammy’s house and playing.  They had a great time running around the pond and throwing sticks and rocks in it.  I was afraid that I’d have a hard time getting them to leave, but once the bees started buzzing around, Griffin was ready to head to the house (he had a bad experience with wasps a while back).

It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad I got to take them.  It seems like we seldom get the opportunity to camp.  I wasn’t quite ready to let the experience go, myself.  So, Monday night, I asked Tamara if she would mind shrieking at me about every forty seconds or so.  She didn’t think that was as funny as I did.

Gone To The Dogs

The moral of today’s story is, “Don’t get in too big of a hurry.”  Sometimes being in a rush will create a bigger mess than taking your time.  That being said, if you are squeamish or have a weak stomach, do not read beyond the warning line.  I’m talking to you specifically, Rissa.

***  WARNING:  GROSS COMMENTARY TO FOLLOW  ***

Late Thursday evening, I set about the task of giving the boys a bath before bedtime.  Normally, we can throw them both in the tub, let them splash around a while, then clean them up and get ready for bed.  However, with Griffin’s head injury and the glue holding it all together, we can’t get that portion of his head wet.  So that means no splashing and no little brother in the tub with him, since Gage excels at getting water into places it doesn’t need to be.

Gage chose this time to walk over where Tamara was working on the computer, stand beside her, and begin downloading a deposit into his diaper.  My wife seized the moment to get our youngest on the potty while I maneuvered Griffin into a position where I could wash his hair.  Gage sat and sat, but didn’t really do anything, so mommy let him down to come in the bathroom and get ready for his turn in the tub.  She didn’t put a diaper on him since that would be just another thing I’d have to take off to get him cleaned up.  That turned out to be a BIG mistake.

Unbeknownst to me, our darling child came in to our bathroom where I was up to my elbows in shampoo, stood beside me, and finished pushing his poop out all while being naked from the waist down.  You might think my first clue of something wrong would be the malodorous fumes creeping across the bathroom, but you’d be wrong.  What tipped me off was the fact that my dog was furiously licking something off the tile right next to me.

Things started happening very quickly, at this point.  Gage began to whine and run out of the bathroom into our carpeted bedroom.  I realized that the mass of brown waste my dog was eating shouldn’t, under any circumstances, be on our floor.  Holding Griffin still in the tub, I turned to see my youngest trailing into our room with a mass of poop running down the back of his right leg.  I screamed.  Loud.

“TAMARA, GET IN HERE!  GET HIM!”

In a testament to grace under pressure, my pregnant wife whisked our youngest off the floor and got him back into our tiled bathroom without dropping a single pooplet on our carpet.  The damage in the bathroom was a different story.  It was on the tile, it was on the towels, it was on the rug in front of the tub, and it was still running down the back of Gage’s leg.

All the while, the dog sat happily munching away.  It turns my stomach to think about.  She was quickly sent to her crate so we could deal with the aftermath.

A lot of wipes and a lot of toilet paper later, Gage was finally clean enough to get in the tub.  In retrospect, I’m glad he did it before the bath instead of after or during.  Still, it’s a situation I’d have preferred to avoid all together.

If there’s one other thing we might be able to take away from this whole situation, it would have to be this:  Don’t ever let my dog kiss you in the face…or anywhere else, for that matter.  

Chicks Dig Scars

Well, Kindergarten hasn’t changed much in the last thirty years.  Maybe physical injury is some rite of passage that my family is destined to go through.  Or, maybe there are just some mean kids out there.  I only got kicked in the forehead by a pointy-toed-boot-wearing-girl (you know who you are Stephanie).  In his second week of school, my son has already gotten a lot worse.

On Wednesday, Tamara got a call from the school nurse that she needed to come pick Griffin up and take him to the doctor.  When she got there, the poor boy had a bruised cheek and was leaking blood from a small gash above his right eye.  And let me tell you, he was not happy at the prospect of getting stitches.

How did it happen?  Griffin was in a stall in the bathroom, when one of his fellow kindergartener’s decided to try and crawl under the door.  My boy told him, in no uncertain terms to, “GET OUT!”  That’s where the story should have ended, but it didn’t.  Upon finishing his business, Griffin unlocked the stall and started to walk out.  On the other side of the door, this ill-behaved child decided to kick the opening door and hit my son with it.  He accomplished what he set out to do, because the corner of the metal door caught Griffin right in the face.

A teacher rushed in as my boy started howling, and caught the other kid.  It turns out that this child was in the teacher’s class and has already exhibited a large amount of disciplinary problems.  That boy was sent to the principal’s office and then later made to come tell Griffin’s teacher what happened and apologize to my son.

Upon seeing the doctor, Griffin was much relieved to find out that there would be no needles or stitches.  They used the same type of glue that they closed up my surgical incision with.  I don’t know what the thought process was there, when they closed the gash and put a big dollop of glue on his eyebrow.  Maybe it will come off easier than I’m thinking, but if not, this whole process promises to be thoroughly traumatizing.

The day it happened, Griffin came home with a different story than the teachers were telling us.  He thought the whole thing was an accident.  I went to school with him the next day and had him show me where it happened, and I tend to believe the story that the teachers told.

 I don’t want to know which kid it was, because I’m already biased against him.  I’m angry that a parent didn’t teach their kid the basic social skill that you don’t go out and hurt someone else on purpose.  But at that age, wounds heal fast.  It wouldn’t be entirely out of the question for my boy and this unruly brat to become the best of friends someday.  I hope not.

On a different note, do you know how hard it is to give a kid a bath and wash their hair when they can’t get their head wet?  It’s extremely difficult to keep water off the glue.  I tried tying a plastic bag around his head, but he kept passing out (just kidding, mom).

The Deep Places of the Earth

My biggest hobby, my favorite pastime, is cave exploration.  Some call it spelunking, some call it caving.  I’ve been a member of the National Speleological Society since 2003, and have been enjoying the sport for much longer than that.

Much to my displeasure, the Department of the Interior and the National Forestry Service has tightened down on our sport for now.  They have good reason, and I don’t begrudge them for it.  The spread of White Nose Syndrome among the bat population has been on the rise for a number of years now, and they are putting every effort into slowing the spread of this mysterious disease.  What this means for cavers, is that all caves that are potential bat habitats located on national property have been closed, except for very special permits.  It’s put a serious crimp in my pastime.

So, for now, I’m going to live off of the memories of past trips, and let you in on one of them.

 

I can’t remember the name of this particular cave, but since it is located in Shepherdstown, Maryland, we’ll call it the Shepherdstown cave.  When I worked in Baltimore, I met my good friend Carl, and he was brave enough to go with me on all of my caving adventures in the Old Line State.  It was our second trip to this particular cave that I’m thinking of.

After a mile walk, we reached the entrance and headed in.  There was a slight pit before the crawlway and an old wooden ladder was used to get us up to the entrance proper.  The tunnel was about three foot in height, and snaked around in an S-curve, taking us through the occasional puddle of water.  It was almost impossible to remain completely dry through this section of cave, but we did our best.

Being the second time through, we focused on squeezing into smaller holes to see if they led anywhere interesting.  I don’t know if either I or Carl could get into some of those places now.  If we did, I’m sure our backs would not be grateful for the twisting we did.  I remember one particular fissure, we had to take off most of our gear to get through, and then we found that it didn’t go anywhere beyond ten feet.

After a little exploring, we followed the main tunnel back to a seventy foot drop off.  Carl had all the vertical experience in our group, so he rigged a rope to a large stalagmite with another relief line lashed around a huge boulder.  We used the line to let ourselves down to the lower level of the cave, making sure to stay out of the pool of water at the base of the cliff.  We spent some time exploring around a huge breakdown pile that was off to the left.  At the top of the pile were some columns, stalactites, and stalagmites, some of the only speleothems in this small cave.  We ate a quick lunch before looking around some more.

Back by our rope, we spent a considerable amount of time looking for any passages that might shoot off to new sections of the cave, and sure enough, we found a hole that we had missed on the previous trip.  It was a tight squeeze in places, but I was surprised when it suddenly turned into a clay incline, that we almost slid down like a waterslide.  I could tell from marks in the earth that we were not the first to come down this passage.  Still, I was surprised when we reached the termination room.  It was small, no bigger than the interior of a minivan, but all around the room, someone had taken the soft clay and made sculptures.  On almost every flat surface, someone had taken great pains to place small humanoid figures in various poses.  None were sculpted to the point of having defined facial features, but it was a marvelous display, nonetheless.

Still to this day, I’m amazed that hundreds of feet below the surface, in a dark, tiny room made of dirt and rock, there is a hidden art exhibit for those who are brave enough to travel down and see it.  That’s just one of the many reasons that caves interest me so much.  You never know what you’re going to find when you push for that next passageway.  You may actually walk in a place that no human being has ever been before.  Who knows, maybe somewhere, in some deep crevice, there’s a small rock with a stamp on the bottom of it that says ‘Made By God’.

It brings to mind King David’s words in Psalm 95:3-4:

For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.  In His hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is His also.

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