Logic and Reason never brought me candy or presents

My now 7-year-old son D- (I really need to update my masthead...) is at that age where he views Logic and Reason as his own all-powerful keys to unlock the secrets of childhood that adults often-unintentionally guard so fiercely.

And yet, at the same time, advanced as he is in the twin arts of Sarcasm and Skepticism, he can't quite resist the pull of childish naivete. He's the kind of kid (much like myself back then) who doesn't "really" believe in Santa, but who feels compelled to make a calculated hedge against the possibility of facing the huge downside of a disappointed, vengeful St. Nick.

Because of this swirling sea of uncertainty, the following exchange between D- and his 4-year-old sister M-, taken from a larger stream of chit-chat about school and life on our way home one afternoon, was obviously quite agonizing for him. (I've abbreviated some of the pauses and excluded descriptions of his pained facial contortions, for your own sanity in reading through it.)

M-: We have a TV in our [preschool] room, too, up REALLY high. That's where Snowflake was sitting one time.

D-: Who's Snowflake?

M-: The elf who was hiding around our classroom... right before it was Christmastime. You can't touch him, though, or he'll lose his magic.

D-: Wellll, that can't be right, because you guys had to touch him to put him up there.

M-: No! He FLEW up there, by himself, at night.

D- (thinking hard about this): Wait... was this in a movie?

M-: No, it was in my class, for real. He's really magic, and he hides all over the room! You can't touch him, or he loses his magic.

D- (thinking again, then making absolutely sure): .....So, was this ON the TV, like a movie or a show?

M-: No! It really happened, to me, in my classroom, at Christmastime. For real.

D- (thinking some more): ...And you said his name was Snowflake?

She had of course discussed this, as you might imagine, in depth at Christmastime, but he was apparently too hopped up on Yuletide hysteria then to pay any attention.

It's also worth noting that during this conversation, she didn't even mention what these "magic powers" are, nor did she allude to the elf's supposed occupation as Spy for Santa. "Magic" speaks for itself, I guess.

I can't help but picture that once he was as sold as he could be on the idea, he was immediately plotting how to capture it and extract its secrets.*

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* These days, whether pirates, leprechauns, or odd-looking kittens are in question, "secrets" should be read as "Goooooooooold!"

Important Question: How does she fit all that clutter in just one bag?

This thought occurred to me recently, and I decided it was a fair question to pose to all of you, or at least those of you who read blogs on weekends and who are also in the habit of commenting.

So I suppose this Important Question is directed at you three, then:

Do you remember how old you were when you discovered there is no housekeeping fairy?

That's right-- what tender, innocent age were you when you coldly realized that the person who was sneaking around cleaning up when no one else was looking was actually... you?

Book Review: The Story of St. Patrick's Day

I know that I already wrote a St. Patrick's Day post on the day itself (and if you read that post, you already know that the day is properly referred to from now on as SpongeBob Day), but after rereading this book, The Story of St. Patrick's Day by Patricia A. Pingry, for the first time in a couple years last week, I just couldn't resist sharing it with you all:
We got this book cheap somewhere maybe 4 years ago after St. Patrick's Day, figuring it would be a good idea to have around, since my side of the family is predominantly of Irish heritage, and my son was born pretty close to St. Patrick's Day.

The book starts simply enough, before tipping its hand a couple pages in:
Before you question the composition of this image, you must remember that this all took place before the Irish fell under the yoke of English tyranny, before they were manipulated into slavish subsistence farming and dangerous over-reliance on a single crop, when they had much more time in the middle of the day to sit about in a field in mixed company, picking clovers and being amused by the ramblings of a curious foreigner with a tragically compulsive hair-cutting obsession and the good luck of living in an age with a definite scarcity of mirrors.

So this is probably at least 93% accurate as to how it went down.

Of course, it wouldn't be a book about St. Patrick without mentioning the snakes:

What they seem to be saying here is that St. Patrick was a Parselmouth, and what's more than that, he was apparently a very irritating one. I believe in this picture, he's offering to hand out religious pamphlets, asking if they've heard "all the many great stories in the Bible featuring the courage and ingenuity of Our Serpent Friends..."

Note that most of the snakes have given up moving laterally along the ground and are resigned to flinging themselves off a cliff. Pretty much the same reaction I have whenever Jehovah's Witnesses come a'calling.*

And finally, we have to deign to acknowledge those persistent pagan traditions that weren't co-opted for expediency in winning converts:

"And now, kids, ha ha, for a break from all that Real, Fact-Based Learning, here's a fun little story about how some silly people believe that tales of beings with magical powers who had wild, implausible, and unprovable exploits long ago are immutable fact, and that these beings continue to invisibly rule the world of the present day, watching over us all with stern disapproval.

"Remember: Though they may provide useful lessons and morals for all people, such stories are MAKE-BELIEVE and must always be clearly classified as such!"

I would love to see the lady's face on the page where one of the kids asks a question innocently making reference to "that story where Jesus cursed some guy who tried to take his pot of gold or whatever?"

So, to sum up: Guy shaking a stick to singlehandedly drive every single snake off an island the size of South Carolina: Fact. Leprechauns: Make-believe.

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* Our downstairs neighbor let them in the building one time, and now I'm pretty sure they legally have a permanent invitation to ring the buzzer, per God's Law of Awkward Guilt.**

** Case number God v. Who The F*** Do You Think You Are?

A blessed St. Squarepants' Day be upon you

So here we are again on this holiday beloved by young children and alcoholics with equal vigor.

I just wanted to share that yesterday, my 4-year-old son D- asked my mom, "How come we all wear green on Spongebob Day?"

She had no idea where on Earth this came from, until I pointed out that even in my limited knowledge of the world of Spongebob Squarepants, I know that his best friend is named Patrick.

So in that distinct way that only a child's brain works, patching knowledge gaps with basically anything that springs to mind before moving on to the next thought, we have christened a new holiday.

I'm sure Nickelodeon will be as pleased as Hallmark about this development, but I just want to know how he even knows this fact to connect it, since he has only watched the show twice in his life, 2 years ago.

Maybe Nickelodeon had leprechauns put something insidious in those Spongebob Band-Aids of his...

Thar's GOLD in thut thar water!

Let me begin by stating for the record that M- has a problem confusing her tub seat with the toilet (which she has yet to begin using, ahem... so much for her being extremely advanced). For more information, see item #6 in my 10 reasons my 3-year-old son may NOT be homosexual post, and also possibly another post I can't remember and am too lazy to find.

Suffice to say, that post would mention that she opens (at the very least) each bath and shower by wetting herself, whether or not she just took off a fully loaded diaper. As yet another side note, this surprises D- every single time, judging by his tone as he calls out, "Her peed!!"

Anyway, the other day M- was apparently overcome with thirst only once I started getting her clothes off for shower time, because she had just turned down a cup of milk not 5 minutes earlier. I'll stop here for a moment in case you're considering stopping here yourself, and let me reassure you it doesn't get as bad as it sounds it might.

She sat in her tub seat (as a $1 thrift-store find of Katie's, it's in a lower weight class of the same league as my dishwasher), lunging towards the falling water with a bath-toy cup, desperately trying to catch a few drops of that precious first water out of the shower, which as we all know is generally of a temperature just slightly warmer than Absolute Zero.

After middling success in this endeavor, she noticed a much more appealing alternative: the alluring golden mead that had started pooling in her seat. Now, this is a kid who loves new and exotic things as well as watered-down juice, so I think she saw in this a Venn Diagram of ecstasy. She pointed and pulled out most of her beverage-based repertoire, calling, "Joo! Joooo! (juice) Tir-tee! (thirsty) 'Wink! 'Wink! (drink)" as she tried to think of a way to get this newest flavor of Kool-Aid into her mouth.

Suddenly, Daddy found much more success than M- had in getting that shower water down to the baby, and just like that, the magic elixir of the gods vanished as quickly as it came. Much like leprechauns do. Maybe they brought it? The world may never know.

The great and holy St. Padraig's Day

It's on days like today that I reflect upon what a crazy life I've led since I last walked the hallowed halls of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Fall of 2003. Marriage, two kids, two cross-country moves... who knows what's next? I just know that college is another world quite far away from this one:

For the scholars in the aptly named Champaign, IL, today is the unwelcome end to the St. Patrick's Day Weekend, which traditionally begins, at the latest, the Thursday preceding the day itself and ends on whichever is later of the day itself or the end of the weekend, which may or may not extend several days into the week.

Other notable events around these parts are that the city of Chicago dyed the river a slightly different shade of green than usual, a bunch of people marched in the street Saturday afternoon for reasons unclear, and lots of UIUC alums spent the weekend reliving their college days.

I've always felt a special connection to St. Patrick's Day, since it's my middle name. I always hated it for some reason (probably to do with my brothers' declarations, as with so many other things, that it should be a source of shame), and it was nice to have a day celebrating it. Unfortunately, since I'm not religious and not much of a drinker, there's little left to do on the day except try to remember to wear a green shirt, or something.

Celebration accomplished!

Shrug.

10 reasons my 3-year-old son may be homosexual

Like most fathers (says I), I have been forced now and then to consider whether my son may turn out to be homosexual. I figure I may as well brace myself for the revelation, should it ever come. Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course. I just don't want to have to have that kind of talk with him when he gets to a certain age.

For your amusement, here are 10 reasons why my 3-year-old son may be a homosexual [see 10 reasons he may not be]:

1. He is unusually empathetic.

2. When he was 1, he had a months-long obsession with a horrendously girly romance novel my wife left laying around. He would sit somewhere and read it (right side up or otherwise) frequently during the day and keep it next to his pillow when sleeping.

3. He's a pretty good dancer, at least for a three-year-old. The Dance Class Fiasco will be another post.

4. Probably based solely on the relative intensity and vocalization regarding my wife's versus my favorite colors, he has for a long time selected pink as his favorite color.

5. He really likes purses. A lot.

6. He spent a few days recently declaring he was "an evil queen", defying my pointed questions as to whether or not he was actually an evil king.

7. He's extremely neat for a three-year-old.

8. All signs have thus far pointed to his being very into dolls. Before you ask, yes, he was into dolls even before his sister came around.

9. He has always greatly enjoyed the story of Cinderella. He originally asked to be read it based on the cover, and the fact that it was A Book, but then he began asking for it by name, and we had to read it (with the required Sense of Timeless Wonder voice) many, many times. I thought it might become his Next Big Thing, until shuffling it towards the back of his hundreds of books broke the cycle of obsession. This year, though, he noticed that J- has the movie on DVD, and he actually sat quietly through the whole movie. Hmmm.

10. My wife has helped me appreciate way too many chick flicks for me to be an entirely pure role model. As it is, my very broad musical tastes incorporate quite a few embarrassingly sappy and girly songs along with the classic rock, hard-core rap, and everything else I've been known to listen to and even sing along with. Of course, I try my best to make catching me doing this be as easy as mugging a leprechaun.

I may just have to settle for metrosexuality.