Kids Have Dangerous Minds, for My Wallet

Unlike most spineless, indulgent grandparents, I don’t spoil the five lads on the grand branches of THIS family tree.
And now, to silence the snickers in the background, I’ll invoke the famous line from the “Wizard of Oz”: “Pay no attention to the man behind that curtain.”



I would venture to guess, needing no help from the great Oz, that even my stepdaughter, Melissa, would say her mother, my bride, Jeanne, is a far easier touch than I am. The boys find it easier to manipulate GiGi, their nickname for her, which traces back to Vincent’s flawed pronunciation of her name when he first started talking.
The lads’ visits to our house often include a trip to a hobby shop that 7-year-old Vincent has favored since I blundered by stopping there one day, thus stoking the engine of his train fantasies when he was just a squirt of 3. Also frequent destinations are Toys “R” Us, which I don’t like because I find it overwhelming and confusing, and Kmart, which I also don’t like all that much, but at least a guy can find his way around there.
However, Vincent started out amenable to my “We’re stopping just to look” proviso, although, well, I guess we have picked up a few trains, planes and automobiles at the hobby shop over the years.
It was a delight to take Vincent shopping in the good old days when he was a tad of just over 2-plus. He would ask to look at something, peruse it for awhile, then hand it to me and say, “Let’s put it back.”
I learned later that he did so because his mom had trained him inadvertently while shopping by repeating that phase when he was looking at something. The lad didn’t even know you could BUY things at stores; he just thought you were supposed to look and put them back.
Like I said, the good old days. Even now, we still often escape without buying, as long as GiGi isn’t along.
I bungled into the increasingly dangerous Kmart option a couple of months back when I suggested going there instead of Toys “R” Us, partly because it’s just a few blocks from our house, but mostly to avoid going to Toys “R” Us.
It’s been all downhill since that first trip, when 4-year-old Jack adhered to the “just-to-look” house rule. The next day, he and GiGi sneaked over by themselves, and he came back with a dinosaur (Gosh, I’m tempted to say he went over there with one dinosaur and came back with TWO, but that would be too snarky, wouldn’t it?)
These days, the “just-look” rule seems made to be broken, ESPECIALLY when GiGi’s in tow. When I pleaded to stick to our guns, and not buy any, because it was unfair to the boys who weren’t along, her solution was to buy something for everybody.
She has a dangerous mind, she does, and the boys seem to have a fair share of Jeanne’s genes.
During one stop at the hobby shop, when I told Vincent I didn’t have money to buy anything, he suggested: “Just write a check.” Another time when I told him I didn’t have money, he replied, in exasperation, “What do you DO with your money?” Of course, I replied that I buy him and his bros candy and toys. What’s he think I’m made of, money, money, money; I guess Abba is right: It’s a rich man’s world.



To be honest, I do have to admit that I’ve bought more than Jack’s share of dinosaurs, and Vincent has scored plenty of train-related stuff, but I repeat: I hold the line better at stores than GiGi does.
OK, so maybe eBay is a different matter. You see, Jack has a snow globe fetish; he even fancied that his group of three was a “collection.” Just recently, I went a little overboard buying a dozen snow globes of various sizes and designs to give Jack for Christmas, birthdays, etc., to make it a real collection. I just hope I live long enough to give them all to him.
So I guess I would have to acknowledge that eBay is too dangerous for my tempted mind. I can be as bad as GiGi sometimes.
The topic of dangerous minds always transports me back in time, to the days when I used to hum, and try to sing, Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise.” That was my favorite song, from my daughter Allison’s genre, when she was in high school. I suppose some people would consider it inappropriate, if not to dark, for me to post such a song in a column about grandkids.
After all, even back then, some people found it odd for a dad to like a song, albeit a Grammy winner, featured on the fact-based film “Dangerous Minds.” Well, now, I’m just a nostalgic sort of fella, and it reminds me of Allison’s high school days, not to mention of when I was a younger guy, one who even liked a few rap songs.
And, of course, because I’ve got dangerous minds to cope with, too.



Good luck on keeping your shopping trips thrifty ones, a.k.a.: “just to look.”

Sibling Rivalries Can Become Alliances

Picking up where I left off last week, I'll note that another adjustment to a growing family is the connubial conundrum of how to organize a household so it doesn’t turn into a dysfunctional one, with all the emotional fallout that creates for generations to come.
When a family of three children expands to a fourth, what’s to become of the middle child, who once was the odd man out but now is second of four? He loses the insurance of having that old standby, the middle child syndrome, to blame if he ends up a ne’er-do-well basket case panhandling on a street corner.
If the kids vote 2-2 on something, there’s no tiebreaker any more.
The secret is to make each kid occasionally feel like the only child. Melissa and Skip do that admirably, taking time as often as possible to spend individual time with each of their blokes.
Melissa often does it almost to a fault, such as insisting that she take each of the Terrific Trio on a date even as her date with the stork approached and she was under the weather.
Such attention makes the home an egalitarian epicenter of equality rather than a forbidding bode of favoritism.
And equality builds alliances. No longer considered a threat, the newbie can become an ally, which comes in really handy when the kids need to gang up on the parents to get their way. And then, well, and then, the parents have to learn a whole new set of tools to avoid that dysfunctional booby trap.
Beyond relationships and, perhaps last but certainly not least, the emotional havoc they can wreak in a familial power shuffle, there’s also the financial aspect.
Not the least of concerns is what to do about vehicles. And face it, two-seaters aren’t practical for families of six, space wise or mouth-feeding wise. And that was the case when Skip’s Corvette was squeezed out of the garage and into the classified ads.
He had had fun with that baby for a couple of years, until, well, like one of the neighbors said when the family was out trick-or-treating and infant Patrick was sleeping in his skeleton costume.
“He traded a Corvette in for a BABY!” the neighbor marveled.
That reminded me of the Beach Boys “Fun, Fun, Fun,” which the Carpenters also covered. I’ll defer to the Carpenters here, because the car in this video looks more like a Corvette than the T-Bird in the lyrics:



After Skip said sayonara to the Corvette, Jack told me nonchalantly, “Daddy cried when he sold the Corvette.”
I can understand shedding a tear, or even 96 tears, which brings up the 1965 song of Question Mark and the Mysterians:



Years from now, long after those tears have dried, when the family gathers for holiday meals — the REAL arbiters of whether they are normal or dysfunctional — they’ll still have pictures of that old Vette.

New Kids on Block Move Big Cheese

Funny how kids change a family’s dynamics, and how they don’t, at the same time. Of course, the clan remains a family, but the kings and queens and pawns and knights shuffle on the chess board when they get rooked out of their comfortable roles.
They STILL are FAM-i-lee, and, in this family of four brothers, getting along without any sisters for theeeeeee, unlike the Sister Sledge song:



The most challenging adjustment new parents are forced to make is adapting to a new human in the house. Observing those post-partum expressions can be funnier than imagining Tiger Woods battling gophers on his favorite course. Speaking of:



After all, raising kids can be as challenging as ridding your lawn of gophers, because situations with rugrats are as different as their personalities, just as the yard rodents’ resistance tactics make them so elusive to, and defiant of, conventional approaches.
Similarly, despite parental guidance manuals laying out battle plans for layettes, stories are legion about how solicitous first parents are when the first child gets hurt or sick: The parents move hell and high water to take care of the scrape or scratch, or they head straight to the ER without even stopping to Google fever for an online diagnosis. By the time the third or fourth apple falls from the tree, they have become inured to parenting perils that they just might casually tell the kid not to bleed on the carpet.
Thus it was with Vincent and light and noise. Skip and Melissa were like Noise Nazis and Light Brigades when they brought THAT bundle home. I’m not blaming THEM, mind you; they were new parents. So, when Vincent jumped out of his diaper when a door slammed, or squinted when a sunbeam smiled into the room, they thought they needed to cloak him in protection.
That’s why they shushed me when I accidentally let a cupboard door slam, and quickly closed the blinds when I tried to let some light into the room at high noon because they had the place so shuttered that it seemed like midnight.
They lightened up when Jack came along, more so with Luke and now, well, now with Patrick, they don’t mind that their house is louder than a Super Bowl halftime show, and why not let the sun shine in?
Oddly enough, Patrick doesn’t mind it, either, probably because he got so used to the cacophony when he was in the womb. It’s natural to him to have three boys screaming next to his crib, so he doesn’t even stir while sleeping. I have no doubt that he’d be able to sleep next to a railroad track as a steam engine roared by.
Each boy has adjusted admirably to the new apple on the tree, too, although that also has been an evolving process as the family has grown
At 2, firstborn mama’s baby Vincent evolved quickly from suspicion and a hint of jealousy to a willingness to tell his mom, when baby Jack cried, “Mommy, he’s hungry. You go give him your nipple.”
Greater love hath no brother than the willingness to give up his place at the trough.
Second-born mama’s baby Jack also was about 2, and similarly attached to mommy, when Luke popped out, so I was worried about how he might react.
Imagine my surprise when, upon seeing the intruder for the first time at the hospital, Jack exclaimed: “He’s ME.” How cool is THAT?
Luke was, and still is, the most possessive of Mom, but he has done remarkably well in welcoming the bun from the oven. Which is not to say that he isn’t dragging around on Mom’s leg and pleading for her to hold him when she’s already got her hands full, but he also smothers the little Patrick with affection.
All of this is not to say that everything is peaceful and huggy and kissy EVERY DAY. After all, they’re siblings, and that means rivalry, and they can mix it up with the best of them.
But I’m prattling on beyond my welcome here, so I’ll continue this thesis on family relationships in my next installment, next week.

Patrick Needs a Sponge, Bob

The runt of the litter has a couple of things in common with Patrick, the starfish character in SpongeBob SquarePants, one of the Terrific Trio’s favorite cartoons.
Well, perhaps “runt” sounds severe. Maybe "caboose" would be better (and to think we thought LUKE was the caboose, WINK).
First of all, the infant born Aug. 12 is named Patrick.
Secondly, he couldn’t get much wetter than the cartoon character. Patrick the starfish is wet because he lives in Bikini Bottom; Patrick the human is wet because Luke’s kisses are slobbier than a St. Bernard’s drool.
And that proves we didn’t need to worry about how 2-year-old Luke would accept the sibling arrival.
And thirdly, the human Patrick is as big a rock star to his brothers as the starfish when he crawls out from under his rock.
You always wonder how the first in line will treat the successors to the throne.
I remember back in the day when Vincent was a possessive tot of 2. After all, he had had a pretty solid niche as the little man of the house.
Evidence of his attachment to Mommy arose frequently, whenever he heard a child cry. His standard comment: “That baby needs his Mommy.” Obviously mommies are the solution to any problem.
So, would the baby be a problem child for Vincent? Melissa and Skip prepared him for the new arrival, even making him part of the preparation process.
But we were nervous about how Vincent would react. After all, when adults discussed the upcoming blessed event, he seemed to react as if it would be more of a curse. He would become somber, perhaps retreating into his inner child.
And every once in awhile, a little animosity surfaced, such when they batted around name ideas. I think Vincent's suggestion of Frankenstein Dumbo for a girl reflected his conflicted feelings: He envisioned a monster invading his domain, but he loved “Dumbo.”
As it turned out, the baby wasn’t a girl anyway. But THAT’s OK, especially if you like the original FAB FOUR, and one of my favorites of The Beatles:



Now, back to THIS boy: They named boy No. 2 Jack Thomas, with the Thomas acknowledging Vincent's love of Thomas the Train. Although Vincent showed signs of skepticism about where Jack put him on the food chain, we (Mom, Dad, GiGi, his name for grandma, my wife, Jeanne, and I) took pains to assure him that he is a vital limb on the family tree.
Just the same, Vincent was stand-offish during his first encounter in the hospital room shortly after Jack was born. That’s putting it mildly, as he outright ignored the bundled baby, as if that would make him disappear.
Then Jack started crying. Vincent’s knee-jerk comment: “That baby needs his mommy!”
Then he did a darling double-take, when he realized that that baby’s mommy and his were the same. His panicked look transformed to one of resigned acceptance as he sighed, “He’s hungry, you better feed him, Mommy.”
And so it has gone, with Jack weathering a similar dilemma when Luke arrived. He beheld the baby and said, “He’s ME!” I guess that was his way of coping, and it worked.
Still, despite those successes, I was concerned about Luke when Mom started looking like the Poppin’ Fresh Doughgirl again.
Melissa took some comfort from Luke’s comment one day, before the baby was born, that he would NOT let the new arrival go out into the street. (That obviously stemmed from the fact that was the admonition du jour for him.)
Perhaps I’m skeptical, but I couldn’t help but wonder, “Hmmmmmmm, that might ease HER mind, but the flip side is that could sound like a PLAN,” that Luke was setting up an alibi in case — well, no, that’s ridiculous that I would even THINK that.
As it turned out, my suspicions were for naught, and Luke is more likely to smother Patrick with those slobbery kisses than let him stray into traffic.
Of course, we do hope and pray that Patrick the human is smarter than Patrick the starfish, whose pointy head obviously doesn’t have much room for gray matter.
For example, check out this clip, which is hilarious in the way it inserts Patrick into the movie “300”:



Suffice it to say that the human Patrick doesn’t face the same frustration as the cartoon one. Our boy doesn’t have any trouble distinguishing who might be giving him a little peck in his sleep. The wetter it is, the more likely he is to know: “That’s LUKE!”

Twixt Deviltry and the Deep Boo-boo, See:

We walk a tightrope, between the devil and the deep blue sea, not to mention between the deviltry and the deep blue boo-boos.
For me, it’s a thin blue line in deciding how to police kids’ rambunctiousness without destroying their creativity or making them afraid to experience life.
Teenagers get themselves into mischief because they believe they are invincible. And they assume that we adults just issue willy-nilly warnings about potential perils and pitfalls because we are killjoys with one purpose: To spoil their fun.
Actually, all we are trying to do is make sure that they don't have to pay their dues for deviltry.



I have found that the seeds for the teenage attitude of discontent, and suspicion of all things adult, are planted during the formative years, as early as 4, for instance.
Call me paranoid, but I get nervous enough when one of my grandsons climbs a tree, or they all pile on each other in the yard, arms and legs flailing every which way but broken. Why should I worry so? After all, the grass provides a soft landing, and kids are resilient, so what could happen?
However, my skittishness skyrockets when the landing could be harder, such as on a tile floor. I envision split heads and gushing blood. Not that the blood would bother me (well, it is hard to get out of grout), but so far, I’ve accumulated a lot of baby-sitting days with no serious mishaps, in case OSHA ever starts tracking that statistic.
Thus, few people would blame me for admonishing 4-year-old Jack the other day, when he was whirling like a dervish on our tile floor: “Stop spinning like that!”
Jack, practicing his invincibility lines for those teen years, countered: “Why?”
“Because you’re going to get so dizzy spinning like a top that you’ll fall down,” I said, with the wisdom of my own and my kids’ pratfalls.
“How do you know?” he challenged.
Brilliantly, I replied: “I just do.”
Well, how would you counter that without making the kid afraid of his own shadow? Thus the fine line: trying to guide without scaring the bejabbers out of a kid, and an angelic side into him, so much that he’s afraid to do anything.



I would hate it if Jack fell down and broke his crown, and needed stitches to learn the lesson, but I don’t want to scar his psyche, either. And I hope I never use one of my dad’s tried-and-true lines: “That’s what you get,” or “I told you you’d get hurt.”
Oh, WAIT, I just remembered that I DID use those lines with my own kids. So I will tweak my resolution to say I hope I never use one of those lines with the grandkids. Oh, WAIT, I just realized that I already have.
Well, that’s because I have fears of my own to address. Topping the list is that I don’t want one of the lads to get broken on my watch.
Granted, their mom never has threatened me with concrete boots if one got hurt. But I also saw the look she gave me the day she came home and discovered that 2-year-old Luke had fallen into the lake while I was watching him. (That little narc Jack snitched on me before she was even out of the van.)
Thank God the water was just knee-deep to a grasshopper, so Luke was able just to stand up, startled and sopping. But I avoided the possibility of sleeping with the fishes.
I’ll turn a country song on its ear to underscore my point. My explanation arises from one of the old conundrums of music: Misheard lyrics, except that I misinterpreted them in the case of “Because of You.”
I always thought Reba McEntire and Kelly Clarkson were singing about a woman whose mother scared her from taking risks. It’s a natural mistake, if you ask me, based on this stanza:
“Because of you, I never stray too far from the sidewalk.
“Because of you, I learned to play on the safe side,
“So I don't get hurt.
“Because of you, I find it hard to trust
“Not only me, but everyone around me
“Because of you … I am afraid.”
The mandate I derived from the message was that I don’t want the boys to be afraid of things because of me. I want them to be free to make their own mistakes, but I want to help them avoid the boo-boos.
Then I saw Reba and Kelly singing the song in their video one day, and I realized my interpretation had been about as far off the mark as my golf game. (Well, nothing is that far off the mark, but you get my drift.)
Of course, I still am puzzled about whether the song is about a mom and daughter fighting over the same guy or a mom-dad-daughter thing or a mom-daughter-boyfriend or a dad-mom-daughter-boyfriend thing. The only clear thing, to me, is the guy in the white sport coat should be wearing the black hat (sorry I can't post it, but it's blocked).
The operative line for me in the song remains “Because of you … I am afraid.” I just don’t want the grandsons to grow up and say I’ve discouraged them from grabbing life by the horns.
So I’ll try to bite my lip and hope they don’t split theirs.