What are we doing next?

Kids can wear a guy’s butt out.
Here I sit, on Dec. 29, wondering what next year will bring, but being satisfied that I don’t know and, indeed, can’t know. Oh, I confess that I often lament, in the throes of one crisis or another in life, that I wish I could time-travel six months into the future to see how I resolved my problems.
But I know that’s impossible, except in movies, such as the “Back to the Future” series or “Peggy Sue Got Married.”



I’m no Johnny B. Goode, and I’m no Michael J. Fox, so I know I could end up like Biff, buried in manure, six months hence.



And I’m no Peggy Sue, so I don’t get the chance to go back and start over.



So what if I can’t time travel like Marty McFlighe or Peggy Sue? That’s the way life is, and like another song says: Some days, you’re the windshield; other times, you’re the bug.
It takes patience, and that’s something kids often don’t have. Witness the fact-based jokes about “are we there yet?”
I’ve been encountering a variation on that theme of late: We’re not even done with one activity, and the grandsons are wondering what we’re doing NEXT.
We can be in the middle of a trip to the park, and one will chirp: “What are we doing NEXT?“
We can be halfway through a movie, and one will whisper in the darkened theater: “Where are we going NEXT?”
We can be barely started on an adventure at the zoo, and one will say, plaintively: “What are we doing NEXT, Papa Mike?”
Usually, my plan is to take a nap to recover from whatever it is we’re doing THEN, because they’ve already worn my butt out.
I guess their inquisitiveness isn’t as bad as mine, wanting to know what conditions will be six months from now, and they’re just asking about six minutes from now.
So, although I’m curious about what 2009 will bring, I know I can’t predict it. This time last year, for instance, I had NO idea that I’d have another grandchild by now.
Well, I guess I have one jump on that scenario: My daughter Annie is with child, and the new arrival is expected July 3 or 4. Although she doesn’t know yet whether the stirring in the womb will turn out to be a girl or a boy, I’m lobbying for a July Fourth arrival date.
I have suggested to her that she and Kevin could name the lad or lassie after one of my favorite holiday movies, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” She spurned the idea, just like YouTube did my attempt to show you Jimmy Cagney singing the movie’s signature song. Well, YouTube didn’t spurn it, but somebody did; something about violating terms of use.
So I’ll have to be patient and forgo this blog’s musical signature motif.
Now, what should I do NEXT? I’ve got to rush and get it in, because I know for sure I won’t be around in the year 2525.



How ’bout those Nebraska boys’ hairdos? WhattheHELL were we THINKIN’?

Happy New Year to you all, whether you’re earthbound or a time traveler.

Oh, speaking of the New Year, I just remembered what I’ll be doing next: Playing in my annual Payne Stewart invitational golf tournament, complete with plus fours, on a course overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, on New Year's Day.
Well, if you MUST ask, I've never WON it. I suppose that makes the golfers among you smug. So be it. But if you live Up North, and you happen to be reading this on New Year's Day, I urge you to look out the window and cast your gase upon the snow and the ice. If it happens to be an uncharacteristically warm day, it'll be dirty, filthy slush.
THAT's why I golf here in Florida every Jan. 1: Because I CAN, even if I can't WIN.
Not that I'm trying for the last word, but nah-nah-nah-nah-naahhhhhhhh-nah.

Three Little Wise Men, and a Mum One

MY MUSES, on 2007 Christmas card: The Triumphant Trinity tallied Vincent, then 6; Luke, then dangnear 2; and Jack, nearly 4.


WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES: The Fab Four features Vincent, now 7; Luke, dangnear 3; Patrick Michael, a few pounds over 4 months; and Jack, almost 5.


Today I turn, as is my wont, to my own private trinity for words of wisdom as another big religious holiday sneaks in amid the flocked trees and stocked shelves: Christmas.
Lest my invoking a TRIO causes your head to warp into a devilish Linda Blair spin, let me exorcise your mind of thoughts that it’s slipped my mind that the former shamrock on this stem of grandkids is now a four-leaf clover.
I haven’t forgotten what child is this infant: It’s Patrick Michael, who was born Aug. 12, with cooing and lowing and all the trappings, although there was no manger and no cattle breathing steamy air to warm this swaddled bundle of joy. (After ALL, this IS Florida, for one thing.)
Since the sprout who is the youngest in the quadrangle can’t even talk yet, let alone spout theological wisdom, I can defer to a young singer, whose name just happens to have “Christ” as a root, for a Christmas song.
I bet you thought Christina Aguilera just popped onto the singing scene, full-throated and, uh, full-bodied, such as she displayed in her grinding performance in another Fab Four’s bodice-busting, lusty rendition of “Lady Marmalade” from the movie “Moulin Rouge” with Lil’ Kim, Mya and Pink “rounding” out the quartet, with Missy Elliot as narrator.
Well, since that’s too racy for a Christmas Column, check out what child is THIS from the Aguilera Archives:



Who knew then that she would become a rising star to top the tree of a presidential performance just a few years later:



Back to the Grandfather Clause Archives: I’m looking for childish words of religious wisdom, but I’m not ignoring Patrick. Although he has developed quite a paunch, his vocabulary is lacking, at 4-plus months. So I’m going with the elders in my temple: Vincent, Jack and Luke.
Vincent, at 7, has been a visionary from birth. He imagines things he wants to be, and WILLS them into existence.
I was not surprised, then, when he asked Melissa a couple of months back: “Mommy, why do adults have to SEE something before they believe it?”
I think they were talking about heaven, or God, or both, and she explained to him that those are elusive concepts for many people, but you’ve just gotta believe.
I’m amazed at Vincent’s optimism and his belief system, and I hope and pray he doesn’t lose them to cynicism the way so many of us do. Best prayer I’ve thought of so far: “Dear God, please give the lad the everlasting faith of a Cubs fan.” And just to make sure God’s listening, I might ask Harry Caray to give me a plug:



Jack’s also a believer, but he’d like to see God NOW, for a very practical reason: One day, he decided to draw a picture of God and ran into a calligrapher’s conundrum.
“Mommy,” the 4-year-old said, exhaling in exasperation. “Why can’t I SEE God? I don’t even know what he looks like. What color of shirt does he wear?”
Michelangelo, he ain’t, and he obviously never has seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or he would KNOW what God looks like.
Luke’s no Michelangelo, either, but he DOES have an appreciation for God’s brush strokes. One day, he beheld a sunset (or sunrise, I can’t remember) and observed: “God painted the sky pink today.”
So there you have it, on this holy holiday: My trinity spouting theological wisdom that I can appreciate more than all the theologians you could fit on the head of a pin.

Now that I’ve weighed in with the innocents, here’s a touch of the sinful side that provoked God to send his son to redeem our evil ways. I know many people find the term “Xmas” offensive, but since I mentioned Aguilera’s lusty side earlier, this video illustrates how she can put the X in Christina, and in Xmas. (It’s here for historical purposes, to illustrate evolving musical genres, of course). WARNING: If you’re taking heart medications, you should consult your doctor before pushing the button:



Don’t blame ME for that. I would rather have showed you her “Genie in a Bottle,” in honor of the boys’ grandma, Jeanne, whom they call GiGi, but I was barred from copying it.
But in keeping with the season, let’s close with her matching the holiness of the saving moment:



With that, I quote another child from the literary world: “God Bless Us, Every One.”

Keep inheritances close to the vest

I don’t have the wherewithal to leave much to those who wish me bon voyage when I cross the River Styx. It’s not that I’m mean, it’s just that I don’t have the means.
One thing I have done is collect several pocket watches of various designs, featuring golfers, dinosaurs, trains, etc., with an eye toward bequeathing them to the kids and grandkids, each geared toward their interests.
I have kept the collection close to my vest because, well, I wanted it to be a surprise. But the thought finally occurred to me that that was dumb, because it would cheat me out of seeing the looks in their eyes when they behold the array. So I have started showing them the watches.
Jack, of course, gravitated to the watches with dinosaurs on the cases and wanted one right away. I told the 4-year-old that he would get one when I’m gone, then realized quickly that you don’t worry a young child about death.
He got the message, though, saying immediately, “Do you mean when you’re DEAD?”
“Oh, no,” I said, backpedaling like a tyrannosaurus Rex was on my tail. “I mean when you’re older.”
“Like when I’m 6?” he said.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Maybe when I’m 8?”
“Maybe.”
“How ’bout 15?”
The bartering banter continued, but you get the drift. But the glint in his eyes made me think of that great line in “The Godfather,” when Vito Corleone advises son Michael to keep his friends close, but his ENEMIES, closer. I think I should keep all my grandsons close, but Jack, closer, so he doesn’t decide some day, while we’re angling for some sunnies, to give me a push so I’ll sleep with the fishes.
After all, he IS Italian. But come to think of it, all the grandsons are. Not Sicilians, mind you, but here's the link to explanations of those familial principles. (I searched YouTube high and low for the "enemies" scene, to no avail, and the Luca Brasi fishwrap, reference, includes his death scene, which I figured was too graphic for such a benign column as this.)

http://www.sicilianculture.com/godfather/quotes.htm


Continuing the gift-giving, and death, themes, a couple of days later, GiGi mentioned to Jack that it was her mom’s birthday, although her mom, nicknamed Honey, had died a few years before.
Jack thought for a few minutes, then said, “Well, it’s a good thing Grandma Honey’s dead, because you don’t have to buy her a present.”
I’m sure he was looking at it from a practical point of view, that GiGi would have all the more money to spend on HIM. And, from my practical point of view, we don’t have an address of where she’s sleeping with the fishes.
Of course, my goal as a grandfather is that the boys have fond memories of this IRISH grandfather, that I kept them close out of love, because that is my way.

Kids see a lot of nose hairs from down there!

Kids have a whole different perspective on life.
On the downside, at least from my view of their view, is that they see a lot more nose hairs from down there than I would care to behold. But I won’t delve further into that potential peril of brush fires (especially among smokers!).
Speaking of fiery rings, the combustibility of nose hairs has NOTHING on the searing possibilities of love. Speaking of rings of fire, how ’bout the late Johnny Cash’s teaming up with Willie Nelson, whose snarled locks could face a real scorching if somebody stoked a toke too close to his hair!



Back to the issue at hand: kids’ perspectives. When something has changed, or appears to have changed, from their vantage points, their little minds rev up to rationalize the new reality.
Thus it was the other day, when a guest was holding little Patrick and 2-year-old Luke rushed over excitedly.
Reaching up to touch his little brother’s toes, he exclaimed: “Patrick’s legs are getting LONGER!!!”
From his perspective, they were longer than they had been the day before. The reality was that the guest is shorter than his mom. That’s no small feat, as Melissa isn’t much taller than a blade of grass (fresh-cut Augustinian, and as slender as Kentucky blue, despite having had four children).
So, the fact of the matter is that Patrick’s legs hadn’t gotten longer; rather, the fact was that a shorter person was holding him put his feet closer to the ground.
But Luke’s observation elicited a smile from me, who gets that close to the ground only when he’s wrestling with me, and whose perspective has become jaded after years of life among adults.
That little angel often makes me grin, and enjoy that groundedness of innocence. Which brings us back to Willie.



And THAT brings us full circle, as we started out talking about kids' perspectives because they're so close to the ground.

So I'll go trim my nose hairs so at least their view of me won't include a gnarled bunch of brush.

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.