kids

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting

Hey! Scout, Want To Come To My House Today and Play?

October 6, 2013 at 4:17 pm , by 

2 years, 10 months.

Dear Jack,

On the drive to school Friday morning, I heard you turn on your LeapFrog cell phone and start talking to My Pal Scout:

“Hey! Scout, want to come to my house today and play?”

After the call ended, you explained to me, “Daddy, Scout’s coming over for dinner and he’s sleeping in my bed tonight!”

I wanted to make sure it actually happened, even if you forgot about it later on in the day.

As soon as we got home, I reminded you about Scout coming over.

You can see here in this picture, you gave Scout a reminder call about the plans for the evening.

Minutes later, the doorbell rang.

“Jack! Come answer the door! It’s for you!” I yelled out from the other room.

You screamed with amazement.

There he was… Scout was waiting for you near the doorstep!

(And he happened to be sitting on a paper towel, for some reason.)

As I opened the door for you and Scout, I could see how surprised you were that Scout actually showed up after you called him on the phone!

By the time you made your way to the living room to play with him, though, you asked me with a confused look on your face, “I have two Scouts? Daddy, will you go get my other Scout upstairs?”

Oops. Busted.

So I did my best to explain that was the same Scout.

For me, the whole thing was an experiment to see how much of the story you’d go along with.

I wanted to know if you knew the whole thing was pretend, tracing all the way back to when you called Scout that morning.

Even now, I’m not totally sure. I mean, I’m pretty sure you know that I was just perpetuating your story line.

Either way, I was committed to make your make-believe story come true.

You said Scout was eating dinner with us and sleeping in the bed with you. So I had to make sure Scout “followed” you around, from playtime…

…to dinner…

…to bedtime.

You and Scout had a fun sleepover Friday night and it’s all because you called him and invited him over!

Plus, I might have had a thing or two to do with it.

 

Love,

Daddy

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

I’ve Been Incongruent To My Kid’s Parallel Play Style

August 19, 2013 at 10:56 pm , by 

2 years, 9 months.

Dear Jack,

I’m finally just now realizing why you insist on asking me, as well as Mommy, to play with you on the living room floor, only to have you get upset once we actually try to play with you.

And, no, we can’t do other things like read a magazine or check our email since you’re not actually interacting with us.

We have to be playing too, but there are rules…

It’s because you’re used to “parallel play,” like at school with your friends.

You’re used to playing near other people, but not actually with them, the way I would define the word “with.”

So I’m learning to respect that.

Now I know not to grab a monster truck near you and say in a falsetto voice, like you use when you narrate your own playtime, “Hey, you want to race?”

Because you instantly tell me that’s yourmonster truck.

Then you assign me another truck you don’t care about for that particular moment.

Well, I figured out how to do this thing right.

I find a toy that I assume you will think is undesirable; one that is out of your view. I sort of turn to the side where I’m not facing you, but where you can still see what I’m doing.

Then I make it seem like whatever I’m doing with that toy is the coolest thing ever. Turns out, whatever it is, you always immediately end up trying to copy me with whatever “cooler” toy you have.

Suddenly, your monster truck will be driving to Whole Foods because my yellow race car just announced he was going.

It’s almost a competition of stories, of sorts.

I have these ideal images in my head of what it means to be a classic yet modern dad who actively plays cars with his son- a certain way.

You don’t.

 

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Jack: Review Of Suitable Fireworks For Small Children To Watch

3 years, 7 months.

Review Of Suitable Fireworks For Small Children

Dear Jack,

This past July 4th, you were finally old enough to truly appreciate the observation of fireworks. I was just as happy as you were to go to the Tennessee/Alabama state line to pick up our stash of fireworks that I felt would be appropriate for you to witness; not to actual ignite yourself. (Obviously.)

Well, except for the super snaps…

fw2

With great pride, I chose the finest array of made in China fireworks I could find for our family:

Snakes, color smoke balls (smoke bombs), moon travellers (bottle rockets), attack vehicles (tanks), cocks crowing (chickens), party poppers, super snaps (snap & pops), turbo flashes, and “new small bees.”

I wanted to make sure you would be able to see some tamer, more cartoonish versions of what might be exciting at a big fireworks show.

fw6

To my surprise, your absolute favorite were what I called the smoke bombs, but labelled as “color smoke balls,” which sounds less violent, I suppose.

I think next year, I’ll just buy like 6 packs of those and a box of super snaps, and you will be just fine. Those were the things that excited you the most.

Review Of Suitable Fireworks For Small Children

If the smoke balls won 1st place, and the super snaps won 2nd, then I’d say that coming in at 3rd place would be the snakes. You weren’t too impressed when I lit them up alone. The real show was lighting a pack at a time, which is 6.

Review Of Suitable Fireworks For Small Children

From there, the lesser fireworks to you seemed to be the louder ones. You did like the sparks flying out of the turbo flash; it was like a mini, festive explosion… but you only appreciated it from across the lawn.

Review Of Suitable Fireworks For Small Children

While I personally have always loved the hilarious chickens and tanks, they were a bit to unnerving for you; as they suddenly screeched into a fiery demise.

Review Of Suitable Fireworks For Small Children

As for the “new small bees,” they hardly cost anything, but basically just vanished into the air and were gone.

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After your Uncle Andrew and I shot off all the good stuff, we helped out Nonna and Papa by blowing up some ant hills, in classic Alabama style.

fireworks review

I know you had as much fun as I did seeing your first backyard fireworks show. But like I said, if all I would have bought were smoke bombs and super snaps, you would have been just as happy.

 

Love,

Daddy

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting

Somethin’ ‘Bout A Truck… And A 2 Year-Old Boy

April 3, 2013 at 1:00 pm , by 

2 years, 4 months.

Dear Jack,

These days, as I go through the dozens of pictures I take of you in a week’s time, it’s getting pretty difficult to find ones of you without your black monster truck.

It must have been fate that you received a duplicate Christmas gift, prompting Mommy and me to take you to the toy store and let you exchange it for whatever your heart desired.

At the very sophisticated Brilliant Sky toy store, which I jokingly refer to as a toy store for “gifted” kids, you appropriately chose… a black monster truck.

Tonight after dinner we let you indulge a little bit in some of your hard-earned Easter candy, which included some of Annie’s Bunny Fruit Snacks.

After enjoying some for yourself, you placed 3 of them in the cab of your monster truck and let them drive around 5 others in the bed of the truck.

Your relationship with your monster truck is starting to seem a little bromantic, even.

If you enjoy a snack or a treat, so does your monster truck. Not only do you eat with it, you sleep with it.

All of your favorite shirts have a monster truck on them.

As we drive together to school and work every morning, you fantasize about every “monster truck” (F-150′s with big tires) you see.

“That’s a monster truck! I drive it!”

Needless to say, we see a lot of “monster trucks” as we drive a total of an hour a day through the very manly city of Nashville, Tennessee.

Yesterday you saw a pick-up on truck on the side of the road. Your response:

“Oh no! His wheel fall off? He fix it?”

Because of the fact that part of your morning routine is to watch clips of monster trucks on YouTube, and sometimes when they flip over, one of their wheels flies off, you therefore assume that any time that any truck is pulled off to the side of the road, that guarantees that one of the truck’s wheels fell off.

Every morning as I unbuckle you from your car seat, you reluctantly let go of your monster truck and set it down on the empty seat next to you. “I play with my truck when you get back?”

Because of that, I try to make a habit of when I pick you up in the afternoon from daycare, to have the truck in my hand as soon as you see me.

There’s just somethin’ ’bout a truck and a 2 year-old boy.

 

Love,

Daddy

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

My Son Pushed A Baby Stroller… Like A Big Brother

March 18, 2013 at 10:42 pm , by 

2 years, 4 months.

Dear Jack,

I love these pictures of you. They crack me up, but at the same time, they’re very sweet.

On Saturday at Shipwrecked indoor playground, after you finally got to ride in the Buzz Lightyear car, then played in the ball pit, then at the train table, then read at the book nook, and then the building blocks… there was still one more activity you felt obligated to mark off your checklist:

Take a baby doll for a spin in the stroller.

These pictures of the event are hilarious to me for a few different reasons.

For one, you couldn’t look any more like a macho, GI Joe kind of boy; wearing your green football hoodie and camo pants. You always keep a straight posture, showing your high confidence level.

Second, you meant business! You were so serious about strapping in your baby correctly. I might even say you were too serious.

Lastly, I guess, is simply a combination of those two things:

You were a macho-looking GI Joe toddler boy who was serious about taking care of a baby doll in a pink and purple stroller.

I enjoyed watching you transform such a traditionally girly activity and turn it into a boy’s sport. Needless to say, you ended up taking your baby on an off-road excursion on a balance beam that had a ramp.

(That’s you- always relating everything back to monster trucks!)

Perhaps your baby stroller adventure had something to do with you being wired to be a big brother.

Wait… no… don’t get the wrong idea!

I’m not saying that… it’s not even April Fool’s Day yet.

You are an only child until further notice- and this definitely isn’t that notice. I am aware of no notice whatsoever.

All I’m simply saying is, I am able to see that if in the next couple of years, not months (!), you happen to become a big brother, you will be a natural.

You will push that baby stroller like a boss. Or a big brother.

 

Love,

Daddy