Me and Josh at War

If you happened to spot me and Josh together, you might conclude that he and I are buds. Nothing could be further from the truth. While we pretend that nothing is wrong as we eat meals together or wash dishes, I am biding my time to exact revenge. Here’s why.

About a month ago, while Matt and I were making breakfast, Josh was sitting at the bar playing with a letter opener. As usual, he was swinging it around, doing all different kinds of slashes, and not being very careful because he thought that it was too dull to do any damage. Then, just for the heck of it, he grabbed the milk carton and sliced along its side. It immediately sprung a leak, after which he started to panic because I had seen the whole thing. Of course I wasn’t particularly happy with the situation, and yelled at him. He immediately jumped up, ran into the utility room, and then came rushing back with a roll of duct tape. He ripped off a strip and stuck it over the cut. When my jaw dropped, he explained to me how he had watched a whole episode on Myth Busters about the amazing uses and properties of duct tape. He assured me that the tape would hold and that the carton wouldn’t leak. I showed my confidence by walking over to the pantry, grabbing a large pitcher, and dumping the remaining milk into it. Josh was outraged, telling me that it would have worked and that I ruined his chance to prove it. I listened very sympathetically as I smashed the carton and threw it away.

So then late Friday night, I came into the kitchen and saw Matt pouring himself a glass of milk. On the side of the carton was a huge strip of duct tape. I went stomping through the house to Josh’s room and demanded to know why he had sliced another milk carton. Seriously, the kid is a major menace. He was nearly asleep, but grudgingly got up, came into the kitchen, pulled off the duct tape and then informed me that there was no hole in the carton. I responded by calling him a few names, after which he invoked the reciprocal rule. And since then, the war has been on. It’s a cold war, though, because no shots have been fired since. But believe me, I will get even. And he’ll never see it coming.

Little J Takes Care of Herself

I took Little J to the field by the Second West Chapel so that she could attend her friend Darcy’s end-of-school party. I was not surprised to find that the party was completely unsupervised. Darcy’s parents just dropped the girl off with a couple of coolers full of drinks and treats. There were at least 15 kids there and not a single parent. I didn’t want to completely embarrass Little J, so I stayed in the car. But I parked so that I was in plain sight as a reminder to all that there was a parent around.

The kids spent the first 30 minutes playing football in the field. Little J spent the whole time on the edge of the action doing cartwheels. Whenever the ball came close, she would move to a different deserted spot on the field. I had to admire her tenacity for avoiding any contact with the ball.

There was a boy, whom I later learned was named David D., who started chasing her around the field. He was the biggest kid on the field, while Little J was the smallest. He would catch up to her and then run away. He did this several times. I could tell from watching that she wasn’t liking it one bit. I nearly got out of the car to go have a talk with the boy. I wasn’t planning on scaring him so bad that he would need to go home and change his pants, but I figured I would educate him about bothering a girl who’s dad had nothing better to do than have a man-to-man talk with a clueless boy.

Then a wonderful thing happened. He did it one more time, and just as I reached down to yank the door open, Little J whipped off her shoe and clobbered him. Both he and I were so astounded that she pounded him at least four times before we knew what had happened. Then the boy ran away. He tried to come close to her again a couple more times, and each time she smacked him with her shoe. And she hit him hard. She threw all of her weight into it. I sat back and enjoyed the show, which was pretty short. Within a couple of minutes, the boy had found something else to do, and stayed away for the rest of the evening.

When Little J found out later that I had seen the whole thing, she was worried that I was going to scold her for hitting. I know I should have probably told her that violence was never the solution. But in this case, I thought it was an excellent improvisation. And it was probably a lot less painless to the boy than what my little talk would have been.

Terror in the Swim Lanes

I went to the Scera Pool yesterday to pick up Little J from swim team. It was a bright, sunny day, with swarms of children splashing and swimming, and contented moms sitting on deck chairs. It looked as if all was well. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

When I finally made it over to the lap pool, I spotted Little J in the closest lane waiting for the cool down set. The instructor told them to swim a 50-meter backstroke. The first girl in line immediately shoved off, and that’s when all heck broke loose. Kids swimming the backstroke at that age are worse than drunk senior citizens driving on ice. They were crisscrossing all over the lane, crashing into each other every 10 seconds or so, after which they would make a dramatic course change and 10 seconds later crash into someone or something else. It was horrifying. I saw kids get karate chopped in the face, run into walls, and become entangled in the lane lines.

The coach didn’t even notice that she had just unleashed pandemonium. She worked quietly at her clipboard as the children continued to maim themselves and each other. I thought about politely reminding her that swimming was not a contact sport, but was afraid she’d tell me that the rest of today’s workout was even more violent. So I chickened out and opted for ignorance, which was probably the right move, because Little J didn’t seem bothered in the least about the aquatic bumper cars when she got out. Instead, she busied herself with trying to get me to carry all of her stuff, which I took as a sure sign that she had emerged from the ordeal unscathed.

The mancation comes to an end

I used to think of J-girl leaving to visit relatives in Taiwan for weeks at a time as abandonment. I always ended up with at least some of the kids and both parents' amount of work. Then she would want me to call her every day so that she could tell me about how much she missed me and how hard it was without me, and have me comfort her. Let's just say I resented it a little bit.

But this time was different. I was left with two boys, ages 18 and 15, and by now, they are capable of cooking, cleaning, and generally taking care of themselves. They are actually good company, and we have many similar interests. We didn't have any girls around to corrupt us with their girly ways. And so we lived like guys like to live.

Let me first say what living the "guy life" in our family is not. It does not mean that the house becomes filthy, that we eat out at every meal, that we never have vegetables, that we go camping or fishing or shooting, or that we neglect personal hygiene. We kept the house as clean as it is when the girls are around, ate out only once in three weeks, had vegetables and fruits at every meal, never stepped foot in the great outdoors, and bathed and shaved regularly.

So what did we actually do that was manly, you might ask. Let me tell you. We worked out every day. We moved around the house freely since it was not cluttered by girly craft projects. We played video games when we wanted to. We said exactly what was on our minds when asked what we wanted or preferred, and didn't take offense when others spoke their minds. We watched kungfu movies. We worked side-by-side in the kitchen making cookies. We told stories about the stinkiest gas we had ever produced or smelled. We all got up on time to read scriptures together. Basically, we lived undemanding lives with zero drama.

The girls came home yesterday after being gone for three weeks. We were glad to see them. I listened to Little J for nearly 40 minutes as she showed me the latest additions to her Asian eraser collection. We laughed and joked in ways that I hadn't for 22 days. Then I sat next to J-girl as we watched America's Got Talent. She snuggled into me.  I had to be a little strategic as I tried to find spot on the coffee table for my feet that wasn't covered by Little J's latest craft project. But I also had that content, everything-is-right-again-in-the-universe feeling, which left me not the least bit sad to see the mancation come to an end.

Kids go gangsta!

I thought it was actually a good sign that my youngest son likes to sew. I thought, 'What trouble could he get into on a sewing project?' I didn't think that a trip to Savers to pick up some second hand jeans for a jean jacket could go horribly wrong, but it did.

Josh in size 42 jeans.

Matt in the other pair.

The swag.

Don' wan' nuttin ta do with no gangsta crack!