Tick-tick-tick

Here’s the basic problem with the kids, especially in the mornings: no sense of urgency. Their parents are type-A, on-the-go, git-er-done, MBA types. In the morning the kids have the urgency of clinically depressed tree sloths on a hot day.

They wake up when they want; it takes an age for them to even start breakfast in the morning; getting dressed is a fight. Even worse, they always want to distract themselves with television. Don’t they understand we have places we need to be? We are going to BE LATE TO SAFETY TOWN! You can’t be LATE TO SAFETY TOWN!

We have this thing with oatmeal. Oatmeal is one of the few foods we can convince the kids to eat in the morning, mostly because by the time the kids are through with it, it’s packed with more sugar than a Kit-Kat. First we use the maple and brown sugar variety. Then, the kids add sprinkles (at least two kinds, but not the two you first pick out of the cupboard) and chocolate chips. This is my law of parenting precedent: if you ever agree, even once, to put a topping on oatmeal, you’ll be doing it for the rest of your blessed life.

Basically, with the toppings and the baked-in brown sugar, we’ve taken a natural, wholesome and fulfilling meal and turned it into the equivalent of Krispy Kreme. That goodly Quaker on the front looks down with his benign smile, but frankly he’d be terrified the mockery we’ve made of the oats he worked so diligently to gather (no doubt on horse and buggy).

The sprinkles aren’t the half of it. Oatmeal must, without exception, be served in the correct bowl – pink for Chiara, blue for Cody. It must have the exact right water content: Chiara likes hers very thick, Cody likes his soupy. It’s good that Cody likes it soupy, because he always wants to “help” pour – the result is an oatmeal swill that I don’t think I could stomach.

Finally, the oatmeal must be within a temperature band approximately the width of a human hair. This requirement is especially rich, since as I alluded to earlier, the kids are typically lollygagging on the couch while the oatmeal is at the proper warmth. We then reheat it and it is scalding; distracted by cartoons it then gets too cold again. Repeat ad infinitum - remember, you have to get all this perfectly right; not getting it right could result in a chocolate-maple-sprinkley-oatmealy stain on the kitchen rug.

And that’s just eating. Although they are fed, the kids are still in their jammies with messy hair and un-brushed teeth. Maybe in a future post I’ll cover these ridiculously time-consuming steps. Meanwhile, I gotta go. The minutes until Safety Town are ticking away!

Sundays in the Vestibule

We go to the best Catholic church in the world. Why is it the best? No kneelers. Kneelers are apparently God’s way of testing your devotion by inflicting stabbing pain on your lower back while cantors chant lengthy lists of saints. At Saint John’s we don’t have them. We stand and we sit. We don’t kneel. It’s the greatest. Also, the homilies are short, especially when Father Dennis delivers them. This church is why we are never moving again.

Basically, my measure of the quality of a Catholic church is how little pain it inflicts on me. Judging by the number of families skipping the closing hymn and blessing after communion, I am not alone in this view. But not even Saint John can save us from the biggest church pain point of all: Cody.

I don’t know why, but Catholic tradition is to keep children of all ages with you in the pew. As a non-Catholic, few things strike me as such a bad idea as this. We’ve attended church for five years constantly distracted by poking, whining and crying. We get nothing out of it. There could have been two Popes since John Paul II for all I know.

John Paul is still Pope, right?

The kids get nothing out of it, either, except for regular time outs. When people ask me where I go to church, I tell them “the vestibule at Saint Johns,” where I’ve spent an hour each week for the past three years trying to keep Cody from going back into the service.**

Those sitting around us get nothing out of it either. They get a constant distraction and annoyance for a full service. They let us know their feelings via glares. But we don’t care, we’re staying in the pew. There is a cry room, but we refuse to go on principle. We’re not second-class citizens who should be banished behind glass because we procreate (which, in case you’ve missed it, the church supports). The cry room is full of, guess what, crying. It’s also full of kids playing loudly with toys. What it’s not full of are people who can actually hear and participate in the service.

So no one gets anything out of this arrangement. Why does the Church insist on keeping kids in the pews? I’ve heard many Catholics say it’s so children can learn to sit still and listen. This is apparently why adult Protestants can’t stay in their seats.

Mostly, I think it’s about obligation and demonstrating your devotion through thick and thin. The Catholic Church just seems to have that ethos. But I don’t. I’m Methodist. So I think that having kids in the pew is just nuts.

I think kneelers are nuts, too, and I don’t care who knows it. You can tell John Paul the next time you see him.

 

**Footnote: Parishioners of Saint Johns will rightly point out that the church has established a nursery. Of course, this was started by Andrea, so it’s not totally in the church’s win column. Plus, it’s not open that often – like during the summer or whenever the bridge club wants the space.

All dressed up with no clambake to go to

I’m sure many men out there would agree with my position “I don’t like shopping.” But I’m guessing few have taken it to my same extreme, “I don’t shop.”

That I’ve been fortunate enough to manage this has required a tradeoff. Andrea and I have an implicit agreement that, because I don’t shop, I’ll wear whatever she buys. Clown pants? Fine. Punk skater look? No problem. Anything but sweaters. I don’t know why I don’t like them, I just hate the way they cling to my elbows.

It turns out that what Andrea just loves is the preppy New England look straight out of the J. Crew catalogue – seersucker pants, plaid pants, pastel pants, pants with little lobsters or sailboats or seahorses on them, woven belt, boat shoes, white polo shirts. The sweater goes over the shoulders, so I can live with that. She likes this look a lot, and now I could go to 8 or 10 clambakes in a row without risk of embarrassment that I would be caught in the same outfit twice. The problem is this: we don’t go to any clambakes. We haven’t been invited to a clambake since moving to Ohio. Even when we lived in New England we might go to only two a year. 

So I have a closet full of unused pastel pants. I can’t wear this stuff to work – the Miller Time guys who do the real work at my company wouldn’t let me get away with that. And they’re too nice to bum around in on the weekends. I’m not sure when, if ever, I should wear them.

And the clambake clothes are just a few of the articles that I have no idea when or where I am supposed to wear them. I had a pair of flip-flops with orange straps that I kept trying to wear out on the weekend and Andrea would say “those don’t go with your outfit” (note: “outfit” here is defined very loosely to include stained shorts and a crummy t-shirt). After twenty or thirty tries, I finally said “what exactly am I supposed to wear these with?” Andrea bought me a bright orange t-shirt shortly thereafter.

I now wear that orange t-shirt, stained shorts and matching flip flops almost every day between Memorial Day and Labor Day – it’s the only summer “outfit” that I know matches. Unfortunately, the orange t-shirt is the exception. I’m mentally stuck with many articles of clothing, so I just end up wearing the same 5-10 outfits to work and another 5-10 while bumming around on the weekend. I have a pair of paisley – yes, paisley – shoes that I couldn’t match to an outfit to save my life.

And so my closet is kind of like the warehouse at the factory where I work, where the inventory is classified A, B, or C based on how much is used. Like the warehouse, I have the A-movers, the stuff that I wear every day. The B-movers are the slow movers but at least I know what to do (hey, that restaurant is funky-dressy! I have an outfit for that!). The C-movers - the preppy gear and sweaters and paisley shoes – well, they just hang there unused waiting for the accountants to write them off.

Kiddie Capitalism

Many parents complain of being overloaded with kids’ activities. Our trick? Only sign up one child for anything. Chiara does piano, dance, gymnastics, reading lessons and, at one point, soccer. Cody… well, Cody plays with sticks in the dirt.

I have to tip my cap to these institutions in how efficiently they separate us from our money. My theory on dance is that the lessons are basically a breakeven proposition – and that the real money is made at the recital. Between $50 in tickets, $80 costume, $40 pictures, $60 video, $20 flowers and other required (okay not required but come on, who’s not buying the video?) purchases we’re into the recital for several hundred bucks. We’re not alone - the auditorium is chock full for multiple recitals. This year Chiara increased from one to two recitals – Saturday and Sunday – which besides blowing a hole in our weekend schedule also blew a hole in our budget. Man, what a business.

If the dance hits you with a full frontal assault in the form of the recital, gymnastics is more of a covert operation. These guys have it to a science.

“Look into my eyes,” they say, waving a gymnastics medal in front of our face, “Chiara is doing VERY well.”

“Chiara is doing well,” we repeat, mesmerized.

“She has a lot of talent!”

“She has a lot of talent,” we drone.

 “I think she’s ready to move up to pre-team!”

“Pre-team… checkbook…” The coach cackles. Our brainwashing is complete.

Pre-team is twice a week instead of our current once per week. It’s $200 more dollars a month. But this is the path to competitive greatness – the road to Olympic gold runs through pre-team.

Never mind that to an outside observer Chiara’s ability to do dip-steps on a balance beam is indistinguishable from all the other girls in her class. Or that these are essentially the same dip-steps she was doing a year ago with only glacial signs of progress. Chiara has talent that really should be nurtured. Plus, the pre-team class is undersubscribed this year.

Never mind, too, that there is always one more level to go and the different levels and classes have absurd complexity. The gym has classes named after colors, letters, numbers, celestial bodies, and designations like “team.” Which class is the best amongst red, level 3, comets and pre-team? I’ll be darned if I know, but I’m sure the coaches will tell us the best next step for Chiara.

Left to her own devices, I’m sure Chiara would be perfectly happy doing dip-steps to the end of time in “Comets.” But we have social standing to maintain. Another girl in Chiara’s class moved up to pre-team before her. This simply cannot stand, since Chiara is clearly the better talent (ignore what I said above about no discernible difference in these girls. Chiara is clearly the best!). So come the fall, I predict that Chiara will be in pre-team with coaches encouraging us to move to level 3, we’ll be $200 a month poorer, and Cody will be digging with sticks in the field behind the gymnastics studio twice a week instead of only once.