I spent the weekend throwing jelly beans at the Children.
Well, not the whole weekend. Just an hour or so on Sunday afternoon.
It's how I justify giving them sugared snacks! Yes, I say to them, yes you may have tooth-rotting, nutritionally vacuous, improbably colored bits-o-sugar! You just have to be able to duck really fast as well.
Child 2 is boring. It sits close enough that I have to toss rather than throw and the jelly beans more often than not simply rolled down into its bowl. Also, Child 2 says thank you, each and every time, regardless of whether I was trying to land the jelly bean in its ear or not. That takes all the fun out of it.
Child 3 stoically ignores me but uses its mind-numbingly long arms to sweep the jelly beans into its jelly bean collection area. Child 3 would be a complete wash except the beans made a satisfying and amusing "tok" sound when they hit the top of its head.
Child 1 though, Child 1 makes it all worth while. For the first few beans it simply went wild eyed and waved frantically at the beans as they whizzed past its nose. Then it tried to go all calm and patient and pretended to read its book - a ploy that failed utterly because it kept twitching when I rattled the bean container. That became amusing in itself because I could make the noise and then do a sort of false-throwing motion and Child 1 would hurl its book down and assume a defensive ninja posture (what?? We don't have a dog to torment.) After a while, naturally, it got wise to this and stopped reacting. Which is when I nailed it good and proper.
It's all part of my parenting theory - the one that says you know you're going to scar your children so you better make sure a good time is had by all in the process.
Oh, and it's not a bad idea to get a blog post out of it too.
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This is for Kirk von Ackermann, missing in Iraq since October 9, 2003.
6 comments:
I don't know if you will remember me or not... But I am hoping that you have a slight recollection of me and my wife.
We went out to dinner together at a Japanese Steakhouse right when you and Kirk were getting ready to leave Norfolk, VA to head out to California. Kirk also gave me the old blue truck before you left as well. Well, last night I was thinking at work and Kirk's influence upon my career popped into my mind. So I decided to do a Google search to see if I could find anything on him. Literally, I stopped in my tracks when I began reading...my stomach sank. Kirk is probably the #1 reason why my wife and I were able to be stationed together. He placed phone calls and got some heavy hitters involved to pull off a literal miracle. It's a miracle that I've never forgotten and literally it's shaped my entire life. We now have a wonderful 8 month old daughter and are enjoying life back in my home state of Wisconsin. Speaking of... she's got a touch of flu right now and needs my attention, so this is going to be a bit short. But I just have to send this because I hope this finds you and your family well. Please let me know if you remember us because I would love to hear from you.
Dan Gildner
Email address is
DanielGildner@aol.com
Hats off to your "for Kirk" carry on the good work; there are precious few perks to being a parent...child torment and child labour are the only recompense...enjoy it is hard earned!
Man, my kids would love that game.
Dan - I definitely remember you! Thank you for getting in touch, thank you, thank you for telling me your story. How wonderful to hear about your new baby! I'll send you an email as well, but wanted you say something here as well.
Ya know, one of my favorite games to play with dogs (will work with children too) is barely touch/move one or two hairs and watch them twitch.
Hey! no ideas!!!
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