Scholarship Money is Available

We will, from time to time, place items on top of the refrigerator and use them as rewards or incentives for good behavior. Of course, as the kids get older, they have to do something more than just not act like jackasses. They actually have to do something, like make a significant contribution to the cleanliness of the house or save their little brother from drowning on one of those magic wands with the mysterious liquid/glitter combination. There has been a box of unearned Legos up there for over a week now, which certainly disappoints my wife and me.

Today I am upping the ante. While I won't divulge the final figures, I will offer to pay a "handsome amount" toward my daughter's college education on one primary condition. (Sources with knowledge of the situation estimate the amount to be in the $500,000 - $750,000 range, or roughly one semester of 2025 tuition at a state school, according to projections.) To qualify, my daughter does not have to clean the gutters, cut the grass, be left-handed, do well in school, participate in a bunch of extra-curricular activities, or kiss the butts of her trigonometry teachers for recommendations.

She simply has to stop talking like a baby.

That's right, I'll contribute upwards of $750,000 to my 6-year-old daughter's college fund, if she'll JUST STOP talking like a baby.

(Understand that our girl has just recently started talking like a baby every so often just to be cute. We as parents, and especially my wife as a kindergarten teacher, realize that kids develop speech patterns at vastly different rates. We're obviously not frustrated at the speech itself, just the attempt at attention. The only impediment here is her understanding that she's not as cute as she thinks she is.)

Of course, there is some fine print. She must not talk like a baby continuously from now until the day she is accepted to an accredited university, if she chooses to go to college. If she decides not to enroll in a university or trade school, I'll still pay her. Whatever. I'll start the clock and prorate $750,000 over each second between now and 2025. Every time she uses a word from the below list of forbidden baby words, the clock "resets" and the maximum amount she can collect diminishes.

This includes when she speaks to her baby brother. He's nearly 18 months old now, so we can stop treating him like the helpless blob in a baby carriage that he might have been last summer. Besides, when he's busy choking himself with a slinky, the phrase, "Did that widdle swinky-dinky get cot awound youw necky-wecky?" doesn't seem to lend appropriate gravity to the situation.

Herewith are words that she is forbidden to use in order to earn the $750,000. In typical job responsibilities fashion, the list includes but is not limited to:

Awwowed, bwoke, bwoken, cwimb, Dewaware, famiwy, ice queem, pissgetti, pway, pwease, pwobbwy, queen (acceptable in terms of a king's wife but not in the absence of dirt), sweep (i.e. sleep) swide, wast, way (as in way down to sweep), weawwy, weg, wittle, wight, wike, wowwipop, wunning, (and all forms of the verb "wun") wuv, yewwow.

In addition, we must have absolutely no more conversations like this recent one - decisions of the judges will be final:

Me (concerned, to my wife): He seemed to be running a little temperature.
Daughter: He ran a temper? Whaaaat? You said he ran a tem...
Me: Temperature.
Daughter: What's a temper chore?
Me: Tem-per-a-ture
Daughter (mocking): Tem-per-a-chore?
Me: WILL YOU PRESENTLY STOP THIS INSANITY!!

Also, on a related note, it is written into the contract that if she ever attempts to amuse or entertain anyone, including friends, relatives, or business associates with an impersonation of Baby Bear from Sesame Street, Dad has the right to void the contract immediately, without warning and without refund.

The fourth and final condition is that no backtalk is allowed. Assuming at some point she decides to forego the baby talk and the reminding me at every instance when I call her by her brother's name, the backtalk line in the deal virtually assures me a minimal payout, since teens just can't keep their mouths shut. As dads who have come before me might have said, "You gotta get the backtalk clause in there. It's your golden parachute."

So no backtalk awwowed (ah, now she has me doing it) from now until college; like that will happen. I think my $750,000 is safe, at least until we need to start pricing minivans again.

http://www.collegetocareers.com

People in Houses Shouldn't Throw Golf Balls

The other day I heard a golf ball bouncing on the hardwood floor, followed by the perhaps mistakable sound of the one-year-old blurting out "Ball?!", followed by the very unmistakable sound of my wife declaring, not asking, "What was that," in her "That better not have been something that will break my living room" voice.

The whole sequence was surprising to me. I didn't know my youngest could say "ball." (So proud.) I didn't know someone in this family could innocently toss something without breaking something important. (Who knew?) Most of all I didn't realize we had a real golf ball in the house. (I hate golf.)

Hate, as they say, is such a strong word, and I don't use it lightly. But I really, really hate golf. Not "hate" in the racial sense that makes everyone cringe, not even "hate" in the sense that a guy talks about his on-again, off-again lover as "I hate her," even though he really loves her and enjoys that sort of conquest.

More in the sense that kids hate asparagus. I took one look at golf, saw that you had to wear khakis to play it, and decided I didn't like it. Since then, as I've matured and mellowed and grew to understand new things, I hate it even more. No matter how Big the Bertha I was using, I'd hit nothing but groundballs to short and foul pop files down the right field line. I got more contradicting advice than a Price Is Right contestant, standing there with my body so contorted as I sliced another tee shot onto a different hole's green. And seriously, khakis to do all this?

Watching golf is even worse. The sport's two main characters are a joyless, pompous docuhe-stick (another word I don't use lightly) who screws women and whose only discernible skill after golf is treating the fawning media and fans with scorn and sarcasm, plus an out-of-shape, country-club flake who wears accounting visors and whines that he has to pay taxes. (Though I'd love to find my elementary school gym teacher and remind her that she taught us from an early age that "There's no such thing as a left-handed golfer.") Plus there are guys who have withdrawn from tournaments for toothaches and who have fired their entourage because the golfer himself showed up late for a tournament and was disqualified. Golfers need entourages? Blah.

At any rate, for some reason, my older boy likes it. When he watches the golf highlights, and he sees a beautiful 200-foot approach shot to within 5 feet of the pin, he shouts at the TV, "He missed it!" I had to correct him and let him know that if a golfer gets it so close, you're supposed to clap your hands like you're holding an injured baby bird and shout platitudes such as "You're the man!" and "GET in the HOLE!" Yes, GET in the HOLE! is a platitude. Later, after seeing a poor schlep flub a 6-footer for par, I asked my son rhetorically how the guy could miss that one and he told me, "Yeah but he got it so close!" You're the man, son. Keep practicing your golf clap.

While the presence of a golf ball on the premises was as confounding and unwelcome as that of a Watermelon Oreo, the fact that my younger son can say "ball" is encouraging. Also, he somehow managed, unprovoked, to say "ball" when presented with a Pittsburgh Steeler logo, even though he's lived through just one football boot camp season which ended five months ago. I have no idea how that happened. Everyone tells me that, despite all my parental efforts to the contrary, my three-year-old is "just like" me, including the unhealthy addiction to sports. I worry that I'll forever subconsciously favor him over the other boy, especially if the latter doesn't soon shake this habit of using my toothbrush to clean the toilet. "Ball" is evidence that the younger will force my subconscious to take note.

How awesome would it be to have not one, but two boys who love sports? Even if they play the normal roles that I see in two-boy households. Although it's strictly empirical evidence, I see in most cases where the older boy takes the games so seriously, identifies favorite teams, memorizes all the players' stats and trades the team makes, and then lives and dies with that team each season, while the younger boy understands the game but can't remember any players, knows none of the stats, and maybe openly roots for a rival team just so he can taunt the older brother. I'd take that. Of course with an older sister around who dances and plays the violin, they'll not dodge some of the finer things in life. Both of them have taken an early interest in music, so we won't raise two complete sports-nuts. I don't think.

So go ahead, boys, watch as much golf as you want, but please stop throwing the golf balls in the house, for your mother's sake.

How to Get Fingernail Polish Out of Carpet...

...was the headline of the article left open on the laptop this evening, if anyone wonders what it's like to stay at home all day with three kids.

That's one of the benefits of having a job, besides income. You can miss some of that stuff while your poor spouse has to answer some of life's more essential questions. (But don't feel too sorry for mine though, she gets to go to work, too, when school's back in, and the foreign substances and the carpeting issues belong to the Day Care.)

The story is the standard-issue "nail polish where it doesn't belong" story. Six-year-old girl goes to swimming pool, sees other little girls with color on their fingers and toes, wonders aloud, receives polish, entire house wreaks of polish within 5 minutes, girl carelessly leaves polish unattended on the kitchen floor, one-year-old picks up polish, entire household admonishes one-year-old to "give it to me," one-year-old does but not without fight and tears, 3 minutes elapse, girl again leaves polish unattended-- this time on coffee table, one-year-old picks up polish, dumps polish in hair, says "uh oh", shows mother, hell breaks loose, girl suffers double indignity of losing all nail polish into brother's hair AND getting business from mother, 1-year-old labeled "dickens" even though he did exactly what older sister would have done if she had careless older siblings leaving stuff out all over place, mom researches polish removal from carpet via Internet, three-year-old never looks up from Leap Pad.

Everyone has one of those stories.

In case you are wondering, there is a simple, nine-step process you can use to get the nail polish out of the carpet according to the Web site in question, which is here. Prepare to be underwhelmed. There are no great household cleanliness secrets divulged. In fact, it's the same nine techniques we've used to successfully remove vomit, blood, and more disgusting stains like green bean casserole from the carpet at various points in history. Instead, my wife skipped straight to Step #10, something called a Magic Eraser, which I think I cleaned an entire bathroom with, walls and ceiling included, in about 2 hours.

The girl was so shamed by her indifference toward her stuff that she preemptively resorted to cleaning her room to get back into anyone's good graces. And with the one-year-old making his parenting debut by jamming the toy baby stroller repeatedly into the refrigerator and hurling his baby down the staircase, ("uh oh") and the three-year-old unable to peel himself off the chair, there was only one thing that could save the day from further disaster.

More swimming. My wife decided to take everyone back swimming again. How you take three kids swimming, none of whom can swim, by yourself and don't end up leading the evening newscast is beyond me. But somehow it got done, with the help of various floatation devices and a lot of time in the shallow end. Still, the only way I'd have made it is if I put each kid in one of those leashes. Not sure if those things work in water.

But this is just a day in the life during the summer. You go swimming, you get the nail polish out of your hair, you stay in the shallow end, and when Dad gets home, you tell him all about it. And if Dad is buying the concept that you're going to bed earlier because you had a busy day kicking your legs in the water, you show him by stay up just as late anyway, because it's summer.

The only way to tell it's the weekend sometimes in the summer is when Dad's home. So now that it's Saturday, and you guys just spent two days at the pool, what are we doing this weekend? You gotta be tired, right, maybe take it easy?

"Let's show Daddy the pool!"

Looks like we're going back swimming, this time with me there to help out or at least to not do any harm. Three straight days at the pool, in hockey that might be called a natural hat trick, in bowling they call it a turkey. Whatever you call it, it beats trying to get beauty products out of the carpet.

O

Point/Counterpoint: Chocolate Milk and Sleep Sacks

My wife, who never has a bad word to say about anything or anybody, has seemingly saved most of her venom for the most sacred of beverage institutions. First, we delve into the pros and cons, the strengths and weaknesses, the yin and the yang of chocolate milk. Then, we debate the merits of the dreaded sleep sack.

Her: Chocolate milk makes me angry. I would be a lot happier if the world were rid of chocolate milk.  Most of the time it's gross. Especially the really thick kind. And once my kids get a hold of it, they are more likely to clean their room than eat any supper.

I especially want to know exactly who showed my kids that it was ok to make chocolate milk out of plain white milk and Hershey's syrup. This person's limbs should be fed through a wood chipper. (Editor's Note: I didn't actually say that. That person was probably my husband anyway.) For lunch, I will gladly make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut up blocks of cheese into fancy shapes, and clean and slice fruit.  For dinner, I will plan the meals, cook the dinner, set the table, and single-handedly cordon off the area around the stove while the kids clumsily hop around the kitchen in dual laundry hampers. But by the time I pour three glasses of water and launch the impossible mission to find two sippy cups that actually have lids, I hear, from the three-year-old, "Mommy, can you make me some chocolate milk?" I realize it's just one more step, but I've had it up to here by that point. (Holds her hand sideways by her forehead.) And then when the one-year-old sees the chocolate syrup, he recognizes it, and then he wants some in his drink, which unfortunately is apple juice. Though he'd drink live scorpions if he had to, just to get some of that chocolate syrup.  

Then there's the issue of what happens when you find the two-week-old cup of old chocolate milk stashed between the entertainment stand and the wall. Yes, it's probably no smellier than white milk stashed between the entertainment stand and the wall, but there seems to be something especially irritating and gross about finding old chocolate milk somewhere. Yuk.

And God forbid that somewhere is the car. Kids are never allowed to carry open containers of chocolate milk in our car because the stank never comes out of the seats in case when there's spillage.
Put simply, chocolate milk is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Me: Yes but it's awesome. Especially the really thick kind...did you just use "stank" as a noun?

I'm sorry, but we're out of time, we'll have to give that one to the wife. We must move to our next subject, the sleep sack.

Me: Yeah, do we have to put that thing on him every night? What does it even do?

Her: It keeps him warm without using blankets that present a risk of suffocation.

Me: Although I have not checked the long-range forecast, you are aware that at some point this summer when the air conditioning busts, the nighttime temperature in our house will be 88 degrees Fahrenheit, don't you?

Her: We may able to just throw him in bed with his jammies that night.

Me: I understand why the thing zips from the top down... it would be annoying to sleep with a zipper piercing your chin all night. But can you explain why every time I zip it, it splits in the middle?

Her: Umm...you're not doing it right.

Me: It's usually a race for me to get that thing on him before he's completely finished his bottle and sobbing and thrashing uncontrollably. Are we sure he couldn't use blankets once, down towards the end, by his feet?

Her: Move. Let me do it. It also helps if you turn the light on.

Me: And he looks like Maggie Simpson!

Her: It's also a deterrent to climbing out of bed. Do you want this daredevil thinking he can climb out of his bed?

Looks like we have a clean sweep in our first installment of Point/Counterpoint, as this point also goes to the wife. I'm afraid that just because you can't properly zip the sack, or get baby's arms in without nearly breaking them in half (even though you're on your third child) that doesn't mean that you can sacrifice safety, Dad. Please re-read the books people got you when your first child was born, and then join us next time for another point/counterpoint.

Rules for a Fairy Garden

I've been hearing about the concept of a fairy garden for some time now, and I'm afraid I'm not totally on board yet.

I guess the original fairy gardens are miniature, decorative pieces that can sit unobtrusively anywhere in your house. But we're not doing just any old fairy garden here. No, we're doing a "real-life" fairy garden in our backyard. Seems like a great idea, especially for a youngster who wants to spend some time on an outdoor activity like gardening that requires no electronic stimulus. (And yet the finished product will still be coming soon to a Pinterest board near you.)

This also sounds like a really great deal for the fairies if I understand it properly, which I don't. At all. According to my wife, the fairy garden is one which you create (and finance) all by yourself, with flowers, plants, colorful rocks, and waterfalls, and then the fairies come and live in it and...do...what, exactly?

Well, you hope the fairies come and help the garden grow.

And, if you're so lucky as to be visited by a fairy or fairies, they will help you tend to it?

Well, sort of. Depends.

Depends on...?

Depends on which fairies live in your garden. Tinkerbell, for example, and all Tinker fairies help fix things.

Like my lawnmower that requires 42 pulls to start?

Maybe. But their primary job is to fix and invent things like pots and pans for the other fairies.

What the hell good does that do us? Do they keep the deer out? The rabbits? The boll weevils? The Japanese beetles?

Umm...no.

Do they weed it?

No, that's pretty much our job.

I envision having to get up at 2AM and wearing a hat with a light on the front, weeding the fairy garden three times a week, watering it, and re-mulching it so that our six-year-old daughter can write about it during her first week of first grade and tell her grandparents about all its magical capabilities. (If the fairy garden can convince the one-year-old to stop drinking bubble soap, I'll start to believe the magic.)  I can handle the tooth fairy, where you get up and just put some money under the pillow a few times a year, but I don't think I can handle being the fairy garden fairy. I'd pay 2,000 times the going tooth fairy rate to not have to do the fairy garden fairy thing.

No, we don't have to do any of that.
___________________________________________________________________
The more I think I understand, the more complicated it gets. According to the ancient texts, fairies are born when a baby giggles for the first time. Then they move to Fairyland until such time as they are enticed into your home, probably because you left the canister of brown sugar open all night. If you're a more skillful gardener/housekeeper, you will instead lure the fairy into your garden by putting up those beautiful stones or having certain plants that fairies enjoy, like dwarf conifers or bonsai trees. (We don't have any of those, just daisies and marigolds, so we could be in serious trouble.)

How do you know there is a fairy in your garden? What is the tangible evidence, the money under the pillow or presents under the tree, so to speak, that lets you know you have a fairy somewhere in your midst? Is it just the fact that stuff grows? What if a raccoon invades and wrecks your fairy garden the first night after you planted it? Are there mean fairies that we can blame when we're consoling our inconsolable daughters? Who are the anti-fairies, the bizarro fairies, and how do we stop them? Can we stop them? Do we want to stop them?

Plus, there's the issue of stratification of fairies. How do you entice, say, a Tinkerbell or Sugar Plum Fairy into your garden versus some no-account, garden-variety middling fairy who does sloppy work and constantly messes up the billing? Can you even consider Tinkerbell if you don't live in the Hamptons or New Rochelle, New York, or know the CEO of a company? Does Tinkerbell even do gardens? Who are some famous garden fairies? I mean, besides the Cottingley Fairies of course? (Of course.)

There's so much I don't understand still about fairy gardens. You know you don't understand something when you don't even know what questions to ask a six-year-old. But as the kids were standing at our neighborhood Lowe's, fighting over who gets to pull the cart carrying the dozen 20-pound bags of brown mulch, two things became obvious:

1. None of my questions matter, all that matters is that if your daughter has an imagination, she will be the happiest kid in the world when she plants her fairy garden, and more importantly,

2. I don't really have to do anything else from here. So we're good.

Update: Both mornings after we implemented the fairy garden, my daughter awoke and nagged my wife to go downstairs to see if any fairies came to her garden, just like Santa Claus. When she saw they hadn't, she looked confused and disappointed. I guarantee by the end of the week, I'll be out there after dark with a rototiller and two buckets of glitter.