Big Pickles

Last night I'm giving Timothy a bath right after he watched the Great Pumpkin special on TV.

"Dad, why does Linus keep going to the pumpkin patch when the Great Pumpkin never comes?"

"Because he thinks the Great Pumpkin will come next time."

"But the Great Pumpkin isn't real."

"Lots of people believe in things that aren't real."

"I don't."

"Yes, you do."

Then he looks up at me and his voice gets quiet. "Santa Claus?"

I neither confirmed nor denied, but I have to admit that it's fun to see the wheels turning.

Labels: parenting

I think I've linked to a couple of Paul Graham essays before. He seems to have a way of zeroing in on the heart of complex matters.

In Lies We Tell Our Kids, he doesn't tell us anything we don't already know, but he presents it in a straightforward manner that can sometimes be unnerving. As a parent, it really gets me thinking about the influence I can have in shaping my kids' view of the world.

I especially liked the last footnote. It's amazing how early teenagers begin lying to their parents for the same reasons their parents lied to them just a few years earlier: the truth would freak them out. It's not to avoid getting in trouble, but to spare their parents from knowing things that might devastate them.

Labels: parenting

Melissa took the boys to get haircuts on Tuesday. When I came home from work, the following conversation ensued:

Dad: (feigning ignorance) Hey, something seems different about you guys...

Michael: Yeah, we got haircuts.

Dad: (continuing with the ruse) I don't know what it is, you guys just seem snappier than usual...

Benjamin: THAT'S BECAUSE WE GOT HAIRCUTS, DAD!

Benjamin: (to Michael) See? You gotta yell it.

Labels: parenting

A little advice for Pants and Shan:



More at Newborn Baby Zone.

Labels: parenting

The Spelling Bee was today, and Michael got out on his first word.

I'm very disappointed, and I can't stop thinking about it in order to get any work done. Which surprises me.

I'm surprised by how excited I was leading up to the event, how nervous I was sitting in there waiting for it to start, and how disappointed I am that he got out so early. I did the Spelling Bee once as a fourth grader and I got out on the first word, too, and I didn't care, so why do I care about this?

I guess it's because he studied so hard and he knew all those words. When he came home a few months ago and said he was going to be in the Spelling Bee, I didn't think much of it because he's just a first grader. How well could he possibly do? But as he studied those words, I was amazed at how well he learned them. Once he got them right he remembered them. I started thinking that he actually had a shot. When we arrived at the school there was some buzz among the teachers and parents that there was a first grader in the Spelling Bee this year.

But there's a reason they don't usually let first graders in the Spelling Bee. They are just squirmy little kids. They don't really have the composure to get up there at the microphone in front of the whole school and say what they know. They lack the gravitas, if you will.

Michael's word was "massage." I knew that was one that he studied, and he knew how to spell it. But he repeated the "g." He did it in such a way that nobody thought that he intended to put two g's in the word. He just stopped for a second, thought about it, and then picked up again on the last letter that he was on. (Which I think you are allowed to do, according to my viewing of the documentary "Spellbound.") Anyway, at first the judges told him he had it right, and he punched the air victoriously and took his seat. Then they discussed it for a while, then they went to the tape and reviewed it, and after what seemed like forever they walked over and told him that he had to leave the stage. He was visibly disappointed, and I felt crushed.

I wanted to get out of that auditorium as fast as I could, for some reason. I didn't want to hear any other kids spelling or misspelling words that I knew Michael knew.

Labels: parenting