In a last minute switcheroo, my wife decided to stay home and hand out candy while I went trick-or-treating with the kids. I had six kids in my group: four 10-year-old boys — a mummy (my kid), two ninjas, and an evil baseball catcher — plus a hyperactive 6-year-old cheerleader and a 5-year-old Blue’s Clues girl. The cheerleader was a dynamo — the first kid to every door — and if it wasn’t opened promptly, she’d run around looking in the windows to see what was the holdup. The evil baseball catcher — wearing a chest protector, shin guards and a skull mask — approached every house by taking a running start and sliding up to the door on his shin guards, scaring women, small children and pretty much everyone else, because no one expected him to do that, and because it looked like he’d fallen and given himself a… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Kids
Why Great Novels Are Not Written by 10-Year-Olds
And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean. — Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son And so, on page 243 of a 900-page novel, the 6-year-old Son referred to in the title dies! “So what’s the rest of the book going to be about?” I wonder aloud. “Your butt,” my son suggests. Read more →
A Tale of Two Dinners
I took my son out for dinner tonight. We went to Hof’s Hut, his choice. I’ve been to Hof’s Hut twice in my life. The other time was the first real date I ever had with a girl. I took her to Hof’s Hut and a movie, where she fell asleep. That seems like just last week, and yet this week I find myself married with a 10-year-old son, who orders off the grownup menu for the very first time . . . Read more →
That is You
The earth keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you. — Edgar Lee Masters, “Fiddler Jones” There’s a balance to be struck between providing a kid with some direction in his life, and thinking that he should like certain things because I like them, or dislike certain things because I don’t like them, or that he should do things a certain way because that’s the way I would do them, the danger being that even though my way is, of course, the best way, the way he does it is what makes him him . . . Read more →
Great Moments in Parenting
My son wants an Icee after roller hockey practice, so I give him some money and he skates off to the snack bar. When I get there, the snack bar girl is giving him the Icee and his money back. Read more →
The Death of a Child
My nephew died yesterday in a car smash in Amarillo, TX, where he lived. He was 10 years old, the same age as my son. He was my son’s favorite cousin. Read more →
Lesbian Rescue Fantasies
From a company newsletter: [Insert woman’s name here] is quite a rescuer. She started with animals and now has six dogs, 13 cats and a rabbit. Last fall, she decided to extend her caretaking talents to children by becoming a foster parent. She and her partner, [Insert another woman’s name here], are foster parents to 7- and 9-year-old children and expect to take in several more soon. In fact, the two recently added on to their house to accomodate the growing family. Read more →
Tropical Moon
We have a young man in our neighborhood — he looks to be junior high school age — who likes to moon passing cars from a high wall in his backyard. Read more →
Daddy’s Home
I ring the doorbell and my son, from inside, says, “Who is it?” — even though he knows perfectly well who it is since I just heard him bolt the door when he saw me walking up. “Dad,” I say. “Dan who?” “DAD!” “Dan Dad?” Read more →
How Was Your Weekend?
Good? Great? Too short? My weekend — like most of my weekends — was a tug-of-war to balance the vastly different needs and wants of myself and the people I live with. Doesn’t anyone else have weekends like that? Read more →
Television
First radio, then television, have assaulted and overturned the privacy of the home, the real American privacy, which permitted the development of a higher and more independent life within democratic society. Parents can no longer control the atmosphere of the home and have lost even the will to do so. — Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind I think that’s a good explanation of how I feel when the TV is on, a feeling that I’ve lost control of my home to an uninvited guest . . . Read more →
The Day Care Worker Killed My Kid
…parents now are pushing for laws that would make it a felony for a day care worker to give a child medicine without written permission from a parent or a doctor’s order. One state already has passed such legislation. Last month, North Carolina made it a felony to give children medicine without permission. That law was named for 5-month-old Kaitlyn Shevlin, who died in 2001 after being given the generic form of Benadryl. Her care giver, Josephine Burke, served four months in prison on misdemeanor charges of child abuse and neglect. — The Washington Times, “Day care drugs worry moms,” (emph. added) Sept. 3, 2003 Read more →
Pizza Flashback
We had Papa John’s pizza brought in at work today . . . Read more →
Bejeweled
I was trying to get my son to think ahead a little in Bejeweled instead of just clicking on the first match he sees. Result: He clicks as fast as ever, but he now adds a running commentary in a dopey voice whenever I’m in the room: Should I click here? Or should I click here? Or should I just sit here thinking and not click on anything? Thinking is better than life. Well — when you put it that way, you have to be alive to think. But still, thinking is the best . . . Footnote: My high score is still way better than his. Read more →
Self-Portrait
A boy en route to Amarillo, holding a camera . . . Read more →
What’s for Breakfast?
“You want waffles?” asks Mom. “Bacon,” the boy replies, without looking up from his GameBoy. “How about bacon, and I’ll cut up an apple for you?” “Bacon.” “You have to have fruit with it. How about grapes?” “Bacon.” “Bacon and fruit.” Pause. “Is bacon a fruit?” Read more →
EppsNet Goes to the Movies
I was buying movie tickets with my 10-year-old boy when a woman with her 20-something daughter smiled at us and said, “When you get older, your kids will take you to the movies.” Later, in the snack bar line, I asked him, “So are you going to take me to a movie when I get older?” Read more →
Introducing a 10-Year-Old to Poetry
Me: (reading aloud from syllabus for UC Irvine Young Writers class, in which my kid is enrolled) “We are going to be doing a variety of activities, including a facade poem, a four season poem, journal writing, and a memory snapshot story.” Him: Poems blow. Read more →
Kids in America
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average child care worker earns $9.57 an hour. This is less than we pay people to cut our hair ($10.40 an hour), shine our shoes ($9.95 an hour) and park our cars ($9.87 an hour). Repeat: Kids in America are being raised by people earning $9.57 an hour. That explains a lot . . . Read more →
Happy Birthday
We celebrated my son’s birthday yesterday by going to his favorite restaurant of all time, BD’s Mongolian Barbeque in Irvine, only to find that they’d gone out of business, finally beaten into submission by the ultra-popular BJ’s Restaurant & Brewery next door. Fortunately, 10-year-olds bounce back from these kinds of setbacks pretty quickly, especially when they get the Kung Fu Chaos game they really, really wanted . . . Read more →