Some new things worth remembering
Originally published in January 2006, The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo.
A few new memories:
— Our older girl, age 5, has decided my wife and I need some help raising our 2-year-old, and we’re not embarrassed to admit she’s sometimes better at parenting her sister than we are.
Sometimes our younger girl won’t eat, which can lead to bad moods and delayed or shortened sleep. One night, faced with this situation, Lisa and I resorted to our usual bag of tricks, which involves coercion, threats, deception and begging.
Seeing this wasn’t working, our older girl offered this bit of information to her sister:
“The potatoes hate the meat,” she said, “so put some potato in your mouth and it will chase the meat down your throat.”
I’ve used that line many times since then. I have no idea where my daughter might have heard it, or if she made it up herself.
— Some of my heroes are liars … of a sort.
Harper Lee. Stephen King. J.K. Rowling. Dr. Seuss. These people and others like them make a living making up stories loved by millions.
If you can’t be such a person yourself, wouldn’t it be nice to be the parent of one? And if you are such a lucky parent, how do you learn to recognize when a “lie” is good and when it might be an indicator of something insidious?
For now, I’ve decided a great big smile means something positive is happening. That’s what I saw on our 2-year-old’s face last week when she told me about a death-defying feat.
The story sprung from an everyday event: A trip to a lake with her mother and sister to feed the geese. The girls stood too close to the water for Lisa’s comfort, so she told them to back away or they might fall in. The girls obeyed by backing away, then they got close again. So Lisa made them sit down. Shortly afterward, they walked around the lake.
Our 2-year-old decided to spice up the tale a bit that night at dinner. She told me about being too close to the water and then, in an apparent moment of inspiration, made up something new. “I got too close to the water,” she said (basically), “then I fell IN the water and started swimming all around the water.” Her arms pumped as she mimicked swimming and her smile grew and grew in proportion with the bright pink shade her face turned.
Flabbergasted, all I could think to do was laugh. Mommy’s eyes and mouth were both open wide, in a good way.
Sweetheart, I asked, wasn’t the water cold?
No answer, just a bigger smile. We’re going to be in big trouble when she develops a poker face.
— If there’s a cheesy movie you loved when you were a kid, there’s a good chance your own kids will get a kick out of it. Our daughters have enjoyed “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” the campy 1966 big-screen version of the “Batman” TV show with Adam West and, particularly, “The Wizard of Oz.”
Over the weekend, I served up the ultimate cheese: “King Kong vs. Godzilla.” The fuss over the current “Kong” remake has led to older films about the character being re-released to home video, including the two made by Toho, the studio responsible for Godzilla and many other giant rubber-suit monsters, and I rented it.
The movie has a giant, fire-breathing reptile, a giant gorilla and a giant, land-walking octopus. Homes are smashed and tanks are melted. It’s got everything a kid could want.
Well, maybe everything a boy could want, but my girls were less than enthralled. Aside from the 2-year-old slapping her belly while Kong beat his chest on screen, they largely lost interest about halfway through and I suspect they only stuck with it to humor me.