Outta time

When Ben started kindergarten, our lives were suddenly on a more rigid schedule. Daycare didn't really care if we were five or ten minutes later than usual, but when you have a humorless schoolbus driver determining whether your child avoids a tardy, you start to watch the minutes a bit more carefully. 8:25? Plenty of time. 8:26? Getting close - might want to get things moving toward the door. 8:27? OH MY GOD WE NEED TO RUN NOW!

But Ben is a notorious dawdler. No matter how routine the practice, he needs to be reminded three times (usually at increasing volume and level of hysteria) before he'll take action. In order to cope with this habit, we bought an egg timer. Both our oven and microwave have built-in timers, but like most things digital, they lack a certain quality of their old-fashioned counterparts: namely, the ominous tick-tick-ticking and metallic staccato of the bell. Much in the way that the tell-tale heart drove its proprietor to madness, we hoped the egg timer would drive Ben to get dressed.

Ben received the egg timer with amused suspicion at first. We set it to five minutes, and Ben beat the buzzer by about four. Huzzah, we said to ourselves. Within days, however, Ben came to despise the egg timer. He never failed to get dressed with more than enough time left over, but I think the timer's cheap construction - which led to its occasionally failing to ring the bell when it reached the zero - left a sense of the unresolved. Ben came to see the ticking plastic pear as his nemesis, and I could see him wanting to stash it under the floorboards.

The timer did work, though. After a week we didn't even need it. If he took too long to get dressed, the mere threat of pulling out the timer got him moving.

Like those phrases you never realize you say until your child says them back to you, though, parental tactics can come back to haunt you. Kids notice everything, and whenever they see an opportunity to use something against its creator, they will. This morning, for instance, I was apparently taking too long to make waffles for breakfast, so Ben said:

"Daddy, I'm going to get the timer, and if you're not done by the time it goes off I'm going to be starving!"

It's precious moments like these

Ian's mind-blowing question of the day:

"What would happen if a monster ate only the skin of us?"

Birth of sarcasm

I remember the first time I tried sarcasm on Ian. He wasn't quite three years old, and we were all going to a waterpark for the afternoon. Ian seems to get a thrill every time he is told that he can do something cool, so he'll ask whether he can participate over and over again even after we've told him that, yes, "all of us" includes him. It's like candy to his ears. So even after telling him we're going to the waterpark while we're getting swimsuits on ("Why do we need swimsuits? The waterpark? YAY!"), while we're climbing in the car ("Where are we going? The waterpark? YAY!"), and while we're en route ("Are we going to the waterpark? We are? YAY!"), he still wasn't satisfied. Upon arrival, the first words out of his mouth were "The waterpark! Can I go, too?"

Momentarily forgetting that I was dealing with a toddler so temperamental that he would smash a banana in his fists if it so much as looks at him wrong, I responded with a jolly "Nope, no waterpark for Ian!" I assumed the sing-song tone of my voice would mean he'd either hear what he wanted to hear or not really hear me at all. Big mistake. After the longest single second ever - during which I could see the words enter Ian's head, bounce around like a pinball hitting nothing but rubber bands, then shoot straight down the middle before a single flapper could make contact - his eyes registered comprehension, his lower lip curled, and all the anticipation he'd built up disgorged in a sob so profound you'd think I'd just gutted his teddy bear in front of him. I had to walk him toward the water myself before he calmed down, and he looked askance at me the rest of the day.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn't so much being sarcastic as just being a prick. Sometimes I get those confused. Law school does that to people.

Today, however, Ian is days away from turning four, and he's finally started to figure things out. He's getting better at dressing himself, but long pants pose a challenge, so he asked me for some help. "Nope, no pants for you today," I said. "You'll just have to go to the park without them." For a moment I thought back to that day at the waterpark, wondering if I'd just ruined his day once again. But then a smile spread across his face.

Ian laughed and said "You're funny, daddy." I helped him with his pants, and we were on our way.

He's finally figured me out.

Kindergarten at last

It's hard to believe that Ben has been in kindergarten for a month already. Of course, considering the pace at which school events have unfolded, it's no wonder. The first week alone, there was the first PTA meeting, a back-to-school picnic, and so many forms and volunteer opportunities (read: parental conscription notices) that suddenly all those refrigerator calendars I never bought started calling to me.

Ben hopped on the bus on Day 1 and never looked back. I don't mean that just figuratively - I have proof:


Of course, since Ben was already reading books for recreation, he had little to fear about the rigors of academia. That's not to say he hasn't learned anything, though. One evening during his second week I heard him call Ian an "idiot" during an argument, so his vocabulary is clearly expanding. Now that he has friends with older siblings, I imagine he'll learn much he simply hasn't been exposed to. I know my brother learned a lot years earlier than I, thanks to my lack of discretion. If you see a warning label on something, that means it's cool. Trust me.

Speaking of discretion, I also stepped into a new role that first week of school: that of an "adult." I don't mean the kind of adult who can vote, buy booze, and go to jail for real if one screws up, but the kind of adult who is feared by children. In other words, a true authority figure. At the back-to-school picnic I was picking up garbage behind the fence when one of a group of kids back there doing god-knows-what with all the hula hoops saw me and yelled "ADULT!" to his comrades, who promptly scattered. I might have interfered with whatever mischief they were up to had I not been momentarily blinded by power.

Kindergarten has given Ben a new sense of authority, too. He used to preface half of what he said with "You know what?" Not that he was ever asking a question, but his tone was generally inquisitive. Now he adds "you know" to the end of everything that comes out of his mouth, as if to say, This is in no way a question. I am making a statement of fact that is undeniable. I am in kindergarten, so I know. Actually it's more of a "yuh know," with an accent somewhere between Long Island and northern Minnesota. Which would put him right in the middle of Michigan, I guess. Huh.

I'm also discovering how true it is that parents make most of their friends through their kids once they start school. I've met more people in our neighborhood since he started kindergarten than I met in the entire year after we moved here. Everywhere we go, we're crossing paths with someone in Ben's class, or at least a fellow kindergartner at the same school. And Ben is either Mr. Popular or Mr. Forgetful, because everyone calls his name, but he never seems to know theirs. He puts up a good show, though, waving and treating everyone like a close friend while I exchange salutations with the parent, hearing and immediately forgetting the name. So I can do just what Ben is doing the next time we meet.

Poor Ian was none too pleased to return to his same old preschool after all the hullabaloo of Ben starting kindergarten. He wanted to go to a new school, too. Sorry kid, but you're not rich/dumb/poor enough for anything new. That's mostly good news. The best Ian got was a bump up to the next class level, which just so happens to be the one his brother just left, so all the teachers keep calling him Ben. Hardly a rarefied experience.

Don't worry, Ian. In a couple of years you'll be the one teaching your classmates all the cool stuff.