Vice and vitriol

As Ben and Ian grow older, each of them comes more into focus as an individual. Ben has a good grasp on right and wrong, and an innate sense of justice. Ian also understands right and wrong, but he's usually more interested in what he wants, and he has a stubborn tenacity that would challenge even the Supernanny.

Ben can be disarmingly honest at times. Unfortunately, that often makes him a terrible keeper of secrets. When he stayed home with Grandma during spring break, he revealed while we prepared dinner that he had had three treats already that day, so Ian should be allowed to have dessert, but really it wouldn't be appropriate for him to have any more. And here I thought there was no such thing as too many treats from Grandma.

I wish some of that guilt would rub off on Ian, who would happily eat nothing but sweets all day, with the occasional bagel thrown in to reset his taste buds. About a month ago we couldn't figure out why he kept going under our bed - we assumed he was just playing or hunting dust bunnies - until we discovered the empty box of cinnamon graham crackers he'd apparently stolen from the pantry. Ballsy move, hiding contraband under the parents' bed. Explains why reverse psychology doesn't work with him: he's figured it out himself.

Ben's deceitful moments are less to enrich himself than to conceal things he knows will get him in trouble. Most of the time he and Ian get along famously; they'll turn off Saturday morning cartoons to play elaborate games of make-believe that would make Mr. Rogers proud. There are mornings, though, when the bickering starts before eight o'clock and escalates to physical and psychological warfare. While Ian resorts to hitting or pinching, Ben usually sticks with verbal abuse.

The other day, after bickering led us to separate them altogether, Ben was downstairs drawing (as usual) while Ian was in their bedroom looking at books. Ben called for Ian to see what he'd drawn, but Ian wasn't interested. Ben persisted, then became furious when Ian wouldn't budge. Neither of these things (Ian's stubbornness, Ben's frustration) was anything out of the ordinary, so I thought little of it. As I walked downstairs, Ben rushed over to the easel to block my view, saying it was a secret. Again, nothing new - he often wants to save the big reveal for when his work is complete.

Fast forward a couple of hours. I'm rolling up the used paper from the easel, and something catches my eye. It suddenly dawns on me that he said "secret," not "surprise." Ben draws a lot of planets and rockets and space stuff, but this time he'd drawn an asteroid high in the sky, a stick person labeled "Ian," and the caption:

Astaroyd fall on IAN!

Complete with an arrow indicating the asteroid's path toward his head. Ben undoubtedly hoped Ian would find this suitably menacing, and to a kid who thinks Peter Pan is a documentary, it probably would be.

Ben looked sheepish when I confronted him about drawing fratricidal fantasy threats, but I couldn't bring myself to punish him for something so comical. Nonetheless, the guilt must have weighed on him to some extent, because a little while later he dragged me back to his easel. With a conciliatory grin on his face, he showed me how he'd undone whatever damage he'd hoped to inflict on Ian with a sly amendment. Now the caption read:

Astaroyd fall on IAN! AND BEN

Sometimes wishing for mutual destruction is the closest you can bring yourself to apologizing.

Teddy, bared

This weekend I took the boys to Theodore Roosevelt Island National Memorial, a public park in the middle of the Potomac so tucked away it's nearly impossible to get to. Not that it's terribly far from major roads - a five-lane bridge crosses the southern end of the island - but you need to approach from a certain direction, and if you miss the turn it would take fifteen minutes of backtracking to give it another go.

First of all, Roosevelt Island is part of the District of Columbia, but you can only get there from the Virginia mainland. Obvious, I know. Then there's the fact that it is accessible only from northbound George Washington Parkway, which is a beautiful drive, but one of Washington's least accessible roadways. On top of it all (and what gives the island a modicum of charm), a pedestrian bridge offers the sole point of entry. Something this challenging to reach must be a real treasure, no?

This being Washington, DC, the idea is somewhat greater than the reality. Tedd Roosevelt - great proponent of national parks, icon of the outdoorsman, and mustachioed adventurer - is memorialized not so much with a nature preserve as an island estate gone to seed. Two hundred years ago, John Mason, son of George Mason, cleared much of the island, built a home, and planted a very impressive garden of flowers and fruit trees with little regard to native flora. He left in 1833, however, and you can imagine what 175 years of neglect can do to a garden.

Nowadays the island looks like the backyard of that neighbor everyone wishes would take care of their landscaping for once, but on a grander scale. The human detritus accumulating along the shores is plentiful enough for a dozen Boy Scouts to make Eagle (there's what looks like a washed-out wooden dock at the north end, fer cryin' out loud), and most of the foliage surely started out as weeds.

What TR might find most disappointing is the fact that there is no point on the island that offers an escape from the surrounding urban thrum. Through the leafless branches of Winter, from most of the island you can see the city all around you: the Watergate Hotel to the east, Georgetown to the north, and the gleaming office towers of Rosslyn to the west. The south side is dominated by the aforementioned five-lane bridge, and we didn't explore the path beyond because it was posted with a warning that herbicide had recently been sprayed to keep weeds at bay. Yeah, good luck with that. The coup de grace, however, is the roar of commercial airliners taking off from Reagan National Airport that since 9/11 have been routed directly over Teddy's tiny haven. Central Park offers more isolation.

The Theodore Roosevelt Memorial itself is a bit more impressive, but it too looks neglected. There's a broad plaza encircled by a stagnant moat that gets cleaned every leap year or so, a couple of requisite fountains, and some engraved slabs of granite. The plaza is dominated by a statue of the Man Himself, although he's posed like he's hailing a cab. Teddy would rather be elsewhere.


All that being said, at least it was outdoors, and the boys proved their stamina is increasing by traipsing the full circuit of trails over more than an hour. They liked the boardwalk bridge through the swamp (the entire eastern side of the island, basically), and we actually managed to see some wildlife: a hawk flying low overhead, and a great blue heron that I would have snapped a great picture of if Ian hadn't been, well, Ian. We don't call him "Dear lord, will you please give us a moment of peace and quiet?" for nothing.