Category Archives: parenthood

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Life Lessons from Legoland

What I learned from our latest family fun trip:

  • Do not feed your child and then let them watch a DVD in a hot car if you’re planning on driving like a New York cabbie in rush hour unless you enjoy stripping your child and the contents of your backseat on the streets of LA like a DEA agent with a van full of Colombian drug lords.
  • If you’re going to have someone vomit on you, regurgitated pretzels are the least offensive food item to wear around for a day. In fact, if you forget a sealed bag of clothing coated with regurgitated pretzels in your trunk for a week in the sun, it’s still going to smell mostly like wet pretzels.
  • Children today enjoy long car rides even less than we did when we were rugrats–a bi-product of higher expectations and lower parental fear. So if you lose the ability to lull them into a movie coma (maybe because your youngest keeps trying to coat the DVD player with his stomach contents), expect to spend at least 15 minutes of “no, we’re not there yet, but look at that interesting landmark/car/person/dead animal and tell me which profession/fairy/super hero/Monster high girl you would be” diversionary talk for every two minutes of adult conversation or quiet time, during which you will wax nostalgic about the old days when you could travel with cocktails and a tranquilizer gun.
  • If your child locks themselves in a bathroom stall with a floor to ceiling door, you’re going to spend some quality time in a public restroom, unless you have experience in hostage negotiation and lock picking. At the very least you should always travel with the tools needed to dismantle a bathroom stall and your own personal maintenance man.
  • Husbands and preschoolers need to be fed in 15 minute intervals to prevent grumpiness. Pack your pockets with cereal bars and pizzas. If you can fit a beer in there, even better. However, seven-year old girls require only chocolate and a cute outfit for optimal happiness.
  • If you take a competitive athlete on an amusement park ride with any sort of physical challenge, they may get overly excited, forget they’re in an amusement park and irritate less competitive participants (i.e. the portly, asthmatic gentleman and his sullen grandchild next to you.) However the look of unadulterated joy on your husband’s competitive athlete’s face will be worth it.
  • When using a human shield, one should select a human larger than half your size and not prone to hunching over in fits of giggles.  A shield crumpled at your knees will not prevent your cable-knit sweater from absorbing gallons of stagnant log-ride water.  On a related note, a wet cable-knit sweater will not help prevent hypothermia on a February evening in Carlsbad.
  • Fight the compulsion to finish your child’s dinner and neon-colored dessert unless you enjoy burping up the taste of artificial banana flavored hot dogs for the rest of the night. It is even less delicious than it sounds.
  • Driving through East LA on a Friday night is not a good idea unless you’ve lost the will to live. You will be the only sober driver in your own personal game of Frogger. If you’ve ever seen a two-year old play Grand Theft Auto, then you have a pretty good idea of what to expect from your fellow highway occupants.

[Personal Disclaimer: I don’t personally recommend letting a two-year old play Grand Theft Auto. My children are not permitted to steal cars until they are old enough to vote and do the appropriate jail time.]

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English: Feral cat showing fear, and lack of s...

Traveling with children is like trying to rescue a feral cat in the fast lane of a freeway filled with semi trucks–chances are there will be carnage. At the very least, your outfit is not coming out in one piece. On the other hand, if you survive the ordeal, you’ll laugh about it later over beer and pain reliever. You might even look back on the harrowing event with fondness.

Traveling with Children

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The Way of the Gun

My husband is a ball of personality with a badge and gun—-Mel Gibson circa Lethal Weapon with New England vernacular. To quote Spinal Tap, his amp goes to 11. If he were an accountant he would do taxes while strapped to a bungee cord over train tracks scattered with broken glass. That’s just how he rolls. Living with him is never boring. It does at times require a safety helmet, but it is never boring.

Lethal Weapon

My husband--minus the mullet and antisemitism

As an officer of the law and self proclaimed magnet of the fecal variety, my husband is never without his weapon in close proximity. It is our constant companion, accompanying us on errands and date nights, to the beach and the store, to the loo and to the dinner table (but not without washing its hands first). If I could teach it how to babysit I just might.

(Author’s Note: I wouldn’t actually leave my children under the care of a gun. That would be irresponsible. Without opposable thumbs, how would it ever open my son’s applesauce squeezer?)

The babysitter shot my applesauce.

One of my cherished family memories occurred at the beginning of my marriage when I was first discovering the wide world of manic crafting. During that period of time I terrorized our apartment with my own gun and though only filled with hot glue, my gun was no less menacing to the innocent surfaces within my home. I had more blisters on my fingers than a back alley basehead and if something didn’t possess enough innate self preservation to move out of my way, I feverishly coated it with molten adhesive.

At the height of my craze I glued some marbles to a picture frame—a rookie mistake. A marble is really too heavy and a picture frame too smooth for the two to stay together permanently with just hot glue, but what did I know? I was young and in love and armed with stickum.

One night while laying in bed with my new husband, just relaxing into sleep I heard one of those marbles release from the frame and bounce across our dining area floor.  I was just formulating the thought, ah there goes one of the marbles when my husband leapt nude, but armed with his service weapon, over my head.

I could have at that point shared the fact that the noise was only a wayward marble but I was stunned by the sheer speed and commitment of my husband’s response and also the horror of being nearly bludgeoned by his testicles.  And if we’re being really honest here, maybe I also kept the knowledge to myself because watching a naked man clear each room like a one man Play Girl SWAT team is amusing enough not to want to stop the show.  And he did clear each room just like they do on television, including outside the front door of our apartment (still nude, mind you), pivoting into each entrance with gun poised to fire at any immediate threat.  He did all this while I sat in our bed, weighing the merits of full disclosure versus personal amusement.

I was just accosted by a man with a gun and testicles!

Finally my watch dog husband returned to the bed, and presented the tiny round rabble-rouser for my inspection. I thanked him and took the perpetrating marble into custody with as much solemnity as I could muster.

Ten years later my husband still springs into action in the middle of the night, though now wearing sensible pajamas.  It’s not unusual for him to leap out of bed, peer out the blinds of our bedroom window, grab his gun and exit the room.  At this point, I don’t even bother asking what inspired his call to arms until his return and sometimes, if I’m especially tired I will let myself fall asleep and wait to be debriefed in the morning.

If there is a potential threat within several miles he will hear it.  If someone racks a round two towns over my husband and his gun will be ready.  If raccoons infiltrate our yard or the neighbor comes in at an odd hour, he is alert.

Raccoons at Snug Harbour, Georgian Bay, Ontari...

We've come for your women

One day this late night vigilance will pay off. Our daughter will eventually be a teenager and it is quite possible that my husband will have the opportunity to confront a horny teenage boy and make the poor kid wet his pants. And once again I will be there to diligently record it into my collection of treasured family memories.