Logic and Reason never brought me candy or presents

My now 7-year-old son D- (I really need to update my masthead...) is at that age where he views Logic and Reason as his own all-powerful keys to unlock the secrets of childhood that adults often-unintentionally guard so fiercely.

And yet, at the same time, advanced as he is in the twin arts of Sarcasm and Skepticism, he can't quite resist the pull of childish naivete. He's the kind of kid (much like myself back then) who doesn't "really" believe in Santa, but who feels compelled to make a calculated hedge against the possibility of facing the huge downside of a disappointed, vengeful St. Nick.

Because of this swirling sea of uncertainty, the following exchange between D- and his 4-year-old sister M-, taken from a larger stream of chit-chat about school and life on our way home one afternoon, was obviously quite agonizing for him. (I've abbreviated some of the pauses and excluded descriptions of his pained facial contortions, for your own sanity in reading through it.)

M-: We have a TV in our [preschool] room, too, up REALLY high. That's where Snowflake was sitting one time.

D-: Who's Snowflake?

M-: The elf who was hiding around our classroom... right before it was Christmastime. You can't touch him, though, or he'll lose his magic.

D-: Wellll, that can't be right, because you guys had to touch him to put him up there.

M-: No! He FLEW up there, by himself, at night.

D- (thinking hard about this): Wait... was this in a movie?

M-: No, it was in my class, for real. He's really magic, and he hides all over the room! You can't touch him, or he loses his magic.

D- (thinking again, then making absolutely sure): .....So, was this ON the TV, like a movie or a show?

M-: No! It really happened, to me, in my classroom, at Christmastime. For real.

D- (thinking some more): ...And you said his name was Snowflake?

She had of course discussed this, as you might imagine, in depth at Christmastime, but he was apparently too hopped up on Yuletide hysteria then to pay any attention.

It's also worth noting that during this conversation, she didn't even mention what these "magic powers" are, nor did she allude to the elf's supposed occupation as Spy for Santa. "Magic" speaks for itself, I guess.

I can't help but picture that once he was as sold as he could be on the idea, he was immediately plotting how to capture it and extract its secrets.*

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* These days, whether pirates, leprechauns, or odd-looking kittens are in question, "secrets" should be read as "Goooooooooold!"

That was my trick, now here's the treat

Well, as I'm sure you noticed, this past week was a bust for posting-- Blogger was all messed up.

Did I say Blogger? I meant The blogger.

So, to try to make it up to you, I'll post some hypnotic pictures of the kids today, and some thoughts I'd wanted to include in a pre-Halloween post Wednesday. We can all pretend I'm really organized and planned it this way from the beginning.

See the children, love the children, forgive their father.... and then give him all your candyyyyy...

...This scam's working so well, I'm gonna pull my patented Overreach Maneuver:

Weren't my posts last week the most hilarious ever?

They were so good I took them down, printed and bound them, and now I'm waiting for the Library of Congress to beg me to submit them.

That's why you don't see any posts dated during the past week.

And incidentally, these aren't the droids you're looking for.



They are, however, Peter Pan and, for the second straight year, Tinkerbell. I'll point to my creation of the Peter Pan costume from scratch as one reason for my rumored inability to post last week (which as we established is false), even though I bought the supplies Thursday afternoon and cut/sewed/etc. it all Thursday night so he could wear it to school on Friday.*

Because that's how stupid I am. Or awesome, depending on how you feel about legendary procrastination.

By the way, before you think I'm one of those parents who seeks to turn the world into my own little puppet show, no, I did not coordinate the kids' costumes. D- was a pirate two years ago and in remembering that, he made the jump to Peter Pan for this year, while M-'s imagination was just limited to the idea of being Tinkerbell because that's all she can remember (from last year) when she thinks of Halloween. And she's very stubborn, so she just put last year's costume on for one last run.

Next year I hope she easily accepts the fact that the costume will be too small, and she'll agree to be something else. Like the Incredible Hulk. One day, please God, one day, I want to see her in an Incredible Hulk costume, because I don't think I can imagine a more fitting one.

---

* Sunday through Wednesday, I was visualizing and planning the costume 24 hours a day. Yeah, that's the ticket...

Classic quotes, Vol. 15

Here is a selection of recent quotes from my 5-year-old son D-, 2-year-old daughter M-, my wife J-, and me:

M- (out of the blue, answering J-'s generic question about whether she's excited to grow up): Yes, I want to get bigger so I can wear a bwah!*

Me (squinting without glasses in the shower as I speak to the kids with an accusatory but unsurprised tone, pointing right by my foot): Hey guys, is that poop?? (picking it up) ...Oh, no, it's just a tiny carrot peel and a bunch of brown thread.**

M- (smiling as she tastes a jar of banana puree I found in the cabinet from the days before she could offer such eloquent food criticism): This has a good fway-vor!

D- (as a deep-voiced Incredible Hulk, apparently learning to channel his powers into productive areas): ... I would ask some workers about knocking down an old building, then I'd say, 'I'm The Green Hulk!' and smash it down to pieces! Smash it to pieces for them with punching!!

M- (holding a piece of butterfly-printed fabric around herself): I have a butterfly belt, cause I'm a butterfly! ...pirate.

---

* I have a troubled feeling she's going to stay ahead of the curve into adulthood, bringing home bounties of drama and strife every day from third grade on.

** I ended up forgetting it on the shelf of the shower, so a bleary-eyed J- got to share the pleasure of the same dilemma the next morning.

Now where did I put carousel #15?

Well, I never promised anything world-changing, did I?

While I wouldn't put it past me, I don't believe I did, so I have no guilt in presenting you with the equivalent of a vacation slideshow*. So here's a little something for those who've expressed a desire to see more pictures on my blog.

As for the rest of you, now that I've trapped you here fair and square, I declare you must feel too awkward to get up and leave, so you will just sit and endure it.

Since we were camped** right next to a lake, we spent a fair amount of time either in the water or begging to be so:


And since we were in a rural area, some of us also spent some time discharging firearms*** for recreation and education:
Partially pictured in the background is our thus-far-unmentioned family friend, "Incredibly Huge Pile of Guns".

When not splashing or shooting, we also did a fair amount of demolishing the landscape in a rented super-SUV, and whilst doing so we were forced to entertain ourselves any way possible:

If the opportunity arises the next time you are on a long-distance car trip with small children, I highly recommend stopping at any restaurant that features mini-merry-go-round rides for a quarter:
Note that because M- was discharging her baby-energy battery, no camera in the world, nor the human eye, could have caught this shot without some amount of blurring.

Better yet, next time you are on such a trip, try to get the kids to do this as much as possible:

* My vacation slideshows would strike most people as odd, I think, because I don't take many pictures, and I almost never take landscapes or tourist attractions-- I could just buy postcards if I wanted that, and I can't imagine the purpose of a vacation is to keep to a rigorous schedule of Standing in Front of Famous Things for Pictures, anyway.

** Not real camping-- cabin camping. With plumbing, electricity, and everything.

*** Don't worry, all you people-like-J- out there, he only watched/listened/surprised-himself-by-becoming-bored-out-his-skull.

Museum of Natural Hilarity

Hello and welcome, visitors from Camp Candid Carrie's latest field trip-- thanks for coming by! My name is LiteralDan, and I'll be showing you around today.
I see that most of you have brought bag lunches, and I want to assure you that I do not hold this against you whatsoever. There is no chance at all that the museum will have to close due to budget shortfalls and rising expenses for the cafeteria, where we provide high-quality, delicious meals at affordable prices. We've arranged a nice little picnic area for you all away from our pesky paying lunchers out near our beautiful, brand-new Dumpsters.

Before we move on to our tour, I think you should know a few important things:
1. Under no circumstances do I appreciate sarcasm.
2. I do not particularly like children, so please refrain from behaving as such during your time in our esteemed facility.
3. Forbidden topics for questions include the infamous Three Foulest Subjects in the World: feces, violence, and pirates.

Now that we've got that out of the way, follow me to our major exhibits on Human Behavior, Art, Hygiene, Masculinity, Computers, and Insectophobia. As we go, please notice our list of Departments to the right, as well as our Blogroll of partner museums of equal educational value.

And of course, we wouldn't be a respectable non-profit educational organization if we didn't encourage you all to visit our gift shop!


Editor's Note: As one or two of you may have guessed, that picture is not actually of me, but rather a common garden gnome.* I'm sorry for toying with you like that.

* In case the sight of this gnome got you all excited to discuss your favorite imaginary creatures, I will do my best to point you towards some other classic mythological figures covered here: leprechauns, Cinderella, dentists, Super Mario, stay-at-home dads, and zombies.

The one-eyed monster

For those of you who are new, who may have missed the earlier posts, or who just want to amuse themselves again at my expense should read my accounts of my 1-year-old daughter's attempt to blind me before continuing with this post.

Having had some time to think this all over, aided by TerriRainer's continuously referring to me as One-Eyed Dan for the past several weeks, and after becoming sick of seeing the old Draft post I had filled with unused one-liners and other tidbits from those two posts, I've decided to close the book on this traumatizing chapter of my life in one explosion of randomness.

I have come to believe that this assault was not an accident but rather a well-disguised act of revenge for my not having a bottomless supply of Goldfish crackers, about which M- had protested and threatened about a week before the attack. See me ignorantly passing along her blatant warning at the end of this post of quotes from our house.

Further supporting this theory is the fact that the assailant may be starting to feel her Sicilian blood. She comes from a people with a documented history of serving their revenge as cold as gelato, with all-natural marinara, shall we say.* Due to my side of the family, she also comes from a people known for drunken brawling, but guess which is the bigger threat in the long run?

In my time spent pondering the implications of all this, I've decided that I should probably wear an eyepatch over my remaining eye as a preventative measure. And actually, for the sake of the continuing recovery of my tender injured eye, I think I'll just go all-out and wear two.

Another quandary is that, as the world's newest Cyclops, would my arch-nemesis be Odysseus or Magneto? Or both? "Damn you, you sheep-stealing evil mutant mastermind!!" Nah.

I think that choice is decided by the fact that Odysseus has long since passed over the River Styx**-- I'm forced to go with Magneto. This means that from now on, I'll officially be lying in wait for the chance to sucker punch Sir Ian McKellan right in the throat.

Until that blessed day, however, I'll have to continue running through wistful montages in my head-- things I've seen with two eyes; my unblemished face while looking at stuff; me laughing at something undetermined with two good eyes (montages always include laughing scenes); me staring blankly at a computer for much of the day, blinking occasionally without an eye-injury-related care in the world; and so on.

The caption for all these montages would boil down to something like this (be sure to use your happy memory voice): "Remember all those times I looked at stuff and was able to more accurately judge its approximate distance from my face by using the impressions from more than one eye to create a composite image with reliable scale in proportion to said distance? Those were good times."

I was a fool to not see that back then. I was also a fool to not see the frisbee D- threw at my face the other day.

* That sounds disgusting, and yet it makes me hungry nonetheless.
** Domo ari-ga-to, Mis-ter Ro-bot-o.***
*** You're welcome. Now go enjoy the rest of your day irritating people with the awe-inspiring genius of Mr. Dennis DeYoung.

Editor's Note: Notice that I went through this whole post of tidbits without once mentioning pirates. It's just too obvious, and you know how I hate obvious humor.

Copy Editor's Note: Editor's Notes don't count as part of a post.

Not exactly a glass slipper, but it'll do

Let this post serve as a fitting tribute this Memorial Day to all those comical, non-threatening pirates who have fallen over the years in service to our amusement.

To continue my service to those lucky folks who will become new parents in the future, I forewarn you of yet another type of event you may surprisingly come to know as pretty normal.

Just as your daughter will undoubtedly one day attempt to blind you in one eye just to see you wear an eyepatch (she fails), she will continue her apparent obsession with pirate accoutrement by fashioning herself a peg leg out of whatever material is handy, up to and including your cup.*

To be fair to your future children, in their defense, you did leave that cup out. Why wouldn't you expect to get a little foot in it? Come on-- you're better than that.

Furthermore, should you go on to create a blog publicly mocking your children, even if you think you can't come up with a post on a day when you get to sleep in past noon, just relax, and inspiration will come... inspiration will come.


* To J-, who is currently working out over at my parents' house: in case you're enjoying a refreshing beverage later until you realize your cup smells like feet, here's proof it was the baby's fault, not mine. This time.

Silver lining: Monocles are cooler than glasses

Continuing with yesterday's post about the probable complete loss of my right eye, now that I'm presumably a bit more composed, I'll say in M-'s defense that she had been supposedly coming over to give me a hug (which, to complete the ruse, was telegraphed by a call of " 'ug! 'ug!!") and she ostensibly just got a bit carried away.

This particular snake puppet is naturally made of pretty rigid plastic, including a potent little forked tongue that apparently comes factory-equipped with a hunger for fresh corneas. Well, I can assure you that this was one happy little snake, because he got his fill that day of his favorite flavor.

I had been sitting on the floor with the kids, so after the assault, I simply laid down with my hand over my eye, wishing awful, awful things on most of the world (nothing personal, by the way). J-, being a self-trained EMT as well as a teacher, calmly took charge of the situation by remaining on the couch and asking if I was okay between bouts of hearty laughter. I refused to answer, instead just laying there breathing slowly through gritted teeth.

D- then decided to try his hand at crisis management by leaning over my still-covered snakebit eye and asking (in a very tender voice), "You okay? Where does it hurt?" Even in that moment I recognized the sweetness, as well as the fact that through his previous injury experience we have programmed our robot well. However, in my pointless anger (you get used to this feeling after dealing with babies), the latter question seemed so colossally stupid that I couldn't bring myself to answer without undeserved sarcasm, so I just stayed silent like my mother taught me.

J- made sure M- said sorry (pronounced, as always, "Rah-zhee"), but that girl was remarkably jolly during the whole ordeal, due to the undeniable fact that she still had this awesome snake head on her finger, dripping precious drops of scleral fluid as it forever will whenever I close my eye.

This previously useless little goody bag prize had been blessed that day to discover its two Special Purposes within the same hour-- first to pounce upon all human eyes in reach as an attempt to level the playing field for the animal kingdom, and second to give great joy to 15-month-olds for whole minutes at a time (an eternity) while inspiring them to practice their maniacal laughs (I kid you not-- priceless). During these exultations, M- several times reached her new weapon towards the Baby Gods* in thanks and tribute, a la He-Man and his Power Sword, until she reached a height of about 31 inches, at which time she fell over backwards from stretching too far.

Much of the charm of this display, and almost all of the visuals, were lost on me at the time as I lay there quietly suffering, or I might have been able to capture some pictures. I'm a little wary, as you might imagine, of reuniting these two powerful entities in the interests of re-creating the moment, because I fear she might quickly scuttle up my front, sit on my shoulders, and repeatedly stab me in the left eye to finish the job she started this weekend. Or at least that's the vision my Dream Shaman showed me sometime last night, just before I woke up to the eerily appropriate sound of D- crying.

So that's the story of what happened-- I can discuss the fallout (regrets, memories, plans for the future, etc.) tomorrow or the next day, and then I'm sure I'll be done talking about my eyeballs for the rest of my life. Or at least the next month or so.


* Copyright hereby claimed for all derivative works and toy/book/other licensing. Any similarities to The Muppet Babies are entirely coincidental though probably advisable.

Editor's Note: The saga continues, believe it or not, here.

I didn't need that eye, anyway

Let me start by wishing all you mothers out there a Happy Mother's Day. It's probably belated, since I'm sure most of you won't read this until tomorrow, unless one of your well-deserved selfish activities for today is to read all the blogs you want in peace. If that's the case, good for you!

If I sound like I'm typing this with only one eye, I'll just say that you, sir or madam, are exceedingly perceptive.

Furthermore, I'll assume you are sympathetic and genuinely want to know more details of how I came to be this way. Addressing your first point, I wish to express my gratitude but to offer pettily that it doesn't quite make the pain go away, and addressing your second point, I can certainly find it in me to indulge you with my tale of woe, spun as well as I can muster in my present state:

My own daughter stabbed me in the f***ing eye with a novelty snake-head finger puppet.

...More tomorrow, if I survive.