mcgees.org

Just because it is one of the most adorable Niall stories to ever grace these screens, I wanted to re-transcribe the previous quote with the proper emphasis, namely, “What do the horses get if they win?”, rather than on ‘horse’.

J:  How’s your smoothie?

N:  Deeeeeeetectable, Daddy!

BTW, the smoothie?  Frozen cranberries, frozen raspberries, frozen banana, orange juice, soy milk, soy protein powder.  I’m going to turn into a VitaMix evangelist pretty soon here.  Let’s see who bids on this ad….

My mom took Niall and me to Santa Anita Racetrack last weekend.  I hadn’t been there in years (like fifteen) and certainly not since it was redone for Seabiscuit.  It’s really a lovely place.  Like The Bellagio, it is some truly gorgeous gilding over an addiction-based economy.  It is magnificently appointed, but very few people there seem to be asking how the owners can afford the upkeep.  They still figure the odds are in their favor in wagering — probably because they have “a system” or “inside information”.

My mom chose that day to go because there was free admission.  We went in and walked towards the General Admission seats.  I told my mom that I wanted to go look around, that I thought we could do better.  I ended up getting free box seats — a box to ourselves.  I felt rather like my dad.

So, we are in the box as the gates are pulled out for the first race.  Niall is thrilled, watching the horses get ready.  The horses leap out of the gates and start heading around the course, and Niall’s eyes are as big as saucers.  He pulls his gaze away from the race for a moment to look at me, and asks:

“What do the horses get if they win?”

Niall and I were waiting at my mother’s house for carpet cleaners to arrive.  The van arrived, was parked in the driveway, and the tech stretched a hose through the front door.

N:  Why is there a big hose?

J:  It’s actually an elephant in the driveway with a really long trunk.

N:  (eyes as big as saucers:) I can’t wait to see it!

J:  Sorry Niall, I was joking.  Did you know I was joking?

N:  No.

J:  I’m sorry.

N:  That’s OK, it was funny.

He’s not pretending.  He’s not just looking at the pictures.  He’s not moving his lips.  He’s not even distractable.  He is, however, five years old.  And he is my boy.

(Email subscribers visit site for image.)

I have a tank of water containing three plastic jellyfish.  Through cleverly-contrived motors, the plastic jellyfish move in lifelike fashion.  To Niall they are beloved pets.  We buy them food at the local aquarium shop.  He always says “hi” to them.

This is the most severely I have ever lied to my son.  There’s no lie even close to this, which makes me extremely uncomfortable about this one whenever he greets the novelty fishtank.

Others in his life have no such qualms.  They lay myth on top of him, thinking that they are giving him charming stories.  Most of the stories are profoundly not charming, and I spend a large portion of my time with Niall trying to undo the Gordian knot of mythos that his grandparents, for instance, see fit to inculcate in him.

Why are they not charming?  Because Niall is hyperintelligent, hypersensitive, and possessing the typical (but still scary) sense of responsibility that frequently accompanies children of his brilliance.

Before the age of five, Niall would pick up every newspaper he saw and start to read it.  Really read it, with total comprehension.  When asked why, he would respond, “I have to make sure that everything is OK in the world.”  Egads.  Niall needn’t be worried about the content of newspapers as a preschooler.  That’s not lying, that’s responsible parenting.  The adults in his life need to take newspapers away from him.  And take myth away from him, I contend.

Of all his myths, he is most captivated — and disturbed — by the Babylonian/Judeo-Christian myth of Noah and the Ark.

In a recent reverie — that’s his default state, much to his teachers’ frustration — he began visibly shaking and was on the brink of tears.  I quickly asked him what was wrong.  He told me that he was “worried about the penguins on Noah’s Ark”, because Noah failed to take any fish onboard, and he was sure that penguins couldn’t go forty days without food.

Funny how this problem occurred to my then-four-year-old and escapes over half the adults in the U.S.

A big part of my education of him is differentiating “stories” from “real life”.  I have used many arguments that I’m rather proud of, but one of the coolest I’ve generated is that stories are fun if we control them and bad if they control us.

And he gets it.  Mostly.  He has come up with a charming alternate world called Character Land, for instance.  In Character Land, he explains, there are no real people, but every character (yes, he uses that word) from stories lives there.

I love this.  I was creating worlds by his age, too, and they are great tools for imagination — far better than those insipid, preachy, parochial Thomas the Tank Engine stories he likes.  I encourage him in this pursuit, and ask very leading questions.  Such as: “Wow!  So Nemo, Pooh, and Noah all live there?”

“Noah from the ark?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Um, yes!” he responds.

Which is all very good until the next weekend I see him, by which point he has either forgotten my tutelage or been reinfected by sharp-clawed religionists.

So, parents: really, really, really think about the content of the stories you are ladening your children with.  Just because we were raised on them doesn’t mean you need to pass on the memes.  I am sure you don’t want your children to lie awake at night asking, “Why did God turn her into salt for looking at something?  Why did the woman amputate the tails of three disabled rodents with a carving knife?  Why is a fat man going to give little boys and girls lumps of dirty coal for Christmas if they’re naughty?”

To close with Thoreau, my son’s middle-namesake: “It is never too late to give up our prejudices.  No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.”

Niall:  Daddy, what time of the year is it?

Joshua:  You mean, what season is it?

Niall:  Yes.

Joshua:  It’s winter.

Niall:  [visibly upset:]  Again?!  It was winter before!  The twenty-nine days of January have passed!

(Poor little guy.  He has expressed to me worry that it won’t ever get to be summer, that he will not get a chance to go in the pool ever again, and said to Jenn he’s worried he won’t get to go see another football [i.e., MLS soccer] match with Daddy if winter doesn’t end.)

I am ill.  I am under the weather.  I am out of sorts.  I am avec cold.

I am sick as a dog.  And I am miserable.

I am having trouble breathing, have post-nasal drip, headaches, cough, pre-cankerous blooms inside my mouth (which are going to get much worse before they get any better), massive allergic symptoms, whole body ache (different from normal), fever,  and — get this — pronounced knee and thigh pain.

Niall has a constellation of symptoms strongly correlating to mine, including the leg pain, bizarrely.

We each started showing symptoms on the same day: two days ago, on Wednesday.  We had spent the preceding weekend together.  There is no solid proof of who infected whom, but assuming it was one of us to the other of us, and given that I spend my days immersed in high-tech culture while he spends his days immersed in germ culture, it is not difficult to surmise who is more prone to rhinovirus and influenza, and who is more prone to Michaelangelo and Concept.

I’m actually sick enough that I’ve asked Jenn to keep Niall with her over the weekend.  There’s no way I can be single parent and keep up with Niall this weekend feeling like this.

If I were not already disabled, I would have taken today off work.

Blech.  Ouch.  Blech.

I really hate insomnia, but never more than when it promises to decrease the joy I can have with my son the next day.  Er, later this day.  In about two hours.

Short sleep last night, no nap, a couple glasses of wine — I thought I was sitting pretty for a long winter’s nap.  But I have barely blinked.

If anyone has been calling me, by the way, I can’t answer it.  My phone was lost, then disabled as a security precaution, a replacement was ordered, the passive voice was used, and then the missing phone was discovered — which now belongs to the insurance company.  I’m wondering exactly how many days I should wait before someone miraculously “returns my missing phone” to me, to send it to the insurance company, so I won’t look like a total wanker.

I’m not hurting too badly right now.  I can probably take some more ibuprofen for the mild discomfort.  But I really wish I could just lie down and become unconscious.  Restfully, REMmingly, unconscious.  I’m writing train-of-thought right now, and hoping it will tire me so that I can go and collapse into bed.  I’m not actually alert enough to do anything really thought-intensive, like code or write cogently, just alert enough to stay awake.

Thanks to everyone for your support of late.  It’s much needed, and much appreciated.  So much so, that you can consider this a personal letter to you.

I’ll even sign it,

- Joshua

I’ve got a car
I’ve got some gas
Let’s get out of here
Get out of here fast

You don’t have to pack your things
We’ll make it up as we go along
I want to go, but I don’t want
To go
Alone

When my alarm went off at 5:45 this morning, it woke both of us.

I went into Niall’s room and told him it was time to go to school.

“I don’t want to go to school!” he cried.  “I want to stay with you!  This is where I live!”

I got him dressed, fed him, and took him to school.  Upon arrival, we went and put his bags in his cubbyhole.  I asked him for a big hug to hold me over until Saturday, as I wouldn’t see him before then.  He gave me a long, strong hug, then stood straight with his hands behind his back, his eyes filled with tears.

“Do you want to go see your teacher?” I asked.

He shook a little.  “No.  I just want to stand here for a little bit.”

I’ll write more, in spurts, as I develop the will — but the worst part about this, so far, is having to pretend, for Jenn’s sake, that her leaving is a joint decision and for the best.  It is not a joint decision.  I did not want my son kidnapped away from me, and my table scraps of visitations to be at the discretion of Jennifer, as if this were her right alone to decree.

I wonder right now if I am making the biggest mistake of my life not fighting harder, and letting this happen.  I wonder what I’m supposed to do.  I don’t want to make this any uglier, but Niall is way too perceptive not to be deeply hurt by everything that’s going on, and he’s my son.  In fifteen years, will he hate me for not taking a stronger stand on this, or will he understand that I did the best I thought I could at the time, trying not to sabotage Jennifer while trying to love my son?  I don’t know.  God.  I don’t know.

I’ve had Niall since Saturday afternoon.  I drop him at school tomorrow.  As the seconds go by, I get more and more frantic about squeezing every last moment from the time with him.

We were listening to a random music mix, and G’n'R’s Yesterdays came on the rotation, which has the lyric “Yesterday’s got nothing for me.”

Niall’s eyes brimmed with tears, and he turned to me and said, “There’s nothing for me either, without you.”

However justified Jenn was in leaving to get on with her life — the appropriateness could be as high as 100% — the decision left a body count.

Niall:  Do we have a place in the house where we keep empty bottles?

Joshua:  Yes, in the kitchen.

N:  Why haven’t you taken these bottles in?

(Note to reader: I drive a luxury car, but I keep it like I live in it.  No, scratch that.  People who live in their cars have clutter, but it’s probably useful clutter, like clothes.  They’re probably good custodians.  I keep my car’s interior as if I let a schizophrenic homeless woman live in it.  A schizophrenic homeless woman who panhandles for Clamato.)

N:  Your car is very messy, Dad.

J:  Yeah, I know.  I’m not setting a very good example, am I?

N:  When we get to Grandma’s house, let’s take all this trash in.

J:  No, it would be rude to take all this into Grandma’s house.

N:  Why?  (Lightbulb:) Sometimes Grandma gets grumpy when you’re rude.  (I hope and believe he was doing the American thing of using “you” as the third-person indefinite, not the second-person definite.)

J:  Yeah.  I’ll clean it out when I get to our house.

(Upon arriving at my in-laws and opening the trunk:)

N:  Dad, you have cans in your trunk.

(Did I mention the bag lady also joneses for Monster drinks?)

J:  Yes.

N:  Your car is very messy!

J:  Niall, please stop.

Niall:  (From the backseat:) Where is your side flying car person lever switch?

(Pause.  Usually his Foster Wallaceisms are parsable with enough work.  Nope, bailing!)

Joshua:  What?

N:  Do you have a side flying car lever switch?  I like to look at it while I’m riding in the car.

J:  What are you talking about?  What lever?

N:  A sideways flying car lever!  Does your car not go on wheels?

J:  No, it goes on wheels.

N:  Where’s the sideways flying car lever switch?

J:  What does that do when you pull it?

N:  It’s a switch, Daddy.

J:  OK, what happens when you flip it?

N:  The car goes up.

J:  What, like, up in the air?

N:  Yes, up in the air, up behind the sun and behind the sky!  Do you have a straw on the bottom of your car?

J:  No.

N:  The straw helps you go up.

J:  Niall, cars don’t fly.

N:  Not without the switch!

J:  Have you ever been in a car with the switch?

N:  Yes.

J:  Has anyone ever flipped it?

N:  No.

J:  Why not?

N:  (In a tone he may have learned from my dealings with sub-literate customer service operators:) Because then you go up behind the sky!

J:  Oh, sorry.  And that’s not convenient?

N:  No, that’s not convenient.

This is one of three planned Niall posts for today, split apart for your commenting convenience and reading inconvenience.  They are presented in chronological order of how they happened, all on the same drive from home to his maternal grandparents’ in Orange County.

Joshua:  Whoa!  That black car just did something illegal!

Niall:  What did it do?

J:  It crossed a double double-yellow line.  When there are four yellow lines, you can’t cross it.

N:  (Genuinely puzzled:) Why can’t you cross four yellow lines?

(Bravo!  Most kids would have accepted this as some magic of the color and number.  But his razor-sharp reason kicked in again and dispelled the magical thinking.)

J:  Actually, it works the other way: in some places you are not allowed to cross, and in those places they paint two double-yellow lines to let you know.

N:  Why did that car cross them?

(He’s fascinated by motives for disobedience.)

J:  Because that driver thought getting to his destination quickly was more important than being safe.

N:  Is getting there quickly more important than being safe?

J:  (Father-knows-best tone:) No.  Nothing is as important as being safe.

N:  No!

J:  No what?

N:  Being safe is not the most important thing.

(Well, yeah, I don’t believe that either.  And I was just caught trying to brainwash my four-year-old by the subject himself.  Shame on me.)

J:  What’s the most important thing?

N:  CEMENT TRUCKS!

(And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason that, despite powerful reasoning, he’s not allowed to hold the soldering iron yet.)

Niall:  What’s a skirt?

Joshua:  It’s like a kilt for girls.

I picked up Niall today.  He saw me and, as usual on the days I pick him up, shouted “Daddy!”, and came running over.  After a hug, he went to his cubbyhole and gave me a big piece of paper.

N:  I was thinking about you today so I drew a picture of you and me together.

J:  Who’s face is that at the top?

N:  That’s you!

J:  What’s that at the bottom?

N:  Those are your legs.  (Looks in the middle, and gets pained expression:)  I forgot to draw your awams.

J:  Oh, that’s fine, Niall!  It’s a beautiful picture!

N:  (Handing me the small one:)  And here’s me!

N:  (Upon receiving a snack:)  Daddy, what are Lifesaver Gummies?

J:  Gelatinized or pectinized fruit juice.  Juice and sugar in a hydrocolloidal substrate.

N:  (Pause)  Mommy, what are Lifesaver Gummies?

(Tadcu, cue Dave Lolliger story.)

Niall has been sick with a bad cold.  I took him to the doctor on Friday.  He was absolutely perfect, with tea party manners.

Dramatis Personae:
N: Niall
Dr: Pediatrician
J: Joshua

(Doctor enters)

N:  I am here today because I have a cold.  Is this the right doctor for a cold?

Dr:  Yes, this is the right doctor.  I’m Dr. Musavelar.

N:  My name is Niall.  That’s spelled N-I-A-L-L.  How is your name spelled?

Dr:  You can call me “Sadah” [ph].  That’s spelled S-A-D-A-T.  (Holds light up:)  Do you know what this is?

N: ???

J:  Remember, it’s to look in your ears.

Dr: May I look in your ears?

N: (Timidly) OK.  (Clenches face, squeezes eyes shut, and grits his teeth, but remains absolutely still.)

OK, precious enough?  On the ride home, he saw a sign that said “Dentistry” (he’s four.)

N:  Daddy, do you know what a dentist is?

J:  What is it?

N:  A dentist is a kind of doctor who counts your teeth.

He has signs of the early onset of pneumonia in his right lung, BTW.  If you post here, I’ll pass on your best wishes.

Sneaky way to get lots of good stuff into a four-year-old:  Juice together

* 4 carrots
* 1 orange, peeled
* 1 grapefruit, peeled
* 1 Fuji apple
* 1 orange bell pepper

Very sweet, very yummy, very orange, and gets the nutrients of a ripe bell pepper into his system, which otherwise would be very difficult.

Niall, to Jenn:  Do you like sweet gopher poop?

Jenn:  Er, no.

Joshua:  Mommy only likes sour gopher poop.

Niall, to Jenn:  Do you like sour gopher poop?

Jenn:  I really don’t like any gopher poop.

Niall:  Have you tried gopher poop?

Jenn:  Er, no.

Niall:  How do you know you don’t like gopher poop if you’ve never tried it?

N: Were you spraying ants?

J:  Yes.

N:  Why were there ants in the house?

J:  Because it rained.

N:  Why are there ants in the house when it rains?

J:  Do you like our roof?

N:  Yes.

J:  So do the ants.

N:  Why?

J:  Because a raindrop is very big for an ant.

N:  Why?

J:  Are ants big?

N:  Yes.

J:  They’re big?

N:  Yes.

J:  Really?

N:  Well — some ants, like Mommy and Daddy ants, are big.

I’m not entirely sure what he was imitating (I have guesses), but Niall laid out all of his toy foods and went grocery shopping.

“I need a hot dog,” he said.  He picked one up, and in sincere mock adult horror, he cried, “I can’t have this one!  This one is twenty dollars!”

He picked up another, identical toy hot dog.  “I can buy this one,” he says with relief.  “This one’s one dollar.”

Niall is getting very close to declaring his personal vegetarianism.  I’ve been wondering if he would, and kind of expecting that he would, but trying not to push him.  He is a very sensitive soul, and the recent business with the cats has exposed him to death for really the first time, and he can generalize pain now, so the layout is pretty straightforward from here.

He has told me before that he eats fish, but not real fish.  Then he told me that he doesn’t eat fish with faces (this is, I swear, completely unprompted.)  Last night I ordered dinner for him.  He was asking me what I had eaten before.  He asked me if I had eaten a ‘gator.

N:  A real ‘gator?!?

J:  Yes.

N:  A whole ‘gator?!?

J:  No.

N:  And have you eaten fish?

J:  Yes.  So have you.

N:  (Big pause.)  Real fish?

J:  Yes.  When you eat fish, you’re eating real fish.  Usually.

N:  Have you eaten really big fish?

J:  Sometimes.  But I try not to eat many big fish.

N:  Why?

J:  Because there aren’t very many of them, and if we eat them all, they’ll be gone.

N:  Gone?

J:  Yes.  If we eat them up.  But Mommy doesn’t eat any fish.

N:  Why?

J:  I think because she doesn’t want to hurt the fish.

N:  It hurts the fish?

J:  Well, yes.  But I don’t think fish hurt too much.  (Alan Rickman intones in the background, “The benefits of a Nirvana education.”)

N:  (Hard drive grinding, grinding, grinding away.  He’s far away.  Then the light comes back on.)  I don’t want to hurt ammamulls.

J:  Not cows?

N:  No.

J:  Not pigs?

N:  No.

J:  Not birds?

N:  No.

J:  Not fish?

N:  No!

J:  OK, then that’s being called a vegetarian.  You can tell people that, or just tell them that you don’t eat animals.

N:  (Trying it out.)  I don’t eat ammamulls.

J:  OK.

N:  (With determination.)  But I do eat things made from ammamulls.

J:  The animal has to die for you to make food from it.

N:  You have to die the animals?

J:  Yes.

N:  You have to die the animals?

J:  Yes.

N:  How do they die the animals?

J:  (OK, really didn’t want it to come to this.  So forgive me for this one, Jenn.)  Well, usually they shoot them in the head.

N:  They shoot them in the head?

J:  Yes.  Cows, anyway.

N:  I don’t want to hurt cows.

J:  OK.

N:  I don’t eat ammamulls.

J:  OK.

N:  (With determination.)  But I do eat things made from ammamulls.

J:  OK.

Niall has two sets of favorite music.  System of a Down — seriously, System of a Down — and the most banal set of children’s CDs that someone started calling “Children’s Music” to him.  The latter are insipid, major-key jaunts on a Casio and nylon-stringed guitar, with a bad tenor and a bunch of breathy children singing the most profoundly weird songs.

I loathe them.  I would have said, under other circumstances, that the producers should slip under a freight train for producing, distributing, and charging for these, but Niall really, really does like it, and sometimes likes the same song over and over again.  Annoying, but not quite as annoying as his screaming his head off in the car.  Usually.

One time, Jenn and I were driving along listening to one of these atrocious CDs, and I began questioning the surrealistic lyrics in progressively off-color but G-rated fashion.  Jenn was laughing for a while, then chuckling.  But the one that got her to snap was the following:

Song: Did you ever see a lassie, a lassie, a lassie?  Did you ever see a lassie go this way and that?

Me: Is this one about a girl who goes both ways?

Jenn: STOP!

I was watching Niall today.  A couple of cute stories:

We were talking, and to say a silly word, I said “Aardvark”.  He didn’t know what an aardvark is, which is reasonable.  I asked him, and he came up with a creative answer.  He held up a yellow rain boot, and explained that an aardvark is a kind of shoe, and described some of its characteristics.  I told him it was an animal and asked him if he’d like to see a picture.  He did, and he thought it was cool.

I asked him to guess what it ate.  I forget his guess, but I told him that it mostly ate ants and termites.  Our exchange follows:

N:  Can I eat ants and termites?

J:  Well, they’re really not the best food for little boys.

N:  Why?

J:  Well, some people do eat ants.  Sometimes they cover them in chocolate.  It’s just that they’re better food for aardvarks.

N:  Can I have chocoloate-covered ants?

J:  Maybe.

N:  Can I have chocolate-covered ants today?

J:  That may be beyond my powers of procurement.

N:  How about a chocolate-covered cookie?

—————————

Then, we were playing:

N:  Can you put you on your shoulders?

J:  Can I put me on my shoulders?

N:  No.  Can you put me on my shoulders.

J:  Can I put you on your shoulders?

N:  No!  Can you put me on your shoulders?

J:  Yes.

Pronouns are hard.

Jenn and I had just switched places, Jenn replacing me under Niall’s nylon pup-tent shaped like a locomotive.  Niall was the other occupant.  Jenn is claustrophobic.

“I’m kind of freaking out in here,” Jenn says to me.

“Why?” Niall overhears.

“Your mommy doesn’t like closed spaces.  Your daddy does.”  A pause.  “When daddy goes cave exploring, do you want to go with him?”

He looks at me and regards me carefully for fully ten seconds.  He doesn’t want to disappoint me.  “Ummm.  Ummm.  There might be bears.  I’m not sure if I want to go.”

Jenn and I exchange startled looks.

“That’s true,” she says.  “Sometimes bears do live in caves.”

Suddenly he’s not sure if we’re pulling his leg or not.

“Silly!” he accuses.  “Bears aren’t real!”

“Oh, yes, they’re quite real,” Jenn explains.  “In the sense that they are actual animals living on the planet.”

“Yes, bears aren’t monsters, they are real animals,” I elaborate.

A puzzled look.  “Why?”

I think about that for a second.  It’s a really good question.  Why are bears real?  Not, “Why did they evolve?” but “Why did humans allow carnivorous, predatory, terrestrial megafauna to survive into the 21st century?”  A fitting question for Jared Diamond.  Were bears just too ferocious, too tenacious, or too remote, maybe?

I was hanging out with Niall tonight (my son, aged three) and I was, with no particular purpose, singing, “Pop goes the weasel.”

Niall matches my inflection and tune, and sings, “Down goes the hooker.”

My head spins around.  “WHAT did you just say?”

“Down goes the hooker.”

So I adjust myself to see what he has in his hands.  He has a toy tractor with a winch and line, on the end of which is a hook.  He’s lowering it down.  The hooker.  Down it goes.  The hooker.

So here I go, passing it on to you, and getting my site blocked by family filters, because of a toy tractor and a semantically-confused three-year-old.

…so here is a link.