Kids.

During a normal week, my and Susan’s parenting duties can divided up into slices of a pie chart, sorted here from “most often” to “least often”:

– Both of us with both kids.
– Susan with both kids.
– Each of us with one kid.
– Me with both kids.

Of course when Susan goes out of town, the pie chart turns one solid color. “Daddy with both kids. 100%.” That usually makes for some interesting times and conversations.

One day this week, Mason lost his coat. He said he left it at either Open Door or in his classroom. We searched both places and couldn’t find it. The next day, it turned up — in his own backpack.

Last week, Mason brought home a book called “Miss Nelson is Missing!”, a book about a teacher who calls in sick and is replaced by a real witch. The subject reminded me of a book I read back in grade school (“Thirteen Ways to Sink a Sub”) and so I told Mason if he would pick it up from the Shedeck Library, I would read it to him. Then we had the following conversation.

Mason: We don’t have that book at school.
Me: How do you know?
Mason: Because our library doesn’t have books like that.
Me: Your library doesn’t have books like what?
Mason: They don’t have books like the one you said.

I told Mason to ask the librarian about the book the next time he went there. He did, they had it, he checked it out, and last night we read the first chapter together.

Then there was the e-mail I got from Mason’s teacher on Wednesday that said for the first time ever, she was having some behavior problems with Mason. The problems apparently revolved around (A) not listening to the teacher and (B) playing rough with other kids. I asked him about it when we got home and he basically wouldn’t talk about it and sulked the rest of the night. Thursday was Shedeck Skate Night at Yukon on Wheels, so here’s what I decided to do. I got out a few sheets of paper. At the top of one I wrote, “I will be nicer to my friends.” At the top of the second I wrote, “I will be a better listener.” I told him to write each sentence 10 times and that we would give it to his teacher the next day. No sentences, no skate night.

Mason spent the next half an hour whining, crying, pouting, and drawing. In the middle of the paper where he was supposed to be writing, he drew a picture of himself crying. In other places he drew a Wiimote, some fire, and the Devil (no doubt, supposed to be me). On one page he managed to squeak out about four sentences (he said five, claiming that the sentence I wrote at the top of the page was his), and on the other there was just a bunch of squiggles (what, I wouldn’t notice?). I gave him fifteen more minutes and repeated my ultimatum: no sentences, no skate night.

Fifteen minutes later there were no sentences, so I sent him to bed and let him know that he had made the choice. What followed was 45 minutes of sobbing and wailing from his bedroom. About an hour after bedtime he came into my bedroom, begging for another chance. I told him, “maybe in the morning.”

Thursday morning first thing, Mason cranked out the sentences like a mad man, and delivered them to his teacher that day. I didn’t hear anything back from her so either she didn’t get them, she got them and was satisfied, or she got them and was confused. Regardless, Mason straightened up and got to go to Skate Night.

So did Morgan, who doesn’t skate. From 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Mason skated while Morgan and I sat in the snack bar, watching Mason skate and drawing pictures. Morgan is really developing her sense of humor. Together we drew a picture of “Mr. Big Head” and “Mr. Little Head” (two people we just made up) followed by a picture of Barbie that, to be funny, I colored green. I was going to pass it off as an alien but Morgan, whose favorite movie at the moment is Barbie the Island Princess, blurted out, “Barbie the Island ZOMBIE!” I didn’t know she knew what a zombie was but that’s cool, so we wrote “Barbie the Zombie” across the bottom and she helped me color it.

Here’s my one comment about the skating rink last night. I saw multiple kids acting rude, loud and obnoxious and I thought to myself, “Man, I’ll bet those kids wouldn’t be acting that way if their parents were here!” Then a few minutes later I would see those same kids talking to adults and I had to say, “I guess their parents ARE here,” which made me wonder how bad those kids would have been acting if their parents really WEREN’T there! Either I have too high expectations for how children should act, society is going down the shitter, or both.