Keats, Frost and the poet, Paul Baillie

We have lately been drowning in an ocean of our children’s homework. Between science projects, art projects, preschool “writing” assignments, daily math and reading worksheets, the piles of paper seem to be never-ending. Backpack exploration and binder upkeep are now daily duties that Paul must bear the brunt of.

Nothing has thrown us more than Max coming home with an assignment to write poems for his 4th grade Writing Celebration. For more than two weeks, Paul has struggled to help Max come up with an idea and write a few lines. Last night was his last day to complete two poems and I was determined to force his creativity.

I asked him about poems that he studied in class and without skipping a beat, he recited, nearly perfectly, Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Nothing about Max has impressed me more than hearing him repeat,

And miles to go before I sleep

as if he understood the poet’s meaning. We talked about what the poem was about and suddenly he said, “I’ll write about Winter! Do you think that would be ok?” I nodded and he got to work on a melancholy piece about frozen rivers and long, dark days that he called December.

His writers block came again when I asked him to get started on his second piece. As 6PM rolled to 7 and 7 rolled to nearly 8, I desperately suggested, “Why don’t you write about an experience you’ve had?” “Like you mean football?” “Yes,” I answered, “or a trip, or an activity, anything you want.” A few minutes passed before his pencil touched paper again but he finally looked up and said he wanted to write about the time we went to the Natural History Museum in NYC. When he finished, he asked Paul and I to sit down so he could read us his finished work:

boop boop goes the ferry,
beep beep goes the taxis,
woosh woosh goes the subway
clop clop goes the horses in Central Park

Paul instantly added his ending

“Hey buddy can you spare a dime said the homeless dude on the corner.”

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Thank goodness Max has his father’s sense of humor.

You want what for your birthday?

Aidan is often mistaken for our youngest child. He still wears a size 2T in most clothes while Paulina’s Rubinesque body easily fits into a 4T (proving that even life for a toddler girl is not fair!) He is still also challenged in the speaking department. He recently learned how to say The Pledge of Allegiance at school and while we can only understand about 6 words out of the entire recitation, we’re glad that he’s getting more and more confident about speaking in general.

When we asked the twins what they wanted for their fourth birthday, Paulina quickly, without hesitation yelled, “A Dora the Explorer guitar with four strings!” Aidan opened his mouth, paused, closed his eyes as if searching for a word or phrase and then uttered a one word answer that had us baffled for four days. Paulina, who often acts as his interpreter, just shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “I got nothing too.” We continued to ask him for another couple of days and then, right before bed time Paulina said, “Aidan wants drums for his birthday!” followed quickly by, “…and I want drums too.” Maybe it was selective hearing, maybe Paul and I need to get more versed in Aidan-speak, either way, the entire week-long episode must have been extremely frustrating for our little Aidan.

Birthdays for the twins, even without the challenges of understanding what they want, are fraught with concerns. How can we make sure that each has the special experience that our non-twin kids have? Is a joint cake OK? Joint gifts (e.g., one drum set)? Should we abandon birthday parties all together and keep it small and low key? While they are still young, I’m guessing this issue won’t rear its ugly head until at least their teen years. However, given Paulina’s preternatural gift for being direct and specific, it may come sooner than we think.

Raising Extortionists

Well into my ninth year of parenting, I’m still unsure and lost about a great many things.  I still don’t know how to get my kids to eat more vegetables.  There are days when I think, will I ever get them to brush their teeth properly?  My kids are told at least once a day to put their dirty clothes in the hamper and nearly every day we find clothes on the floor (always less than 6 inches from the hamper!).

One thing that I am convinced of more and more everyday is that my old school parents got some things right.  When we were kids and my mom or dad told us to do something, they didn’t do a dance about why or give us any incentive, they said do it “or else.”  When I’m trying to get my kids to do something as simple as tidying up the basement, I often find myself doing a Braveheart style speech, explaining, often lamely, how they need to contribute to the betterment of the household or resorting to straight up bribery.  They want a sticker, a star on a chart, candy or a new IPod app for doing just about anything. 

When you look at the bigger picture, it’s disgusting how incentive driven we’ve become.  Starving kids in third-world countries go to sleep hungry and yet we give toys to kids for eating a Happy Meal.  Some of my cousins in the Philippines are just happy to have food in their bellies and I have to hear some sob story about how Paulina wanted the Strawberry Shortcake toy that Natalie got for an entire car ride and then some.

It’s no wonder so many kids have become little extortionists. The other day I asked Aidan to put his shoes away and he said, “OK, but can I have some Sour Patch Kids?” When even three year-olds are mastering the art of trying to get something for doing the basics, you know something is really out of whack. Thank goodness for Paul. To this request he said, “No, but I can give you a helping of my foot in your ass.”

The 4th Emergency

There have only been a handful of times since I met Paul that he has called me with an emergency. He has famously said that it would take “blood squirting from his body” or “one of his appendages hanging off” to deem something a true emergency. There was the time he thought he was having a heart attack (on Valentine’s day when I was 9-months pregnant with Natalie), the time he cut his eyeball with a razor knife and the time he had all the kids home sick (including the twins who were 8 months old at the time) and he thought Maxwell had chicken pox. Then, there was yesterday.

As I was checking email, I suddenly realized that I had three missed phone calls and an unread text message. As my heart rate raced, I opened the text and read, “The toilet lid just dropped on Aidan’s pecker. Call me as soon as you can!” A conversation about smashed genitals is not an easy one to have in any commuter situation. When Paul picked up the phone, I don’t know who was more freaked out, him or Aidan. It was as if he was having sympathy pain and could not even bare to talk about it. “Do you need me to come home?” I asked, “How is Aidan?” He handed the phone to Aidan. “How are you buddy? “ I asked. “My ding dong hurts!” I could hear Paul cringing in the background.

Thankfully our pediatrician said everything was OK after running a handful of tests. There was bruising but no permanent damage (I could almost hear Paul’s ginormous sigh of relief all the way from NYC). A couple of doses of children’s Tylenol and a lukewarm bath was recommended and Aidan spent the rest of day in bed watching videos. When I got home, I asked how Aidan liked his bath. Paul said he only gave him a quick shower. When I asked why, Paul got dead quiet and continued to do the dishes. Even in this emergency situation, the less Paul had to look at the bruisingon his male part the better. I guess it’s a male thing.

Ruining my sons life

Somehow I’ve missed the memo about two important things that have nearly ruined my sons life. The first one is that boys in fourth grade change for gym class. The second is that every single boy in Max’s gym class, with the exception of my son, wears boxers. “They all laughed at me because I was wearing tightie-whities!” he explained. Since Max is hardly ever prone to hyperbole, I listened intently, letting him know that I took this humiliation seriously.

In my defense, he wasn’t technically wearing tightie-whities. I’ll admit they were regular boys briefs but they were gray and really not so very tight. The entire episode delighted Paul to no end. When it was time for dinner, Max brought up the subject again and begged that we buy him some boxers immediately. As I was babbling out another apology about how I had no idea that all little boys wear boxers Paul looked up and said, “It’s no big deal Max. If they laugh at you again just say, Hey! I’m hung like a horse and I need the extra support.” As Max contemplated his father’s suggestion and I nearly spit out my Edamame, I wondered how other moms with 9 year-old boys learned about the boxer trend.

I didn’t have to look far to find out. When I got to the office, I brought up the episode to a couple of my female co-workers. As I neared the end of my story, our male colleague in the next office yelled out, “My sons both wear boxer briefs!” I immediately entered his office to learn more and he said that his boys decided that they wanted to wear what their dad wore. So, in a way, this is all Paul’s fault. From now on, he’s going to have to be the purchaser of all boys undergarments to save me from ruining my sons lives.

Born with aggression?

During Max’s first regular season football game, the opposing team’s running back turned the corner and made a break for his end zone. Max crossed the field, along with a pack of his team mates, and looked as though they had the angle on him to save the touch down. My heart raced as I watched Max get there first and hoped he would get low and tackle him. A few feet short of the runner, he slowed down and I watched as his two team mates took the runner down. Paul looked at me, shook his head and said, “You know, this is your fault.”

As the oldest of four kids, Max has spent his entire life hearing me tell him to be gentle. It’s true that he has never been encouraged to be aggressive in any way and my nagging has obviously influenced the way he plays football. After the game, I asked him why he slowed down. He told me he wanted to give the tackling opportunity to his team mates. Paul looked at me, gripped the steering wheel and said, “Next time, he’ll probably pat him in the ass as he runs into the end zone.”

Later that night, I sat down with Max and asked him if he liked playing defense. “Yeah, mom, I’m just learning to be a beast.” He seemed nervous, like he knew that the conversation in the car caused some tension between me and his father. “Did dad talk to you about the game?” “Yes, mom. He told me I need to be more aggressive.”

After watching him practice and play for a month, I wonder if children can actually learn to be aggressive or if it’s something you’re either born with or not.

Awkward Pauses

I recently had dinner with two male business colleagues who marveled at the fact that I was a stat-spewing football fan and loved The Star Wars trilogy (the original, mind you, not the ones featuring Jar Jar Binks). You would have thought I told them that I was the secret love child of Sid and Nancy by the way they went on and on about it. They told me my husband is the luckiest man in the world.

“What does your husband do?” asked one of them. “He stays at home with the kids,” I replied. The awkward pause seemed to go on for hours in which time one of them decided to hit the chips and salsa and the other one tentatively asked, “How’s that going (read: how did you get him to remove his testicles)?” “Great, I said, he’s really enjoying the opportunity to be there for them.”

Encounters like this occur pretty frequently when I tell men that my husband is a stay-at-home dad. Men act like they’ve just found out that Paul is a Minotaur, followed by an awkward pause and then the inevitable change of subject. For some, it’s like the idea itself is too strange to even contemplate even though the numbers of stay-at-home dads is increasing exponentially.

As Paul’s tenure as primary care giver reaches its third anniversary, it leaves me wondering how our arrangement will be viewed in ten years or even twenty. Will he be part of a growing fraternity of men that will see the lasting impact of the dual benefits of hands-on parenting? Will the pendulum swing resulting in more women wanting to stay home? Who knows? As long as I can continue to come home to safe and happy kids, I will continue to endure these awkward pauses happily.