Six year-old Eli and I each have a cavity. Today is the day we go to the dentist to have holes drilled in our teeth. I told Eli that he will get a shot in his mouth, which will hurt. He looked at me with his big brown eyes, at once stoic and melancholy, like this …
This weekend I got into a firefight with a gigantic bobcat that tried to eat me in the dark woods at the back of our property. I don’t actually know if it was a gigantic bobcat, because the night was pitch black. My friend Ryan says it was probably a squirrel. All I know is that it …
Isaac is in a morning melancholy, in part because we all have various viruses that make us sluggish and grumpy. When Isaac is melancholy, he holds his little stuffed lamb close, and rubs its soft paw on his face. “Isaac,” I ask him, “will you please hold Lamby by his belly instead of his arm?” …
Eli asks, as we both wallow in my bed, “Dad, why do your sheets and pillows have flowers all over them?” “Because Mom likes them.” “Maybe we should get you a man pillow.”
The thing about children is that each of them finds a new way to make trouble. Think you’ve got the forbidden snacking under control by virtue of putting all the food up high? Well guess what — the next toddler doesn’t care for snacking, he likes getting all the shoes out of your closet and …
I will spare you descriptions of the sights, sounds, and smells of the last 72 hours. It began with Isaac vomiting late Saturday night. Our dinner selection that evening, unfortunately, had been spaghetti. Isaac hasn’t yet mastered the art of turning to the side of the bed to hurl. And he didn’t just hurl the …
“Dad,” says Isaac, “I don’t like you. I love you.” I think I know what he means, insofar as he envisions a hierarchy where love is a far better form of like. But still, if I had to choose between being liked or loved by my child, I’d go with love every time. There are …
The tree is finally decorated, after we pulled off every strand of light and replaced them all with new strands. This involved surprisingly little cursing. The stockings, meanwhile, are hung by the chimney with care. The Christmas ham has been purchased, along with all the other goodies we’ll snack on throughout the day tomorrow, and …
I’m changing Isaiah’s diaper. “Baby?” he asks. You might think he’s referring to himself, but when Isaiah says “Baby,” he’s referring to “Baby Beluga.” So I start to sing. “Ba-by Beluga in the deep blue sea. . .” “No no no no no no.” Now I’m confused. “You want ‘Baby Beluga’?” Isaiah nods. “Baby bebulabadabadoba.” This …
Today is my birthday. I spent it working in D.C. I was all set to be miserable and feel sorry for myself, spending my special day away from the handful of people who are actually willing to go along with the fiction that I am special, but it actually turned out to be somewhere close …
Eight year-old Caleb is learning about genetics. One of the questions his workbook asks is for him to identify the dominant genes in his family. His answer: “Brown eyes and weiners.”
Isaac has either discovered or invented a word: “hork.” It means, as best I can tell, to eat or drink quickly. “Hey Eli,” he boasts, “did you see how I horked all my cereal?” Or, “Hey Dad, I just horked down my water.” The last time I heard this word was when Bob McKenzie used …
As we pulled up to the voting station this afternoon, Isaac hopped eagerly out of the minivan. He got on tiptoes as if to peer into the building more easily. He yanked on my hand. “Do we have to bring our own boat?” “What?” “Do we have to have a boat?” He looked at the …
Yesterday when I came home, Isaiah raised up his stubby arms from where he sat on his scooter, and whimpered at me to pick him up. As I held him he put his head on my shoulder and went: “Mmmmm.” It was a sound of the deepest satisfaction, and for a moment I couldn’t figure …
Comedian Bill Engvall joked about admonishing his wife to tie a bell around their son’s neck, in order to avoid being scared half to death in the middle of the night. I’m thinking of something similar for Isaac, who once again woke me by standing beside my bed until I sensed his silent, shadowy form. …
While attempting to bring order to the mass of blocks, books, clothes, and little-boy treasures that is Caleb and Eli’s room, Wife found this note, which she subsequently learned was dictated by Eli to Caleb, with a little editorial help from the latter: “Dear Santa, I would like an E-racer. It costs $17.98. I hope …
Overheard as four year-old Isaac dressed himself for church yesterday morning: “Everybody loves me. I love me. I don’t know who doesn’t love me. Nobody doesn’t love me. All love me.” I guess it’s not narcissism if it’s true.
Sunday was William Isaac’s fourth birthday. He grinned and hid his face when we sang “Happy Birthday” to him, blew out the candles on his massive cake, and worked himself into a sugar high before bouncing about the living room. He opened presents with the advice of his older brothers (“No, that one next; it’s …
At the gym I passed a room where a little pony-tailed lady was teaching women how to throw a ridiculously ineffective roundhouse kick. I haven’t kept up with the fusion of martial arts, aerobics, and conga line dancing that infests late-night advertising, but apparently it has spread to at least one gym in Kansas. I suppose it’s …
I’m happy to report that we fared better than the poor people in Galveston. At one point our house was entirely surrounded by water, some of it rushing quite fiercely. But we weathered the weather, and soon we’ll be able to search our back acres for the play equipment that was swept away in the …
This from the National Weather Service: SEVERAL RIVERS ACROSS CENTRAL AND SOUTH CENTRAL KANSAS COULD SEE RAPID RISES AND FLOODING BY SATURDAY MORNING. CREEKS AND SMALL STREAMS MAY ALSO FLOOD FROM THE HEAVY RAINFALL. Did I mention that a tributary of the Arkansas River runs, oh, about thirty yards behind our house? Used to, anyway. …
We’re speeding through Wichita along I-135, a long elevated stretch of highway. Caleb is not talking, which means he is getting ready to talk. “This highway has lots of legs under it, doesn’t it Dad?” “Yeah, to keep it from falling.” “It’s like we’re driving on a giant centipede.” And suddenly the highway looked just …
I went to work late Tuesday because Eli found me early in the morning and asked me to play outside with him. If I have a neglected child it is Eli, who is quiet, and who therefore rarely gets a word in edgewise between his older brother’s soliloquies and the shouting/squealing/caterwauling that his younger brothers …
Isaac took a tumble down some of the basement steps last week. We did the usual check for broken bones, blood, and equal and reactive pupils. All those checks proved negative, so we applied the boo-boo bunny. Isaac seemed out of sorts, though, and so we kept an eye on him. A couple of hours later, …
We’ve been taking care of some friends’ chickens and dogs and cats while they’re on vacation. The chicken coop is attached to a fenced yard, and in the evening I have to close the door and brace a piece of wood against it, because it doesn’t latch from the inside. Then I have to climb …
Sunday morning I woke in the early light to see Isaac sitting in our bedroom. He was clutching his lamb and waiting for someone to wake up. I beckoned him to bed, and he curled up next to me. I wrapped my arms around him and snuggled him in tight. His bare little arms and legs were …
I’m painting in my new writer’s haven (read: small corner office in our barn). Isaac is standing right beside me, which is apparently his favorite place. “Careful Dad, that’s a wasp.” “It’s a spider, Isaac.” “No it isn’t. It’s a little wasp.” “It’s a spider.” “Nope.” “Son, I’ve been alive for 40 years now, and …
Caleb is adamant about the Christian rock. Someone gave him the digits for the big Christian rock station, and so now he dials them in on his radio. Ordinarily I wouldn’t allow any radio other than baseball games, but since it’s rock about Jesus, I feel wicked telling him no. It’s not the Jesus part …
I remember back when Wife and I were younger, how terrible we thought it was when we saw older couples sitting wordlessly in a restaurant. “I can’t believe he’s reading a newspaper,” I would say. “We’ll never be like that when we’re older,” Wife would affirm. We said these things because we were stupid. I …
William Isaac Woodlief: “Where is the tooth fairy’s house? I want to go there.” I don’t believe he’s thought that out. I mean, what does she do with all those teeth? And how does she earn all these coins she hands out? And what kind of person goes creeping into children’s bedrooms? I’m just saying.
