Month: May 2009

Bare Foot Piggy-Back Rides

Kim and I have a goal of getting our kids in bed by 8 pm on school nights. Any bed will do. We are not beyond bribing when Lost or The Office is on. Whatever it takes. Just find a bed, couch, or sleeping bag and keep it down.

On the weekends, we’re less structured and allow the kids to stay up later. When coercion and bribes have failed, I use the only tool I have left at my disposal: Offering piggy-back rides.

I don’t know what it is about a piggy-back ride, but the kids will do anything for them. Homework, chores, flushing the toilet – you name it and a piggy-back ride will get them in line faster than anything else I can offer.

The fact is I enjoy giving them to the kids. As long as they don’t strangle me by gripping my neck too tightly, enough oxygen gets to my brain and I’m able to make it through three tours for our three oldest.

I have to be careful to follow the exact same route through the house or I’ll be called out as having given a sibling a longer ride.

Tonight, Anna jumped on my back and I decided to change things up a bit. Lucky for me, Child Protection Services wasn’t in the neighborhood because I created a game called “Where Can Dad Put Your Bare Foot”.

The game isn’t complex. As Anna held on to my neck, I walked into the kitchen and held her foot under cold water from the tap. I then put it in the freezer and told her the microwave was next as she laughed and shrieked. She didn’t like the idea of her foot on the stove or in the toaster so merely walking towards both had the intended effect. How about a wet foot getting too close to a wall socket? I’m glad I was there to only simulate the shock!

Of course, Luca and Lincoln demanded the same level of danger on their rides. When I tried to substitute putting Lincoln’s foot in the dishwasher instead of on the stove he said, “Hey, Anna got to do the stove!!”

Games like this one and the Jaws of Death probably aren’t going to show up in any parenting magazines as recommended activities to do with your kids.

But I’m still convinced the games one makes up on the spot are the best.

When I dropped Anna off onto her bed, she gave me a kiss goodnight and asked if we could do it again tomorrow.

“Only if you’re not afraid of the waffle iron”

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A Game of Marbles

As a fourth grader at Grandview Elementary, few things in life mattered more to me than my marble collection. Hong Kong Phooey was a distant second on my list of priorities. All I cared about was my little blue pouch of marbles I carried to school every day.

The most competitive games were played during recess. The game we played consisted of one player dropping a marble on the grass and the other player trying to hit it. If he was successful, he’d take both marbles. We’d alternate back and forth until someone pocketed  all the marbles.

But occasionally a kid would show up with a steely which looks like a regular marble but made of steel. This character would play a fair game until he saw me toss one of my bigger and better marbles. That’s when he’d pull out the steely and let it fly. At the very least, he’d knock a chip off my marble. And sometimes he’d shatter it to pieces with a solid hit.

marbles

The kid packing steelies didn’t care about the competition or the chance to win a few marbles. Nope. All he wanted to do was disrupt the game and then run off laughing.

My pouch of marbles is long gone, but I’m convinced some adults continue to carry around “steelies” looking to disrupt whatever project, meeting, or idea they come across. They seldom bring anything constructive to the table yet they’re ready to pounce on any idea or suggestion with a virtual steely. They aren’t difficult to recognize. They have a laundry list of reasons an idea can’t be tested.  The mock ideas they don’t understand, and have a knack for dreaming up highly unlikely scenarios where the new idea will fail.

I once had a coworker who brought a bag full of steelies to work every day. He liked to argue about the smallest and most random details. He loved to chime in on topics well out of his scope of responsibility. I occasionally fell for his trap and tried to debate him. But the debates never ended because he didn’t want them to end.

Over time I realized he wasn’t interested in solving the problem in much the same way the kid tossing the steely wasn’t interested in the game. His interest was in the debate. If he could escalate it into a shouting match, even better.

I’ve found the best way for me to deal with such people is to ignore them. Don’t play their game by jumping into the fight with your own steely.

Sometimes it’s easier to pickup your bag of marbles and search for someone else who wants to play the game.

Photo by Nico Cavallotto

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