Hide and go seek

"Could you put my shoes on for me please?", says the 3 year old girl to my son, Jake, in the middle of a child development class in year 12.
After putting on the first one, Jake looks around and says "Where is your other shoe?"
"I don't know."
Of course not. Why would she know. That would be too easy.

"Where were you playing when you lost the other one?"
She leads him over to the playground, and they search for 5 minutes.
"Does anyone else know where a spare shoe is?" Jake asks of all the other children.
One boy pipes up: "I know! I know!"
"Where is it?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"I hid it!" he says, with a devious grin on his face, happy at being so clever.
Jake, in another display of his seemingly infinite patience, asks him calmly, "Why did you hide it?"
The boy, even happier, says something that an adult could never invent in a million years.
"I wanted to play Hide and Go Shoe!"

All the other children, upon hearing this, take off one of their shoes and shout, "Can we play too?!"
"How about we play that, not now!" says Jake, and diverts them to some other game, cleverly avoiding all the confused parents wondering why their children are coming home limping.
They eventually find the other piece of footwear hiding in a closet, and cover her bare metatarsals before she starts to develop scoliosis.

The meaning of life

'Dad, what do you think the meaning to life is?' Jake and I are talking in the car on the way home from Tae-Kwon-Do. I tell him that is a multi-layered question, so he asks me what the layers are, and I list them, starting with 'there is no meaning to life' and working my way through 'forming deep relationships with friends' and 'being close to your family', and 'actually there is really no meaning'. He keeps probing, and I am about to get on to layer 5, to do with reaching self-enlightenment through deep introspection, when he interrupts, so we never get to layer 6, and tells me 4 things he thinks in his case define the meaning of life.

1) Happiness and enjoyment, living life to the fullest,
2) Cure aging - 100 years is nowhere near enough,
3) Remove all traces of religion from the world, as so many wars are caused by it, and society as a whole would be 2000 years further advanced if it had not slowed us down,
4) Find out once and for all what really happened at the beginning of the universe, how something came from nothing.

I certainly can't say he's not ambitious, even more so than other 14 year olds. Number 1 is probably common to many people, but I don't think you will find many others sharing his goals for the last three, at any age.

'How are you going to do number 3?' I ask. 'Easy' he says, 'I'll use number 2 - anyone who wants extended life will have to swear on a bible that he doesn't believe in god. All the atheists will live pretty much forever, and all the religious people will die off.' (Of course I think he may have overlooked the tiny issue of reproduction, although if you are fertile for a few thousand years I guess you could have more children.)

'How are you going to do number 2?'

'I'm going to have a team of people working on it, and I'm going to be the head scientist.'

'Well, you better get started on those right away then.'

'I've started already, but I figure I have till age 30 to finish them - they can wait that long.'

Dinner Dance

Jake looks absolutely smashing in his tuxedo, a white double-breasted jacket and a bubblegum pink vest, matching bow-tie, and hankie in his top pocket. He has been so psyched up for tonight's dinner dance at his 8th grade school.

I walk him in - everyone else is dressed up nice, but Jake has really kicked it up a notch compared to the others. All the guys compliment him on his clothes. But he gets even more compliments and wows and looks from the girls - they are obviously very impressed. The girls all look beautiful and way grown-up too, in their fancy party dresses and high heels and jewelry.

The school is set up to look like a cruise line, with portholes everywhere, and cabin numbers (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 - representing the upcoming high-school years), and signs pointing to the spa and pool and upper deck.

They all sit down and talk for a while, and then food is served. Included are strawberries, chocolate cake (that Jake eats way too much of) and lots of other things including a chocolate fountain!

Then they get to move into the gym, which has been set up as a disco, with loud music and flashing lights, and dance for the next two hours, having lots of fun.

Jake takes zillions of pictures and comes home so hyped up that it takes him over an hour to calm down before he can go to bed. He has enjoyed it immensely.

He looks so much older tonight, won't be long before he is off with a girlfriend going to parties in his own car.

Depressed

I lost it with Jake tonight. He just doesn't get it, no matter what we say. I don't know what else to do.

Had to walk all the way around the block tonite just to cool off, so I wouldn't take it out physically on him. Damn cold outside too. And its a big block.

How can he be such a great kid sometimes, and so bloody impossible others?

Bad, bad, bad

Some days words are not enough to express it. Take a look at this:



And that's just the top layer. There is lots underneath. This is all the food that we found while looking through Jake and Charlotte's rooms today looking for her wallet that she can't find. Instead we find they have been stealing food and taking it upstairs to their rooms, smug and self-satisfied that mum and dad didn't know what they were doing.

Grounded for two weeks, no after school clubs, early bed-time. But its not enough. How do we get them to understand this is a bad idea...

Scary Horse Hair

Give everyone in the family their own personalized name anagrams for New Years, something weird and wacky:

Jake Wesley Richards: jeweler has scary kid

Charlotte Richards: horse cart child art

Sigrid Andrea Richards: desiring rad hair cards

Dark Side Cookies

Playing a game of Horse Lovers Monopoly, that Charlotte got for Christmas (and was over-the-moon about).

Jake lands on Sigi's stable, and has to pay up big. He thinks quick, and offers instead an alliance.

"Join the dark side. We have cookies. Low-fat cookies."

How could she refuse an offer like that?

Presents Galore

Jake and Charlotte are very happy this year with their presents - amongst other things, they both get digital cameras so they can start their own photo libraries. Nikon Coolpix, Charlotte an L11 (her age), and Jake an L14 (only 3 months early).

Jake is thrilled to get a Nintendo DS, and Charlotte (the animal lover) just jumps for joy when she saw her Schleich stable :)

Terrificible

Just finishes setting up Terry. She (or he) looks good (or bad), depending on who you ask. Charlotte names him Terry the Terrible, too spiky, no color, and not as good as the one 50 feet away. Jake disagrees, and calls her Terry the Terrific, just perfect.

I am, of course, talking about the tree we just bought from Maple Row Tree Farm, after scouting all his brothers (her sisters), picking out Terry, and cutting him/her down, while Charlotte complains noisily that the one over there is just so much better. And we all freeze, especially Jake in his thin jacket that he didn't even want to wear at first, cause he thinks he doesn't feel the cold.

Kid's Quotes 1

Jake: "Charlotte has a big mouth and a big head, but she makes up for it with a big heart and a big brain."

Charlotte: "I like pie!"

Jake: "Ok, a medium sized brain."

Enchanted

Kids drag us off to see another Disney movie. Is a bit too sugary for my taste. Lots of singing and dancing and big scenes with hundreds of people. And stereotypical fair maidens and evil witches and dashing princes.

And of course happily-ever-afters.

The kids love it naturally.

Slithering Serpents

Charlotte has been begging for a dog for months now, but so far all she has gotten has been two catfish (the irony is not lost on us). Jake decides he wants a pet too. A cat perhaps? A bird? No, he has become obsessed over the idea of getting a reticulated python.

He is quick to point out all the advantages, the ease of looking after, the low dietary requirements ("just one baby pig a month Dad"), and the wonderful show-and-tell opportunities involving hysterical girls at school.

One wonders how discriminating the snake will be when it has to choose between a piglet and a dachshund.
Update: its been changed to a Boa Constrictor, since reticulated pythons can only be looked after if you are over 21.

Bloody flying lip leaves

Thanksgiving leaves flying through the air
Landing and sticking in Charlotte's hair
Stuffed with turkey stuffing, heading for my hip
Roughplay with Jake, oops, a bloody lip

"Did I roll over Flat Ted?"

Looking through some drawers we hadn't checked out in ages, we find Flat Ted, a pure wool teddy bear, designed to be flat so babies could easily sleep with it. Very cuddly and warm. On Jake's zeroth birthday I had bought it for him from the hospital gift shop, to put in the crib. He's 13 now, and of course had grown out of it years ago.

Upon seeing it, he thinks for a moment, and has only one sincere question. "Dad, did Flat Ted come like this, or did I roll over and squash him one day?"

"Who are you and what have you done with my son?"

I drive Charlotte to her friend Jenny's place, all dressed up in her witches outfit, and they go off together tricking and treating (probably all of the latter of course, watch out for that sugar rush).

Get back and ask Jake if he wants to go out as well, and he says "No dad, you deserve to have a break too, go and play your badminton tonight. I'll go out for Halloween next year."

He is getting so considerate lately, its like he's a new person.

That cat has claws

Friday night I installed Leopard, the new version of Mac OS X. Today my son gets on the machine and plays World of Warcraft for a couple of hours. He's just about to start another quest, when a disembodied voice suddenly says, in a pleasant voice, "You will be logged off in 15 minutes."

Jake nearly fell off his chair.

Parental controls - at last!