bentangle

As my wife depicted brilliantly on her blog (dtemama.com), we took the kids to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire this weekend.  It was quite the initiation for them.  Though truth be told, my visiting tenure there only dates back to the first time my wife took me with her family (back when we were still dating).  But she has been going sporadically since her teen years and it seemed like something the kids would enjoy (if not fully understand).

It turned out to be a fun time had by all and it couldn’t have been a better time to go.  The weather was just right for it, and it happened to be Children’s Fantasy Weekend.  So as we walked in the gates the kids were handed pirate treasure maps on which they were instructed to find several letter clues around the fairgrounds that would spell a password to get them some pirate treasure.  While the map was a tad confusing (it was nice of them to label all of the roads on the map, though it would have helped if there were also matching signs on the roads themselves), the kids managed to keep up with our meandering trek around the park and go excited every time they found a clue.  We took in some fun shows including the birds of prey demonstration, a human chess match, as well as a the jousting match at the end of the day.  Though despite my encouragement to try some authentic Renaissance fare, the kids opted for pizza for lunch.

Grasshopper soaked it all up like a kid in a candy store.  As we passed shops he would shout out “Look! A Harry Potter cape!” or “Look at that pirate skull!”  During a lull where my sister-in-law was waiting for the next glass-blowing demo and my son was decidedly too hyped up on lunch and excitement to be trusted in the vicinity of dozens of hanging glass bobbles, I took him away from the group for a father-son foray into a sword shop that was setup to look like a beached pirate ship.  Both on the way up the walk to the opening and through the entire tour around the store he couldn’t be more exhilarated.  He climbed on the cannons and pretended to fire them.  He sparred with another boy with some wooden practice swords.  He pointed out dozens of exciting decorations and items of interest.  And impressively managed to refrain from grabbing any of the real swords upon my explanations of the real dangers in doing so.  By the time the human chess match was underway in the late afternoon, he was petering out – he nearly fell asleep in my lap (most likely the occasional sword fighting in the match was all that was keeping him from conking out).  But he managed to get a second wind long enough for dinner and the joust (though he was dead asleep long before we arrived back home).

Cricket was equally sparkly-eyed over the events and scenery of the Faire.  Though much of her interest was targeted toward princess and fairy-related items (though she was also excited by dragons, swords, and pirates).  She wanted to see and try everything (including a turkey leg – I believe her uncle let her try some of his).  Being nearly 7, she was a little more understanding of the fact that the Faire was a depiction/dramatization of a period in history.  Though I’m sure her concepts of the history of humanity is very spotty at best (she finds it incredulous that there weren’t things like Wii and iPhones back when I was her age).  There wasn’t a shop in which she didn’t find something she wanted, though we did promise each of them one souvenir and so she was good about cataloging the things she liked so she could make her choice by the end of the day – she went with a princess hat (conical silky hat with frilly edges and streamers – I’ll take that over the $75 dresses and $40 parasols she had her eyes on earlier in the day).  Her brother opted for a small wooden sparring sword which took all of his might not to swing all over the place as we walked around the rest of the day.

If there was any complaints I could offer on the day, there would only be one small one:  this weekend was supposedly Children’s Fantasy weekend, and though there were disclaimers about the joust being graphic prior to the start of it, I really did not expect the level of violence that was displayed to an audience knowingly more heavily weighted with children than usual.  It started off as I’m accustomed to – the usual grandstanding hoopla that opens things up and gives the event personality and color.  Then the jousting commences, then the sword play, then some more talk as you think the bad knight is on the ropes and read to give up.  And then the bad guy claims to be secretly working for the King of Spain and an attack force moves in and explosions start up (even up to this point, though the booms are a bit loud, I’m still feeling this is all fairly family-friendly).  Then, to end the confrontation, the good knight, who has the bad knight on his knees after a stab to the gut, slices the bad knight’s throat and fake blood drools from his neck and spouts out of his mouth. Grasshopper’s point of view prevented him from seeing that particular bit, though I doubt he would have understood it to question it.  But Cricket, who was further down the bench near her grandparents got an eyeful of it.  When I asked her after what she thought of the joust, she commented that it was interesting, but she wasn’t sure why the guy spit out cherry juice at the end (I assume my in-laws threw that explanation out there right after the shock of the ending faded).  So I guess there is no particular harm done, and I can appreciate realistic drama and effects as much as the next guy (as a guy, I thought it was awesomely done), but I found it a little surprising given the theme of the weekend.

Anyway, it was a long day and everyone seemed to have a great time.  When they were asked what they favorite parts of the Faire were, the kids both stated that they liked the ship-swing ride and playing with the hula hoops (they’re kids – it’s all about engagement).  I’m sure that this is the start of a semi-regular tradition as I’m sure they’re going to want to go back over and over again.  And I don’t mind one bit.  To see the world of the past light up in a kid’s eyes like a new and exciting place brings a child-like gleam into my eye.

It is interesting how much emotion can be conveyed with a small amount of words.  For instance, this morning as I was getting ready to leave the house I called up the stairs to everyone to let them know that I was leaving for work.  Each of my family members replied in turn in their own unique ways:

Grasshopper: BYE DADDY, I LOVE YOU!

Cricket: I belong to you, Daddy!

My wife: The money is on the table.

The last sounds odd out of context, though in truth there was no immediate conversational context to it – my wife and I just have a very down-to-earth relationship and have a knack for picking up random long-dead conversation threads and/or answering each others unasked questions.  But the tone of each response reflects much greater depth of the emotions behind them than the words themselves convey.  My kids are full of exuberant, idealistic affection for the father that they only see in passing in the morning and for a few hours in the evening. My wife, already in the trenches of dealing with getting the kids ready for the day, sticks with purposeful messaging (the love we share is known, implied, and not in need of constant reinforcement).

I can’t help but wonder sometimes, when in my own life the level of emotional openness and heightened expression that my kids seem to exude had faded.  What are the factors that delay or expedite this process?  When should I expect my daughter to transition from her current puppy-dog phase to something more similar to the cynical teen that I’m sure she might become?  Should I try to stave it off or just accept what comes?

The oddity of it is that it is so dissimilar to my own attitude I find myself sometimes wondering if we are really related.  I wouldn’t necessarily call myself cynical (though I certainly maintain a healthy level of cynicism), but I’m definitely a picture of nonchalance.  A perfect example of my cool under pressure demeanor is one that is often cited by my in-laws – usually around Thanksgiving.

The event in question happened during a Thanksgiving about a decade ago at my wife’s aunt’s house.  While my aunt-in-law and several other of the matriarchs of the family were buzzing about the kitchen and the majority of the men and children where engrossed in whatever football game happened to be on, I walked through the dining room to grab a snack from the kitchen island on the other end of it.  As I did so, I noticed that one of the drip candles that were on the table seemed to have dropped a piece of wick and as a result a circle of the tablecloth about two inches across had been charred and was slowly edging wider by some very low flames.  I calmly walked into the kitchen and asked my aunt-in-law “Aunt Ann, your table is on fire.  Do you have a pot holder I can borrow?” to which she responded with a flabbergasted “What!?”.  While she wended through the people in the kitchen to get to the dining room and see what I was referring to, I grabbed the first thing I could find to handle the task – a damp dishrag.  By the time I got back there, she and two of my wife’s cousins were watching the now soda-can diameter ring of fire in abject shock.  I skirted around them and patted the fire out with the dishrag, blew out the candles to avoid any possible recurrence, and grabbed a couple of sweet gherkins from the pickle tray and went about my business.    The rest of the ladies seemed to bustle about it for a while before the table was retrimmed and the commotion reformed in the kitchen where it previously resided.  Many of the men didn’t even seem to notice anything had happened.  But my aunt-in-law tells the story of it almost every year.

Anyway, I know that I am somewhat unique in my lack of excitability.  But there are times when I wish a little of it would rub off on my kids (and perhaps at moments my wife as well).  While I appreciate the positive end of their heightened emotional state, the negative side of it is rarely much fun.  Cricket is a picture of indecisiveness – she can easily waste a half-hour trying to decide whether pink or yellow shorts go better with the brown shirt she is wearing (and then throw on leprechaun socks).  Grasshopper will have a 20-minute stand off over not liking green beans (including throwing silverware and having a tantrum across the house) before finally eating a forkful and realizing he loves them.  The trouble with family drama seems to be the balance – keeping the levels of comedy and tragedy in line and not pegged at 11.

Last night as I’m kneeling on my son’s floor waiting for his stuffy sniffling to transition to the stuffy mouth-breathing of sleep, I found myself pondering the number of times I’ve found myself in such a position – apparently enough to know that neither sitting nor lying down would have left me in a comfortable state when I left.  These moments are much fewer than they’d been in the past; at times my wife and I practically took turns sleeping on his floor.  Now it is once a month on average at most.

Grasshopper’s sleeping woes have typically been just what one would expect from a toddler:  afraid to be alone, afraid of the dark, afraid of the sound of the washing machine on the other side of the wall.  In the past few months he had resorted often to sleeping on his floor claiming he was scared of his bed.  His bed, mind you, is a happy, plastic fire engine, so I wasn’t really clear of what there was to be afraid.  But it was easier to setup a couple of comforters on the floor as a mattress than to delve into the motivations of a 3 year-old, so we accommodated him and went about our activities.

For the past few weeks it had escalated to the point that his mattress sat on the floor for him to sleep on and I was close to sliding his fire engine bed out to the back yard as play furniture.  But as I contemplated this plan, I realized that I should really address the root problem rather than work around it (after all he was running out of floor space).  So I put his bed back together and we attempted a return to relative normalcy.  Of course, that very night as I attempt to settle the troops, he starts to get anxious and claims that he is scared.  So I ask what it is that he is afraid of.  As it turns out, he is afraid of a shadow that his night light makes on the wall as a result of a hump on the side of the bed along the wall.  So I grabbed something firm and rectangular, wedged it alongside the mattress to block the dip where the hump shadow was visible and – voila! – problem solved.  Unfortunately the object I grabbed was a picture frame which I didn’t realize actually had glass in it, so yesterday there was a clean-up issue.  But now the frame has been replaced with a blanket and a pillow and all is generally leveling out nicely … until allergies kick in.  It is always something.

Seeing the bedtime drama I still experience with Cricket, I know that the end is not yet in sight.  But it is at least getting easier to diffuse.  And soon I may never have to sleep anywhere but my bed … unless my wife has something to say about it.

Fruit flies, that is.  I somehow gained them last weekend while my wife was away and by mid-week despite our best efforts to thwart them, they became a plague upon our kitchen (still not sure what they were drawn to).  I began to think that I may have to share residence with them long-term and considered whether they could somehow pull their weight around the place.  But after a couple of strokes of ingenuity, I managed to reclaim my keep.  My remastery was a three-pronged attack involving (a) ‘humane’ traps (not that I really cared for their welfare) of old veggies and vinegar in bowls covered in perforated plastic wrap, (b) inhumane traps (fly strips) and (c) a vacuum with a long hose – the latter proved to be the game-changer.  There are a few survivors, but they won’t last in the long game.  I’ve got their number.

In other news, we are doing our best to squeeze what juice we can out of what remains of the summer.  Yesterday we treated ourselves to a dessert of evening pool time.  We bought a membership in for the summer and I think that it was only the third time I’ve personally made it there.  I did get the chance to see the fruits of my daughter’s swimming lessons.  Her general swimming and treading water has improved a lot (still room for growth, but she has more confidence at it) and I got the treat of seeing her jump off of the diving board about a dozen times (the last two of which she actually attempted to dive and succeeded in belly-flopping).  My son, who chickened out of his lessons 3/4 of the way through the first session, still sticks to hit comfort zone.  I guess I should look on the bright side – he has never seemed overly concerned about how he compares to anyone including his sister, so perhaps peer pressure won’t be all that heavy a factor with him later in life (one can hope).

In continuing our summer fun and not to be daunted by the stormy weather, today (I guess yesterday by the time this is posted) we spent the day at Giggleberry Fair (an indoor play place in Peddler’s Village).  The kids had hours of fun, my wife got tons of pictures, and I got pelted a lot by foam balls and dragged through many spaces not meant for upright, full-height adults.  Granted it was a blast, but by the end my neck and knees ached, my hair was slicked and my shirt semi-saturated with sweat, and my thirst nigh unquenchable.

But now the temperatures seem to be going back into the miserable range (and there is that pesky thing called work), so our summertime adventures will be dwindling as the start of first grade looms on the horizon for Cricket (and Grasshopper will too be returning to preschool, though details as to where have yet to be worked out).  So I return to the grind, mindful that there will be storms to be weathered and some share of pests, but fully prepared to dive in and slough off what missiles life shoots my way.

It seems that it will be a mom-free weekend.  Starting tomorrow morning through Sunday it will be just me, Cricket, and Grasshopper fending for ourselves.  I’m not actually particularly concerned.  I’m not one of those passive working dad’s who defers the majority of parenting to the matron of the house.  I even cook sometimes (mostly on the grill, but not exclusively).  So I’m sure we will survive …. hopefully.

My wife will be departing early tomorrow morning on a trek to NYC for a blogging conference (in case you weren’t aware, she has not one, but two blogs that she likely updates more often than I do: Down to Earth Mama and She Acts).  She will be whooping it up in the Big Apple for the weekend with blog-related discussions and parties.  Not that I would worry for the sanctity of our marriage regardless of the nature of the conference, but being that she will be surrounded mostly by female bloggers, the most that will likely happen is some all-girl drunken music videography (it’s happened).  I guess there is a sliver of the possibility she might get swept into an overzealous celebration of the repeal of Prop. 8, but I’m not overly concerned.  What hyjinx will ensue are likely to be of a much more tame and innocent variety of which she greatly deserves.

Anyway, besides regularly scheduled events of the weekend (of which there are surprisingly many) I have very little in mind for our sans matronus weekend.  As it stands, I have to take them to swimming lessons, the farmer’s market, a family reunion, and potentially a free movie screening (and probably some other events that my wife will point out that I forgot to mention and therefore will not remember to do).  So outside of meals there is limited bandwidth for other events.  But I may try to fit in some shopping and some other entertainment where I can – perhaps even some fruit picking if time and weather permit.

My biggest concern is that I’m going to be plagued with work issues that try to follow me home.  I’m slowly working to have more redundancy and less direct dependency for certain things, but the curse of being good at certain things is that you are the only one who can handle them – I’m not playing arrogant here, it is simple fact.  But I’m training a new guy to be the next me, and trying to leave no issues up in the air so that I can make the most of a wife-free and hopefully work-free weekend.