Dec
19
WarGames
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Last night I showed the kids this amazing video by a special effects company. About halfway through JB was like, um are you sure our children should be seeing a bunch of guys screaming and on fire and shit? but I thought it was a pretty good way to understand how the intense stuff in movies isn’t real. Riley was particularly mesmerized by the idea of building entire virtual worlds and layering in details (he kept comparing it to Minecraft) (which is sort of funny, being as how Minecraft pretty much looks like you’ve jetted back in time to 1976 in order to play Breakout), but I think he was even more inspired by the battle scenes. Not the guys on fire part — I hope — but the epic explosions and whatnot. As I was driving him to school today I kept hearing muffled warfare-noises from the backseat. “Neeerrrrooowwwkapooosh,” “Powpowpowpowpowpow,” “KaPEWWWW,” etc.
This actually par for the course with Riley. He’s the exact opposite of a violent kid but there is a near-constant stream of gunfire sounds coming from him whenever he’s entertaining himself. Usually he’s holding a toy or Lego and frowningly carrying out some complicated military operation, and sometimes, like this morning, he’s just gazing out the window while dry-firing his imaginary weapons.
Have I told you how a young neighbor girl comes home with us after school during the week? I get a kick out of her because she’s as rough and tumble as the boys, but totally obsessed with different stuff. Horses and nail polish, mostly.
Anyway, there he was, kabooshing away, and usually I tell him to give me a goddamned goshdarned break from the artillery but instead I cupped my hand over my mouth and said “KSSSHT. Pilot to bombardier, pilot to bombardier, we’re nearing the target, do you read, over?” I peeked in the rearview mirror, and he was frozen, staring back at me with visible waves of delight beaming out from his entire body.
The rest of the way to school the three of us radioed commands back and forth. We released missiles, deployed revolver cannons, and wiped out entire cities of bad guys. Dylan got very excited and maybe a little confused, shouting “THERE’S AN OCTOPUS!” at one point. I drove into the pull-through lane and announced that ksssht, we’re coming in for a landing, and Riley wanted to know if we could please play the game again tomorrow, PLEASE? I said maybe, maybe. Before I drove away, I rolled down the window and said, “Nice work out there, soldier.” And he stood on the walkway in front of his school and damned if he didn’t snap off a perfect salute, with a grin that lit up the grey December sky like a big beautiful computer-generated fireball.
Dec
18
We have an advent calendar that’s a sort of wooden box with twenty-five little doors that open to reveal whatever I’ve tucked inside. There’s not much room in there, it’s meant for small trinkets and candy. Finding twenty-five days’ worth of surprises for two kids gets challenging, though, so I resort to whatever’s inexpensive and relatively door-sized. The other day I was cramming two stuffed animals in there, a tiny jaguar and a tiger. Their heads poked out, their paws dangled. It was just too much.
It all feels like a little too much sometimes, this time of year. On top of everything else, there’s the pressure of teaching your kids about the True Meaning of Christmas, however that’s defined in your family, and in that I often feel like a complete failure. The seamy underside of the most wonderful time of year: rampant greed, bickering, and a lack of perspective.
We had to devise rules for the advent box: they take turns opening the calendar and choosing which of the two surprises they want. Otherwise they fought and fought and fought about the goddamned thing, every morning, until I fantasized about taking the entire box and smashing it into kindling right in front of them. I could practically taste the brief savage joy of it: swooping it off the shelf, dashing it against a hard surface over and over again while their mouths widened into perfect horrified circles. “This! Is! What! Happens!” I’d shout nonsensically, each word punctuated by another splintering crash.
I didn’t do that, of course. We came up with a solution that allows them to have their early-morning routine — run straight to the calendar, then go looking for the elf — without succumbing to a meltdown, but sometimes I watch them grab whatever it is I’ve taken the time and effort to purchase and stash in there and I can see how they cease to give a shit about it with, oh, ten or twenty seconds. It’s just … taken for granted, and okay, I don’t expect my eight and five-year-old children to stand starry-eyed in front of a couple of foil-wrapped chocolate coins and marvel about the magic of the holidays, but damn.
They obsesses over their wish lists and neither one seems to fully understand that it’s not a to-do list that will end up with every item neatly checked come December 25th. The one truly generous thing my second-grader did this season was help pick out toys to donate (an activity that made the five-year-old cry, because he couldn’t understand why they weren’t for him), but then he wanted to write a letter to Santa about his incredibly selfless act just so Santa was, like, aware, and come on dude, I’m on to you.
There’s so much to love about experiencing Christmas with children, but it isn’t always picture-perfect, is it? Maybe that’s what’s so hard about the less ideal moments, I feel like everything should be soft focus and delighted smiles and sparkly red-nosed unicorns and beautifully-decorated treats — and sometimes it’s more of a tangled web of uncertain lessons and parental self-doubt and sugar cookies made from a mix and bitch-slapped with a tub of high-fructose corn syrup.
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