Is Kermit the Frog Real?

Just when the snarky teenage attitude has you thinking you 4th grader is not a little one anymore he comes up with this one:

Is Kermit the Frog real?

-What do you mean real? Like does he exist?

He is interviewed in this magazine.

-Oh you mean is he a living person?

Yes

-No he is not, he is a puppet controlled by a human puppeteer, so he was not really interviewed in this magazine

Extreme faith in the heat retaining abilities of our house

Last week on a particularly cold night we told our boys to wear heavy pajamas so they could stay warm, my 6 year-old said, "If we don't open the windows we won't let the cold in and we won't have to worry about it."

Lost Posts from May 2011

My almost nine year old son asked his mother yesterday, “What do you pee out of?”

Mother: I don’t have a penis.

Then he demanded, “Let me see it!”

"Don’t you miss having a penis?"

"You need to shave down there, that’s disscusting."

Mother: Daddy has hair down there and you will too,

Son: He should shave it too.

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3rd grader, "I’ve got lead in my eye, I’ve got a pencil in my eye, I’m going to die!"

He did not have pencil in his eye, pencils are not really made of lead, he did not die.

Deep Sleep

>first relax, then clear your mind, don’t think of anything, don’t think about what you did today, think of nothing

930 pm tonight, my six year old teaching my 9 year-old how to fall asleep quickly

Had THE TALK!

So my 9 year-old kept asking questions trying to figure out how babies are made, so I just decided to tell him last night.
Previously we had told him that you take a little piece of the daddy and a little piece of the mommy and put it in the mommy and the baby grows from there.
Last night in the least racy way possible I told him that mommys have a tiny room inside them called a womb and the daddy uses his penis to put sperm, which look like tiny tadpoles and have all of the information about the dad, inside the womb. The mommy has an egg in the womb and it has all of the information about the mommy. The sperms race to the egg, and the strongest and fastest sperm connects with the egg, which then makes a hard shell so no more sperms can get in. Then the information from both parents mix to start creating a baby!

He was very mature and fine with this. He did ask, "What if the stuff doesn't come out?" To which I answered, "You just keep pushing it in until it does."
Son, "I do not like that part with putting the penis inside the mommy, is there another way to make a baby with a scientist or doctor?" Me, "Well yes, it costs lots of money, but they can take the sperm and eggs out of the parents combine them and then put them in the mommy, or take the sperm out of the daddy and put it into the mommy, but the regular way works better and it is free. You could adopt a baby too." Him, "No then it would not be a 'insert our sir name'."

My wife walks into the bathroom and I say everything went well, he is just not enthused about the putting the penis in the mommy part. She answered, "Oh honey it is okay you will enjoy doing it." He then opens up the shower curtain and starts to gyrate his naked crotch around in a dance music video informed nine year-old's interpretation of sleazy dancing stating in a deep raspy voice, "Oh yeah it's fun I'm gonna like it!" We kind of went into shock, then he turns back into himself and is about 100 times more grossed out by the idea of having to put his penis inside someone.
I told him not to worry when he grows up and meets his future wife his body will tell him when he is ready to make a baby and he does not have to worry about it for a number of years to come. And then I tease my wife like crazy for making the situation way more icky than it had been.

Trying to figure out sex

My 9 year-old has been trying to figure out sex lately.

Last night he asked his mother if I peepee in her butt to make a baby?

A month ago he told her that his friend needed his dad to help him do something, so the dad paused what he was watching on TV or his computer. He said the image on the screen was a man peeing in a woman's mouth.

My wife began to laugh nervously which lead our son to ask, "Are you laughing because you let daddy do that to you?"

I think it will be time for "the talk" to be happening pretty soon.

ps. Despite our numerous explanations he still thinks tampons are for ending pregnancies and calls them, "Baby Killers," as in, "So wait you don't swallow the baby killers, you put them inside your body?"

Youth Soccer

My son's team has NY Red Bull coaches, it's weird, I drove to the game with one of them this weekend, he was at least my age most likely older, most int'l youth coaches I have met are young guys in their 20's. There is this world wide network of coaches that, a high percentage of which are from the UK, and they coach in Ghana one year, move to USA the next, are an assistant coach to a low level pro team in Wales, then become the head coach to kids in NJ, it is very weird transient lifestyle that I was not perviously aware of.
So we roll into our first league game on the road last weekend with a professional coach decked out in Red Bulls gear, and our boys are rocking Adidas kits, we arrive in a nice upper middle class town in North Jersey and they have t-shirts and dads coaching having them do jumping jacks before the game. My son's team had to stop scoring at 7-0 our else the club would have been fined for each additional goal. Not growing up with soccer it is interesting for me at least to see the vast range of how towns develop players.
The day before another team my son plays with sometimes got demolished in a scrimmage by Portuguese and Brazilian kids from Ironbound SC in Newark. So I saw the whole spectrum from kids who just kick the ball around for fun to upper middle class and rich kids with the best training money can buy to those whose families live and breath the game, you can guess which one looks the best so far.

Evil Baby Killing Tampons

My 3rd grader notice some of my wife's tampons on a counter, and asked my wife about them. I did not hear all of her explanation but I heard enough to know it was too much information for him to deal with.

I was laying on the floor of his bedroom and he sat on top of me put his face close to mine and asked, "Is there something you can take to kill a baby inside a mommy after you have made one?"

GREAT

Me, "Mom! what exactly did you say to him. Son do not worry about that, though you are definitely not the first person to come up with that idea."

My wife, "He was asking me about what tampons are for."

He knows that his mother takes pills so she does not get pregnant. My wife explained that the tampons have nothing to do with making or killing babies. She then began to explain how the pill works and I had to cut her off realizing that to an eight year old or an extreme right to lifer the process of how they work may be considered "killing a baby," so I just chimed in that the pill keeps the mommy from making a baby.

We have told him that to make a baby you take a little piece of a mommy and little piece of a daddy, put them together inside of a mommy and it grows.

So last night he asks, "Do you make a baby if you cuddle too much and your hair gets tangled and it gets inside of the mommy?"

This morning the tampon box is still out and he says, "I hate tampons they are for killing babies." So my son thinks that tampons are for killing babies, we told him they are not, but he does not believe us. I explain that they are used only when mommies are not making babies, he does not buy it. I have to take a cup and use it as model of an upside down womb, fill it with a little water and describe a period as the water pouring out of the cup and the tampon is a sponge to keep mommies clean. Not fully buying it, I explain there is blood involved and the womb makes a bed for the new baby to grow in and if it is not needed the body throws the bedding out.

So we left it with him finally starting to turn the corner but not full convinced that tampons are not for killing babies.

Seems like yesterday

My just turned six year-old, "February is not so fun,"

me, "Why? We have a bunch of fun things, the Super Bowl, Coach Charlie's birthday dinner at Red Robin, your kid birthday party,"

Him, "Mehhheh,"

me, "What that party is costing us around $500, I can call up right now and cancel it!" I pick up the phone,

him, "NO!"

Me, "Alright then, you have to appreciate what we do for you, I am sorry but I can't make everyday all fun all the time, I have a number of things I have to do."

Him, "Dad do you remember when I was the most important thing in your life? Seems like yesterday."

Me, "WHAT? What did you say?"

He repeats what he said

Me, "Where did you get that from?"

Him, "In Toy Story they say 'Do you remember when we were the most important things in Andy's life. Seems like yesterday.'"

Me, "Oh man that was pretty funny."

So my six year-old has figured out how to quote film dialog to bust my balls, great.

Two things

Over winter break I finally had time to build the second of three cheap book shelves I bought months and months ago. It was tall and white and I put it in our boys' room, the last one was black and didn't match the room's color scheme. The boys have been happy to have their books, comics and trading cards back in their room rather than in the attic where they aren't really allowed to go into.
My kindergartner said he wanted to paint the book shelf. Knowing full well that I was not going to let him do this I asked what color he wanted to paint it, he said, "Clear!"
I let him know that you can't make non-clear items clear with paint.

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We got back late from a family birthday party last night and missed the first few minutes of the Jets game. My boys wanted to watch the game but I sent them to bed during half-time and told them that if the Jets come back you can watch the DVR of the game, if not they save themselves the grief of watching their team lose.

During the third quarter I got up a few times to go to the kitchen to make food and get drinks. I was pretty much sedentary for the fourth quarter. After they lost I felt a bit bummed and thought, "I am not going to watch the Steelers celebrate," and turned the channel, then to my surprise my 8 year-old popped up from under a TV tray standing the far side of the couch that I was sitting on and yells, "I hate the Steelers!" I asked how long have you been there? "Uh," okay how many Jets touchdowns did you see? "Two." So he snuck down the stairs when I went to the kitchen and hid for at least a half an hour about six feet away from me.


......... kitchen
-
--

---

---- ......... TV

^ stairs

couch-> [_me_______] him

If we were not both so bummed about the outcome of the game he would have gotten in trouble for sneaking out of bed and staying up late.

Reborn as an ant

My eight year-old had a dream where he lived to one hundred years old and then died and came back two days later as an ant who only lived for 30 days because some kid from his class stepped on him, a kid who he has seen step on ants before.

I asked if he had been taught about Eastern religion, "Have they taught you about Chinese or Indian religion?" and he said no, so this is rather interesting on a many levels.

Maybe I Should Let My Five Year-old Professionally Train for Soccer

A few weeks ago my kindergartner was offered a tryout for a local elite soccer training program, mainly off of his older brother's reputation. The practice is in another town and ends at 8pm, he gets cranky at 730 and is suppose to be in bed by eight so I passed on the opportunity.

I take the little guy to soccer training during the week after school and my wife takes him to a recreation program on the weekend. They didn't play any scrimmages during the Fall at the practice I take him to, so I saw him scrimmage for the first time in about six months this evening. Holy frickin' cow, he was a total beast, he had five goals and his side won six to three. The impressive thing was that it was a three on three game, but he was taking the ball from his teammates and they would try to get it back, so it was really like a one on five game. He of course needs to learn to better with others but I couldn't believe that he already had moves and technique and how fluidly he moved about the pitch with the ball. Soccer is his older brother's life, almost to a fault, so it is going to be interesting to see what the future holds if the little one winds up being better than his big brother at the big guys favorite thing in the world.

Digging Up Dead Friends

As we drove past a cemetery my Kindergartner said, "There are a lot of dead people." Then he asked about if they can come back, I can't remember what we answered, if we said something about heaven or not, but then he said, "I want to dig up my friend 'Jack' because I want to talk to him because he was nice."
We told him he could talk to him in his head. When he did not seem convinced we then said he could pray and have God let Jack hear his message to him.

Good Taste

The other day I was playing the newest Fall album in the car and at some point my eight year-old son said, "Dad," which is usually how he starts off when he is going to complain about my music, "This music is awesome." It is cool bonding over music with my kids, though my big guy some times complains that no kids in his school really know music like he does so he does not have anyone to talk to about it but me. I tell him his classmates will eventually catch up to him a bit by middle school.

More Man Than You & Other Tales of Secondary Sexual Characteristics

My son who is in third grade is kind of hairy, which makes sense because I am very hairy. The other day a male classmate of his saw his arm hair and said, "Eeeuw, you are pretty hairy!" My son looked that the boy, who he said actually had a decent amount of body hair himself, and said, "It just means that I am more of a man than you are," and the kid dejectedly let out a sorrowful, "Oh," and slunk off.

I have been trying to teach my son the art of the witty comeback as a non violent defense mechanism, and I am glad he is developing that ability. It is cute to see the difference between him and my 5 year-old who is afraid of getting in trouble for telling mean kids to "shut up," but thinks an okay response to a verbal insult is to "punch him in the penis!"

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I am currently reading about adolescent development and writing a paper on it in which I had to interview a teenager. One point is that as a girl's body mass increases during puberty and they often develop a negative body image because of it (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Reasons for this are developing earlier than their peers and the media portrayal of a thinner pre-pubescent body type as beginning the standard for beauty.

I am sure this is not new news to anyone reading this, but I find it sickening that girls in our society are lead to believe that there pre-pubescent bodies which are really their pre-sexual bodies are more attractive, beautiful or sexually appealing than their post-pubescent bodies, which by definition should be more attractive because they are now physically ready for intercourse (not mentally ready in our society of course) and childbearing. It is totally ill, a completely unhealthy view that our society perpetuates.

It seems that tween girls long to grow up to be "mature" teenagers and once they do some long to not have physically mature bodies. It is like society is set up to make us not be satisfied with who we naturally are.

My New Friend Tee Just Pee'ed on Me

I was at my older son's soccer scrimmages yesterday. I bring my 5 yr-old son sometimes because there is a playground at the field and he has some friends that are sometimes there.

Yesterday he ran up to some kids he didn't know and started playing with them right away.
About an hour later he comes up to me and I notice his pants are wet, I asked, "What happened buddy did you have an accident?" He answered, "No, me and my new friend Tee had to go peepee so we went back there (behind the jungle gym) and he got peepee on my pants."
Me, "Are you sure you didn't have an accident, it's okay, I know you don't know where a bathroom is around here."
Him, "No, Tee is little (looked to be 3 or 4) so he wasn't so good at it."
Me, "Okay well next time come to me if you have to go to the bathroom, and don't pull your pants down around strangers even if they are other little kids, and especially don't pee standing next to another kid who is peeing okay?"

AGE DIFFERENCE

There is a 2 year and 8 months difference in age between my two sons, aged five and eight.

So they are almost in the same age group, at least close enough that the younger one feels he can do what ever the older one can.

I noticed during the summer that they we having more problems getting along, as if my older son had grown into a new stage of development, basically he's not a little guy any more and his brother is. This is both physically and mentally, he has little tolerance for his little brother's stories, or his inability to keep up in Lego Star Wars for PlayStation 2, and pretty much dominates him in all forms of competition. This results in a lot of crying by the five year-old, because he never wins at chess, or any games that take strategy, and not only loses at sports but often gets hurt while playing those sports. This takes place even when his older brother is NOT trying to hurt him due to the older son's strength.

The frustration of the Kindergartner often leads to him starting conflict (arguing and whining as well as hitting and kicking) with his older brother, which had been resulting in physical retaliation from the 3rd grader. After a number of punishments my oldest son realized that he was getting into trouble on a regular basis even though he was usually only 25% to blame for the conflicts and it has finally dawned on him that telling on his brother is a much more effective way of dealing with the little guy's anger and frustration than hitting him.

This has not only resulted in them trying to get each other in trouble* all the time, but the younger son being punished much more often than he is use to. The five year-old is usually very confident, happy and positive, and does not get into trouble very often, so he sometimes seems incapable of dealing with being in the wrong. He was use to being the "good one" and when he was not he could goad his brother into getting in trouble with him or in his stead by tricking his parents with his wails of pain.

When he was an infant/young toddler he would bang his head when he was upset, which I "cured" by using the doggy training method of locking him outside in a shed, only kidding, I would smack a rolled up newspaper next to him as I saw him getting ready to bag his head and it would startle him. He would get made because he would be half way through his wind up to bang his head, get startled and look at me confused and try again, "whack" newspaper next to him again, and repeat until he gave up on the self harming action. Well now he has taken to criticizing himself, using terms that neither his mother or I use, "I am stupid/bad, I hate myself, etc." I have talked to my therapist about this, and even though they are now diagnosing very young children with depression since he does not show any other signs of being depressed this is most likely an attempt to get a parent to soothe him and tell him his is good etc. Which of course the first five or so times I did, so he learned that the way to get out of trouble is to be verbally critical of himself. Subsequently I just tell him that I have never said he was (whatever negative thing he just said) that his family loves him, but that does not change the fact that he smacked his brother in the face after loosing at FIFA soccer on PlayStation. That he is upset and or angry and that is okay but hitting is not allowed, he can go be alone scream or lay down, or punch a pillow but hitting is not an appropriate way to deal with being upset.

He is one of the happiest, pleasant to be around people I have ever known in my whole life, but the 5 to 10% of the time he is upset, man his anger is violent and something I will have to keep an eye on.

Not that I am interested in skipping any stages of their development, I have enjoyed all of them, but I look forward to when they are seven and nine and back in the same age group. Of course until the bigger one turns ten and becomes a tween!

You can tell me it's okay

A conversation my eight year-old just had with his mom, in light of us having lots of "grown up" conversations lately where we need the kids to leave the room and us being stressed out by the deterioration of our relationship with my mother:

SON mom is there something bad going on in your life?
MOM no
S you can tell me it's okay
M well there is but I am not going to tell you what it is
S is it bills, is it money, is someone dying
M no
S I can give you some money if that will help
M it's nothing that money can help
S if it gets worse will you tell me
M probably not
S dad said you'd tell me if it gets worse

Is that why you yelled $#(%!!!

A few weeks ago my 8 year-old son forgot a book at school he needed to study for a test. He was getting very upset. That same night I misplaced something and was yelling at myself about it.

I went over to him and said, "See there is no reason to get mad at yourself, everyone looses things even daddy, I just lost something too."

"Oh, is that why you just yelled 'shit'?"

"Uhm, yeah it is. You are not in trouble, but you are not allowed to say that word okay, I am sorry that you heard me say it."

Hold On To This ...

My wife brought my youngest son into bed with me this morning before she went to work. It is the first day that both of my boys have off for summer vacation, so I do not have to get up as early as I have been. So I hug my son but then he realizes that his mother is leaving and he fully wakes up and starts to go after her. I let out a little grumbly moan of disappointment, and he turns back and says, "Hold on to this," and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then proceeds downstairs after his mother. A few minutes later he asked, "Are you still holding on to it?"