John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

The New Yorker cover on Halloween, parents and phoning it in

The New Yorker's Halloween cover is brilliant. Although I saw nary a parent out there tonight (mind you, we weren't out long) with a smartphone, I think artist Chris Ware - more from him here - nails something about the obsession grown-ups have with their gadgets, perhaps at the expense of their kids.

My boy, Death

This wasn't the plan. The plan, hatched in February, when we visited Disney World, was that Nick was going to go as the Sorcerer's Apprentice. (You know, Mickey Mouse in the red cape and blue hat, the one with the stars. The side deal, which I was willing to go along with, is that I would go as one of the brooms carrying pails of water (the pails actually holding treats and such), with Martha more than willing, somehow, to turn a grass skirt into the broom part of my costue. Like I said, we were all willing to do what we had to do.

Well, that got cast aside, as nine-year-old boys are wont to do. Instead, in September he informed us that he was going out as the Grim Reaper. And that was that. Martha stitched the costume this week, and it turned out really well, given that it was just one big heaping pile of fabric at the start. Our friends Christine and John donated their (plastic) scythe.

I'm suggesting that Nick go around tonight with a sack with "soul food" on it, for his snacks.

Yorick, Nick. Nick, Yorick

Our son was being outfitted just now for the costume he'll wear for Halloween. He's going as the Grim Reaper, and was holding up an almost weightless plastic skull, which was part of a lawn decoration we bought last year. I couldn't resist, and got him to repeat, "Alas, poor Yorick" .... and I misfed him the line "I knew him well," which I should have known instantly is not what Hamlet said next. (That would be, "I knew him, Horatio.") (And the words after that spawned one of the better novels of my generation.)

Thus was our son Nick's introduction to Hamlet. "What's with the Shakespeare stuff?" he asked. Good question. And I'm sure he'll have decades to think about how rich that answer can be.

A thought on travelling with kids

"In America there are two classes of travel - first and with children."

- Robert Benchley

[The image above comes from the Life magazine archive.]

If kids yelled back at parents

We've all seen them: the parents who like to give their lungs a workout while their kids are playing sports, and could very well be giving their kids a complex. I love this Little League video, which turns the tables nicely.

The kid and the iPod: 'I've been dragging all my life'

We had a moment of  transition in our house yesterday: I formally gave my son ownership of my old iPod Nano. My wife gave me a new one last year for Christmas, so my older one wasn't getting much use. Moreover, Martha and I have noticed that Nicholas is starting to get a lot more interested in music.
So, it seemed like a good idea to let him listen to his own music, at least around the house.

He, of course, was thrilled. And so were we, when we saw him on the living room couch, crading the thing in his hands, his toes wiggling and head bobbing to whatever it was he was listening to. 

To get that point, though, we had to put some tunes on the Nano. But what, exactly, does our son like?

To help set things up, I sat down with him on the couch with my laptop, and set up a playlist for him in iTunes. I would play a suggested tune, and he quickly took on the air of a Roman emperor, with a thumb up or down to determine what headed to the folder. (One surprise: a Branford Marsalis tune, which apparently reminded him of Bleeding Gums Murphy.)

Eventually, being a nine-year-old, he wanted to do all of this by himself. I said, "Let me show you how to drag and drop a song." His reply? "Dad! Dad-Dad-Dad-Dad ... I've been dragging all my life." His hands were gesturing as if to say, "Scram."

So I did, and will be curious to see what music turns his crank from hereon in.

A thought on childbirth

"Having a baby is like watching two very inefficient removal men trying to get a very large sofa through a very small doorway, only in this case you can't say, 'Oh, sod it, bring it through the French windows."
- Victoria Wood

Paperback Writer, Rain, from 1966

My son needs a haircut. And, it seems, some musical education. When I told Nick he looked like a Moptop, he had no idea what I meant. Fair enough, but then he didn't know what the Beatles were either. So, I showed him this: two short films (videos, we'd call them a decade and change later) shown on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1966.

I was speaking metaphorically, kid

Scene last night, as my son, who's nine, wanted to get rid of hiccups. After telling him that "scaring" him wouldn't work, and wanting him to get on with his homework, I said, "Just throw yourself into something and take your mind off it."

A minute later, a crashing sound in the living room. He had rolled on top of an exercise ball we got for him for balance exercises, right into an end table. He told me he had just gone out and threw himself at it.

So, last night's homework included a recap of metaphors, expressions, turns of speech, etc.

A thought on kids and money

"It is frequently said that children do not the value of money. This is only partially true. They do not know the value of your money. Their money, they know the value of."
- Judy Markey