Whatever You Want Honey

- D

I told you that I would likely write about our day at the park. I’ll tell you now that half the day was filled with screaming and it wasn’t because the rides were fun.

We got up late Friday morning and left the house within the hour. We headed to my mom’s house to drop off the dog because they do not allow dogs at the park. (Go figure.) The whole trip down to Lancaster, PA was a barrage of “Are we there yet?” and “How much longer?”

The boys were poking at one another, which was irritating not only to the one getting poked but to us adults in the front seat. When they started playing karate with one another, we had to stop the fun. After an hour of driving we pulled into the parking lot and you would have thought the boys had never seen anything like it before. There were tons of hoots and hollers of glee that I could not believe these were the same two individuals in my backseat.

We get into the park and my wife gets nauseous on the first ride. The boys found it hilarious but could care less because the next ride was only a few feet away. Those boys were fearless, if it didn’t spin, flip, twist or otherwise contort your body they wanted nothing to do with it.

I actually found myself aging rapidly as we traversed from ride to ride. Every little step I took a new part of my body resisted being moved.

As an adult, the only way I could think of to get the boys to sit down while I recuperated was to announce lunch time. While waiting in line to order food, my son decides that he is not going to waste his day at the park eating and announces that he will just ride the rides without us. He storms out the door of the restaurant.

His friend chases him out the door. The two grapple one another for a few minutes before I could catch up and carry my little guy back into the restaurant kicking and screaming. We ordered our food that consisted of:
3 Hot Dogs
3 Hash Browns
1 Turkey Sub (6″ hoagie roll, not a sub roll)
1 Tuna Wrap
3 Small Drinks
1 Small Potato Salad
1 Small Chocolate Pudding
For a Grand Total of $39.41!!!!!!

I nearly defecated myself. I believe my response was [to my wife], “We could have gone to Red Lobster and paid less!” I thought it was going to be expensive, but $40??? I was seriously shaken by the price.

After spending the equivalent of the contents of the Franklin Mint for lunch, our son refuses to eat stating, “I’d rather be on a ride than in here wasting my time!” The potato salad was… indistinguishable from pig slop, the hot dogs I suppose were ok, our son ate two bites and his friend ate the other two nearly whole with no objection, my wife was not impressed with her sub, but I really enjoyed the wrap.

After the lunchtime fiasco, we hit a few more rides and then were off to the water park. The guys got changed and my wife decided there were too many people for her to be comfortable (ever the introvert), so she found a quiet little shaded alcove where the decibel level came under 65.

I spent the next three hours ducking and dodging a herd of 4 to 14-year old humans who knew but one level of noise, ear-piercing. Being one of the few male targets in the lagoon area, I must have been the prime target for the spray nozzles placed in seemingly inconspicuous sections of the water towers. I was shot at, sprayed and dumped on more than I can recall. After each attack came a wailing of laughter that can only be described as hysterical. Maybe it was, but for all the chlorine and baby pee, I found little to be excited about.

As it was nearing my level of turmoil, my wife showed up to save me. She said, let ‘em know we have five more minutes. Now the hunted became the hunter. Stealthfully, I hid behind the palm tree, then under the slide, then moved to the water chute until my prey were wrangled up. Surprisingly, they went along with the charade of, “We are going to ride some more rides before we have to go.”

We got changed back into our civies and headed toward the park entrance. We did allow for one or two rides along the way. God must have been keenly aware of our weakened state of mind as it began to lightening and thunder. The rides were closing down one-by-one. We convinced them that we needed to hurry through the gift shop otherwise we could be caught in the storm.

A few minutes looking at pirate swords, toy trains and a slew of other poorly made plastic novelties and we were out of there. Twenty steps from the car and the sky gave out dropping pounds of water at a time. We made it to the car, no worse for wear and were on our way back home.

Thankfully the ride home was pleasurable.

So, a word to the wise. “If you decide to take children to a theme park, be sure to be prayed up, so that when you want to leave, ask God for rain. It can save the day!”

- D

Our son just came barreling into the room, screaming at the top of his lungs and doing some kind of dance that can only be described at a marionette on crack, singing, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, I Love You, Love You, Love You.” He gave her a quick violent hug, turned around and bolted back to the living room.

My first thought was, “Arrrrgh, what’s up with the noise!” Then I thought, “Ok. That was kinda cute.” Then I thought, “What is wrong with him?”

He has the capacity for an enormous amount of love and compassion, but it is always delivered with a super intense physical and audible barrage of emotion and energy. It can be frustrating and sweet at the same time.

Any advice for the soon-to-be insane? Your comments are appreciated.

- D

It was 9 am on a Saturday morning. My wife, her BFF (Heather), my son (Kaleb) and I are sitting on Heather’s front porch drinking our morning jolt of caffeine and conversing about what we were going to do today.

My son is such a man with his hands down his pants. Heather said, “Get your hands out of your pants, it is not going anywhere. It’s a complex you men have.”

To which he replied, “Girls have Thingys, too.”

I guess to experience the whole story you have to know that my wife and I debated what to call the male and female body parts ever since my son was born. Because we were never able to give “them” names that were age appropriate, we just called it a “thingy“.

Then, I said, “No. Girls do not have Thingys.”

Kaleb replied, “Uhn ha. Let me see!”

Now, how do you explain the differences in anatomy to a curious five year old?

This is what stumbled out of my mouth, not that I endorse this explanation, nor do I know if this is the correct way to handle the situation properly, but it is what came out. So I suppose I have to live with the err of my morning mind and lack of caffeine coursing through my blood.

“Kaleb,” I blurted, “boys have ‘outies‘ and girls have ‘innies‘.”

To my surprise, Kaleb asked, “Oh, like when they are scared?”

We could not contain our laughter. For the next few moments the tears poured out.

When the laughter calmed down, I said, “No. they are ‘innies‘ all the time.”

Then he continued, “Why?”

Oh, that I could turn the clock back and replay this scenario in a much more eloquent way. I could have said, “Don’t worry about that, yet.” or “When you are old enough to understand, I will tell you about it.” or “Let’s ask Pastor Myron.”

Any of those responses would have been good.

But being the Christian and the wannabe scientist rolled into one, I responded with a retort, “Well, you see when a baby is growing in a mommy’s belly, God makes the baby either a girl or boy. If He wants the baby to be a girl, then she gets an ‘innie’. If He wants the baby to be a boy, he gets an ‘outie’.”

To my elation, this was enough to satisfy my son’s curiosity on the topic.

To give further background, we have found that the “Why” questions stop when we say, “Because God said so.” or “Because God made it that way.”

An example of this was recently when Kaleb asked why it rains. I told him all about the water cycle. (I know, this explanation of evaporation, condensation and precipitation is a little over his head, but I do not want to talk down to him. After all, he is an adult in training.)

He then repeats his question. Then I said, “Because God wanted to make it rain.”

Then I get the sweetest reply, “Oh, ’cause God said so. Like when you say, ‘Daddy says so?’”

Do you know that children bring the greatest pleasures in life. You just cannot help but smile.

Today is a day that the Lord made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it! - Psalm 118:24

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