Street Scene

The other day my son and I were walking out of the house for our afternoon tractor ride. Tractor as in our neighbors at the end of the street have a pedal tractor, which means I get to be the engine when it comes to hills and tough terrain around the woods behind our house. It’s like CrossFit, only with nonstop observations.

Look, a stick.

Remember when we saw a deer?

Whose rock is that?

So we were still in the driveway, when down the street I heard some arguing. Loud, explicit arguing in front of one of the houses between us and the tractor. A young lady girl was yelling in the street for all to hear, F--- this and F--- that and so on.

I held my son back. “Hang on, bud, let’s wait,” I said, not wanting to walk past the string of profanities littering the street but also not wanting to make a big deal out of the shouting.

This was a week before his third birthday, and it’s getting increasingly more and more difficult to pull one over on this kid. He makes connections. He reads my thoughts. He's sneaky good at making deals. Without a hitch, he motioned to the girl, spewing her classy f-bombs into another car—something about another girl, or shorty as she put it. When he spoke his voice matched the innocence in those eyes of his.

“She’s not happy?”

I shook my head. “No, she’s not happy. Here, let’s go inside for a minute.”

“No," he said, pulling back from me and still eyeing the scene. "I don’t want to."

Now, there were a few different way to go about this. I could have marched right down there and told them to keep it down. We could have ignored them, although that would have been tough, because as my son so diligently pointed out, the girl was not happy. Hell, I could have called the cops I suppose. But it didn’t look like a violent situation. Just loud. So instead, knowing my kid wasn’t about to go inside without a fight—not after being promised a tractor ride—I motioned across the street, to go sit on our across the street neighbor’s riding mower until the smoke cleared.  *Most of our neighbors are great. I guess every street has that one house...

So we started across the street and my kid looks down, then up to me, his hand still in mine.

“She’s not happy,” he repeated, still very much intrigued by the Jerry Springer scene playing out down the street.

I've noticed how certain things stick with him. When they do they are weaved into a story at the most random moments. Like when his Uncle Jeff plucked his own teeth out with my kid's new toy pliers, that memory is sticking around for a while.

We hung out on the riding mower for a bit, making engine noises while the arguing died down. When it cleared out, we started down the street, I couldn’t help feel for the little boy being carried into the house. Because certain things probably stick with him too.

At the end of the street my son climbed up on the tractor and got his feet set on the pedals, the satisfaction beaming on his face. Only a few months ago he couldn’t reach the pedals and now it's ride em cowboy. But first he looked up to me, squinting some in the bright winter sky.

“Dad, you make me happy. And I make Daddy happy too.”

And that will stick with me...

'Tis the Seasons...

The other morning, through a smear of yogurt, my kid, with his hair still fuzzy and wild from a good night’s sleep, was asking about balloons. More specifically, his You're the Best! balloon from months ago that I tossed in the trash because it lay in a heap under the table like a wet plastic grocery bag.

“Well, your birthday’s coming up, I’m sure you’ll get a balloon then, right?”

“And presents?”

“Yeah, you’ll probably score some gifts too."

His gaze wandered to where our tree had stood, now a barren corner and a stark reminder that Christmas is over.

"We can put them under the tree?"

“Well, uh, you see…”

And there’s the dilemma. Where I’m happy the kid enjoyed Christmas, he’s having a tough time letting it go. My wife said they pulled into the driveway the other evening and he said the house looked sad because we "put Christmas away.”

An unpardonable offense in his eyes. He wants to watch The Grinch. He wants presents under the tree. He wants to sing Jingle Bells, or, some form of it anyway… Omaha, it is to ride, in a one horse open….Hey!

We just might have a Christmas theme for his January birthday.

Now, I’m not some jerk who doesn't want his son to enjoy himself. I'm okay with a slight extension to the holiday season. We traveled this year for Christmas, so he wasn’t at home to enjoy the tree and the lights. So fine, we left everything up stayed merry and stretched things out a bit. While other people were pitching trees to the curb, ours glowed in full glory. 

I’m no longer one of those rip-it-all-down and be done with it on the 26^th type of guys. I don’t let the shopping season or commercials dictate what holiday to celebrate. Truth be told we could all use a little Christmas cheer all year around.

But…

After a while, wouldn't it get...weird, not too mention brown....if we had the tree up all year? And again, I've made some concessions already. I’ve left some lights up, white ones, on the fence post out front, and there's a snowman...

But these two, both of them, wife and kid. They want full tilt Yule tide. 

So I'm branded the Grinch.

Fine. But to me, part of what makes Christmas special is the wait. If it was here all year then it would not only get weird, and brown. It would lose some of it’s luster. But try explaining this at my house, while you're reading Little Blue Truck's Christmas and everyone's wondering why the little tree on the last page won't light up. *Hint, it's the batteries, because it's JANUARY...

I’m sure hope this will all pass. I’m guessing with his birthday and all he’ll get back into the groove of things and Jingle Bells will give way to the Easter Bunny. Or maybe by Halloween we’ll have him ready to go trick or treating, singing spooky songs and getting into the spirit of things. 

Maybe he can go as Santa Clause. 

Thoughts on Family Travel...

Holiday travel. Every year I say never again. Yet every year I find my hands on the wheel. Sure, getting away is fun. Seeing family is great.  But the getting there, that is tough sledding.

It starts with a three year old. Not easy, right? Add two dogs, one on each side of the little guy and now we’re getting close. Okay stuff the car to the gills and then pretend that you abhor being confined to a seat for more than a half hour or so. 

Now we’re cooking.

I'm sure that some of you out there drive all the time, and you may like nothing more than hitting the open road at full speed. Well, God bless you for it. Me? No, not my thing. I-81, with its steep inclines and trucks and constant road construction? I’d rather chew on a rusty wad of steel wool. 

My whole family was packed into that car. The only thing missing was a jar around my neck with our two little goldfish. One wrong move, me or the other guy and well...it’s more than my nerves can take. That’s why I chug along at a paltry 68-72 mph. I pass cops with a smile. The Fast and the Furious? I’m not what would be considered the ideal demographic.

Our journey began in Virginia and ended in the North Country, a mere 50 miles from the Canadian border. All in all it was something to the tune of 26 hours in that car with stops at the downtown Hilton in Scranton, Pa, both there and back. And By the way, those good people at the Hilton are top notch, and I highly recommend their hotel if you’re travelling with pets. Last time up  I chose a roadside motel to save a buck with the expected results.

But nope, this time we spent the extra money and got fancy. Two queen beds meant one for mother and child and one for man and dogs. It's funny because I used to leave a hotel room in a daze. A fog of cigarette smoke hanging and a string of beer cans strewn along the floor. Now it's Goldfish crumbs and baby wipes. 

Times change.

Dogs. Boy was that something. After the first time they flat out refused to get back in that elevator. A fool-me-once sort of deal. So then it was three flights of stairs whenever I had to let them out or in. Other than that they were well behaved. Even Mason, our neurotic husky mix did okay. A few pants and some trembling at times when traffic got hairy, but hey, the same went for me.

The kid. He did great too. Minimal napping and maximum discomfort, and yet he handled most of it like a champ. At one point, there was us, in the empty hotel lobby/bar, drinking a draft and trying to de-frazzle ourselves while our kid played with his tractor on the floor. Sure, there were those times on the road, when he’d yank at his car seat belt while shouting, “Get me out of here!” Then again, I did the same thing.

On the way home—which became the longest effing trip home since trips and homes and roadside mowing was invented—we hit a snag in traffic and came to a lurching halt on the interstate. My son, awake but weary, piped up from the back.

“We’re going home?”

“Yes son.”

“We’re going home really slow?”

“Yep.”

Home. There’s nothing better. Walking into that familiar place, with its smells and sounds and comforts. With its absence of traffic and lurking dangers. Where the dogs sleep without worry and snore through the night. Where the stress melts away. Where my kid isn’t tying a leash to the hotel chair or eating with a plastic spoon. Where there are no elevators or parking garages or check out times. Home. Where all is well.

Happy Holidays.

Are You Happy?

“Are you happy, Daddy?”

This is the newest question in our house. Whenever I tell my son not to do something, like, say not to throw his food. He’ll stop mid-throw, sort of tilt his head at me, and then,

“Are you happy, Daddy?”

“I am, bud. And well played by the way.”

Then, fifty percent of the time at least, bread takes flight.

But I am happy. Happy that he’s happy. Mostly, I mean there's always the occassional crushing blow for an almost three-year-old: Bedtimes, bath time, words that end with time and don't begin with play. Maybe when he can’t have a cookie, but overall, yes, he’s happy. So I’m happy.

His newest activity is riding a bike around the house. And by around I don’t mean literally, but more through the house. Down the hallway, into the kitchen, peddling away down the living room and making a hairpin turn back around again. And the imagination this kid has, the other day he fell, and got all sorts of upset because he dropped the imaginary cookies he was bringing to me.

Sometimes it can be hard to keep track of what's going on. I mean, it can be alligators roaming the living room, a lion down the hallway. The bike mysteriously “smokes” and has to be repaired. Oh, and anything can become a lawn mower.

The other day all of this was happening, nearly simultaneously, when I looked at my wife.

Can you believe this? We have a three year old.

Almost three at least, and man the house is jumping, with the alligators and all. My wife and I were thinking about calling an exterminator, but our son spotted us talking, like adults, and came to a skidding halt on the bike.

“Are you happy Mommy? Are you happy Daddy?”

“Yes son, we’re happy.”