The Evil Child

At the recent birthday party of one of the Little Dude’s friends, I learned that some kids are just pure evil. And I didn’t know how to handle it.

Like the majority of parties we’ve gone to over the last few years this one was at an “indoor play place”. If you are a parent of young kids, you probably know the type: a very brightly fluorescent lit room filled with primary colors and runny-nosed kids. And some toys.  

Some kids are better sharers than others. My Little Dude happens to be an excellent sharer and I’m not just saying that because he’s my kid. In the interest of full disclosure, my son is a Thomas the Train addict and every time he goes to a place with a train table, he usually spends the majority of his time there. He likes to carry the trains around as he checks out the table, sometimes six or eight trains at a time.  But whenever another kid comes to play, he shares what he’s holding.

At this particular party, after the requisite cheese pizza and sheet-cake, the kids had free play time. The Little Dude spotted a Razor-type scooter and was enamored by it, despite never having been on one before. I watched him as he watched some of the older kids riding and knew he wanted to try it out.

He followed one boy who rode the scooter to the back of the playroom. The boy stepped off the scooter and laid it on the ground nearby as he went to play air hockey with another kid. Clearly he was moving on to something else, as kids tend to do frequently at places like this that offer myriad opportunities for play.  The Little Dude spotted the scooter on the ground from about 25 feet away and eagerly started running toward it. As he was getting close, the other boy noticed him, turned around and stuck his leg out. My Little Dude crashed to the carpet.

The boy, who was at least double my son’s age, looked proud of himself. “Ha, I tricked that little kid”, his face screamed. Until he noticed me watching.  I ran to my son, who was shaken up and confused. Probably more shocked by his fall than anything, he was clearly upset.  At 2 ½ he was too young to verbalize what he was thinking, but the sadness on his face which had radiated pure excitement 20 seconds earlier was heartbreaking.

I turned to the boy and asked him why he did that. He had no response. After a few carefully chosen words from me, which he shrugged off, he turned back to his air hockey game. We took the scooter and headed in the other direction. I was baffled. I’d seen kids play rough before, but never so blatantly toward my kid.

The tricky part of the situation was that I know Evil Boy’s parents. Not well at all, but extremely casually.  I don’t know them well enough to know whether this was his usual behavior or an isolated incident. I looked around and saw the parents on the other side of the room, not watching what any of their kids were doing.  I made sure my son was OK and as expected, within a couple minutes he lost interest in the scooter and headed back to see Thomas, Percy and company. He was over the incident. I was not.

I was faced with the dilemma of whether or not to say something to the obviously inattentive parents.  I didn’t want to cause a scene at someone else’s party, but the reality was, their kid acted like an A-hole. They needed to know. 

I debated various ways of broaching the subject with the parents. A few times I saw Evil Boy cross my path. Each time, I gave him a very stern look. And each time, I saw a nervous look on his face before he took off in the opposite direction.  If the kid and his family were strangers, it might have been easier. But they weren’t.

For half an hour, my mind raced. Would my confronting the parents lead to further confrontation? I knew that I didn’t want to cause a problem, but I was unhappy and they needed to know so that other kids wouldn’t fall victim to their son the bully.

As I debated internally, I watched my son playing with the trains. He had a chain of 3 going up and down bridges along the tracks & smiled each time they cruised down the hill. If he was already over it, maybe I should be too. I decided to not tell the parents.  Hopefully karma will someday.

What would you have done if you were in my position?

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See Mama Again

INT. MAMA & DADA’S ROOM:  SUNDAY MORNING – 5:54am

A dog snores in the distance. Everyone in the house is asleep. Or should be.

Suddenly 2-year-old TODDLER's wail pours through a baby monitor.

5:54am:

TODDLER:  “MAMA!” (pause) “Ma-maaaaaaaaaa!”

5:57am:

DADA: What the --?  What was that?

MAMA: I think you know.

DADA: The apocalypse?

MAMA: We should be so lucky.

DADA: An hour and a half early? I guess he doesn't know it was St. Patrick's Day last night. 

MAMA: We haven’t celebrated St. Patty’s Day since the Little Dude was born.

DADA: I know, but after only 4 hours of sleep I feel almost as wiped out as if I’d had 10 Guinness’s last night.

5:59am: 

DADA: I'll get him. 

MAMA: Good idea -- zzzzzzzzzz

INT. TODDLER'S ROOM: 6:02am

Tired DADA shuffles in to find TODDLER standing at attention. Whimpering ensues. From Dudes both Big and Little.

6:02am:

DADA: What's the problem, little man?

TODDLER: See Mama?

DADA: She’s resting, but it's OK, Dada's here. What's wrong? 

TODDLER: See Mama?

DADA: Mama's sleeping, like most of L.A.; did you have a bad dream?

TODDLER: See Mama Again! 

DADA: So, tell me, what do you really want?

(Crying ensues. TODDLER is extracted from crib.)

6:05am

DADA: Here's the deal: you can stay in your crib and sleep, we can rest in your rocking chair or (under his breath) you can rest in Mama and Dada's bed. 

TODDLER: Mama Dada Bed!

DADA: You can only go in there if you are going to rest. Are you going to close your eyes and go back to sleep? 

TODDLER: (Emphatically) Yes! Yes!

DADA: Yeah, you seem tired.

INT. MAMA & DADA'S BED: 6:10am

6:10am

MAMA:  Are you sleepy, Little Dude? 

TODDLER: Yes, me rest eyes.

MAMA: OK, Mama rest eyes, too. 

DADA: Goodnight everyone.

(TODDLER lies down and closes eyes. The room goes silent. Out of fear, MAMA & DADA don't make a sound.)

6:20am

TODDLER: See Buzz and Woody! 

DADA: Buzz and Woody are sleeping now. Probably because they know that they’ll be blown up by Sid if they don’t. Let's go back to sleep, dude. 

TODDLER: See Mickey Mouse? 

DADA: Mickey and Minnie were out late last night for St. Patrick's Day. They threw a big bash at the Clubhouse. They're sleeping, too.

TODDLER: See Mama Again! 

MAMA (from 6 inches away): I'm right here.

(For 5 minutes a game of pinball occurs in the bed. MAMA on one side. DADA on the other. Both semi-comatose. TODDLER bounces back and forth between them, as though he’d just chugged a case of Red Bull)

6:30am

MAMA: Do you want to sleep or play?

TODDLER: PLAY!

DADA: OK, I'll take this one. Then you'll only be up 600 morning shifts on me. 

MAMA:  600? You're getting warm...

INT. TODDLER'S ROOM – 6:35am:

Lights are low, toys are flying. TODDLER is squealing with delight. DADA is catatonic.

6:35am:

DADA: DADA is going to play “sleep in the rocking chair”. Do you want to play, too?

TODDLER: No sleep. Read books. 

DADA: OK, you read and I'll watch you. With my eyes closed. 

TODDLER: No, Dada read books!

DADA: (grumbles) OK, pick ONE book.

TODDLER: Dis one--

DADA: NOT that one. It has, uh, too many words. 

TODDLER (frowning): See Mama Again!

DADA: In a little bit. She’s resting.

TODDLER: Choo Choo time? 

DADA: OK, Dada is going to lie down & you can drive the trains on my back. 

TODDLER: Dada is train track?

DADA: Yup. Wake me up, I mean, let me know when you are finished. Hopefully in an hour or two.

7 minutes later, DADA is woken up by Thomas the Train plowing into his ear canal.

6:45am:

TODDLER: See Mama Again?

DADA: Let's, uh, play with your dinosaurs.

TODDLER: No dinosaurs!

DADA: Elmo?

TODDLER: No Elmo!

DADA: Aren't you tired? 

TODDLER: No tired! 

After a few more minutes of negotiation, TODDLER lets out a bellowing yawn.

7:04am:

DADA: Are you sure you don't want to rest your eyes for a few minutes?

TODDLER: No rest!

DADA: Since you are up, do you want to go clean the bathroom? If so, go light on the bleach.

TODDLER: No clean!

DADA: So what do you want to do? 

TODDLER: PLAY!

DADA: See Mama Again?

                                                                                  

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VD Is Not Fair

I’m not a big political person, nor am I big into protests but there is one cause I feel very strongly about. Whoever decided that Valentine’s Day should be a big national celebration should be shot.  I’m sure it was someone from American Greetings or Tiffany or Whitman’s, which are all fine American companies, but they are more exploitative than Britney Spears at the Hometown Buffet.  

Valentine’s Day is confusing to Dudes their whole lives. When I was a kid, the girls at school used to pass those crappy quasi-cardboard Masters of the Universe Valentines’ cards around to the boys and the boys would reciprocate with Strawberry Shortcake. If you think about it, who could be more romantic than He-Man or Skeletor?  But it was a trick. The girls usually weren’t interested in the boys, but social convention and overbearing parents forced them into distributing V-Day cards to all the boys in the class. 

So if the girls gave cards to all the boys and the boys gave cards to all the girls, how can I say the boys were being deceived and the girls deceptive? Because the girls’ mass distribution was an act of being polite, even though the popular girls really only had eyes for the captain of the kickball team.  When the boys gave cards to all the girls in their class it was more of an act of covering all their possible bases, like playing 5 bingo cards at a time, than actual romantic interest.  Thus in elementary school, the game of cat-and-mouse begins.

Fortunately those cards didn’t cost much and were usually paid for by parents hoping their kids would come home with some mini Snickers bars they could pilfer. In high school and college, the stakes were much greater.  Was it worth the risk of working for several months to rent a limo, go to a fancy dinner and buy an ugly corsage for a girl who may or may not like you?  Again, for the captain of the football team, it’s all good. Captain of Academic Decathlon, think again before passing go or spending $200.

In my mid-20’s, I met a girl just before New Years and started dating her just after.  If I’d known better I would have waited six weeks before calling her, as her birthday was just a few days before Valentine’s Day. The ultimate double-whammy for a Dude to handle.  Perhaps I should have bought her a pack (or two) of Doublemint gum which allegedly would have doubled the pleasure and doubled the fun.  Instead, I had several consultations with her biased roommates which probably led to me spending more than I should have on such a new lady friend that things ultimately didn’t work out with.  In retrospect I should have gone with the gum.

Now that I’m married and have a child, it’s still not clear exactly what I need to do for Valentine’s Day.  Do I need to buy my wife a gift from my 2 year old? Is a card sufficient? Do we need to get him something? He’s not in school yet, so thankfully he doesn’t know about those cheap cards which probably contain modern cartoon characters like Thomas the Train or the Kardashians. 

After hearing all my kvetching you might wonder if I hate Valentine’s Day.  In reality, I don’t. In fact if it wasn’t for Valentine’s Day, I might not be here today.  What you probably don’t know is that my birthday is almost exactly 9 months to the day from February 14^th.  So I guess I should live it up, for if not for the magic of Cupid I might not exist.  

Happy Valentine's Day to my 2 favorite people!

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