Noisy toys

Some toys make noise. It may be a beep, a growl, spoken words, or a song, but there are thousands of toys in our house right now that produce some kind of electronic irritation.

Those of you without kids will fall into one of two categories. You may be blissfully unaware of such things as noisy toys. I say, "bless you." May you remain in your ignorance for as long as is possible.

Then there are those of you that are aware of noisy toys, and give these things as gifts to those of us with children. You are evil, evil monsters. May you have large, multi-gendered families with talking Barbies getting shot by loud laserguns, and with the human crying that must follow.

My own sister used to give noisy toys as gifts. She now has a child of her own and has repented.

My parents used to gleefully give noisy toys to our brood. Once, "on accident" we sent the Elmo Rock 'n Roll Guitar to their house with the boys. It worked.

May God richly bless all those who learn from their mistakes.

Nevertheless, we still have a couple of blissfully ignorant friends, several evil monster friends, and enough leftover noisy toys that the boys can always find them somewhere.

McDonald's for example, had little Sega (!) handheld games in their happy meals a few months back. We have 4 boys, so 3 or 4 trips to McDonald's yields about a gazillion of these things in and around the house. We've been throwing them away like mad for the past month (T has beat them all; he's my nerdlet), but they still show up.

They're in the car, between couch cushions, in beds (yes, in beds; S1 and J share a double bed, and they're awake for about an hour each night after the lights go out; it's always kinda fun to pull back the covers in the morning and see what they've stashed in there: LEGO's, books, night-nights, and yes, Sega (!) handheld games).

These games are like cockroaches.

So the other night, about 2 AM, I hear this electrnic tone. Of course, I'm kinda on call, so I'm worried it's my phone and that a server's down, etc. So I jump out of bed (very cold) and head out into the hallway.

Thankfully, it's not my phone. But the sound is coming from the Middle's room. It's not super-loud, so it has to be either in or under something else. It's also very annoying, so there's no way I'm going back to sleep.

I stand in the middle of the room, and pinpoint the sound as coming from inside their toybox. This is bad. Aside from making electronic noises of various sorts, the other ubiquity of modern toys is that they're all made from hard plastic. This includes the toybox.

Tangent. In college, I had a roommate who was an Industrial Education major. One quarter he took this class in plastics. For the next year and a half, whenever we saw, discussed or used any kind of plastic, he would tell us what it was, whether or not it was recyclable, and what he could make from it. He would know what kind of plastic(s) both the game, the toybox, and every other toy in that toybox were made of.

Whatever kind of plastic it was, I was going to make a lot of noise looking for anything inside that big plastic box. Also, the sound bounced around inside the box, so I wasn't going to be able to find the game withought light.

Have you ever woken up a child at night?

I have, and I wasn't going to do it again. So I pick up the toybox and take it out into the hall, where there's a nightlight. Then I start fishing around for the game. During this whole endeavour, the game is still sending out it's annoying little "play with me" tone.

Context is important, so let's review. It's 2 AM, it's cold, I'm in my traditional cold-wather sleep wear (boxers and socks), hunched over a toybox in the hall, looking for a Sega (!) handheld game from McDonad's by the light of a nightlight, while the game is going off inside the toybox.

FYI, when you open a plastic toybox in which a game is making noise, the noise gets much louder.

At this point, my lovely wife calls from our room, in a Nyquil enduced stupor, "What are you doing?"

I can't answer, because I'm right outside the boys' doors. I'm already making way too much noise, apparently. So I say nothing and keep searching.

Again, louder this time, "What are you doing?" Cornered, I issue the loudest "Shhhhhhhhh!" that the world has ever known. Dogs down the street are in pain, but this either works perfectly, or else the Nyquil kicks back in.

I search in the box, trying to keep shuffling to a minimum, and find the game. Hurrah! But it's the wrong one. This one's not making noise. I stare at it in disbelief and then put it aside for destruction later.

Another one. Hurrah! Also wrong, also not making noise, also set aside for destruction later.

Another.

And another. This must be their breeding ground.

I move a large, loud, pointy piece of plastic, and there it is. It beeps, and I flip it over. The on/off switch is stuck (probably apple juice), and my cold fingers have a hard time turning off the game. But I finally turn it off. Yay.

After checking to make sure that there are no more "beepers" left in the box, I make sure that all the ones in my pile are turned off. Then I put them all in the bathroom trashcan, carry the toybox back into the Middle's room, and head back to bed.

I'd like to say thanks to Sega (!) for making those fine handheld games, to McDonald's for making them available (in bulk) to my children. You all owe me 90 minutes of sleep.

Dadblogging

I have been informed by my wife (a.k.a., the other reader of this site) that I should post more about the boys. Upon inspection of recent posts, I have to agree. As soon as my dadblogging muse kicks in, I'll paste some more stories about them.

Until then, here are links to all the posted dadblogs so far:
Reading
Abraham Lincoln
And there was great weeping and baring of teeth
Combinations
Unimportant update
To change your preferences, click Edit . . .
Flashback . . . Doubletake
Well, here we are

Nothing new under the sun

For those of you who worry about such things, I point to three interesting quotes:

First, from Wil Durant's The Life of Greece, a discussion of Sparta in ancient Greece:

Weary and fearful of the vulgarity and chaos of democracy, many Greek thinkers took refuge in an idolatry of Spartan order and law.

They could afford to praise Sparta, since they did not have to live in it. They did not feel at close range the selfishness, coldness, and cruelty of the Spartan character; they could not see from the select gentlemen whom they met, or the heroes whom they commemorated from afar, that the Spartan code produced good soldiers and nothing more . . .

. . . while, hardly a day's ride a way, the Athenians were building, out of a thousand injustices and errors, a civilization broad in scope and yet immense in action, open to every new idea and eager for intercourse with the world, tolerant, turbulent, free. . .

In the end, Sparta's narrowness of spirit betrayed even her strength of soul. . . When she fell, all the nations marvelled, but none mourned. Today, among the scanty ruins of that ancient capital, hardly a torso of a fallen pillar survives.

Ahem.

Next, from Adam Smith, a description of a university:

. . . sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection, after they have been hunted out of every corner of the world."

Nice.

Finally, from Ecclesiastes chapter 1:

9 What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there anything of which one can say,

"Look! This is something new"?

It was here already, long ago;

it was here before our time.

Trips

As previously mentioned below, I'm currently reading the book How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman. An interesting premise, although not as strong as the one presented in How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill.

Anyway, I was on MapQuest looking up a map of Scotland, in particular the New Town in Edinburgh. And of course I started roaming around on the map. I'm a big map fan. If I had my druthers, every square inch of wall in my office would be covered in National Geographic maps. (See, I'm a multi-dimensional nerd.)

Of course, when looking at a map of Scotland, the eye is drawn northward to the islands. And, of course, that reminded me of one of my favorite short stories, A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations, by Kim Stanley Robinson (currently available here).

Take an hour, go read it. Very nice. Anyway, this all reminded me that, since reading that story, I have wanted to make that same physical journey that Frank made, up through the islands to Skara Brae. That's one of the trips I really want to make.

I have no desire to drive Route 66, or to do a whirlwind tour of the great cities of Europe, to ride the Orient Express, to see the Far East, etc. I don't care if I never see Las Vegas (or Los Angeles, for that matter, ugh). I don't want to climb a mountain or visit any desert, anywhere.

But I do want to see Skara Brae and those ruins. It's probably the story that does it; the story explains why that's such an important place and makes it seem like somewhere worth visiting.

Similarly, the story of Epaminondas' march against Sparta in Victor Davis Hanson's The Soul of Battle makes me want to go there. Thebes, Leuctra, Sparta itself, the fortresses built by the freed Helots, I'd like to see where that interesting episode happened.

On a non-literary note, I'd also like to take an Alaskan Cruise and kayak in Glacier Bay. And I'd like to see Antarctica. As long as I'm dreaming, why not dream big and cold.

That's pretty much it for my wanderlust, except that I'd really like to go to the Varsity right now. But it's night-time, and my wife has the car.

Reading

I love to read; always have. In high school, I had to go to a chiropractor for a while because my neck was bent out of shape from so much reading with my head propped up in bed. Nerd.

Both of my parents love to read, and read a lot when I was younger. My mom would read anything. I think she's the only Pentecostal in America who's read Josephus. She told me one time that her heart medicine had decreased her attention span, and she couldn't really read anymore. That was one of the saddest things I had heard (I was young then). She's off that medication now, and reads like a maniac again. Welcome back, mom.

These days, she sits at a computer most of the day (just like me!) and pretty much surfs her web pages and blogs for stuff to send us. She sends 3-5 articles every day, mostly about parenting. My initial reaction is sometimes to get a little offended (how could you not, when your mom sends you articles entitled "How to stop beating your kids," etc.) but they're usually good articles once I settle down to reading them.

My dad, on the other hand, mostly read (reads?) mystery novels and business books. He's always had to read a lot for work, and doesn't view reading as a pleasure the way the rest of us do.

One of the great things while growing up was that we had two sets of encyclopedias. Mom and dad had both bought a set before they were married (I think), so I had a white set and a green set to choose from. And that's what I read as a kid, encyclopedias. Holy cow. I would get "J" and carry it around for a week, reading it straight through, then skip to "R" to keep it exciting. Then it was biographies in middle school, SciFi and fantasy in high school, magazines and journals (and a brief, disastrous fling with theology) in college, and history after college.

As if it were possible, my wife is an even more voracious reader than I am. She's a machine. If she doesn't have a book on-hand at the time, she's got a box full of old ones stashed somewhere in the house and she'll just go get one of those to tide her over until the next library run.

So it's no surprise that our kids are readers too. T is just like I was. At night, he always clamors to read fact books about animals. If there's a book about dangerous creatures, we've got it and he's read it. He's not a fan of fiction, but he did take the first Harry Potter book well, so we'll see.

On the other hand, S1 loves stories, especially Thomas the Tank Engine. We've got the big book and will read at least one story out if it each night, along with some other picture book. Right now, he really likes "A Day at the Police Station" by Richard Scary.

J likes to be read to, but doesn't really pay attention to anything other than that he's being read to. He'll run around during the story, but will get mad if you stop. Meh, he's 4.

Amazingly, S2 loves to sit in my lap while I read, even if it's not a book for him. He and T share a room, so when we read to T at night, S2 will walk over, back up into my lap, plop down, and sit quietly while we read.

So while my boys may not grow up to be doctors, lawyers, presidents, etc., they apparently will be readers, which is a good thing. And maybe they will be doctors, lawyers, presidents, etc. Who knows?

As for me, I don't get to read as much as I used to or want to. That’s about the only thing I’m actually looking forward to when the boys grow up. I’ll miss them terribly, but I’ve already got a backlog of reading, so if they want to jump ahead a few grades and go to college when they’re 15, that’ll be fine by me, at least as far as reading goes. Don’t mistake me, I’ll cry like a baby. Then I’ll turn around and start measuring their rooms for bookshelves and comfy chairs.

For now, I'm pretty much restricted to reading during "man time," during meals, and the hour or so before bed. We tried to have a rule about no reading at dinner (family time and all that), but it was a race between my wife and myself to see who could break that rule first. Now the big 2 read at dinner too. Oh, well. We do enforce the “no videogames at the table” rule, which should hold, since neither of us have handheld videogames.

I do try to keep two books going at once, with an Upstairs book and a Downstairs book. Really good books get carried up and down the stairs with me. My current Upstairs book is "The Story of Civilization: The Life of Greece" by Wil Durant (who was apparently a BIG fan of socialism; wow) and my current Downstairs book is "How the Scots invented the Modern World" by Arthur Herman. The last book I carried with me was "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." At 800+ pages, it was a labor of love to lug that around with me for three days. Nerd.

In Good Company

We saw the movie last night at an advance screening (ooh, free and before everyone else; it's like nerd heaven, or Gnosticism). The movie was great, it's a great date movie for married folks, especially if you have kids.

Guys, if you've spent any part of your life sacrificing for your family, trying to do right by your wife and/or kids, and working hard to keep your job, and if you want to go see a movie that dosn't make fun of you for it, then this is your movie.

Ladies, it's got Denis Quaid and Topher Grace. You pick.

Many thanks to Grace Hill Media for the tickets and the great seats. More to come (there's a lot to discuss about this movie).

TV stuff

Nerd alert. What follows is horribly geeky. You have been warned.

We watched Battlestar Galactica last night. Meaning, of course, that we watched the first half of the pilot from the new BG last night. It was good, much better than I expected it to be.

Three observations.

One, it was my wife who wanted to watch it. It turns out that she, of little childhood TV, had indeed watched and been impressed by the original BG. Who knew?

Two, I haven't done the research yet, but some of the folks on this show either worked on or watched very closely the show Firefly. BG was very Whedon-esque, at least visually. Especially the outside scenes and "silent space." I'm glad that either a) these guys are working again, or b) someone was paying attention.

For example, check out the opening sequence. It's one long, single take, walking through the ship and showing everyone going about their business. Compare it with the opening sequence of "Once More, With Feeling." Nice.

Three, as I was watching the bombing of the planet, and seeing the plumes from numerous nukes in the background, all I could think was, "This is just what Al-Quaida wants to do to us. I can't believe this is on TV."

Either a) someone goofed, b) SciFi is more "red" than other Hollywood outfits, or c) in an effort to tug at our heart strings, they accidentally stumbled on a Truth, produced and aired it, and will soon return to more "blue" material. This is more likely, and I forsee many, many plots about how the Humans created the Cylons and then abandoned them, making them all nasty, a la "it's our fault." Cynthia McKinney, call your office.

Final note. During last night's 2-hour geek festival, there were lots of commercials for other SciFi channel shows. They look decent. When did this happen? we've had satellite for about 3 years now, and I blocked SciFi back then, because they showed slasher movies during the day, and I didn't want my kids stumbling across stuff like that. But now . . . hmmmm. Well, it's back on the list, and if we stumble across something good while surfing one night, I won't be as surprised.

Abraham Lincoln

T, my 7 year old, is in first grade. They're having to do a presentation on famous Americans. T's first pick was George Washington, but one of the other boys picked him first. T's second pick was Thomas Edison, and the other boy in the class picked him.

Ding, exactly. There are only 3 boys in T's class. And 4 girls. It's a great school, and I'm not telling you where it is, because then there will be 30 kids in his class and we'll have to move.

Anyway, the good news is that any other American male from the past 400 years is open. But honestly, what are the chances that both of T's top picks would get taken by the only two other boys in his class? Weird.

After some fatherly coaching, he picks Abraham Lincoln. And so, after tonight's bedtime story (Captain Underpants again), we discuss who Lincoln was and why he was so great.

The curse, "may you live in interesting times," comes into play here. It is impossible to discuss why Lincoln was so great and admirable without discussing the bad stuff going on around him.

Things I had to explain, in 5 minutes, at bedtime, so that a 7-year-old could understand:

• Civil War
• The North and the South
• Slavery
• Black people
• Emancipation

Yes, you read that right. I had to explain to my son the term "black people."

At some point in the discussion, I told him what slavery was: that some people liked to make other people do their work and not pay them for it. And they could be very mean to them without getting in trouble. I asked him if he thought that was right, and he said no (good boy).

Then I said that people in the South wanted to keep slaves, and people in the North didn't. Heading off what I thought was an inevitable question, I told him that white people in the South wanted to keep all the black people in slavery.

He then said, and I quote verbatim, "What are black people?" I was stunned; I almost cried.

I finally said, "well, some people have darker skin than others, and sometimes they're called black people." He said okay, and we moved on to discussing his new karate moves.

Let's pause here to point out some things. We live in DeKalb County, GA, which as of last census is over 50% African-American. Our church has immigrant families from almost every continent on the globe (not Antarctica, I think).

T sees, talks, and plays with folks every day who look both very similar to and very different from him, and he's observant enough that he knows that there are differences. It just doesn't matter, apparently.

Kids these days.

My other definitions, if you care to use them:

• Civil War - people from the same country fighting each other
• The South - states down south, like Georgia, Alabama, Virginia ("And Texas?!" he asks, excitedly; "Yes, and Texas.")
• The North - states up north, like New York, Illinois (that's all I could think of at the time; sorry folks)
• Emancipation - setting slaves free and treating them like people should be treated

And there was great weeping and baring of teeth.

Shhh. If you're quiet you can still hear one of them crying. And it started off as such a nice evening.

Reason for crying #1: after dinner tonight, the crew split up into the usual configurations to clean up before bedtime. T and S1 downstairs cleaning up the playroom (okay, it's actually called the TV room; I'm a child of the 70's, so sue me), and J upstairs to clean up his room. The Middles share a room, and that's where the LEGO brand building blocks (haha) are located, so that's where they play.

J actually did a good job and cleaned up quickly. T and S1, on the other hand, dawdled something fierce. On the third reminder to clean up, I put on the timer. The wailing began instantly and was of great force. For some reason, no threat on earth, in heaven above, or in the pit below causes such anguish as me putting 5 minutes on the timer. I don't know how they saw to clean up through the tears.

(Secret, insider note: when the clock wound down to 0:41, I cranked it back up to 5. I feel that I am a good man, and more than fair, and I am thankful that they cannot tell time yet.)

They finished cleaning with about 1:31 to spare, and all was right with the world. There was residual pouting from T for a bit, but the promise of several chapters of a Captain Underpants book cleared that up. S1 and J were soon jumping on the bed and giggling like . . . well, like little boys jumping on a bed. No permanent damage of any kind.

(Another note, all crying has stopped. S1 and J are giggling again now. I wish I bounced back this well.)

Reason for crying #2: at some point during the aforementioned jumping and giggling, J slapped S1 upside his head. S1, the biggest wailer from reason #1, set to it again. A spanking ensued, which set J off (and which, not amazingly, calmed S1 down). So we set down to read a Thomas story with slight J whimpering and S1 good as new.

And then . . .

Reason for crying #3: today, while 4 Boy Mom and The Bookends were on a field trip, a good friend of ours took The Middles to her house to play with her youngest son, who is the same age as S1 (I think). While there, a bird escaped from its cage and perched on a curtain rod above a window in the master bedroom. In the irrefutable logic of little boys, they figured the best way to get the bird back was to throw things at it.

Let's pause to let that sink in.

They figured the best way to get the bird back was to throw things at it. Of course, a projectile meant for the bird hit the window instead, breaking it. How have we made it 7 years in a house full of boys with this as our first broken window? Is there some dryad of silicon that smiles upon us? We're kind to old computer parts, so maybe so.

Anyway, it seems that the worst offence was throwing things at the bird. So they've apologized. But I think they need a little reminder that we don't throw things at other people's birds when we're at other people's houses and break other people's windows. So these two are going to empty out their piggy banks (both have less than $2) and give the money to our friends to help pay for the window.

Somehow, this came up during the Thomas story. I don't know how, but something in a story about anthropomorphic steam engines reminded S1 of the money he was going to lose, and he started crying all over again. I tried to calm him down, saying that he could always earn more money, and that I would help him find extra jobs around the house to make more money even faster (Adam Smith is highly revered here). To no avail. Then J started up. Good heavens, this is bad.

Only S1 would pray, and he prayed to God to help him get more money soon (note, "get" not "make," my free market lessons may not be getting through). J refused to pray. I prayed for both of them, and the weeping subsided. J made noises with his mouth while I prayed. This is customary.

Were, observant regulars may ask, was S2 during all of this? Amazingly, he was not crying at all. He was gleefully throwing train tracks down the stairs. This also is customary.

Reason to cry #4: okay, last one. While I was writing all of this, in the midst of the renewed giggling, J bit S1. More spanking, more crying. Honestly, it isn't this bad every night.

And now, 5 minutes later, all is quiet.

Combinations

When you have one child, you can refer to them using pronouns almost exclusively. Everyone in the world knows who you mean when you say "He used the potty today," or, "She threw up on the rug! How cute!"

When you have two kids, you start having to use real names: "Janice looked so cute in her dress this morning, but Phoebe kept pulling her bow out, etc." Of course, if you have one boy and one girl, you can just use pronouns and assume that folks can follow you. But let's be honest, that's kind of pretentious.

But when you get to three, then you need what we in the father/gamer world call "combos." In video games, a combo is a combination of buttons you can press for a super-duper move, like in the hyper-violent fighting games my kids aren't going near until they're 35. In my (non-fighting game) house, a combo is a name for a grouping of 2 or more of the boys.

Okay, those of you with 0-2 kids, don't you dare look at me like that. Come dwell in my organizatoinal chaos for a while and see what tricks you come up with. Going to the grocery store starts to sound like that Schoolhouse Rock song: "Rufus Xavier Sasparilla, an armidilla, and Bill & Hilla, etc." And when it's all boys, "he" or "they" just doesn't cut it.

Those of you with 3 or more kids, you know what I'm talking about. Don't even pretend you don't do this, too.

Anyway, ith 3 kids, there are 3 combos (you do the math). With 4 kids, there are 8 (math again). Here are ours:

1. The Big Boys - oldest two
2. The Middles - middle two
3. The Little Boys - youngest two
4. The Bigs- oldest three (context is important)
5. The Littles - youngest three (ditto)
6. The Bookends - oldest and youngest; this one's my favorite; you should see the looks I get when I use this name
7. The Evens, a.k.a. The S's - S1 and S2, the second and fourth boys; this combo is seldom used, and then only because they look almost identical, which is the only reason to lump these two in a group together in discussion
   
8. The Odds - T and J; this one is never, ever used, for obvious reasons. It has only been spoken aloud once, in the sentence, "Well, if S1 and S2 are The Evens, then that makes T and J The Od . . . Oh! I did not just say that! Are the kids in bed?" Thankfully, they were.

There you go. Too much information about our family. If that's not your thing, you may want to question what you're doing reading this blog.

Is it too early to sell out?

How sweet is this: a confluence of some of my favorite things, free stuff, Hugh Hewitt, movies, and blogs. I saw the trailer for this new movie, "In Good Company," a few weeks ago on Apple's QuickTime trailers site. I check there about once a month, because, honestly, most trailers are better than the movies they advertize.

Someone recently said that, whereas older generations lived in the golden ages of radio, television, movies, etc., we are living in the golden age of commercials. 'Tis true, especially with movie trailers. (If you don't believe me, remember the first trailer for Star Wars Episode 1? Remember the shivers you got? Now remember how crappy it turned out to be? Even T will only watch the race and Dance of the Fates.)

Anyway, this looked like a good movie (I even sent a link to my wife, the lovely 4boymom). We're stoked to go see it, and may even use up one of our 2-3 movie nights this year (that's how many you get when you have 4 kids, by the way) to go see it. So, quite a commitment on our part, eh? Anyway, good trailer, movie looks good, etc.

Now, Hugh Hewitt posts that we can get free tickets simply by blogging about the movie and posting a link to the trailer. Not bad. Then you just have to blog about it afterwards. Good deal, will do.

The assumption is that I can be honest about how I feel, which is even better. What can they do if I don't like it and say so, take the 2 hours back? I wish! If so, I can name about 15 movies which I'd like to un-see, plus several full seasons of ER. What a waste.

Where were we? Ah, yes; honesty. So, if I get free tickets, the Mrs. and I will go see the movie and I will come back here and write about it. If we don't get free tickets, my life will be ruined and I'll never go see another movie at the theater again. At least until "The Incredibles" comes to the $1 place up the street. The Bigs and I are planning on seeing it again (The Bigs are T and S1 for those of you who don't have nicknames for various combinations of your children; another topic for another day).

Of course, the big problem is if I win the full private screening. Sadly, I would have a hard time filling a theater. I work at home folks, for a company whose employees number in the single-digits. Plus, they all work in another state. I'd be embarassed to ask my Sunday school class, and that's my whole non-family social sphere right there. So pathetic. At least my father-in-law would come. He really likes movies.

So, in conclusion . . . uh. "In Good Company", looks like a good movie, would like to have free tickets, lots of kids, can't fill a theater even so.

Okay. I don't really have a conclusion. So I'll stop writing now.

Update: well, they responded, and it looks like we may get to go. Now I have to find a babysitter. Hey! Look, is that a gift horse? I wonder what his mouth looks like?

Note to people considering ever having children: do not move away from your family; you will need to use them for various services like babysitting. It also helps to stay on good terms with them. Don't name your kids after people they hate, for example. And don't name your pets after them or other relatives.

Also note: they'll probably use you for similar stuff, but it's worth it not to hand over$50 (and your 4 "retirement plans") to some pre-teen Britney wanna-be that you just met yesterday. Shudder.