Hard To Buy For

Sam's 5th birthday is coming  up next week.  As usual, the actual birthday itself will see the family splintered.  I'll be at home; Kristie and the boys will be at the beach with our Memphisian friends.  So we obviously can't have the party then.

What to do . . .?

Well, we had begun to plan out a party when most of the invitation list showed up yesterday.  My mom came, along with my sister and her two children.  Some of Sam's other friends and their families showed up, and at 4:30 a raucous birthday party erupted below my office.  Yay!

Sam's birthdays are an issue.  My wife's birthday is in January, Sam's is in June.  There are no birthdays in our house between those two, so we get out of the habit.  As for presents, the other three boys have no problem letting us know what they want.  Sam is different.

"Sam, what do you want for your birthday?"

"A Lil'Kinz Tiger."

"Okay, we know that. You've said that a thousand times.  What else?"

At this point, Sam would just stare at me like I was crazy.  

"I want a Lil'Kinz Tiger."

"Do you want anything else?" I'm pleading at this point.

The Look again.  "No. Nothing else."

Even Jonah, who is has his finger on the pulse of all materialism in the house, could not offer any help.  "I dunno." Timothy suggested a particular Bionicle, so he got drafted to go with me to Target to get the Bionicle.

One thing Sam does like is His Own Stuff.  He's always asking, "Is this mine?"  As in, "Is this mine instead of brother's?"  So I got Sam his own frisbee.  He loves playing frisbee out in the street with us in the evenings, so I figured having his own frisbee would be a chocolate-peanut butter moment.  

On a lark, I also got him a box of sidewalk chalk and a copy of Schoolhouse Rock on DVD. I got the chalk because we were walking through that aisle to get to the toys.  I got the DVD because I didn't think yet another Backyardigans DVD would have any impact.  Plus, I like Schoolhouse Rock, and one of my sister's old boyfriends walked off with my Grammar Rock VHS.

We didn't give all of the presents to Sam yesterday.  Some are held in reserve for next week at the beach.  It turns out that the impromptu party also included gifts.  It fell to my Mom to get the Lil'Kinz Tiger.  She was as perplexed as we were at Sam's lack of avarice, and so she also got him a Lil'Kinz Lion.

However, having received the only thing he had asked for, Sam immediately gave the Lion to Stephen.  How crazy is that?

Diary: Friday, June 20, 2008

Tonight was our last night without Timothy and Stephen.  They come home from camp tomorrow.  We've been looking at pictures of them on their camp's website, and they look to have had a good time.  Tubing down a river, a ropes course, a mud pit, and a home-made, industrial Slip & Slide were all featured in the photos.  

Last year we were surprised to find that the camp took and posted these pictures, but we were more surprised to find that the outdoor, photographed activities were not what Timothy liked most.  He really enjoyed the "church services" they had each day, and he and Stephen talked about these services the most before going.

Who knows what blend of righteousness and rebelliousness we'll see in each boy when he comes home.  I'm curious to see what effect this week has had on Stephen.  Timothy is steadfast and trustworthy.  Stephen is a barometer, and a highly accurate one.  They're both good boys.

Because my wife had plans out tonight with friends, Jonah, Sam and I went to Enzos Pizza in Tucker for dinner.  I like Enzos, although I think Fellini's has a good case if they decide to sue for infringement of "look & feel".  The pizza is at Enzo's is better, with a better selection (I like the Goombah: the meat-covered pizza).  They also still have glasses for drinks, which Fellini's abandoned long ago.  I loved those Fellini's glasses.  Our home glasses, which we signed up for in our Crate & Barrel wedding registry, were directly inspired by the ones at Fellini's.  

Enzo's pizza is not as good as Shorty's, which is also in Tucker.  When we moved here 10 years ago, there was no pizza place around, except for the Three Deliverers: Domino's, Papa John's, and Pizza Hut.  Now the Domino's is gone (that's right; you can't get Domino's pizza in Tucker), but we have three new independent-y pizza joints in town: Enzo's, Shorty's, and some new place next to my barber on main street that we've never been to.

None of this background is relevant, however, if Jonah and Sam don't like the place.  After tonight, they may never want to go back to Enzo's again.  You see, Enzo's doesn't have lemonade.  This is a great sin.  Jonah will drink only lemonade and water.  That's it.  Tonight he cried when he found out they didn't have any lemonade, and then he drank water.  

Sam likes "mix-ups" (which we used to call "suicides"; I like the new name better).  His usual mix is Sprite, fruit punch, and then lemonade.  If he's standing there watching, you have to do it in that order.  Moe's has these three, as does Fellini's.  But Enzo's didn't have lemonade or fruit punch.  So Sam bravely tried Sprite mixed with grape and orange Fanta.  He didn't like it, and settled for "just Sprite".

True to form, Sam ate half of his slice of pizza.  I ate half of my Goombah.  Jonah ate his whole piece, plus a piece of cheesy bread.

Then he ate a waffle cone of chocolate ice cream at Bruster's.  I don't know where he puts it, and I was amazed to watch him eat the whole thing.  Sam barely downed a "baby cone," which is about two tablespoons of blue Italian ice.  Jonah's cone was easily two full cups of chocolate ice cream, plus the waffle cone itself.

I had a cup of chocolate-peanut-butter something-or-other and then promptly came home and took a Lactaid tablet.  God bless Lactaid.

When we got home, Jonah was too wired to go to bed, so he invoked the summertime Friday Night Family Night of Movies Night, which means the three of us sat down and watched Toy Story, "the first one, with the boy with the skull t-shirt," as Jonah explained to Sam.  Jonah loves skulls on clothing, and Sam loves to know what's going on.

This being a Family event, I was required to sit down and watch it too.  In spite of my Stephenity, I actually was able to sit and watch half of the movie.  I love Pixar.  I'm glad they made movies when they did, so that my kids could be exposed to some good ones, instead of the drek that I watched as a kid.  Nostalgia is the only reason people will watch cartoons from my childhood, and when we're all gone nobody will ever watch He-Man again.  But I think people will watch Toy Story and The Incredibles a hundred years from now, and I think John Lasseter will be held in the same esteem as Walt Disney.

Needless to say, I enjoyed the movie.

Now the boys are in bed, my wife is not home yet, and I'm sitting here at the computer.  Tomorrow is the birthday party for my father-in-law, but Jonah has another party to attend, and Timothy and Stephen will be home sometime.  So I'll stay home and wait, and read some pre- law school books.  I'm okay with that, but I wish that I could go to the party.

Still, it's not a bad life, and I'll get to see my Wandering Sons return home.  And frankly, the anticipation of them coming home is keeping me just as awake as their anticipation the night before they left.

Diary: Monday, June 16, 2008

Oy vey.

Well, we never did find Timothy's GameBoy Advance SP. So he had to ride to camp today with just a couple of books. Stephen was kind and didn't take his gameboy. They took the two "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books, which Timothy has read but Stephen hasn't. I told Stephen last night that he could finally read them and he smiled his big, genuine smile.

Timothy and Stephen are at Ridgehaven camp for the week. Timothy went last year and really loved it. This is Stephen's first year, and since he's our homebody I was expecting a little more drama than what occurred. But he was fine. His fierce independent streak seems to have overcome his love of home. Not for the last time, I'm sure, but the first cut is the deepest, etc.

Kristie drove them up, a three hour trip each way. Because Sam was sick (and because our usual "hey can you watch Sam for the day" friends are out of town), both he and Jonah stayed home. I "watched" them while I worked. But since it was a horrible and busy day at work (I hate the Internet), I wasn't able to do much watching. Jonah and Sam, on the other hand, watched most of the first Star Wars trilogy.

Thankfully, the boys are fully trained not to do crazy things when left to their own devices, and I have pretty good hearing for crazy things, so nothing happened. The worst was when Sam came and knocked on my door while I was on a call. I've explained to the boys that they should knock on my office door if they need me, and then to wait until I respond. If I don't respond right away, then I'm probably on the phone and they should wait.

But Sam missed that last part, and kept knocking: little triplets from little knuckles on my door, every 5 seconds for about a minute. I finally put the phone on mute while my customer was explaining something and asked Sam to "please wait." He did, for another 30 seconds and then began rapping again. We had a talk when I was done with my call.

They only knock when they want something: cookies, juice, drawing paper from in my office. Nobody knocks to say hello. Sigh.

Throughout the day, Jonah discussed with me the fact that today was his Pajama Day. In first grade, Jonah's class had a Pajama Day, where all the kids wore their pajamas all day. This concept was, to Jonah, what French philosophy is to college freshmen. The idea of Pajama Day has consumed him. Ask Jonah what he learned in first grade, and he will most likely tell you about the day he learned that you could stay in pajamas ALL DAY.

He's internalized this lesson, and has decided that one day per week this summer will be his own Pajama Day. As the summer has progressed, this celebration of Not Wearing Real Clothes has moved earlier and earlier in the week. Today was the first Monday Pajama Day, and I predict that all future observances will be on Mondays as well.

At lunch today, Jonah began to make grand plans about a Pajama Day Chart, on which he could both record glorious Pajama Days past, and also plan out future ones. As he waxed eloquent about individual Pajama Days for the brothers and also about Family Pajama Days, it dawned on me that what he was doing was negotiating for TWO Pajama Days per week. I let him build his case, and then explained again that there would be only one per week. He took this news well, considering that it was Jonah.

Sam's fever eventually calmed down, and I stopped interspersing his Motrin doses with Tylenol. I like to keep them evenly spaced: Motrin, 3 hours, Tylenol, 3 hours, Motrin, etc. But with the length and number of calls today, I got off track and eventually had to drop Tylenol altogether. Fortunately, he didn't throw up again, although he did ask me to sleep with him "all night" just in case he had another 4 AM episode. I told him that a) he wasn't sick any more, and b) since I was able to wake up in time to get him to the bathroom last night, I had proven myself more than capable of doing so again tonight.

He shrugged, as if to say, "It's your floor."

When Kris got home, we went to McDonald's for dinner. Because I miss Timothy so much, I got his favorite, the Southern Style Chicken Sandwich (a.k.a. the Chick-fil-a knock-off). Jonah and Sam played with some friends from CBS (the Bible study, not the TV network), and I went to Rite Aid to get some wart cream for the boys. Three of them have warts, and their cream costs $10. Stephen has molluscum on his face, and his medicine costs $600. No joke. Our insurance covered all but $45 of it, and I experienced my first case of medical sticker shock. That packet of goo costs more than my wife's engagement and wedding rings, even accounting for inflation.

We got home from dinner and put the kids in the bath (the play place at McD's smelled ripe, and Kris worried that the boys might catch fierce playplace diseases). Then they went to bed. It's crazy having two kids here. The younger two are the louder two, but the older boys are more active. Their absence is a felt absence, like missing an arm.

With the boys in bed, Kris and I watched Stranger Than Fiction, with Will Ferrell. It's a great movie, and watching it the second time I picked up some interesting things I had missed before. At one point, when Ana is talking about baking cookies for her study groups at Harvard Law, she says that she realizes she can change the world through baking cookies. And it hit me that this was a great example of the Christian idea of vocation. I told Kristie this, and she said I was a nerd.

Which is true.

Now they're all in bed, and tomorrow I'll go to work, run credit cards, answer phone calls and emails, and try to convince angry customers that we're doing the best we can. And hopefully I'll remember Ana's cookies and her commitment to serving her neighbor through cookies.