Father's Day I: Revelations from the Muck

Many dads remember the first time they gazed upon or held their child as a transformative moment.

For me, changing my son's diaper was that moment. I suddenly understood my own father. My father fancies himself a leftist radical (although his day job is as a real estate attorney – small practice specializing in condominiums – and he gets twitchy about increased regulation of the homebuilding industry).* I have moved away – nay fled – his worldview. He took my heated arguments with a placid magnanimity. Now that I’ve changed my son’s diapers I see why. No matter what I do or say, he will always remember picking poop out of my tuchus. Whatever I say or accomplish, my father sees it as just more of the same.

When my children decide to reject everything I believe (perhaps by becoming evangelical Christians who belong to PETA) I will remember changing their diapers and think of their fads of the moment as more of the same.

*Also, he never had radical hair. That may have been prudence, but I believe it was really genetics.

Downtime with Dad

There have been a bunch school breaks lately which means more time with the kids for yours truly. This in turn means more time for the kids in front of the tube. Their recent favorite has been Scooby Doo. I consider this educational TV, since it teaches children to be skeptical of the supernatural and that unexplained phenomenon are usually just the machinations of greedy real estate developers. Also, it shows them that a bunch of kids can in fact make a difference, and they see Scooby and Shaggy face their fears (primarily by eating.)*

The other day they saw an episode where the Mystery Van went to Mexico, so they got to learn a little bit about their mother's heritage. Now my daughter, like so many other Mexican children, is deathly afraid of the chupacabra (literally - "goat sucker.")

So after a long day of day of daddy and Scooby Doo re-runs, when mom got home the kids couldn't wait to tell her about it (and be in the presence of a rational adult).

"Mommy, mommy, the doctor witch! He scary," my daughter began, happily (children are often confused between fear and joy). My wife looked at her quizzically. My son filled in the details, "On Scooby Doo there was a witch doctor. He was really a man who wanted to build condominiums. Pop helps work on condominiums. Daddy says that sometimes pop disguises himself as a witch doctor..."

My wife glared at me, "Why do you tell your children bizarre stories about your father?+ Forget it, why are you letting the children watch shows that scare them?"

She pulled the children close to comfort them, "What did the witch doctor do that was so scary?"

My children leapt up and chanted:

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bing bang

My wife glared at me. My son announced, "Daddy taught us that!"

My wife, her voice filled with menace, asked, "Did he now?"

"Yeah, and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!"

* My theory about Scooby Doo is that there were no monsters. It was just a bunch of kids driving cross-country. But Shaggy was in the back baking, this would explain their constant hunger.

+ My father is a real estate attorney. However, when I was little he was an engineer and he worked for a railroad. I thought that he drove trains. When I learned that he was a different kind of engineer, that primarily sat in offices and used sliderules (this was the 1890s) I was devastated and I've always held this against him. Nonetheless, my creative descriptions of his work have only made him an exotic hero to his grandchildren. Now, my son hopes to go into real estate development and wear monster suits to scare off other bidders, environmentalists, and other obstructionists. Sure - you can use eminent domain - but it just isn't as fun. (Plus, I think he hopes to meet Daphne.)

Star Wars Spinoffs

Tired of just re-hashing scenes from the Star Wars movies, my son and I developed some spin-offs to play. One games is: No Padawan, about the dumbest apprentice in the Jedi Order. I play the bumbling apprentice, always moving objects inappropriately with the Force, not properly securing my light-sabre (and cutting off my toes), and talking too much. My son plays the wise, but frustrated master who has to admonish me for my failing. When I really mess up (like the time I told the Boba Fett where the Jedi attack team was hiding) he chases me around, sounding like the Skipper yelling, "Padawan" and trying to bonk me on the head with the foam sword we use as a light sabre. If there were national tournaments for Alan Hale impressions my son would definitely win the kindergarten division (and probably the entire elementary school league.)

My son likes this game because of the role reversal. It prepares me for his teenage years when I will, invariably, do everything wrong. When he whines at me, "Daaaad!" I hope he'll use the Alan Hale voice.

The other Star Wars based game we play is Jedi Chef. This is about a Jedi who uses his light sabre to cook things. He can slice and cook a turkey at the same time. Give him a loaf of bread and it will arrive sliced and toasted. (He's working on an attachment to dispense butter.) Also, instant French Fries. You'd think they would make vegetables dry and unpalatable, but at the right setting - veggie crisps!

It's a pretty cool show. We use the Force to throw food in the air, slice it with our light sabres and land it on the plates - which are then telekinetically sent to diners. Unfortunately, we never get past appetizers - the show is always interrupted by a battle droid attack.

Sweet Meats

When my daughter was a baby we played a game. I would smell her head. Baby's heads smell like caramel - I don't know why, they just do, but it is wonderful. I mention this often, to the point where my son would tell complete strangers, "My sister tastes like caramel."

So I would hold my daughter in my lap and say, "I'm gonna eat your baby brains! Yum, yum, yum!" and gently gum her head.*

My son walked in during a session. His jaw dropped, his eyes were wide, and he yelled, "Daddy! Don't eat my sister! Save some for me!"

* Tales of parents eating children ancient and are clearly an expression of an archetypal behavior. Perhaps the most famous example (if you are a dork) is how Zeus and the other Greek gods were devoured by their father Chronos. There are many theories about the origins and meaning of this behavior. But if, as I theorize, most baby heads smell like caramel, it would explain a great deal.

Mother's Day Save

Father Goof frequently grouses about the price of his son's private school, but today it paid off. Someone had kindof forgotten to do something nice for Mother's Day for the long-suffering Mama Goof. (Father Goof has never claimed to be a good father, husband, or son - merely an adequate one.)

Thankfully my son, directed by his teachers, had created an array of mother-themed artwork, including the inevitable pasta-oriented jewelry and a heart-shaped card with embracing stick figures. Meant to show familial love, in fact the drawing looked like an angry zebra, drawn by someone who had a profound hatred of zebras. There was another set for Bubbe. Wearing the macaroni elbow necklaces gave the women in my life a weird Polynesian-Italian fusion vibe.

Obviously Father Goof was supposed to buy them some non-chewable jewelry, and he will pay a price for his failure to do so. But at least the mothers received some acknowledgement today, and their wrath will be muted. Now at least private school is starting to pay for itself. All the money I saved on jewelry can go towards tuition.

Geometry of Parenthood

Proposition 20 of Euclid's Book I reads:

In any triangle two sides taken together in any manner are greater than the remaining one.

My old textbook (which my wife has been hounding me to throw out) a footnote remarks that Proclus (another ancient geometer) reported that it was the habit of the Epicureans to ridicule this theorem because:

"Even an ass knows that. If fodder is placed at one angular point and the ass at another, the ass won't walk the two sides of the triangle but just the one side. Booyah."

Proclus would respond,

"Oh no you didn't! Mere perception of the truth is different from a scientific proof of it and a knowledge of the reason why it is true."

It was even more devastating in Greek.

I mention this because the assertion that even the ass knows to walk a straightline shows five year olds in an interesting light. Everyday I pick-up my son and carpool buddy and struggle with their inability to walk in a straight line. For example, when I drop carpool buddy off, rather than making a beeline from my car to his front door he takes an elliptical approach that occasionally takes him into neighbors' yards. So, are five year-olds dumber than asses? "What," Proclus would no doubt ask, "Does this say about the human capacity to reason, about logos?"

Or, are five-year olds brilliant? Just as Einstein shattered Newtonian physics showing that space curves, Euclidean geometry also withered before the assault of modernity. Lobchevsky (yes, the one from the Tom Lehrer song) argued that a line lying perpendicular across two parallel lines does not intersect them at exactly 90 degrees because space curves. So perhaps, when my charges are wandering in what to my, aged eyes are parabolic routes they are in fact simply perceiving the curves in space and navigating them.

Or they could just be a pair of dumbasses.