Fortunate Sighting

Cooper and His Bowl Full of Cash

For the past couple of years, our family has been keeping track of license plates on cars that we see from the various states as we are out and about. To keep it fun and interesting, we start a new list each month. Over time, some rules have evolved, the main one being that a find must be verified by another family member - no solo plate-sighting counts, even for the adults. Another is that the twins can't verify each others sightings. While they are not fond of this rule, it has been made necessary by the fact that even the most casual drive around the block with them will elicit shouted and insistent claims that they have found the likes of Idaho, North Carolina and Texas. Owen, however, has developed a keen eye and can identify the plates of all 50 states at distances that would make an eagle jealous.

The holy grails of plates have always been Hawaii and Alaska. There was much excitement when we finally found an Alaskan plate on a weather-beaten pick-up truck upon walking out of a roadside diner in Georgia of all places a couple of years ago (Alaska to Georgia is some drive!). Then, on a trip to San Diego last year, we bagged our first two Hawaiian plates in what remains a record-setting trip and month. Sightings of Canadian Province plates and Baja California, Mexico are always exciting as well.

Prior to our recent trip to Hawaii, we were talking as a family about what license plates we might see there. The general assumption seemed to be that they would be exclusively Hawaii license plates, since there is no way to drive in or out. I, however, suspected there would be some others, since transferees and military personnel might, in some cases, be shipping their cars there on freighters. Deanna, quite sure I was wrong, boldly proclaimed at dinner one night that if any of the kids found a Connecticut plate in Hawaii, she would give them $100. I thought that was a foolish bet to make, and in the days leading up to the trip, I gave the boys a choice - either 1) we would give them $100 if they found Connecticut, but if they did not, they would have to each give us $10 of their money; or, option 2) we would give them each $10 if they found Connecticut, but if they did not, they would not owe us anything. After wrapping their little minds around that proposal, they all took the safe bet of $10.

In Hawaii, it was largely as Deanna expected, with pretty much every plate being a Hawaiian one, with the exception of the occasional military or government plate. Then, halfway through the trip, while driving through downtown Honolulu, we saw, amazingly and within the space of 20 seconds, South Carolina, Texas, and, incredibly, Connecticut. There was much chaos and jubilant shouting in the car, as the boys had all, of course, conveniently forgotten that they had opted out of the $100 bet. Reminded, the mood turned ugly, with much arguing and shouts of "that's not fair!" Eventually, they all opted for taking the $10 rather than contacting their attorneys, although they later tried to double up when they saw, astoundingly, another Connecticut plate.

For any of you who think the boys got a raw deal, you should know that they had already been given some money to spend on the trip as a special treat. That money, along with their $10 from the Connecticut bet, was spent only in tiny dribs and drabs with agonizing deliberation over each $2 purchase. A typical transaction for the twins went as follows: they would spy some treasure in a shop - say a small glass jar filled with sand and shells with a cheap sticker on the outside that says "Aloha from Hawaii." A brow would furrow, as the potential purchaser considered the price tag and mulled over the dent this wonderful object would put in their accumulated fortune. The boy would almost always then place the object reluctantly back on the shelf, only to decide 20 minutes later, when we had all long since moved on to other stores or activities, that their little life will forever be empty and incomplete unless THEY OWNED THAT JAR RIGHT NOW. One of us would then make our way back with them, and the boy would then proudly tender the chosen item to an amused store clerk who would bag it up and give it and any change to the smiling and proud new owner.   

As all three boys seem to prefer knowing they have money to spend to actually spending it (not a bad trait to have), their money remained largely intact at the end of the trip. So, the $10 they each received in the Connecticut bet therefore lies unspent along with their other trip money in a running account at our house from which each boy dreams of spending his small boy fortune.

   

Brawl on Boardwalk

We found ourselves at home the other night, done with dinner and with a couple of free hours stretching out ahead of us. What else to do then than to break out Monopoly! Deanna teamed up with Hayden, and I teamed up with Cooper, while Owen flew solo. Owen's dubious 8-year old strategy of not wanting to buy any properties other than Boardwalk and Park Place, and my dubious 45-year old strategy of leveraging everything to buy and build at all costs both backfired, and eventually we were forced to concede to Deanna and Hayden and their imposing collection of fancy houses and luxury hotels. At the conclusion of the spirited game, Cooper was in tears because we lost, bawling loudly and yelling that he should have teamed up with mommy instead. Hayden, in our family tradition of being bad winners, was singing a victory song, doing a victory dance, and generally taunting his brothers. This bought him a kick to the groin from a frustrated Owen, resulting in exponentially more crying and shouting and chaos followed by punishments. Ah, family game night. Next time something a bit less competitive perhaps.

The Continuing Adventures of RedPlanet: Kiddie Comedian

Me: "OK boys, I've got a joke."

(three expectant little faces turn my way)

Me: "Two carrots are taking a bath. The first carrot says to the second carrot, please pass me the soap. The second carrot looks at him and says 'I can't, I'm a carrot.'"

(silence)

Me: "Get it? They're carrots, they don't have arms."

Owen: "Oh. Well maybe he could kick the soap over with his foot."

Hayden: "Or his knee."

Cooper: "Yeah, knee."

Owen: "Or they could put the soap in a well and it would come out of the shower with the water."

Seek and Go Seek

The twins and I are often busy here these days playing endless games of what others commonly refer to as "hide and seek," which goes in our house by its less common and more cumbersome name of "Daddy, you count and me and Cooper hide". The twins, in that twin way of theirs, always hide together, often arguing loudly about where while standing in the same room where I am counting. Once a consensus is reached, they charge off, leaving me to loudly search for them in rooms where I know they aren't before "finding" them. Often, the whole seeking process is just too much for them to bear, and they yell out helpful hints to me like "in here" in case the uncontrollable giggling emitting from their hiding spots aren't clue enough. Owen rarely joins us, as he does not appear to find it particularly fun that his brothers either insist on hiding with him or immediately out his spot upon being found themselves.

The current state of the game is a vague improvement over a recent phase, in which the twins would go to the trouble of running and hiding somewhere while I counted, but would then come charging towards me as soon as I finished counting, pointing at me and triumphantly yelling "I find you." Imagine that "seek and go seek" scenario playing out 10 times in a 10 minute period, interrupted only by my attempts to explain that they should stay in their spots until I find them, at which they would nod heartily and convince me they understood only to do the same thing again. I am also fascinated by the fact that they appear to believe that so long is they have buried there head in a blanket or the like, that I will not be able to see the rest of them. This puts them, by my calculation, at the approximate evolutionary par with the ostrich at the moment. Still, they are damn cute, and the pure joy they get from playing is so infectious that I would be hard pressed to think of a better way to spend my time than playing "Daddy, you count and me and Cooper hide" or "seek and go seek" with my little ostriches.

You Can't Get Through!

A recent favorite game of me and the boys in the evening is "You Can't Get Through!" This essentially consists of me building a blockade of pillows and blankets in the upstairs hallway and the boys attempting to breach the wall while I try to support and maintain it from the other side (I would respectfully suggest that the offensive linemen of the Chicago Bears might want to try this game at home with their own kids, in order to get in some much needed additional practice). While attempting to prevent a breach, I will periodically yell "You Can't Get Through!" - thus the not-so-creative name of the game. They ultimately, of course, do get through, proving Dad wrong once again. I suppose that I could fancy up my motives and claim that through this simple exercise I am teaching them that no obstacle is insurmountable, no mountain too high, no river too wide. If I had daughters, I could even rename the game "Glass-Ceiling." But, in reality, it is just another excuse to wrestle around as I get them good and wound up just prior to bed, a dubious endeavor that has not escaped the eagle eye of my wife. I am also a sucker for anything that keeps them from spreading a million plastic or wooden pieces, figures, shapes, etc. around the house, so that the time we spend restoring the place following their Sherman-like march of destruction towards bed each night is marginally curtailed.