Hep To The Jiv

Hayden is, without a doubt, the house clown. Just past his sixth birthday, he just gets funnier, cracking the rest of us up on a regular basis. While he most frequently works blue, preferring fart, butt and poop jokes, he has recently been expanding his reportoire to include imitations and some characters. Funniest, but vaguely troubling, is his "Cool Guy" character. "Cool Guy" is frequently seen puffing on his "smokin' sticks" - a straw or lollipop stick. Cool Guy uses an imaginary lighter to fire up his smokin' sticks and then dramatically takes drags and exhales. Cool Guy has also been "drinkin' rum", which leaves him staggering around in a five-year old's imitation of a drunk. Most recently, "Cool Guy" leaned back in his chair, an arm thrown casually over the chair back, and announced that he was "Hep to the Jiv" (pronounced to rhyme with "give"). Deanna and I both looked at him as asked "What??" He repeated that he was Hep to the Jiv. Turns out our little cool guy was mispronouncing Hep to the Jive which he had read in one of the Captain Underpants books he has taken to borrowing from his older brother. Setting aside for a moment why a six-year old thinks a cool guy is one who puffs on smokin sticks and gets drunk on rum, the hep to the jiv line was pretty damn funny. I imagine we will be bandying that phrase about the house for years to come.

Hayden also surprised us recently by strolling in from the 90-plus degree heat to announce to us that "It is freaking hot out there."

Finally, I leave you with this conversational gem:

Cooper: "Dad, do you know how old the oldest person was?"

Me: "Ummm, 114??"

Cooper: "No, over 900 years old!"

Me: "Who told you that?"

Hayden: "Tia Suzy (our Bible-totin' babysitter). It's in the Bible."

Me: "Wow. That's pretty old."

Owen: "That must have been Yoda!"

Calvinists

The boys, and Owen in particular, have all had their passions through the years, as a stroll through the CloudEight archives will attest. Cars, flags, baseball, etc. Rarely have all three had equal passion for something at the same time, however. That has happened here this past month though with their deep love of the old cartoon "Calvin and Hobbes." My Dad and I have been huge Calvin and Hobbes fans for many years, and have given each other pretty much every collection of Calvin cartoons that there is. When Owen was six, we slept in a tent in the back yard and I read him some Calvin and Hobbes. He enjoyed it a lot, and I was surprised how much it stuck with him. About a month ago, the twins picked up my couple of Calvin and Hobbes collections that survived the flood of a couple of summers ago, and were hooked. Soon, all three boys were buried deep in Calvin and Hobbes whenever they had a free moment, guffawing loudly and reading their favorites to each other. Things really kicked into overdrive a couple of weeks ago when my Dad arrived with an armload of additional collections. Now, there are Calvin and Hobbes books on all nightstands, on the dining room table, in the living room, the basement, and, as a recent evening clean-up sweep revealed, on the deck. Dinners, after Calvin books are ripped from unwilling hands so we can have some actual conversation, are dominated by verbatim recitations of each persons favorites, with the others correcting the other if there is the slightest misquote (Sunday eight panel cartoons, as told by Hayden, take a particularly excruciatingly long time to be retold). Things Calvin says are dropped into conversation as their own "clever" comments. Cartoons are acted out. 

While Calvin is not the greatest role model, there are redeeming qualities to this obsession. I love the unconditional nature of Calvin and Hobbes friendship. Also, as Owen has pointed out, Calvin is "only six but has an extraordinary vocabulary" (the line between cartoon and cartoonist appears to be a little fuzzy to everyone still). While the twins are great readers for (freshly minted) kindergarten graduates, the vocabulary of the characters has resulted in some serious reading challenges for them. A quick survey of just a couple of pages just now included the following words: diagnoses, propelling, shards, mange, homicidal, vessels and lobotomy. Their attempts to read various cartoons out loud or recite them from memory has resulted in many great mispronunciations. They have certainly learned a lot of words from the books, some good, some less good (Hayden was recently yelling at Cooper that he was a tapioca head, except he was pronouncing it ta-poke-a head, much to our amusement). The character's musing on life and philosophy in some strips, while mostly going over their heads, have to give at least Owen food for thought. Calvin's fabulous imagination as expressed through the cartoons has, I think, helped inspire creativity in our own little Calvins.

I have also had a chance to revive my appreciation for this brilliant cartoon. Bill Watterson retired from the grind of a daily comic while he was still at the top of his game (take note writers of sad, tired old comics like Broom Hilda). His fight against his syndicate over licensing, and his ultimate victory and refusal to license Calvin, so as not to dilute his creation, is inspiring, as was his fight against the syndicates in general and his attempts to stop the shrinking of the spaces allotted to each cartoon, especially in the Sunday paper.

Finally, knowing the guys can revisit and still enjoy this particular passion forty years from now, finding totally different things in it than they do now is pretty cool too. That's it for now; see you in the funny papers.

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.

   

Hawaii

Me: "I'm back!"

Valued and Patient CloudEight Reader/Subscriber/Follower: "About time slacker, there hasn't been a dispatch from CloudEight since December; where the Hell have you been?"

Me: "Hawaii! Well, not the whole time, but 10 fantastic days. My in-laws took us to that fancy new Aulani resort owned by Disney, because they are totally awesome (and I am not just saying that because they are Valued and Patient CloudEight subscribers!)."

Valued and Patient CloudEight Subscriber: "Wow, they do sound awesome, got any picture evidence of how great your trip was? Those boys of yours are darn cute, and I have a sudden hankerin to see them in some matching Hawaiian shirts."  

Me: "Wish granted!"

 Here is Hayden during our loooooooong day of travel. Chicago to Dallas-Fort Worth for a 2-hour layover, followed by some more hours of flying before an emergency turn back over the Pacific back to Los Angeles for an exciting emergency landing, a two-hour wait, a new plane, and 6 more hours in the air to Honolulu.

There are those shirts! In order to prepare for the trip, the family watched Elvis' Blue Hawaii, "Aloha Scooby Doo" and the Brady Bunch Hawaii episode so that we would have a totally accurate view of what Hawaii would be like. Although we all oddly enjoyed  Blue Hawaii, Owen here is striking the same "leaning against the tree" pose as a sultry young thing being sung to by Elvis during a beach scene - an unnatural and awkward pose that we couldn't help but mock everytime we ran across a leaning coconut tree during the trip.

 
The RedPlanet Ohana, hanging loose.

 Me and Sunny D.!

 The extended Ohana, including Deanna's brother Rob, his wife Alana, and the afore-mentioned awesome in-laws, Bob and Linda.

 Owen lets loose a mean javelin throw at a luau.

 7:30 a.m. fish feeding in the lagoon - big bone fish would come within a few feet of shore.

 Hayden underwater

 Searching for crabs in tidepools by the shore.

 The twins chilling in the lagoon.

 The atmosphere at the resort changed when Kelly Ripa and her show rolled in for taping during the last few days of our stay. While it was fun to have celebrities hanging around (Carson Kressly by the pool, Jon Cryer in the elevator!), they also brought with them squadrons of frowny-faced, high-heeled NY staff girls, strutting around talking to each other about Kelly this and Kelly that. They also kept taking over parts of the resort for filiming pieces, including our favorite hot tub, causing Owen to declare "that Kelly woman is ruining my vacation." 

 Competitive even on vacation, the boys had to build a sand volcano that was bigger than the other three being constructed by beachgoers nearby. We eventually triumphed. Here Cooper uses water to cause an eruption.

 Here I am paddleboarding, which was fun, but a bit harder than it looks. Owen took a turn and was almost swept out to sea in a current that would have required us to pick him up a couple of days later in Kauai. He was, thankfully, rescued by his Uncle Rob before things got that far.

Hayden at sunset.

Shaved Ice at Matsuamoto's on the North Shore, in the surfing town of Haleiwa.

Lunch at the bar!



Hayden and Grandma Linda in the infinity hot tub, our favorite hangout.



 At the top of Diamond Head after a nice hike up.

The boys hug Deanna farewell as we prepare to enter the world's 2nd largest maze at the Dole pineapple plantation. While I did stage the photo somewhat by telling them they may never see her again, we did have reason to be concerned. Deanna is notoriously bad at mazes - so bad in fact that she once had to be rescued from a maze in Niagara Falls by staff.

Deanna survived the maze, and the family, reunited, enjoys some Dole Whips at the plantation.

Cooper and I at lunch. I deny all responsibility for dressing him on this day.

Me and the boys never cut off our daily pool access bracelets for each day. By the last morning, pictured here, we had quite a collection.

 

              The best place we have ever stayed.



Slow Boat to New Mexico

Snippets from recent conversations with 5-year olds.

Conversation No. 1:

FYI, we live in Illinois.

Deanna: "If you could go anywhere in the world for vacation, where would you go."

Cooper: "I would take a plane to Mexico."

Hayden: "It's Mexico; you should take a boat."

Cooper, in his most dismissive, know-it-all 5-year old voice: "I said Mexico, not New Mexico." 

Conversation No. 2:

Me: "What do you think potato chips are made out of?"

Hayden: "Rice?"

Me: "Po-tat-o chips"

Hayden: "Potatoes!"

Me: "Good, now what do you think french fries are made out of?"

Cooper: "French people?"

Coop-Dee-Do

Cooper is "Star of the Week" this week in kindergarten, which entails daily sharing with the class of stuff special to you - showing off your favorite stuffed animal, telling everyone about yourself, display of a you-centric poster full of pictures of yourself and details on things that you are into. You know, sort of like a 3-D Facebook.  

At any rate, I was Wednesday's main event. Having been alloted a 15-minute time slot by the teacher, I dropped by promptly at my odd 10:55 a.m. start time. With Cooper seated by my side, I engaged the class in a dramatic reading of "I Stink", a book narrated by a New York City garbage truck. While the kids have always liked this book more than me at home, Cooper's instincts in picking this to bring with us proved to be dead on, as its alphabetical recital of gross out garbage items like dirty diapers, moldy meatballs and puppy poo really got the audience going.

Having sufficiently warmed them up, I then proceeded to give them instruction in juggling. I had brought some juggling beanbags from home and started by showing them one bag (tossed up and down in a single hand), then two, and finally three. I finished with a flourish with some tosses under my leg and behind my back and with Cooper tossing me a ball to start me out. I must say, the audible ooohing and aahhhhing were fairly satisfying, as was a little girl telling Cooper "your Dad is awesome!!" If only the rest of the world were so easily impressed. On the negative side, the teacher was visibly not impressed when I told the kids that really good jugglers could do harder stuff like chainsaws, prompting an admonishment by her that I probably would not have been let in the school if I had brought chain saws. Killjoy. Another kid asked me if I could juggle cookies and take bites while I juggled. That one I promised to develop for next year  (you will know I have been training hard if you notice a 20 lb. weight gain by me during the year). All in all, though, quite a fun time. Hope I made Cooper proud!

For a trip into the CloudEight archives to revisit my swing by Owen's class when he was star of the week three years ago, click here.

Music Video No. 1

This one needs no words. Enjoy. Oh, and maybe fear for the future a bit while you're at it.

A Quiet Return

3 months and no posts. A sad new record. Can't promise I will do better, but I will at least try.

So what is shakin' on CloudEight you ask? Not much really, at least at the moment. Owen is asleep on a large footstool in his "fort" - Harry Potter-style in the closet under the basement stairs. That kid has slept in pretty much every place a kid could sleep in this house at one time or another, including at least three closets. The twins - who turned five in May - are finally quiet upstairs - their constant patter of fart and poop jokes and stories eventually trailing off into snores. Deanna should be home soon on an 8:40 p.m. train after working late. We have both been under the gun lately and today was her turn to make some serious office progress. One of our newest additions, gerbils Chubs and Junior Gerbil, sounds like he has taken a break from their obsessive hobby of chewing apart their cage and is instead jogging on the exercise wheel. The other one is probably asleep or, of course, chewing. It is pretty quiet at the moment, and quiet is good. I am going to go be quiet too, but it was nice getting back in touch with you, my much appreciated and patient readers. We should keep in better touch, me and you. Talk soon. 

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.

Complete Game

From the moment the first thud of a ball hitting a catcher's mitt at spring training echoed up from Arizona to, well, right this minute, our house has been pretty much all baseball all the time this summer. A sampling of the many ways it has dominated our lives.

Playing: While the twins were heartbreakingly 12 days too young to play t-ball this year, Owen was able to play in Junior Minors little league, then on the league all-star team, and finally on a travelling all-star team. The season was one of ups and downs - playing well enough to be an all-star was great for him, but the travelling team's 2-10 record against kids from other towns was a real eye-opener for all of our hometown big fish in a small pond. It's tough out there boys! Still, I loved Owen's post-game post-mortems, especially when he would excitedly tell me things like "I threw him a four seam fastball for the strikeout" (the rainbow arc of his four seamer looking oddly similar to all of his "other" pitches). Watching the 8-year olds spitting sunflower seeds in the dugout and speculating to each other whether the opposing team was using a corked bat was priceless, as was watching them grow into better players and an actual team. Overall good experience. Cooper, for his part, was content to practice almost constantly in the backyard for his future chances to play - spending hours, and often heading out by himself in his pajamas - throwing the ball up and hitting it time and again, or practicing pitching endlessly with the pitch back.

Statistics: Cooper is usually the first kid up, at which point he stumbles downstairs, unlocks the front door, grabs the paper from the driveway, comes back in and sprawls across the floor while he proceeds to study the standings and previous days' baseball statistics for the next 15 minutes. The kid literally taught himself to read last year by learning the names of baseball teams (see http://cloudeight.blogspot.com/2010/10/boy-of-summer.html) and is now a great reader of everything. In addition, he now has a grasp of baseball statistics that is amazing to me in a 5 year old still weeks away from kindergarten, studying earned run averages, how many games out various teams are, winning percentages, etc.

Lore: Owen and his friends spent the spring studying baseball history in some book at school and he certainly knows a lot more baseball lore than me already. While as a parent you can bullshit your way through a lot of kid questions, I am unable to bullshit my way through ones like "what made Rogers Hornsby so good?"; a stumper I received the other day. Hell if I know kid, although I assume it wasn't steroids since the guy played in the 20s and 30s. Hmmmmm, perhaps it was the extra s tacked onto Roger. In case you get this question parents, the things you need to know are that he has the second highest lifetime batting average ever (.358, second only to Ty Cobb) and hit over .400 an amazing 3 times.

Trading: Much to my delight, the guys have all been avidly collecting and trading baseball cards since the Spring. This has given me a convenient excuse to do the same in the name of father-son bonding. I am currently the subject of much jealousy after my acquisition of the only Darwin Barney rookie card in the house. Owen has taken his collecting to the extreme - given $15 to spend on a recent vacation, he choose to spend it on a box containing 36 unopened packs of baseball cards ... from 1990. Due to his freakish knowledge of past players, this seemed to give him as much joy as opening packs of 2011 cards, although it all seems a bit surreal. Seriously, how many other dads this summer have heard their 8 year old happily exclaim while opening a pack of cards: "Dad, I got Wade Boggs!!!" Owen and I both tried pieces of 21 year old gum from the 1990 packs by the way - BIG mistake. Deanna, for her part, could not be less enamored of the fact that cards are pretty much everywhere in our house. Despite being largely kept in binders by each kid, you can pretty much find loose cards in every room. Deanna has an old George Brett edition mitt from her youth, and the guys excitedly planned weeks ahead of her birthday to give her a 1990 George Brett baseball card using the mitt as wrapping paper for her birthday. Her excitement was palpable.

Rooting: Cruelly, I have passed on to the boys my love of the Cubs. The Cubs spate of injuries, poor fundamentals, lack of leadership and all around terrible play have left them with a terrible record and 15 1/2 games out of first in a crappy division, leaving us with precious little to root for. Still, the boys have a Cubs fan's optimism even at such young ages and ability to find hope in even the most dire of circumstances. We recently cheered as the Cubs finally put together their first three game winning streak of the season (only four months into the season!) and blasted past the Orioles to have only the third worst record in the league. Look out, Kansas City Royals, were gunning to move past you for fourth worst! Cooper in particular seems to take it all in stride, taking the news of yet another loss with a momentary sadness followed by a smile and a "maybe we'll win tomorrow." Although Hayden is less enthusiastic about baseball in general than the other two, he is a good little rooter as well from time to time. A couple of weeks ago, the whole family ventured to Wrigley family, where we witnessed the home team surge to victory in extra innings.

I have watched more baseball this summer than the previous ten years combined. The boys watch as late as we will let them and then drift off to sleep to the call of the late innings on the radio. And so it goes - the pace of our summer dictated by the unique rhythms of this most-American of games. While much has been written in recent years about the inability of today's quick-cut youth to connect with the slow pace of baseball, two of my three guys have fallen for it head over heels and appear to perhaps have lifetime afflictions. Not a bad sport to fall for, if I do say so myself; not bad at all.