Unafraid of technology

I'm continually amazed at how a modern 5-year-old takes technology in stride.

Driving Jacob home from preschool recently, I turned on the Pandora music streaming app on my iPhone and piped the music through my car radio, as I do routinely. Jacob heard a few bars of the rap song that was playing and said, in a panic, "Push the thumb-up button! Push the thumb-up button! I like this one!"

Nostalgia engine

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Back in 2004 (I think), I bought a Nintendo 64 game system for $20 at GameStop so I could play it with Charlie and Thomas during their visits. It was the same kind of system they had played on when they were young kids,  so we all experienced some nostalgia as we played again -- some of us more than others, I'm sure.

A few months ago, I introduced Jacob (5) to the N64. He is now capable of beating me, and his mom, and his grandparents, and all the computer players, in MarioKart, not always but more often than we would like. Angela saw how much he enjoyed MarioKart, so she ordered two more games, one of which is the classic Super Mario 64. The learning curve of that game is a little steep, but Jacob is picking it up quickly, thanks in part to the vast supply of YouTube videos of people playing the game extremely well.

Jacob shows the same talent and patience for learning these N64 games that Thomas had when he was little -- which is saying a lot -- and he shows the same kind of excitement in learning the 'maps' and how things behave in these alternate universes.

Playing the games with any of my kids brings back memories, but seeing glimpses of the older sons in the youngest one is what really takes me back.

"..."

I'm a lot less uptight about the words I use around Jacob than I was 'a generation ago' with Charlie and Thomas.

Today, as I was putting Jacob in his car seat:

Jacob: "Ow!"

Me: "I'm sorry. Did I crush your nuts?"

Jacob (laughing): "No, you didn't crush my nuts! How did you know I had nuts?"

Angela and me (laughing): "..."

Jacob: "How did you know I had nuts in my belly?"

Angela and me (laughing uncontrollably): "..."

A noisy life

I'm writing this from the place I go every Tuesday evening with my 4-year-old, Jacob. It has multiple playrooms for him, with inflatable 'bouncy houses' and slides, foam pits, riding toys and a great crew of employees who supervise the kids and do games and crafts with them. We get dinner here -- they have great pizza. For me, there is also wi-fi and a Starbucks counter (or I can get a beer). It is ideal.

Except that it is so loud in here.

I don't mind the kids yelling -- or even crying -- but there are these giant pumps that keep the inflatables inflated and emit a constant, loud, dull whir. It's hard to have a conversation with the people I run into here, let alone get on the phone with someone. And that is a shame because this would be a great time to catch up with my other two sons.

Connecting with either of my older sons when we're both available is only half the battle. The other half is finding a place where I can actually hear them.

Sometimes I try to talk to #1 son Charlie or #2 son Thomas while I'm on my commute home -- but if I'm taking the train, forget it -- it's too loud on the train and on the platform. So whenever I drive, I try to reach them (using a hands-free kit, of course). But I almost always have errands on the way. In stores. Where it's loud. So I have to hang up before we're really done.

Plus, my hands-free kit (which I installed myself) has an annoying hum that I can suppress only by putting my hand over one end of the kit. Is it still hands-free if I have to do that?

Calling them from home is not an option before Jacob is in bed for the night. And by the time he crashes, I'm ready to do the same!

Has life always been this loud during every waking hour?

An unprecedented toileting experience

I thought I had been through every kind of toilet emergency, but today my four-year-old sprung a new one on me:

He says, "I have to go pee right now or I'm going to wet my pants,"  and the only available toilet is the one I'm on (and actively using).

Twenty-one on none

Confession: I still get a kick out of "Bears on Wheels" by the Berenstains.

It's one of the first books my parents read to me when I was little.

I also introduced it to Charlie and Thomas when they were little, and it stuck with us. Even today, when I'm with my 'big guys' and we see people on bicycles, it always occurs to one of us to blurt out how many people on how many wheels there are (example: "Three on six").

Recently, it occurred to me that I'd like to share this classic with my preschooler, Jacob. I ordered it from ThriftBooks (always my first resort for buying books online), and it was shipped to my office.

I waited anxiously for the end of the workday, anticipating my son's giggles at the pictures and narrative of bears falling onto and off of various wheeled things.

Then I started second-guessing my anticipation. Was I being too optimistic? What if Jacob didn't like the book the way I did? Would I be upset? Why did I want Jacob to have the same kind of experiences his older brothers had? Was this about him or about me and my nostalgia?

Sheesh. It's just a book.

Anyway, much to my delight, Jacob found "Bears on Wheels" very entertaining and soon began requesting it at bedtime.

A couple of weeks ago, Jacob and I were on a walk and saw two bicyclists pedaling by.

I said, "Two on four."

He said, "No, it's not two on four." (He disagrees with things he doesn't understand. Don't we all?)

I explained: "It's two guys on four wheels."

"Oh, it is?"

Then we went into the math. "It's two wheels on one bike and two wheels on the other bike. Two plus two is ..."

"Four!" He got it.

Thanks to Stan and Jan Berenstain, I can reinforce simple addition with my son (and eventually  multiplication by two)  every time someone goes by on a bicycle.

If you have never read the book, you probably won't understand the title of this post, "Twenty-one on none." But I won't give it away. It's best that you discover it on the printed page, as my sons and I have.

What literary gems from your childhood have you shared with your kids?

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Which family is his family?

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For homework this past weekend, my preschooler, Jacob, was to make a "me cube," a tissue box wrapped in colored paper and then covered with photos, drawings and information about him. One of the faces of the cube was supposed to feature a picture of "my family."

I agonized, as I often do, over whether to show his family of three -- just Jacob, his mom and me -- or his family of five, which includes his much older half-brothers.

About a year ago, when the teachers in Jacob's previous class asked for a family picture for the bulletin board, we gave them the family of five. But even at that time, it was a difficult choice.

For a while I had been sensing my wife's need to identify just the three of us as a family in our own right. A couple of years ago during the holidays, I had been putting all five of our names on Christmas cards when my wife, Angela, observed me doing it and asked why I was including the two sons who weren't under our roof. I hadn't thought much about it till then; I had just put their names down because they were my kids. But it was kind of illogical to do that -- I know I shouldn't presume to act as my older sons' representative for things like greeting cards.

Lately, it occurs to me that Jacob probably thinks of his family in similar terms. Mama and Daddy are with him in the house every day, so we are his 'immediate' family in the sense that we are the ones in his immediate reach.

Another observation: When people ask if Jacob has any siblings, I don't just say ''Yes'' or that he has two older brothers. Instead, I usually say that I have two (much older) sons from my first marriage. I'm saying, in so many words, ''Yes but not the same kinds of siblings most preschoolers have.'' In a way, I am doing it to differentiate between our 'conventional' family of three and our less conventional family of five. This seems to give everyone proper recognition for where they are in life.

In any case, a photo of the family of three is now pasted to the cube.

I'd like to hear from others who struggle with which family to identify as the family.

The generation gap between the kids -- and why it rocks

My middle son, Thomas, 18,  just went home after spending the weekend with me, my wife and our preschooler, Jacob.

One of the joys of these visits from my older sons has been watching their relationships with Jacob play out. The age gap has had unexpectedly positive effects.

With each interaction, I become more aware of how adult these boys have always been toward their younger brother. I recognize that any older sibling (full, step, half, any kind), may tend to act 'parental'  and share in child care duties, but these guys are just so mature about it. They are allies with us in parenting Jacob. They watch out for him the way other adults would. We can leave the room without 'tasking' them to keep an eye on their brother and they still will.

My oldest son, Charlie, now 21, once said he feels more like an uncle to Jacob than like a brother. But from my perspective, he and Thomas are better than uncles. They are in a whole different class.

For one thing, the kinship between adult and child siblings seems much tighter than that between a niece or nephew and an uncle or aunt. Having a parent in common, my sons have had some similar experiences. The older ones may even experience flashbacks, just as I often do. (I'll have to ask them.)

I think another thing that makes the relationship unique is that to some degree, all my kids have to answer to my authority as a dad. Other adult relatives can show good-natured defiance ("Your dad says 'No sweets,' but I won't tell him about this cookie if you don't.") I think my boys are reluctant to do that.

The bottom line is that the generation gap rocks. I'm really enjoying it. I hope I'm not the only recycled dad having a positive experience with this.

Four keys to a great multi-generational outing

Last summer, I tried taking my sons Thomas (then 17) and Jacob (then 2.5) backpacking.  It was hell.

Yesterday, I took the same two sons kayaking. It was euphoric.

Here are the four main things that were different about the two ventures, expressed as 'keys to success':

1. Check the weather.


2. Bring everything you might need.


3. Don't be married to the plan.


4. Choose an age-appropriate activity. (When you have two generations of kids, this means something you and both generations will like.)
   

Bad trip

With the backpacking trip last summer, I had made the campsite reservation weeks in advance, when the weather was mild, and assumed it would be the same at the time of the trip (or cooler, since it was approaching autumn). I failed to check the forecast before we left, and we ended up hiking to the site in 90- to 100-degree temps.

I also neglected to read my time-tested packing list carefully, so we had no bug repellent -- and the campsite (once we reached it) was swarming with flies.

At the first sign of misery, I could have decided to scrap the plan, but it didn't occur to me that we were 'allowed' to quit -- after all, we had a reservation!

But the real problem was my choice of activities. Backpacking depends on everyone walking, and 2.5-year-old Jacob wasn't into it. He was like the "Blind Man" in the Sunday school song: He stood in the road and he cried. Thomas and I ended up taking turns carrying Jacob on what should have been a modest 2-mile hike up gentle slopes.

Good trip

By contrast, the kayaking yesterday was a blast for all three of us, the whole time, which shocked me more than anyone because we were on the water more than three hours, and Jacob doesn't normally have the patience for long boat rides.

We checked the weather beforehand. In fact, our original plan had been to camp and kayak at a river park in Lathrop (far inland). It was because the weather was expected to be hot that we chose the cooler climate of Tomales Bay (this covers "Check the weather" and "Don't be married to the plan.") I had no standard packing list for this kind of trip, but in deciding what to bring, Thomas and I at least talked it out. We had clothes for warm and cool weather, bug juice, sunscreen, snacks, water, GPS unit, the works.

Most important, this was an activity that was equally enjoyable for a 43-year-old, an 18-year-old and a 3-year-old. Two adults paddling a tandem kayak in fairly calm water with a small child between them.

This activity would have worked even if Jacob had fought it the whole time -- we asked nothing of him but to sit in the boat -- but he loved it. He spent most of the time belting out songs of pure nonsense that he was making up on the spot. We all enjoyed the mild 'wave action' and seeing pelicans dive for fish.

We were 'reconning' the beaches in the national park area of the bay for future camping trips, so going ashore occasionally was part of the plan. This allowed us all to stretch our legs, explore, look at jellyfish and chat with other people (fellow kayakers and a ranger).

Even if you haven't learned anything new here, you may now be sold on Tomales Bay as a kayaking destination. Either way, you're welcome!

As long as no one's reading, I'm going to blog about my feelings!

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The start of school* makes me nostalgic for one of the two happiest times in my life: 12 years ago.

Twelve years ago is when I started working nights on the copy desk of a regional newspaper. What was so great about that? Well, I didn't have to be at work until 4 p.m., so I got a lot of good quality time with my sons, Charlie and Thomas, who were in fourth grade and first grade.

This was the routine: I would finish work at midnight or 1 a.m., come home, sleep for a few hours, get up, help my boys get ready for school, walk them out to the bus stop, and maybe go back to bed for another few hours. I say "maybe" because I might drive them to school, or go to one of their classrooms and help out, or get just a little sleep and then go have lunch with them at school (we would eat quickly so there was lots of time for them to humiliate me at tetherball). I never got eight hours of sleep (or even six) in a row, but life was beautiful.

The other happiest time in my life: Right now. What's so great about right now is that I get to have morning quality time with my third son, Jacob, who is in preschool. Mama's workday starts kind of early, so from about 7 or 7:15 a.m., that kid is all mine.

I don't have a night job anymore, so I can't spend half the day with Jacob. In fact, I have to do the drop-off promptly at 8 in order to make an 8:12 train. But we do a lot with the time we have. We might make pancakes or toast, or wrestle, or just talk while we eat cereal. It doesn't matter exactly what we do. We are just together. Normally, goofing off comes first and I end up rushing through the necessities -- making lunches, rinsing the dishes, getting us dressed -- and we just barely make it to the preschool on time.

Two days a week, I also get some bonus time with Jacob. My employer is flexible on hours, so my typical work week is 10, 6, 10, 6, 8 (10 hours Monday, six hours Tuesday, etc.). On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I pick up Jacob while my wife does her workout -- so we can do whatever we want. We do errands or go to the park or to Super Franks or to the train table in the children's section at Barnes & Noble.

Sleep deprivation is part of the routine this time, too, but only because my blogging and some miscellaneous editing projects are keeping me up late. And at 43, I feel the effects  more than I used to. Still, sleep or no sleep, the phases of life that provide lots of 'kid time' have been the best.

Profound? No.

True? Yes.




* The 'start of the school year' is happening around me, not to me. Charlie and Thomas are college men and live in another part of the state. Jacob's preschool knows no season.