Happy Valentine's Day - "I Wish You Were Dead"

Yesterday my six year old daughter said to me "I wish you were dead". When I recovered from my surprise, I asked her why she wished I was dead. Her reply: "Then Mommy wouldn't get mad at you all the time."

Kids often will say something like "I hate you" or "I wish you would die" when they are young because they lack the words to express their frustration when you say they can't do or have something that they want. The other times when K has said something like that it did not bother me, as I knew she was just unable to express her anger with me. This was different. I was shocked and hurt because there was nothing like that going on this time. I had not denied her anything just before to bring this on.

But the last part of this story shocked me the most. I looked over at the Wife and she was smiling, almost laughing at this turn of events.

And then it dawned on me what was going on.

Wisdom of a Five Year Old - How was music invented?

The Wife: K, how was music invented?

K: Music began 50 years ago. Some man began banging a log with a stick and it made a nice sound, so music was born.

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - How Old is Daddy?

K: Daddy, did you have a blankie when you were young?

Me: Yes.

K: What colour was it?

Me: It was orange and some other colour, maybe yellow. I don't remember.

K: Maybe it was red.

Me: I am sure it was not red, it was yellow or beige.

K: Why not red? Did they not have red when you were young?

Me: Yes K, your Daddy is so old that they didn't have the colour red when I was young.

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - Surprise!

Context:  K used to come up behind me, yell surprise and scare the bejesus out of me.


K: SURPRISE! It's safe to scream when Daddy is away.

The Twins - Thoughts From When They Were One Year Old

This was originally written in December of  2007. I could not post it at the time, but I think I am able to now.
 ***
Robert Latimer is back in the news. He is up for day parole. I was not aware he was still in prison. He has served 15 years of his life sentence.

I lack detailed knowledge about his daughter's medical situation, but there are some parallels to J's, at least in the effects.

Although barely one year old, our doctors have been mentioning about her hip. Her lack of control over her muscles cause them to contract involuntarily and are causing a hip to pull out of alignment. It may require surgery or a brace, or something.

When we go out, I am constantly asked about the girls. J is obviously smaller and seems like a newborn while K is obviously at least a year old. People wonder how they can be so close together in age. When I tell them they are twins, you can see they are even more confused. However, I don't normally offer an explanation unless asked.

J's head is about half the size of her sister and has not really grown since she was born. I have seen the MRI scan of her brain. White spots indicate tissue and black indicate no tissue/fluid. The black spots were larger than the white. Seeing those pictures immediately dashed any hopes I might have had for her to have anything close to a normal life. She has somewhere between 25-30% the higher brain mass of a normal child. How can therapy work with something that is not there? I don't expect she will progress beyond the mental age of a 1-3 month old baby. K is growing up fast. Yesterday she walked unassisted for the first time. Yet every milestone that K passes reminds me of the one that J will never meet.

Right now is a bit of a false spring. We have an appointment in a few weeks and they will be looking at her hip and the curve in her spine. I can now pretend that I have two daughters, one that is over a year old and another who is just born. However, we will soon have to face J's dislocating hip and severely curved spine. I expect that life will increasingly become more painful for her, require more invasive procedures, and require more hard decisions from her parents.

I can see ourselves in a future situation similar to the one that the Latimer family faced fifteen years ago.

It is true what they say about judging a man before you walk in his shoes. Although we have no idea how long J will survive, I cannot fathom life without her. As I write this, she sleeps quietly in the living room, finally having worn herself out during tummy time. I can think of nothing more beautiful than her sleeping face.

You really do not understand love until you experience the love you have for your own children.

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - Bushism

K: I fix-itized it.

Does K have Asperger's?

I recently learned a bit about Aspergers Syndrome partially through this humorous video filmed as a promo spot for a fictitious new TV show on the CW called "Asperger's High". 


My new interest was caused by reading this post about what it is like to have sex with someone who has Asperger's. She has had several startups and writes about her life on her blog (and she has Asperger's).


One of the aspects of Asperger's is abnormalities of social interaction. If you watch the video linked about Asperger's High, you will see exactly what life with K is like. Sometimes I feel like I am living in Asperger's High and I am the only non Asperger's person. K will come up to me all the time and tell me something completely unrelated to anything that is going on. And then she will start streaming her thoughts, as if she has to say everything she is thinking. It's like a fire hose of consciousness. Sometimes, when I am tired, I find it difficult to take.


Even though K perfectly displays this aspect of Asperger's she shows none of the other aspects.


I think she is just being five.

A Tough Few Days

It has been a tough few days.


Friday I took K to the hospital to visit J. As we finished our visit and stepped out of the room I said to K, "I am just going to talk to the nurse, I will be right back." I assumed that she would wait right there for me. I went about 15 feet down the hall and spoke to our nurse about J. I was probably gone for maybe a minute. K should have been able to hear my voice the entire time. When I get back she is not there. I call her name. No answer. Where did she go? Where could she have gone in such a short time? I call all around the ward, nothing. A woman sees me calling and offers to help. She leaves the ward to check in the main hall. I think "There is no way she could be out there. She cannot reach or even open that heavy door, plus why would she leave when she knew where I was and could hear me talking to the nurse?" I forget that five year olds do not use logic. Another minute of calling/looking around the ward convinces me she must be in the hall. There are some people sitting right outside the ward door. They confirm that a little blond haired girl in a light blue coat went by them a few minutes ago. I find her crying with the woman who offered to help look for her about 200 meters down the hall. How did she get so far so fast and why? I want to beat her with a stick, but she is so upset that I can only console her. She says she thought I left without her. 


To add insult, I cannot find the car in the parking lot. I think people who cannot rere they parked are embarrassingly dumb. Today, I is one. I have been to this hospital so many times that the days are merging into one big haze. I walk around the parking lot on multiple levels, dragging a 5 year old by the hand looking for the car. Checking all the spots we have parked in the last 40 days. I start to think the car must have been stolen. I find the car, right where I left it.


Saturday, the Wife goes to visit J. As she discusses with the staff the next steps to get her off the breathing machine, they laugh when she talks about the process that I had understood we would follow on Friday. The hospital is a big bureaucracy. Sometimes the hands do not talk to each other. The Wife is upset. I will have to go in on Sunday to straighten it out.

The Household is Down

A bad last 2 days at the MLWGF household. 


The Wife is sick, some sort of stomach bug (throwing up). K was sick this morning, and I don't feel 100% (but I am still able to function). And J is still in the hospital (but doing well). 


I have not been able to visit, as I am taking care of the ones at home. I guess it is lucky that she is still in the hospital, as she might catch what we have.

Wisdom of a 5 Year Old - Adult Relationships

K: Daddy, do you know where Mommy is?


Me: Mommy? Who is that?


K: You know who Mommy is! She is the person you argue with all the time.


Me: Oh ya. Now I remember.

Is She Trying to Piss Me Off?

This happens a lot and happened today while we were at the hospital. 

We are sitting down eating our lunch after visiting J in the hospital. I am enjoying my pizza and relaxing. K is eating her lunch. She is eating yogurt with large chunks of fruit in it and using a spoon. The fruit is big and she is having trouble getting it on the spoon and getting it into her mouth. Has she complained about it? No? Is she asking for help with it? No. But the Wife thinks she needs help so she goes and gets a fork to use and then tries to get the kid to use the fork.

I am not big on helping kids. I subscribe to the theory of supervised neglect. If a kid leaves the house without a coat and it is cold outside, nature will smarten them up. Eventually the kid will think to wear his/her coat without you having to tell them. Who wants a 17 year old son who still needs his mother to tell him to wear a coat? K is five, so you have to be a bit more careful, but the principle applies. I try to get her to think about what she needs, not tell her and then get it for her. For example, if it was me who noticed that she needed a fork, I would ask her, “Are you having trouble eating your fruit? Do you need a fork?” If she said yes, I would tell her that the forks were over there and she should go and get one.

Not the wife. With her its all “You need a fork, I will go get you one.” It bugs me, but hey, if she wants to spend all dinner getting up every 40 seconds to solve invented problems that is her business.

But then she tries to get me involved. Not one minute after she get the fork, K knocks it off the table and on to the floor. It is dirty and cannot be used. The wife asks me “Honey, will you get K a new fork?” Here I am, tired, just sitting down and enjoying my lunch, about to take a big bite out of my nice cheese pizza, and now I have to get up? I don't mind if she tries to help K, mother her, assuage her feelings of guilt for not staying home by smothering her and doing everything for her as if she was an invalid, but don't bring me into it.

This happens all the time and I am surprised how much it pisses me off. If I had a nickel for every time the wife asked be to get something for one of the kids within 15 seconds of me sitting down on the couch. She thinks its fair to force me to get something because she just got up to get something, when the kid could have got both of those things for herself, or didn't care about it anyway.

She never did use that fork.

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - Spelling

K (singing): I love to spell! S-B-E-L-L!

Nature vs ?

I find the different ways that boys and girls act to be interesting. Before 5 years old, boys and girls are not supposed to really understand their differences. Anyone who is a parent knows that is crap and the boys and girls are different right from the start.

I was recently the volunteer at K's Kindergarten class. It was library day, so everyone had to line up and walk to the library behind the teacher. I followed behind to prevent any escapes. One of the rules is that the kids have to walk with their hands behind their back. I think this is to prevent them from pushing, poking or hitting each other as they walk down the hall. It is quite a ways from their classroom to the library  and due to their short attention spans, the line ends up snaking all through the school. The teacher cannot watch them all. You wouldn't think 15 five year old kids would need 75 yards of space, but they do.

Just before we leave the class they are reminded that they are to walk with their hands behind their backs. We start to walk and I decide to take a little poll to see how many are following directions. There are nine girls and six boys in the class. Eight of nine girls have their hands behind their backs. Not one boy has his hands behind his back. While the girls are clustered together and following close behind each other, the boys are all over the place, swinging their arms, looking around, goofing off and causing the line to take up so much real estate.

Boys and girls are not the same and no amount of nurture will make it so.

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - Boys and Girls

K: Daddy, I want you to stop doing boy things to me.

Me: What boy things?

K: Pinching me, poking me, saying "stinky" all the time...

Me: Why?

K: Girls things should only be done to girls and boy things to boys. If you do boy things to girls they will turn into a boy.

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - Rewards

Context: As part of potty training, we used to give K candy for successfully using the toilet.

K: Can I have another lollipop.... it was a really long poop!

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - Growing Up

K: Mommy, what will I be when I grow up?

Mommy: Anything you want, Sweetheart.

K: OK. Then I will be a Grasshopper.

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - Reality

I am going to start a weekly feature here at MLWGF called wisdom of a Four Year Old.

K has said a number of things that are funny or profound. I will post a new one every Friday and include some context if necessary.

Wisdom of a Four Year Old - Reality

K: Daddy, how do I know that when I wake up I am not still in a dream?"

Me: "I don't know."

You Don't Win Friends With Salad

The wife and I are fans of The Simpsons (the older seasons, when they were cutting edge, not the crap they put out now). Without The Simpsons, we might not have every been married, but that is another story.

About a year ago, we were watching the Lisa the Vegetarian episode, most famous for the above clip. Lately, I have been going a bit crazy and have started to sing all sorts of weird songs when driving with the kids in the car. Mostly jingles, kids TV songs, or nonsense, made up on the spot songs. K recently picked up on this habit and, out of the blue, started singing "You don't win friends with salad" while we were driving in the car. I, of course, joined in.

After a few minutes of this, I realized this may not be such a good thing. Four year olds tend to say the things they have learned at inopportune times. I could see her telling some adult "you don't win friends with salad" during a meal at their home. Also, I thought she may get the idea that friends are something you are supposed to gain by giving them somethings. So I decided that I best explain that this song was a joke and how you should make friends.

Her reply: "But Daddy, you should be friends with everyone, even salad."

Best Book Ever

This book encapsulates what every parent feels at one time or another about bedtime.

Kneel Before the Power of the Fire Sharks

K's soccer team, the Fire Sharks, are crushing the opposition.

There are a few boys on the team that are a bit older than the average and have played before. Once they get the ball, they simply dribble down the field and kick it in the net. We try to keep it even by manipulating the lines. It got so bad that, during a game last week, the other coach asked me if I could do something so her kids didn't get discouraged, such as asking our team to ease off. I am not a big fan of telling kids to do less than their best.However, these kids are 4-5 years old, and the good players are very competitive. I knew that that would not work. We had to put all the girls on a line to allow the other team to score and keep it a bit even.

The most interesting thing is the difference in style of play between the genders. The boys are all aggressive and go it there kicking, even giving the elbow or a little push to jockey for the ball. K will go to the ball, but half the time she stops when she gets to it, as if to say "No, you take it this time." Other times she just runs after the pack, laughing to herself, not even paying attention to what is going on.

I guess my dream of her playing on Canada's first female FIFA world cup winning team is dead.