We be Moving on up....to the East Side (HOL 62)

House of Laughter 62

Isaac and I spent the early evening watching a thunder storm on the front porch while blowing bubbles and petting Max. It was a great night, and a rare quiet moment in the last few weeks. Nancy, Isaac and I are planning on moving into a townhouse in the next few weeks. There are a handful of reasons for the move including better schools, a change of scenery, and the fact that after ten years Nancy and I are finally accepting the fact that we hate yard work.

The new place is about ten minutes from here, and we’ve been moving things a little bit at a time since we closed on the May 1st. Some of the moving has been difficult. While Nancy and I were loading the grill into the truck, Isaac rode his bike head first down three stairs on our front stoop. Thankfully there was concrete to break the fall. I leapt out of the truck and ran over to him. He was sobbing, and bleeding out of his head. It was a tense night, but he has recovered.

Max also had an accident. Last month he wandered out of our yard, and when he came home he was limping and bleeding out of a gash in his leg. One of our neighbors saw him get hit by a car. Nancy took him to the emergency vet (You know the one where they only use solid gold instruments and make bandages out of hundred dollar bills.) We didn’t break my family’s “Third World rule” (If a child in the third world does not get a medical procedure, then a pet does not either.), but Max is one expensive dog.

I don’t feel great about Max getting out of the yard, or spending all the money on him, but Isaac really loves him, and Max is great with him. Isaac never leaves the house without saying “Bye Max!”

As we are preparing the new townhouse we discovered that home repair and toddlers don’t mix that well!!! As a result, while Nancy and friends were painting bedrooms last weekend, Isaac and I had many adventures. He and I went to a sneak preview of the new zoo at the natural science center. The new zoo has tigers, so I’ve been reading him books about tigers to prepare him. He and I even snuck away from the church picnic at the park a couple of weeks ago, followed the fence to the back of the zoo property and took a peek at the tigers for ourselves.

The preview of the zoo was worth the wait. Most of the children at the zoo ran from exhibit to exhibit. Isaac lingered at each and watched the animals carefully. I was very proud at his patience. When the gibbons would swing around their enclosure, crowds would form, but when they would sit quietly and groom, just Isaac and I sat and watched.

The tigers were not a disappointment. When we first arrived, they were lounging around, but as we came down the hill, one of the tigers leapt up and ran across his enclosure towards the chain link fence licking his lips and focusing all of his attention on the baby in the stroller next to me. For an uncomfortably long split second my mental narrative switched from, “What a lovely day at the zoo with my son.” to “Holy Shit there is a tiger running towards me! We are not at the top of the food chain!” Isaac walked right up to the glass in the observation room. Other kids would bang on the glass. Isaac would just observe intently, look at me and smile, and occasionally growl at the tigers.

Sunday we couldn’t stay at the new place, or hang out here since someone was showing the house, so Isaac and I went to Carowinds. The park was recently bought by Cedar Fair, and their safety engineers aren’t quite as scared of lawyers as the Paramount ones were. The upshot is, Isaac and I got to ride the “Wild Thornberry’s River Adventure” (It’s the same ride as the old Powder Keg Flume, they’ve just added a fiberglass monkey and alligator.) Isaac loved the ride, and I am kicking myself for not ponying up the cash to buy the picture of us going down the big hill.

His favorite ride was, once again, the “TV Land Road Trip”. You ride in small electric models of classic 50’s and 60’s cars on a path through the woods. This time Isaac got to drive, and he took it very seriously. His hands were at 10 and 2 o’clock, and his eyes never left the road. There was no doubt in his mind, he was driving that car.

Speaking of cars, the pictures I posted earlier were from Burlington’s city park. They have a few small carnival rides, and Isaac loves the “Convoy” ride. We were waiting in line, and the ride stopped. All of the children except one little boy got off. He was sitting in the front seat of the front car, a fire truck. The teenage girl who was running the ride asked him to get off and he refused. An older woman (I assume his grandmother) asked the girl if he could ride again. She replied, “You need to go through the line”. The old lady tried to get the kid out, and he slammed the door on her. The old lady told the teenager, “Nobody in line will mind”. The man at the front of the line said that his kids had been waiting for the fire truck. The old lady said “If I take him out he is just going to have a fit and cause a scene.” This went on for maybe five minutes while over two dozen people stood in line. Finally the girl running the ride just caved in and let little Lord Fauntleroy keep his position in the lead fire truck.

Since a grave injustice had occurred, I took it upon myself to represent all of civilized humanity and made sure the old lady knew she was being rude, she was holding up two dozen people on the whim of a two year old, she was setting a bad example for this child, and that in a few years when this kid hit school, he was in for a big surprise about how the world works.

Now I know what you are thinking, and you are wrong. I never did raise my voice, and I never once used a word of profanity. The old lady and I went back and forth for a while, and when we were done, I went to stand next to my faithful wife who was desperately trying to look single. As I approached her, Nancy gave me a “What the hell is this strange man coming over to talk to me?” look. Thankfully, the father of the kids who waited patiently came over and said “You pretty much said everything I was thinking. I couldn’t add anything to what you said.”. The mother told me, “I teach kindergarten, and in a few years, I’ll have a kid like that and he will be completely uncontrollable.”

Thanks to the quick response of these two parents, Nancy and I are still married today.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt

P.S. I had my first “Parent/Teacher” conference on Monday. I’ve seen enough bad TV that I had convinced myself that the teacher was going to tell me he was Autistic, or needed to go on Ritalin. Quite the contrary. She told me he is very smart. She cited the example that he is the only child in the class who can do a nine piece puzzle. I swelled with pride when I casually mentioned, “You should see how fast he can do the 26 piece alphabet puzzle we have at home.” Wow I can see how easily you can become competitive with your kids.