What's This? (HOL 89)

House of Laughter 89

In case you don’t read the Greensboro News and Record or have a Facebook account, Isaac was on the front page of the paper Saturday. Our church collects and distributes food discreetly on Friday afternoons at local schools to kids who night otherwise go hungry that weekend. The article explains it in greater detail. Isaac adores Wendy Smithey who coordinates the program and looks forward to helping fill the backpacks with canned goods on Wednesday nights.

Thanksgiving was pretty laid back. We stayed home had a few friends over for dinner and decorated the house for Christmas. Isaac did not get his usual afternoon nap, and it showed. While helping Nancy decorate, he had a full on kicking, screaming, crying temper tantrum because we did not have brown lights to hang in the tree out front. (He got his nap and a couple of spanks that afternoon.)

The next day he told me that he didn’t love me. It broke my heart and upset me, but I knew I had to be keep my head. What do you do when your child says “I don’t love you?” Spanking him or punishing him doesn’t seem to fit. I wanted him to be able to talk about how he feels, and at the same time I want him to realize the gravity of saying that and to keep him from making it his “Go to” phrase when he is mad and wants attention. I tried to think, “What would Mr. Rogers do?”

I told him it hurt my feelings, and he shouldn’t say that. I didn’t punish him for saying it. I just didn’t play with him until he apologized and told me that he loved me. He only said it one other time out of anger. I’m sure he will grow out of this by the time he is 13 or 14.

Unfortunately last year, one of my co-workers gave us a small animatronic Santa that reads the whole “Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem. The batteries have mercifully ran out of juice. It may have something to do with Isaac’s inability to go up or down the stairs without turning it on. If Isaac hears the poem end, he immediately gets up from what he is doing (eating dinner, playing with cars, sitting on the toilet) and runs to re-start Santa. The good thing is we can tell when he wakes up, since the first order of business every morning is to hear “Twas the night Before Christmas”. He reminds several times a day that we need to buy Santa some new batteries. They don’t make C batteries anymore do they?

I made a Christmas C.D. again this year. Isaac’s favorite track is “The La La song”, also known as “Deck the Halls in 7/8 Time” by Triad Pride Men’s Chorus.

Speaking of music, the new morning ritual is to listen to the song “House of Bamboo” by Southern Culture on the Skids twice and then “Carve that Possum” a.k.a. “The Lily Song” (So called for his cousin’s widely known and deep seated suspicion of the Southern marsupial) on the way to school. Isaac is very particular….”House of Bamboo” must be played twice…..never three times. He then requests “The Lily Song” which is the next track on the disk, and that takes us through the rest of the ride to daycare.

As Nancy was picking the boy up at daycare last week, he asked if he could watch, “What’s This?” when the got home. Nancy asked several times what he was talking about, and he said he wanted to watch the movie, “What’s This?”

Evidently it was a long frustrating car ride home for both of them. Thankfully I knew that he was talking about “Nightmare Before Christmas.” (It’s the song sung when Jack Skellington, the king of Halloweentown visits Christmastown.)He and I watched it Sunday afternoon. We also watched the Brendan Frazier version of “Journey to the Center of the Earth” Thursday. He did okay with the dinosaurs, and the falling scenes, but we had to fast forward through the giant Venus flytraps.

I picked a great book at the library (Nancy calls it propoganda.) It’s called “You Can Do Anything Daddy”. In it, a little boy gets kidnapped by “Robot Gorilla Pirates from Mars”, and his Daddy rescues him. Isaac has picked it for the last few nights, and brought it to church with him last week. He will put his finger near the pictures of snakes in the book and pull it back quickly yelping, like the snake had bit him. We’ve also been feeding the Curious George habit. We checked out one of the old ones (Curious George Rides a Bike) and I forgot how they just go on and on! I’ve taken to telling the wrong Curious George adventure for the book we are reading, and Isaac will correct me, laugh and then tell me to do it again. For example, while looking at pictures in “Bike”, I will tell him the story from “Curious George Makes Pancakes” or “Curious George visits the Chocolate Factory.”

Hope everyone has a great week.

Strength and Honor,

Big Matt