Japanese

As you know, on Sunday Diana spends the day working and usually takes the car.  Which leaves Elijah, Luca and I semi-stranded at the house.  Oh boo hoo.  How can they survive in the horrible place with 10,000 toys and games and tvs?  Yeah, whatever.  We get bored.

So I’ve instituted the Sunday adventure.  All it really is is us walking or taking the El to someplace for lunch.  Our first official adventure was to Five Guys for lunch and diarrhea.  

Last week, I decided to take the boys to their first Japanese restaurant.  There is one within walking distance of our house.  It’s also across the street from the pet store, which is a great bribe.

As we began our walk, it started raining.  Luckily, we all brought umbrellas.  Unluckily, Luca and Eli decided it was far better use their umbrellas as weapons than for their intended purpose.  Within a few minutes they were soaked.

We arrived at the Japanese restaurant (I’m not sure the name.  I just know it as “The Japanese Restaurant”) and, thankfully we were the first and only customers. 

When presented the menus, both boys very loudly shrieked, “Ew!  Gross!”  Our waitress hated us immediately.  I flipped to their kids’ section and ordered them such exotic items as “Chicken Fingers” and “Macaroni and Cheese.”  Yeah, I hedged my bet.  I figured just being present in a Japanese restaurant was enough.

After the waitress left, Luca and Elijah began to loudly inquire, “Is she Chinese, Dad?  Is she Chinese?!!!”  Our waitress hated us with a burning, white hot rage.

“First of all, we are in a Japanese restaurant.  Second, it’s not cool to call out someone’s race.”

“Is she Chinese, dada?”

“’Chinese’ is a bad word.”  That shut them up.  I figured I’d fix that wagon later.

Our food arrived and both boys decided they were not hungry.  Both forced down a bite of Satay and one solitary broccoli.  Luca then began dumping his macaroni and cheese onto the floor.  Our waitress wanted to murder us right then and there.

I quickly paid the bill (massive tip) and tried to escape.  Luca played a little game where he hid under our table, smashing macaroni into the carpet.  I don’t think he thought one of the rules of the game was to get forcibly yanked carried out of the restaurant.  But it was.

I’m heading to New Zealand for a couple weeks for work.  I’m pretty bummed about it.  Because I won’t be able to blog much. 

Pink Eye

Sorry.  This is a very short post.  But important.  Last week, Elijah contracted Pink Eye.  His eye was dis…gust…ing.  Goopy.  Oozy.  Red.  Gross.  I came to find out that Pink Eye is not, in fact, caused my not washing your hands after you poop.  But I still told Eli he got it because he was unclean.

In a completely un-Eli way, he was completely cool with it.  No dramatic outbursts or Scarlett O’Hara style fainting.  He just calmly rubbed his gooby eye over and over.  I think part of why he was happy was the fact that he got out of school for three days of glorious TV viewing.

Why is this important?  For this Luca story:

On Friday, Diana dropped Luca off at pre-school.  Luca, as we know, hates pre school.  Because there are no Dianas there.  As Diana shoved him into the classroom, Luca said, “I can’t go to school, mommy.  I’m sick.  I have blue eye.”

Blue eye.

I love him so, so much.

5 Guys

Every Sunday, Diana leaves the boys in my capable hands while she goes downtown to fight battle against pairing red wine with fish.

Last week, she left at 10:30, and by 10:35 Elijah and Luca were bored out of their minds.  Bored leads to fighting.  Fighting leads to me yelling.  Me yelling leads to them crying.  Them crying leads to me feeling guilty.  Me feeling guilty leads to me taking them to Five Guys for burgers.  Everybody wins.

Since Diana has the car, we have to walk the mile to the El, take the El downtown Evanston, and then walk a few blocks to Five Guys.  This description took twelve seconds to write.  To execute, took 14 hours.

The boys were delightful at Five Guys and made epic messes. 

After eating the buns and cheese and pickles from their burgers, we threw the ground beef into the trash and started the trek back to our house.  The El ride was uneventful and ¾ of the walk home was a fall masterpiece.

But about three blocks from our house, Elijah stood upright and stiff.

“Dada!  I have to go to the potty!”

“Yep, Five Guys will do that to you.”

“I have to go to the potty NOW!”

I told him that making a number two in the alley was not possible.  If only because there were currently witnesses walking their dogs around. 

I instructed him on how to walk when you have an urgent need.  “Walk very slowly.  If you walk fast, you’re toast.  And concentrate.  Mind over matter.  Mind over matter.”

Elijah did as instructed, but I could tell we were at the seconds count stage.  “Hurry,” he moaned.

Luca, in an act of brilliant brother sabotage, decided to lay down on the sidewalk.  “Get up get up get up,” I instructed.  Luca, with an almost imperceptible smile, rolled over onto a pile of leaves.

I yanked him up off the ground and placed him on my shoulders.  I trotted towards Eli.

“We can make it!”  I declared.

“Never mind,” Eli said sadly.

Matter had won the battle over mind.  I held my breath and put my hand on his shoulder.  “It’s okay.  Don’t worry.  It happens to everyone.”

“Dada?  Can you not tell anyone about this?”

“Sure,” I said.  Knowing full well I would betray him.

The Harmons

Since Elijah began Kindergarten, our house has become overrun with paper.  Our first floor resembles that of a hoarder.  With teetering piles of handmade books titled “N” and stacks of cafeteria menus featuring delights such as “Bosco Stick” and “Goldfish Bun.” 

Somewhere in this menagerie of pulp, we discovered an invitation to “Literary Night.”  Judging by the books Eli brings home (“N”), I didn’t think this would involve the Melville’s exploration of sexual identity in “Moby Dick.”  But I had the good fortune of not working late, so I joined in.

After sizing up our parental competition and determining we were the coolest (Callie and Liddy’s dad was there, a close second) we took our tiny seats next to Elijah.

After explaining some important keys to helping our son learn to read or something, his teacher gave each family an assignment.  On a big piece of paper, we were instructed to make a drawing of our family, plus our favorite foods, our favorite places to visit and our favorite activities.

After drawing all of us including a pretty dead on Grover, we talked to Elijah about the other topics. 

We decided to depict the fictionalized version of our family, The Harmons.  The Harmons did not include 4 hours of TV in the activity section.  The Harmons also eat a ton of vegetables and go for breakfast every weekend with the poor.

Elijah got bored and decided to quiz the other kids at the table about their activities.  Our area of the classroom quickly turned into “Latenight with Elijah Hamann.”  He conducted his interviews with the grace and wit of an early David Letterman.  “Mmhmm.  Tell me more about this bike riding.  I mean, it is great or what?”

Eventually, the students gave a little presentation to the class about their family.  I quickly discovered Eli’s class was filled with really great kids who did masterful jobs of lying about what their families do.  Much like the Harmons.

Sleep Watching

Diana’s favorite state of being is sleep.  If it weren’t for that whole needing to care for the needs of two small children thing she would do it all the time.  When she gets that precious few minutes of sleep in the morning while I’m watching the boys, she fiercely clutches a pillow over her head in an homage to the climax of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Next.”

I, on the other hand, have less use for sleep.  Particularly in my old age.  And in my current career, I can expect to be awoken by panicky thoughts every night at precisely 3am. 

In these late night hours, I used to bother Grover.  But I’m finding he has less and less patience for me spooning him on our bedroom floor.  If he catches a whiff of me creeping towards him he’ll bound down the stairs.

So I’ve been turning my attention to Luca.  I will sneak into his bed lay down next to him and just watch.  He, like his mother, sleeps with gusto.  And man does that kid sleep deep.  Nothing can seem to wake this kid up.  How do I know?  Because I try.

Yeah, over the weeks, I’ve been less content to simply watch him sleep.  I’ve been getting bored.  So I kind of, you know, mess with him.  I’ll stroke his hair.  I’ll give him smoochies.  I’ll move him into various Karate positions.  And aside from the occasional cry out in fear that someone is attacking him in his sleep, he never seems to notice.

Here’s a neat thing, though.  Last Friday, I got a buzz haircut in an attempt to draw attention away from the dark blue circles under my eyes.  Later that night I crawled into bed with Luca and commenced messing with him.

At one point he reached out his hands and put them on my head.  Then, still asleep mind you, he began rubbing my Brillo Pad head vigorously.  I can’t imagine what he was dreaming about.  Well, probably Brillo Pads. 

My stress level has lowered a bit over the last couple days, so I have been sleeping through the night.  But based on the number of meetings I have coming up, I think Luca is going to get a bedmate real soon.