Sixth Grade Science Fair

We try not to put too much pressure on the kids, academically. I had enough scholastic anxiety for the both of them. I used to stab myself in the leg with #2 pencils in second grade, so I’m trying a non-stab inducing approach with Elijah and Luca. Do your best. Be nice. Don’t get lead poisoning in your thigh.

Eli had been working on a big science project most of the semester that culminated in a big fair this week. The theme was solving an environmental issue. Eli chose the water we waste when we take baths. Which makes sense because he bathes constantly. It’s the only way a 12 year old can watch YouTube videos without your brother/father/mother constantly bothering you. I hope he’s only watching YouTube videos in there.

His solution? A little tube thingy that recycles your bath water for use in your garden. His demonstration was a purple house modeled after ours, plus a clay tub and straw and other stuff I didn’t really look at because I would be too tempted to point out any flaws in his plan. And in the leg goes the pencil.

I didn’t attend the Science Fair because I am not emotionally equipped for sixth grade pressures. Diana accompanied him. The deal was Eli would present his work to some judges and they would determine which kids get ribbons, and which are total failures who should go live under a bridge.

Eli wore a suit because he is completely awesome.

Oh, but what’s this? His project was not on his designated table. It was nowhere to be found. When they tracked down his teacher, who was completely frazzled by the 4 billion kids and parents asking her questions, she simply threw up her hands. According to Diana, Eli got a very Rick look in his eyes.

They eventually found it on the exact opposite side of the room and raced to get it judged. But the judges had already moved on from Eli’s area. Eli began to panic and Diana wanted to go get in her car and drive west until she saw ocean. Instead, she tracked down the judges and forced them to do their jobs for which they were not paid.

I later saw video of Eli giving his presentation and he was so adorable it would make your head explode.

Later, Eli and Diana went to the awards presentation where they gave out tons of ribbons in every conceivable category. Eli sat on the edge of his seat and clapped politely as student after student got called to the stage for a prize. Can you see where this is going?

Eli didn’t get one.

He was devastated. The science teacher announced that more ribbons would be given out the next day, as late tabulations were still happening. But this didn’t change the defeat in Eli’s eyes. Upon hearing this, I suggested we all become missionaries in Haiti. We hugged him and told him we were proud of him and he didn’t need no stinkin’ ribbon. But he just went upstairs to waste some water in his bathroom.

Thankfully, the next day Eli received a first prize blue ribbon for his efforts. And the world suddenly made sense again. He was back to his old self and jokingly asked Diana how much a blue ribbon was worth, dollar wise.

And she gave him a fist full of money from her wallet.

Baseball Again

The day of Luca’s first game of the season, I played John Fogerty’s baseball anthem “Centerfield” on our kitchen speaker that is secretly recording us. Luca ran screaming from the room, which sets up the season perfectly.

Luca’s age group has a few big changes this year:

First, it’s kid pitch. This gives kid pitchers a chance to cry openly in front of their friends and classmates. It also gives Dads a chance to offer asinine opinions to high school aged umpires about what constitutes a strike.

Second, and most importantly, players are required to wear a cup. I don’t know who was more excited by its comedic potential, me or Luca. Within the first four minutes of it arriving in our mail we’d cycled through all of the classics. Playing it like a bongo? Check. Pantomiming drinking from it? Check. Wearing it and nothing else? Check. Hitting yourself with a baseball to see if it actually works? Check.

The only negative is wearing a cup goes against Luca’s philosophy of never wearing underwear.

As with all early season games, the temperature barely hit 40 degrees. There is nothing like freezing cold metal bleachers and 30 MPH wind to make you fantasize about a fictional little man who rides up on a bicycle powered whisky cart. His name is Fredrick and he has a lovely mustache and a tweed jacket. If you are really nice to him, he’ll sell you one of the Cuban cigars he keeps hidden from authorities.

Luca did pretty great. He’s so hilariously serious about it. The intensity behind his eyes is absolutely amazing. Plus, his long hair makes him look like 1970’s Milwaukee Brewer Gorman Thomas. He’s been a part of some nice infield plays and is smart enough not to swing at any kid pitches, which guarantees a walk.

He keeps threatening to volunteer for pitching duty, which will be amazing blog material.

Torture

One of my pals from The Onion sent out a heartfelt social media post about the powerlessness of watching his baby girl suffer from bronchitis in the hospital. I’d link you to it, but I think it’s probably breaking unwritten social media privacy laws. Regardless, it broke my heart to read of his baby’s pain and his helplessness to do anything for her.

Thankfully, we’ve been extraordinarily lucky that we haven’t had to experience anything even remotely close to his nightmare. Unless you count watching Luca get his mouth expander fixed.

A little hint for all you mouth expander patients out there. If you yank on your mouth expander constantly, it will fall out. It was up to me to accompany Luca to the ortho to get it put back in. But not before attempting in vain to eliminate the horrible smell from months of poor hygiene. It was a smell you could chew. A rhino’s anus was a plate of warm cookies in comparison.

We arrived at the ortho and they immediately gave him the 3^rd degree. What did you do? Were you eating candy? Or popcorn? Tell us you weren’t eating popcorn. Please tell us you weren’t dumb enough to eat popcorn. I covered for him. It just fell out. Honest. Looked like poor orthodontia if you ask me.

After scolding me for being a big fat liar, they set to work on shoving the mouth expander back into Luca’s face. Remember that scene from “A Clockwork Orange” where they force Malcom McDowell’s eyeballs open with those little pokey things? Luca’s experience was nothing like that. But it was still a powerful scene.

It was uncomfortable, though. They took turns stuffing both their hands into his little mouth. Pliers were used. The entire time, Luca sat with his feet rapidly twitting, as if he was typing out Morse code. “Dot dot dot…dad…dot dot dot…we escape at dawn…dot dot dot.” His hands also shot out from his chest in little sad palsied shapes. As if he was playing a grotesque piano, or was the Emperor from Star Wars zapping Luke Skywalker.

I was proud of him for not screaming bloody murder. I still felt awful. I wanted to shove the orthodontist aside, gather Luca in my arms and run. But I just sat there staring at my hands. To add insult to injury, his ortho has a strict no phone rule.

When his torture was done, they scolded me again for not cranking his mouth expander enough last month and I thanked them for their time.

As we walked outside, I told Luca he could have a treat for being so brave. He asked for a Subway sandwich. It was 8:45am, so I said of course.

Mouth Crank

Luca is objectively beautiful. Sometimes his face just stuns me. Beautiful eyes. Beautiful hair. Beautiful nose. And a mouth that looks like a broken bottle filled with jigsaw pieces.

He is a little challenged in the toof area. So we’ve entered the lucrative world of mouth fixing. Luca’s nice Orthodontist, who clearly drives a Tesla, recommended he get a mouth expander. To…uh…expand his mouth? It’s this metal monstrosity attached to the roof of his mouth that extends across his mouth like a robotic spider. It was invented by an evil 4^th Century Duke for use in his dungeon.

For a few days after the installation, Luca couldn’t swallow anything solid. It just felt too weird. He subsisted on nothing but lemonade and yogurt. I assume we’ll shortly be entering the lucrative world of diabetes.

The mouth expander requires nightly cranking. There is a tiny hole in the center the size of a pinhole. You insert an uncoiled medical paperclip into it and then crank the thing towards the back of Luca’s mouth. You have to be careful not to drop the medical paperclip into his throat, killing him. You also have to avoid missing the hole and piercing the roof of his mouth, also killing him.

Diana abstains from the procedure because her eyesight is Mr. Magoo at best. My 46 year old eyes are no treat either, but I’m the best of two terrible options.

Our system is as follows:

I completely forget to crank his mouth until Luca is supposed to be in bed. Thankfully, Luca never, ever goes to bed on time. After some panicked yelling, Luca assumes the position on our couch, under a lamp.

I don this magnifying glass/flashlight apparatus Diana bought to read with but abandoned because she would rather be blind than wear something so ridiculous. Luca opens his mouth and I grab the medical paperclip and peer into the horror that is Luca’s mouth. Luca is not what we would call an enthusiastic tooth brusher. So, his mouth looks a lot like Yoda’s planet Dagobah.

In researching the spelling of “Dagobah,” I just fell down a long rabbit hole called “How Long Did Luke Skywalker Train on Dagobah?”

Okay I’m back. I poke the medical paperclip into the tiny hole, usually regretting the 2 glasses of wine I just drank. And then crank the sucker, which makes Luca gag. I fully expect to get barfed on one of these days.

But crank we do, and it seems to be doing…something? Nothing? Paying for a Tesla? If nothing else, it’s a little bit of gross father/son time.

Guns

We arrived at the cabin midafternoon. In the mad rush to attach all our devices to the Michigan Wi-Fi, I noticed our neighbors way off in the distance. They and a small group of friends gathered around a four-wheeler.

Then we heard gunshots. Bam…Bam…Bam…

“That’s an AR-15,” I said with authority.

“How do you know?” Di asked, mentally selling our cabin in her head.

“I’ve played enough violent video games to know the sound of an assault rifle.”

Luca, peering through our window in fascination and horror, said, “But dad, they are shooting a pistol.”

Oops. Regardless, I began lecturing the family about living in Michigan. This is gun country. It’s legal. They are clearly observing safety rules and are shooting away from the house. So let’s not get all liberal butthurt about…

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM.

Our neighbors had moved on to a real assault rifle. Even at 2 football fields away, the sound was deafening and terrifying. I casually shoved Luca away from the window.

Sensing the panicky Democratic hand wringing next door, the gun club disbanded. For the next couple hours, the boys would speak of nothing else. Will the neighbors come over and shoot us? Will a stray bullet reach us in the cabin? What if they find out we voted for Obama? Would they shoot Grover if he poops in their yard?

Diana decided to put a stop to it in the only way she knows how: wine. We walked over to officially introduce ourselves and supply them with liquid friendship.

Yeah, okay. I’ll admit it. I assumed they’d be soaked in moonshine, wearing nothing but overalls held up by oversized diaper pins. Because I am a terrible person.

In reality, they were a lovely young couple who looked more at home in a college lecture hall than the Hillbilly Jamboree I had in my head. They chatted about the town and the ins and outs of living next to a creek. They also offered to keep an eye on our place and handled Grover taking a human sized poop in their yard with aplomb.

We went home, satisfied that our neighbors now knew we had cute children who were not bullet proof.

Luca and I then moved onto our favorite Michigan activity: prying shotgun pellets out of highway signs.

Adventure Time

I’m entering a weird time with Elijah. He is still the most caring, funny, friendly kid on the face of the Earth. Proof: we got a note from his school calling out the fact that he took it upon himself to help a kid on crutches throughout the whole day, without being asked. We have the red form letter to prove it.

But I can feel him pulling away from me. Which breaks my heart into tiny little bitter pieces. No, he is not a jerk about it. We used to lay on his bed and read late at night, or tell secrets, or give each other advice. We called this “Be Withs.” Well, Eli isn’t into them anymore. He plays it off wonderfully by saying things like, “You must be tired from work, Dad. We don’t have to do Be Withs.”

Ouch.

And I find it harder and harder to force him to play with me. Again, he blows me off kindly. “Maybe later,” is his most common refrain.

Every ounce of my being wants to chain him to his radiator and make him laugh at my witticisms. But I’ve decided to take another tact: pushing him from the nest.

I realized he needs this. He needs to figure out who he is outside our family cocoon. He needs to become Eli, not just Hamann Boy #1. This is all part of growing up. It doesn’t make it any less devastating to me.

So, I’ve been sending out of the house on Adventures. The rules are simple: Go get some friends. Go walk around and get into wholesome trouble. Bring your phone. Don’t get arrested.

He resisted at first. The warm glow of YouTube is too comforting. But after I threatened him, he went out with pals.

And then, darkness. He came home several hours later. Happy, older, wiser, and with a bag full of candy purchased with all his allowance. I didn’t ask what happened, nor were any details offered.

At least I can still make Luca hang out with me.

18 Hour Vacation

A few months ago, Diana booked a little pre-Spring Break jaunt down to Mexico. From the start, it was unlikely I was going to be able to go. A lot of work junk was colliding. But we kept the option open that I’d be able to go.

As the week approached, the chanced dropped to zero. I was in the middle of two new business pitches and winning new business was the best way to continue being employed and be able to afford pre-Spring Break trips for the family. Everyone was bummed, but I had been jabbering so often about the chances being low that no one was particularly surprised.

Suddenly, a tiny little window opened. By some miracle, I found myself with a non-working weekend. I debated flying down. It was pretty stupid to spend all my airline miles for essentially 18 hours of time with the family. It was a waste of money and would very likely make me sick from exhaustion and general gross airplane grossness.

So of course I went.

The boys were excited. Diana was excited. I was excited. Grover was excited to be able to make out with the neighbor dog for 2 days.

After a small check in mess, I made it to Mexico and met the family.

They were determined to give me a full vacation in 18 hours. We went to the giant Mexican grocery store I love. We found the junkyard dog, who we named “Bubby” a few years ago. We played Marco Polo. We went to the beach. The boys disobeyed orders to not get their dinner clothes wet in salt water. I yelled at them. I took away their screen privileges. I drank a margarita. I gave back their screen privileges. We ate lobster. Diana and I drank too much wine. We found a lizard in our rental house. Diana and I stayed up late smooching and listening to Mariachi bands.

I flew back to Chicago the next morning and collapsed.

Totally worth it.

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