Rock Hands

All Elijah and Luca want to do is rock.  Is that so much to ask?  Every time we get in the car, they beg me to find some rock music on the radio.  With the intention of turning it up to “make it sound like a concert” levels.

Thankfully, there is a local station, 91.7 on your fm dial, that plays almost exclusively rock from the 70’s, 80’s and today.  In fact, there is a 99.9% chance they are playing AC/DC at this very minute.  And I defy you to show me something cuter than Luca singing, “Dirty deeds…done dirty cheap,” in his best devil voice.

When we crank up the rock, we open the windows wide and howl at the top of our lungs.  Eli also added sticking his hand out the window and assuming the rock hand gesture. You know, the one where your first finger and pinky finger are in the air and you fold your thumb over the other two fingers?  The rock gesture.

It disturbs many a passersby to see a little six year old hand rock gesturing out the window of a Subaru Forester.  But it delights me to no end.

On Sunday night, we were rocking out again, but this time in our house.  I was playing hit after hit.  The kids were screaming and the dog was agitated.  Luca asked me to take my old guitar off its dust collecting perch and let him pretend to play.  I almost cried. 

Eli, on the other hand, declared he was our official family band drummer.  We apparently have a family band now.  I had to act fast or be relegated to bass.

“I’m the lead singer!” I shouted a little too enthusiastically.

In perfect pitch, Diana sang, “Match my tone…match my tone…match my tone…La…la…laaaaaaaa.”

Keep your eyes peeled for world tour dates.

Mother’s Day 2013

We no longer give the gift of kid free days for Father’s Day and Mother’s Day.  With our schedules what they are (crappy) and time what it is (scarce), we decided to spend yesterday together.

But, like last year, I left the Mother’s Day gift up to Elijah and Luca.  On Saturday, I put it to them.  We could go to any store and buy whatever they wanted.  Remember the Terminator sunglasses and Mumu from last year?  That’s what I secretly hoped they’d go for.  Something hilariously kid like.

But then they go and suggest something really smart.  A Wonder Woman t-shirt. 

“Because Wonder Woman’s name is ‘Diana’ like mommy,” Luca said.

“And because she is wonderful,” Eli added.

“You’re 3 and 6 still, right?”

We drove across town to the comic book store and I realized there was even more smarts to their request.  Because while I was trying to figure out what size shirt to buy from the illogical sizing of the women’s section they b-lined to the PEZ display.  PEZ was their secret goal all along.

Come Sunday, Diana happily woke up several hours earlier than she wanted and witnessed a near fist fight over who would be able to sit on her lap and give her their present. 

She feigned surprise at the gift (I gave her a heads up the night before so she could prepare herself mentally) and even dug up a gold bracelet to complete the outfit.

We spent the day at the nature museum and got the boys haircuts and eventually I made a poached salmon for dinner.  While we ate, I asked the boys to give me one reason why they loved their mom.

Elijah said, “Everything.”

Luca said, “Because she is the best mom in the world.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  

Ew Girl, Ew

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, True Believers.  I was stuck doing some advertising junk in a hotel out of town.  The worst part being the town was Chicago.  It’s all too silly to get into here.

Anyhoo, here’s a story I didn’t get a chance to do from last week.

Exactly seven days ago, one of Elijah’s little pals was over with cousin Finn and Cousin Rory for some bike riding and Lightsaber fighting.  They were all sitting at the kitchen table, eating McDonald’s Happy Meals.  Don’t look at me like that.  I wasn’t proud of it.

They kids were playing with their three cent toys from whatever movie McD’s was supporting and, gasp, Luca touched Rory’s girl toy.

“Ew!!!! That’s for girls!” Eli’s friend shouted.

And to my surprise, Eli joined in.  “Gross!  Girl stuff.”

Gross?  Girl stuff?  This coming from a kid who until that very moment preferred the color pink above all else?  A kid who has personally logged a hundred hours of “My Little Pony” watching?

We’re not weirdly gender neutral here.  I’m not dressing the boys in tutus.  But we put a premium on equality.

I blamed the friend and contemplated tossing him out the front door.  But I passively aggressively ate his fries instead.

Later that night, the boys and I were playing in the tub.  An activity that’s becoming less and less possible as the three of us continue to grow.  But we decided to play Star Wars guys.  They both chose Boba Fett, because of course they did.

I decided to choose Princess Leia to make a point.

Both boys laughed and said, “Ew, you chose a girl!”

I said, “First off.  Princess Leia is the most accurate shot in all the Star Wars movies (look it up, nerds).  Second, Princess Leia is completely awesome.  Third.  I don’t care if she’s a girl.” 

I then spent the next half hour schooling their pathetic Boba Fetts.  Later that night, I asked Eli what his favorite color was.  He said, “Red.  I mean pink!”

Bike Fault

Elijah is a full-fledged bicyclist now.  He can’t even remember a time when he used training wheels.  I, on the other hand, remember it like it was a week and a half ago.  Because it was.

There was a crucial moment in his bike learning when it just wasn’t going well.  He’d get easily tired and tired equals falling.  And falling equals crying.

I had to be careful in these moments not to ruin biking for him.  Partly because I wanted him to learn valuable lessons about trying and not letting stuff get you down.  But mostly because I feel like I’m two weeks away from going on a big bike ride with him to the ice cream store, which will be the greatest moment in either of our lives.

On one such crash, Elijah began furiously kicking his bike and hitting it with his helmet.

He shouted, “This is the worst bike!  It’s a broken bike!  You (meaning me) broke it when you took the training wheels off!”

I knelt down and said, “Hey.  First off, it’s a poor musician who blames his bicycle.”

Eli stared at me and I said, “Never mind.  But do you know there are lots and lots of kids in the world who don’t have a bike?  And they’ll never, ever get a bike in their whole lives.”

Luca who was lurking nearby said, “I don’t have a bike.”

Ignoring the peanut gallery I continued, “So I understand why you’re mad.  But don’t be mad at your bike.  In fact, I want you to apologize to your bike.”

Elijah said he was sorry to his inanimate object and went home to sulk.

A few days later after the boys were asleep, I went downstairs to prep my bike for the season.  The next day looked like the perfect Chicago day.  70 degrees and sunny.  No wind.

I pumped my tires and heard the telltale hiss of a ruptured inner tube.  Not having a replacement, I began to furiously hit my bike with the pump in rage. 

Then I cursed the inventors of irony.

Rock Book

On Sunday, I spent way too much on a speaker ipod thingy for the kitchen.  During dinner, I tested Elijah and Luca’s ear pain threshold while they banged their heads as they call it, “concert style.”

Suddenly, the phone rang.  The caller ID was Eli’s teacher.  Of course, I panicked.

“Hi Mrs. P___.  We weren’t just listening to loud metal.”

“Oh.  Okay…well.  I’m calling to ask for your help.  Elijah borrowed (name withheld)’s homemade book last week and hasn’t returned it.  It’s a book (name withheld) wrote about his favorite rock bands and it’s very special to him.  He would be devastated if Eli lost it.  Can you help him find the book and return it tomorrow?”

“I promise you on my honor I will return the book or die trying.”

Mrs. P___ hung up as soon as she could and I turned on Eli like a jackal.

“Hey man.  That was Mrs. P____.  We have to find that rock book you stole.  Where is it?  Where did you last see it?  I, I mean we, have to find that book pronto or you are in big trouble.”

Eli merely shrugged and said, “I couldn’t find it.”

“No.  That is not good enough.  You better go look.  Again.”

I tossed all the stuff out of his book bag and removed all the books from his bookshelf.  I yanked all the sheets off his bed.  No rock book.

Eli didn’t seem to have as much anxiety about it.  Or any anxiety about it.  Luckily, I had enough for both of us.

I lied to him and said Mrs. P___ told me Elijah would no longer be able to borrow any books from school if we couldn’t find (name withheld)’s book.  This didn’t seem to bother Eli either.

Next thing I knew, I was digging through our garbage bins.  I ripped open a bag of recycling and rifled through its contents:  Bill.  Bill.  Bill.  Drawing from Luca.  Pizza box.  Drawing from Luca.  Bill.  Everything an identity thief needs to become Rick Hamann.  Bill.

And there it was.  A little stapled white stack of paper with orange and blue crayon scribbles.  The cover read, “Rokc Badns.” 

I ran inside waving it enthusiastically.  I found it!  I found it!  Eli looked up from whatever he was doing, completely casually.

“Oh. Good.  You found it.”

I went on a mini tirade about being nice to other people’s property and in the future he’d have to be much more careful.

He said, “I bet you threw it away in the first place, thinking it was garbage.”

He was probably right.