boy oh boy

I'll admit it; sometimes i struggle as a parent. I feel as if i am somewhat disconnected from my kids, at least from their thought process. There are times when it is really hard for me to come up with a explanation for their behavior. I think it is a personality thing, but it has been emphasized by being the youngest kid, and not being around many little kids as I was growing up. I have one recollection when I was in junior high of my grandmother and an aunt thrusting someone's baby onto me, and telling me to burp it. You couldn't imagine my horror, and they were quite shocked at my reticence to hold my little relative. I didn't even know they burped. But all this is to say that there are times as a parent that I can really nod and say; "yeah, right on, I know how you feel". I have recently realized that more and more it is Isaiah that I am identifying with. Now, I am sure there are all kinds of psychological assumptions that go along with that statement; like me being a little boy at heart, never growing up, etc., but we're not going to go into that today. It is just a bit of a relief to realize that these little people might really be my own offspring and have put serious dents in my ever-growing conviction that i was an unknown surrogate father for some alien spawn-farm for growing their young while the real parents go conquering galaxies far away, only returning to collect their mostly matured larva's and destroying my wife and and me to get rid of any evidence of their existence. (actually, I still had not formed a real solid opinion of which side Brynn was on) Not to say that I don't like my girls, of course, even if they are little alien larvae, but there are just things that boggle me, time after time. For instance: "The Jungle Book" is really sad at the point when you think that "Baloe" is dead, right? Sure, but how many times do you have to watch it before you realize that HE AIN'T GONNA DIE???? You don't have to cry every time!!! That is so obviously something alien going on there! Another case in point: what is it about really old, stoved up, gray-muzzled labs that necessitate you holding their poor old heads and weeping incessantly over them? And there is really something strange about these girls' fascination with finding little human figurines and almost obsessively dressing and undressing them. I don't know what that is all about, but it must be something alien. But take the boy, now. Now I can relate to him. He is just so "surface" and shallow that I can really identify with him. Like his "big" complex: he doesn't know he's actually a little fella; and I have to be perpetually told myself. I don't think of myself as short. Sometimes when people make short jokes, I look around for a little before I realize they are directed at me. And when he gets hurt, he doesn't to be fawned over and showered with kisses, he just wants to be left alone for a little while until he gets over it. Brynn says that he just wants some time alone so that he can be mad about it for a little while, then he's ready to go again. He is also really into peeing outside standing up; "it's what big boys do." He also has a singular delight in (as we call it in construction) "Big Iron". I've coached him as well as I could in the differences between front loaders and skid-steers, in back-hoes and track-hoes, and of course the difference between a crane and a boom-truck. I was quite taken aback the other day when he told me, quite crossly I might add, that he didn't want me messing with his 'grader. I didn't really think we had gone over that road building part of equipment. Oh, well, what could be better than the student someday surpassing the teacher? Young Grasshopper and all that. One thing that really warms my heart towards my little boy is how he loves animals. I also have a somewhat abstract or hard to define relationship with animals. Isiah loves toads; he sometimes literally loves them to death. He doesn't mind their ordinarily beady eyes starting, even bulging from their head as he firmly brings them to his lips to give them a nice little toady kiss. He does love to spit on cats, too. His riotous laughter that rolls out of his little body usually scares the cat away when he makes a direct hit, then he has to start all over, talking nice to the kitty in order to get close enough to do it again. Today he put a small plastic potting cup (that seedlings come out of) over the head of a kitten. To his delight, the kitten just backed up all over the place, until it fell off of what he was standing on. Again, after the first time, you have to talk nice to the kitty. I can so relate... I remember being a boy, too. Dogs are never as anxious to come to you after they have been tossed over the bridge the first time. Anyway, I'm sure that some of you wont understand any of this, but then, you probably don't pee outside standing up, either. Goodnight,