Isaac is all or nothing.

He’s bubbling over with smiles, laughter and giddiness or he’s furious and devastated. He’s happily splashing, soaked from head to toe, in a public fountain one second and the next he’s raging against his mother and me as we try to dry him off, change his clothes, and get back to the car before someone calls CPS. He beams merrily as he chucks his sippy cup full of water across the table, squealing with joy. But a firm “no” will cause him to bury his face in his hands and wail dramatically. It’s full steam ahead or full reverse.

Emotions are pretty big things when you’re so little.

Posted from Benaar’s posterous

Me: “Are you ready for lunch, Joel?”

Joel: “You mean Wolverine.”

Me: “Are you ready for lunch, Wolverine?”

Joel: “Yes. Oh and Dad, did you know I have CLAWS!?”

Some days he’s Wolverine, some days he’s Superman or Iron Man. Most of the time he’s Buzz Lightyear. The rest of our identities change too, when he’s Dash that means that I’m Mr. Incredible, Sarah is Elastigirl and Isaac is Jack Jack. When he’s Buzz Lightyear then I’m Woody and Sarah is Jessie. The changes can come mid day, sometimes even mid sentence and the only clue you get is the fact that he’s now addressing you as a new character. His make-believe world is all encompassing. The bike trailer in the garage is his Space Ship which has crash landed on the bed and needs to be repaired. His trike is his Bat Cycle. His boots have rockets and his gloves have lasers.

Remember when you still believed we could be heroes, just for one day? I do.

Thanks Wolverine.

Posted from benaar’s posterous

Man, those must have been the days. Hauling all of your kids out in public, neatly dressed, hair (mostly) combed and needing them all to look the same direction at the same time. Now that I have my own children and have tried anything and everything to get them to look at the DAMN CAMERA I have more of an appreciation for those Sears Portrait Studio photographers. Check out this picture of me, Jason & Sean from what I’m guessing must have been 1979.

Even better is this one (circa 1976). When Jason and I roomed together in college we had a copy of this on our door. How many chins can you count there?

Posted from benaar’s posterous

We had to wake Joel up from a pretty sound sleep this morning. He often protests bedtime but once he’s down he sleeps like a champ. Today it was clear that he was dreaming because the first thing he said was, “I need to go back to the house.”

“What house honey?”

“It was a big house by a sidewalk and with a boy and there was a pinball inside of the house. We need to go there!”

“What kind of pinball was it?”

“It was a Lightning McQueen pinball!” (it should be noted here that there is no such thing as a Lightning McQueen or Cars pinball game, although that would be COOL!)

At this point I kind of smiled at him and got squatted down on my knees so I was on his level. I looked him in the eye and with what I hoped was a kind fatherly smile tried to explain that he was just having a dream. That sometimes when we sleep we see things but we just are imagining them, they aren’t real.

He looked back at me with wide eyes and said, “but it IS real!”

There was a mix of conviction & confusion in his voice that I don’t often hear, something very earnest. Different than the way he’ll tell us with all the authority he can muster that “it IS time to watch a movie” or “we ALWAYS have ice cream”. He was so sure of his visions, his memories that he couldn’t believe that I was telling him they weren’t real.

“It was only a dream honey.”

He put is head down, curled up in my lap and cried.

Parenting is hard.

Posted from benaar’s posterous