Monday, June 14, 2010

Of Werewolves and Bunk Beds...

Man, being a parent is tough.

Allow me to illustrate:

Not long ago, my youngest son, Blake, called me into the room he shares with his brother.

"Daddy," he says. "I had a nightmare that a werewolf was going to drag me under the bed and eat me."

To be fair to him, who among us doesn't have that fear?

Being Daddy, I of course responded with, "Blake, there isn't any werewolf under your bed."

"There isn't? Are you sure? How do you know?"

"Well, Blake, Daddy knows there isn't a werewolf under your bed because werewolves aren't real. They're only in movies and books."

"Oh."

Then, bless his evil little heart, Hunter says from the top bunk:

"Dad, it could've been a real wolf."

This, of course, starts a new round of whimpering from the recently-calmed Blake.

Now, here's my dilemma.

It's difficult sometimes to discipline Hunter for things like this because:

What I said to him was, "Hunter, that's not helping, and you know there aren't any real wolves in our house OR our subdivision. The closest thing to a wolf around here is Starbuck, and she's just a dog."

What I was thinking was more along these lines:

Ooooo...good one, Hunter.

It doesn't make it any easier that, instead of "There's no such thing as werewolves", what was really going through my mind was something like this:

Me: "Blake, no werewolf is going to pull you under the bed."

Blake: "No? Are you sure?"

Me: "Of course I'm sure. Werewolves drag you out the window; they do their eating outside. Night-night!"

Blake: "GAH!"

Obviously, I didn't say this, but it's a part of the same streak of immaturity that once led me to convince my kids that the world used to be in black-and-white and that's why old pictures and movies don't have color. It's color film showing a black-and-white world.

It's hard to be stern with Hunter sometimes because I flash back to when I used to pull tricks like that on MY little brother (My friend Rob's brother, John, taught me so much, and I've never properly thanked him).

The hardest thing about being Dad is just that: resisting myself.

To help illustrate, while I was sitting here typing this, Blake comes in from the pool and says, "Daddy, Hunter just bit me and says that he's a vampire."

Despite the fact that he's in the pool, in the sunlight, and would be on fire, I still think:

Oooo...good one, Hunter.
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Thanks for reading my ranting,

Brad

8 comments:

  1. Hey! Just clicked over from Lydia's. Great dialogue snippet and I totally hear you on resisting yourself when dealing with offspring.

    I may or may not have told my son that the reason old movies are black and white is because the whole world was in black and white until about the 1950's.

    I think it's genetic. My mom told me that the peeling sunburned skin on her back was a disease she caught from a public toilet seat. She swears she does not remember this but from the age of four on I never had any contact with public porcelain.

    You're my age and you live in Louisville! That is my most favorite city I ever lived in. I was there from fall of 1992-spring 1994. (The worst snowstorm evah that January.) I lived by the man on the horse statue on Cherokee Road, right behind the Bristol. Good times, good times.

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  2. Hehe. Ah, the power we have over children! It's a bit scary, isn't it?

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  3. Oh, and your son could have been sparkling in the pool! That's super scary, in my opinion.

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  4. Silly Brad. Don't you know vampires don't burn in the sun anymore! They shimmer! *jazz hands*

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  5. Awesome post. I love being a parent, and I'm totally loving summer break with my son.

    That is all.

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  6. Laurel--thanks for coming to visit; hopefully you'll pop in more often.
    I'm familiar with the area you lived in. I had a lot of friends that lived over there so spent a lot of time there myself.
    I remember that snowstorm. I had to put on skis and cross-country to get to a gas station to buy smokes. I didn't really need them, I just wanted to get out of the house.

    Brandi--That reminds me of when Hunter was asking what kind of vampires sparkled. I told him that real vampires don't sparkle, and he reminded me that I had just told him there WERE no real vampires. Kid's too smart for my own good.

    Emily--HAHAHAHA! Jazz hands--hee-hee!

    Lydia--I'm loving summer break, too. Being a teacher, I'm out all summer and get to spend all day with Hunter and Blake. Hopefully get them out for some road trips soon.

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  7. Don't think I didn't notice the Calvin and Hobbes reference. Doesn't mean it's not a valid "lesson" to teach our kids though ;-)

    Don't they put a blue die in pools now to help identify if anyone is sparkling in them?

    You better hope Hunter never develops the kind of patience John had when I was growing up. You're in all kinds of trouble if that happens.

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  8. Hehe. I bet my husband thinks crazy thoughts like that when our son comes to us with some odd fear. Too bad his current fear isn't a fun one, it's kindergarten. Can't help that one.

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