Big Daddy Paul

You read that right. Every once in a while the blind squirrel gets the nut, and we just got a fistful of Brazilians! Let’s take this one step at a time, though. First, we applied to a new preschool for Malcolm next year, with the idea that he would go to the same school for elementary and middle school. The decision was extraordinarily difficult, and if you would like to read more about our decision, check out this post. Ultimately, we decided to do everything in power to keep Malcolm from being a crackhead stripper when he grows up, or worse yet, a U.S. Senator. I am not sure if we can afford it, but seeing as I already have 74 advance orders for a book, the money will be rolling in soon. Conversely, if you are Amy’s boss and reading this, let’s make sure Amy gets a big fat raise at work, ok?

After we applied, the preschool informed us that they wanted Malcolm to do a two day observation visit. I am not sure whether they wanted to see whether he was a genius or a pervert, but I figured that the joke would be on them; he acts like both! The kicker was that the observation was free. Free day care to a stay at home parent is like the $2.99 buffet for seniors tethered to their oxygen tanks in Reno casinos. Jackpot! I have never been so elated over one of our decisions, and but a little irritated that we didn’t apply to more schools. He could have been in observations for the whole spring! Sure, they may reject his application if he tries to brain one of the other kids with a plastic dinosaur, but even if they do, we’ll get some free child care out of it.

Good luck getting inside this brain!

Another potential pitfall occurred yesterday when I dropped Malcolm off. When I first got there, a woman told me that they were going to perform a “slight” psychological profile on him. She told me not to worry, it was more about learning the things he knows how to do and the things he doesn’t than any real evaluation. My initial inclination was to say I wasn’t going to let them poke and prod around Malcolm’s brain, but that risked making the whole thing go kablooey. I eagerly agreed and left. When someone gives you a fistful of Brazilians, you don’t throw them away.

It’s Valentine’s Day again at Malcolm’s school. The school is communist in that it frowns on only giving Valentine’s Day cards to the kids your child actually likes. This creates the unfortunate situation where, if you want to take part in the time honored tradition of expressing your  love and affection for your fellow three and four-year-olds, you have to bring 37 cards. Malcolm showed absolutely no interest in buying cards at the store, which meant that I was in charge of helping him create 37 home made Valentine’s day cards. If you have seen his art, you know it stinks. My art? Worse! This was going to be a difficult project.

I did have one important thing going for me. I recently read a book called Drive, by Daniel Pink. The book discusses the best ways to motivate people and it is utterly fascinating. The book is primarily targeted to the business world, but I decided that cubicle dwellers are not that dissimilar to children and was going to use what I learned in the book to motivate Malcolm. Given the difficult task in front of us, I knew that I would have to have my A-game, and this cutting edge research was going to be my ace in the hole.

The first lesson I decided to implement was autonomy. People work better if they can control a project themselves. Knowing that this might take a while, I began asking Malcolm on Monday whether he wanted to start working on the Valentines and what he wanted to make. He said he would prefer to just play Connect Four. When I pressed, he hit me in the kidney. He said the same thing on Tuesday and early Wednesday, and I relented, not wanting to do any further bodily damage to myself.

By Wednesday, it was getting pretty late in the game, so I ditched the autonomy route and tried the next lesson: purpose. People are motivated by purpose, a cause that that is greater and more enduring than themselves. I played on this by asking Malcolm whether he thought his classmates would enjoy getting a card from him that showed them how much he liked them. I said I liked getting nice things and that people really enjoyed the Valentines we made last year. He said that he didn’t care what his friends thought and just wanted to play Connect Four. (The boy has a bit of an obsession with that game right now.) I decided to ditch the book, and things got ugly.

I told him we were going to use a stencil to paint a heart on cards, and that he was going to stay in his room until he was ready to join me in the project. He flipped out, feelings got hurt and tears were shed. That still didn’t work, so I had to also threaten to take away his favorite stuffed animals and was ready to tell him that Mommy wouldn’t be coming home if he didn’t do the stupid cards. (Amy is out of town this week.) He finally relented.
Once started, he got really into painting the hearts and eventually used three colors simultaneously to try and achieve the perfect heart. After we finished the cards for his classmates, he even decided to make extras so that he could give Valentines to all his teachers!When all 45 hearts were done, we celebrated with a game of, you guessed it, Connect Four.

This morning, we had to finish the project. We (I) decided that he should sign the back of each card and then write the name of the kid it was going to on the outside of the envelope. After about five, he looked at me and said that he was done.

Are we done yet? This isn't fun.

I looked at the stack of 40 cards that still needed to be finished, and sighed. This was going to get ugly again. I begged. I cajoled. I threatened. More tears. More hurt feelings. Eventually, I asked him if he thought he could finish a card in less than 20 seconds. He rose to the challenge and quickly began racing through each card to beat his best time, which turned out to be 13 seconds. When we got down to the last five, he announced again that he was finished. I changed course again, and told him that if he could finish a card in 13 seconds, I would give him a cookie for a snack. He burst into tears. Fuck! I almost cried too. We were so close to the finish line and I was seriously afraid that he would abandon the project. I finally got him to calm down and told him that as long as he finished all the cards, he would get his cookie. I figured that any child that personally assembles 45 handmade Valentines with signatures deserves a cookie. He finally finished and he is getting a well deserved snack today.

I don’t know if the other kids at his school will appreciate the hard work put into the cards, but I sure do. He may not be ready for the lessons learned in the world of the cubicle, but he’s my Valentine anyways.

It’s official, my son is afflicted. Some might say that he is already afflicted with anything from a bad temper to a super hot dad. Now, however, the doctor tells us he has something real: ringworm. I took him in to the doctor when I noticed he had a red splotch on his foot, and the good man looked at it immediately and said, “that’s ringworm.” I almost fainted. I was ready for athlete’s foot or a rash from his shoes being too small, but ringworm? Isn’t that something cats get? It sounds disgusting, like a disease dirty felons get from spending too much time in the hole. It doesn’t look very pleasant either.

It certainly didn’t make me feel very good when I dropped off Malcolm at school today. I tried to be nonchalant with the teachers, asking them if they had seen Malcolm’s new rain boots, commenting on the recent rain and then casually throwing in, “Oh, he’s got ringworm too. You should probably have him keep his shoes on.” The reaction was immediate and drastic.

Psst, I got foot problems!

His teacher recoiled and made a stink face reminiscent of Paris Hilton looking at a giant bucket of KFC. I laughed nervously and said, “Oh, but it should be gone soon. I think it may be contagious though, so, ya, let’s leave the shoes on.” When I said that my son may, in fact, spread his infirmity, the teacher looked at me like she was Paris Hilton after just having finished a whole bucket of chicken. I was slightly embarrassed. I quickly exited the classroom before being informed that Malcolm was not actually allowed to be present at school until his foot plague had vanished.

I did a little research and it turns out the name is completely BS. They used to think it was a worm, now they know it’s not. Whew! What is it? A fungus. Great, now my kid has a fungus. Turns out the fungus is the same fungus as athlete’s foot and jock itch, though. When I found this out, I immediately smiled because both “athlete’s foot” and “jock itch” have connotations which point to my kid being good at sports one day. Yay for us! I am actually kinda proud. I am not sure why they haven’t retired the ringworm name, but you can bet I’m not gonna use the term anymore. From now on, I’ll gladly announce, “Malcolm’s got athlete’s foot. Ya, that’s right. What’s your kid got, nerdberger syndrome?”

I don’t want Malcolm to be an economist. Economists, with the exception of Amy’s dad, are well known to be immoral pleasure seekers who drink and gamble all day. Actually, that explains Amy’s dad perfectly. We sure wouldn’t want Malcolm turning out like that, would we? That’s why I am troubled by Malcolm’s continued trip down the path to mastering economics. Last time, he learned the law of diminishing returns through eating a grilled cheese sandwich.

This time, it’s opportunity cost and girlfriends. Economists would define opportunity cost as the value of the next-best choice available to someone who has picked between several mutually exclusive choices. Of course, we all know what economists do with their time, so I’ll break it down into language that non-degenerates can understand: If you do or buy something, then you can’t do or buy something else. The something else is the opportunity cost. If you buy a My Little Pony set, you can’t buy an ounce of weed with that money. If you go bowling, you can’t go to the strip club. Sadly, both of these examples are decisions Amy’s dad had to make last week.

The other day, I asked Malcolm if he played with his friend Clio at school. He said that he hadn’t because Clio only wanted to play kitties and he didn’t want to play kitties anymore. (Kitties is a game where Malcolm and Clio are the mommies and the toys in the schoolyard, dinosaurs and sharks included, are the kitties.) Malcolm said that he wanted to play “superhereeyoes,” a game in which Malcolm and his friends in the yard run around using their special “powers” to beat the living tar out of each other. Malcolm used to play kitties all the time, but now he seems a bit bored with it. He has decided that the opportunity cost associated with kitties (the value of beating the tar out of his friends) is higher than the enjoyment of playing mommy to a shark he pretends is a kitty. So, he has acted as a rational decision-maker, and chosen the option that gives him the most satisfaction. Judging by the large gash one of his friends took out of his cheek, I am guessing he needs to learn how to fight a little better. Maybe Amy’s dad can teach him, but that will be another lesson.