I Fought The Lawn

So Liam, despite my wishes and contrary to my demands, turned 7 years old today. Hailey bought him a couple of Littlest Pet Shop dogs [and by Hailey, I mean me, but she'll pay me from her allowance], and Tania and I bought him the biggest water gun you’ve ever seen, which Opa is demonstrating the proper use of here. We also got him roller blades and a “Spectator Set” – a boxed kit complete with binoculars, a camera, a flashlight, a portable Walkman-style radio, and a watch. I also picked him up a wicked-awesome skater-style helmet, and decked it out last night with all kinds of skull and fire stickers:

If you’re keeping score, I am the coolest stepfather ever. Anyways, it was a pretty good day: I picked the kids up at the Rec Centre, where the day camp is for the summer, and Tania, Opa [their grandfather - his name is Werner, but he's just Opa to all of us], and the rest of us went to Swiss Chalet for dinner. The staff sang him a happy birthday and gave him piece of cake.

Afterwards he had baseball, where he was doing fine… until a ground ball went between his legs, and he got so down on himself he basically wasn’t playing anymore. I talked to the coach about how I’d pull him out if he kept it up, which he agreed was the right thing to do. I got a brief time out and walked out to left field, and told Liam that he had two choices: get back in the game and play it properly, or get pulled out of the game and go home to his bed without opening his gifts as planned. Guess which one he chose? Yeah, he’s not a dumb kid. He picked himself up right away, and when they plopped him on first base the following inning, he caught the ball twice for two consecutive outs and was happy as a clam. Go figure.

After our traditional post-beezball trip to 7-11 for Slurpees all around, we went home for presents. But while Liam looked like this, Hailey looked like this. She got incredibly jealous of his presents and started complaining about how his birthday presents are better than hers, blah blah blah, and was miserable for a good half-hour after I’d sent her upstairs to her room. Liam responds more to firmness and discipline than Hailey does; he knows that if you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Hailey’s obviously more mature than Liam, and I don’t really need to raise my voice with her at all because she’s rarely a problem. It’s hard to know what to do with her when she is, but I just figured that I wasn’t going to let her selfishness wreck his good time on his birthday, so off she went to her room. Thankfully, everyone managed to come around and end the evening on a happy note after she’d gotten over it, and she even apologized to me at bedtime, which is rare to hear from a kid. Gotta love the Hailey.

Kids make you run the emotional gambit, and drain your energy like a pair of midget-sized, soul-sucking tornadoes. At the end of the day, theirappetities sated only for the moment, they retreat to their rooms under protest and leave you collapsed in the living room like…. well, likethis.

Still, they’re pretty fun sometimes.

- BC

BIG, CLUMSY POSTSCRIPTS: I must write about my third child, Abby. Have I written about Abagail yet? No? Well, she absolutely runs the first hour of my day, every weekday. Tomorrow I’ll let you know about the demonic ball of fur that rules this house with an iron paw.