Wisdom of Ages

While eating lunch today with my wife and two youngest, I asked my four year old if he was going to be a papa when he grew up. He said no. I asked him if he was going to be daddy (a term he is more familiar with). He said no. I then asked him what he was going to be when he grew up. His reply, “I’m going to be a missionary and go to church.” Of course we would love to see him be a missionary before becoming a daddy; I was just amazed that he had made that distinction at such a young age. In fact I am regularly amazed at the perception of children and their level of understanding. This just happens to be one of the latest.

My seven year old, came home from school and had written the following for one of his assignments. "If I was President for one day I would buy the mall, get a wife and we will get married and we will get baby." Wow! What whould I do if I were President for a day? A good day to be a parent.

Tell Me No Secrets

I hereby allow you to poke fun and laugh at my expense. I was at another memorable visit to the Periodontist (a fancy/smancy dentist that charges lots more for more complicated problems). I had the left side of my mouth cleaned, not just a regular cleaning, but a deep scale cleaning. Those who have had this procedure will empathize. Because my tolerance for pain is so low, I was given a mouthful of Novocain injections and my favorite, Nitrous-Oxide. I mean seriously, if I had to endure the pain my wife goes through when having a baby, I would flat out die. Not just wish for death, but die. Flat-liner, nail the door shut and put me in a hole. So accolades to all mothers who know pain.

Anyway, after I returned home from this adventure, I had one of my more glorious moments when I tried to rinse my mouth with a warm salt water solution. Still numb from the Novocain, I was standing over the sink and swishing and swishing and spitting out the water into the sink. Unfortunately I lacked the necessary coordination and muscle control at this moment in time and realized that I had proceeded to get more water all over myself than in the sink. Just the swishing around part was enough to cause water to trickle down my front and soak my shirt. The moral of the story being: Do not tell any secrets to someone who has just returned from the Dentist (Periodontist) because their loose lips will let everything spill out and sink that ship.

Something Boring This Way Came

Yes folks, the circus came to the entertainment starved town of Lubbock. The mighty Gaffi Circus (I’m sure you’ve all heard about) rolled in for a two day extravaganza. My wife picked the kids up from school yesterday and told them we had a surprise for them. My wife proceeded to then pick me up at school and off we were to the “surprise” on campus. (We had decided to go because we had “special kid-get-in-free tickets” and figured that adult admission could not be that much.) From the adult prices to the gloomy looks of the girl in the ticket booth, my wife and I exchanged worried looks. (After all, we had already sprung the surprise and the last time any of our kids had been to the circus was when our oldest was 3.)

In non-stop action, with tigers standing on their haunches and shaking hands with the trainer, to miniature pony’s running in circles, to a one-clown performance, to depressed ticket-selling girls dressed like an ostrich dancing with the elephants, we cheered….when it was over. Fortunately, our children were none the wiser; they really didn’t have anything to compare it with…but, to add insult to my parental injury (for wasting so much money on so little) I asked my four year old what his favorite part was, “the flashing swords” ($10 toy souvenirs that the circus was trying to peddle and we refused to buy).