Archive for the ‘Carter’ tag
Birthdays Are Big
1.
Carter’s birthday is this week. I say it this way because his birthday has seemed to stretch from Christmas up until this actual day this week. My sister has a saying, “Birthdays are big!” to justify throwing big parties and buying lots of presents (mostly to convince people to do that for her, I think) and Carter has inherited that tradition with no prompting. From the minute he finished doing inventory on his Christmas loot, he started planning what he wanted for his birthday.
Debbie and I try our best to strike a balance between buying our kids things and not totally spoiling them. We’ve resisted repeated demands for a Wii, Nintendo DS, giant sprawling Harry Potter Lego sets that cost hundreds of dollars, and Carter’s own personal cell phone. Each time he asks for too much, we explain that we simply can’t afford to buy him everything he wants, and that he’s lucky to have all the toys and games and gadgets he has already, half of which have been discarded and ignored anyway. If he’s too persistent we go for the kill: “You know some kids don’t have any toys at all.” Somehow we managed to instill liberal guilt into him at six years of age, and the argument usually stops there.
Beware the Deuce
It’s fitting that my baby and dog walking fantasy was ruined by shit, because as anyone with children or dogs knows, at some point their entire life became obsessed with it. I spent the first 28 years of mine avoiding it; now I follow my dog around with a plastic bag to collect and preserve it like some sort of fecal packrat, and I have in-depth discussions with my wife about the color, texture, and odor of Carter’s dirty diapers.