“No, they’re still where they were,” I answered.

“Good. I want to keep the old table for a really really long time.” His movement settled, and he continued to sleep quietly for another 15 minutes or so before waking up.

Parenting can be so cool sometimes.

Are we missing anything? This is our list to use to make random selections. Not to check off each one like we’re expecting he’ll see everything.

1. The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
2. The Adventures of Robin Hood
3. Alice in Wonderland
4. Annie
5. Babe
6. Back to the Future
7. Bad News Bears
8. Bambi
9. The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen
10. Batteries Not Included
11. Beauty and the Beast
12. Bedknobs and Broomsticks
13. Bee Movie
14. Beetlejuice
15. Big
16. Bolt
17. A Bug’s Life
18. Bugsy Malone
19. Cars
20. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
21. Chicken Run
22. Children of Heaven
23. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
24. Chronicles of Narnia
25. Cinderella
26. Cloak and Dagger
27. Coraline
28. The Dark Crystal
29. Eric the Viking
30. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
31. Fantastic Four
32. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
33. Finding Nemo
34. Flight of the Navigator
35. Ghostbusters
36. Groundhog Day
37. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
38. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
39. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
40. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
41. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
42. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
43. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
44. Hook
45. Horton Hears a Who
46. Howls Moving Castle
47. Ice Age
48. The Incredibles
49. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
50. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
51. The Iron Giant
52. James and the Giant Peach
53. The Jungle Book
54. Karate Kid
55. Kikis Delivery Service
56. Lady and the Tramp
57. The Last Unicorn
58. A League of Their Own
59. Lilo + Stitch
60. The Lion King
61. Little Fugitive
62. Little Mermaid
63. Madagascar
64. Madagascar 2
65. Mary Poppins
66. Meatballs
67. Monsters, Inc.
68. Monsters vs Aliens
69. Mrs. Doubtfire
70. The Muppet Movie
71. My Life as a Dog
72. My Neighbor Totoro
73. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
74. The Neverending Story
75. Night at the Museum
76. Peter Pan
77. Pinocchio
78. Princess Bride
79. Princess Mononoke
80. Raiders of the Lost Ark
81. Ratatouille
82. The Red Balloon
83. Secret of Roan Inish
84. Shrek
85. Sleeping Beauty
86. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
87. Sound of Music
88. Spiderman
89. Spiderman 2
90. Spiderman 3
91. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
92. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
93. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
94. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
95. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
96. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
97. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
98. Superman
99. Superman II
100. Superman III
101. Time Bandits
102. To Kill a Mockingbird
103. Toy Story
104. Toy Story 2
105. Transformers
106. Wall-E
107. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
108. War Games
109. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
110. Willow
111. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
112. The Wizard of Oz

I’m not going try to link all of those over to the IMDB. Heh.

When he believed he was finished, he stood up and pulled up his pants. He looked at me questioningly with his hand reaching back towards the toilet.

“You don’t have to flush it, sweetheart. You didn’t actually go!”

His usual response was a contemplative, “Oh!” Then a nod of agreement as he exited the bathroom.

This last time, Slow-Brain Dad stayed behind for a moment to consider what had been happening. Every one of his little sit-push-nothing-getup actions was followed by a keen interest in flushing the toilet.

Tick … tick … tick …

D’oh! He’s more interested in the fun of flushing the toilet then actually using it!

Deduction is clearly my true skill.

I wonder now if our seven year-old used the same trick. I must have blocked it from my memory.

The road I live on leads to a cul-de-sac, so we don’t get much through-traffic. However, enough homes are on the road that strangers who don’t live here often visit those who do. No problem. We have family and friends do just that. But there’s a behavior problem involved.

The “Children Playing” sign at the entry to the road needs to be twice its current size, and have lasers attached which will blow out the tires of the fuckers who go tearing up and down the road so maybe their car would flip and crush their useless skulls in a mesh of metal and glass.

Ahem.

There are more than six children on the road under the age of 10. They love to play together, and go running up and down the sidewalks or ride on their scooters or even their bikes. All of the parents are trying to get them into the habit of looking before the go running into the road, but reality being as it is, sometimes they don’t follow our instructions.

A couple of days ago a lady was coming down the road from the cul-de-sac at an incredible speed. I’d just walked my son down to play with his friends, and wasn’t in a glowing mood, so I stood in the middle of the road waving my arms. When they slowed down, I saw a woman with at least four children (not a seatbelt fastened around one of them) looking at me curious as to why I’d signaled her. I yelled (I won’t be silly and try to suggest I was speaking calmly), “SLOW DOWN, there are CHILDREN on this road!” I was looking at her own kids more than her while I said it. She looked sheepish and drove away…a little more slowly.

Just now, I was walking home with my son’s broken scooter as he went running with his friends up the sidewalk in some game I wasn’t privy to. Down comes a red Volkswagen burning enough fuel to reach its 0-60mph rating pretty quickly. I repeated my Hit me, you fucker pose, and when he slowed to pass me I saw the 20 year-old (at best) looking at me like I was nuts when I yelled basically the same sentence again, word-for-word. To help him deal with the repercussions of his actions, he went tearing out around the corner—again, not losing control of his car, much to my dismay.

I don’t want speed bumps on our road, but at the same time I want something better than the sign no one looks at. I know kids are going to come running out from behind parked cars, and I’ve yet to see more than a few people honor the 10mph rule for this sort of road.

Given that, I also don’t want some useless sack of shit given the power to take away my son’s life.

Jesus, time for some wine.

Eoin, age five months, decided to start fidgeting at 4:30am and was awake for real at 5:15am. He and I went downstairs so Elana could get some sleep.

In the kitchen, we put the kettle on for some tea (as you do), and Eoin and I started brainstorming. Well, first the sopping wet diaper and damp sleepy suit—certainly the culprits that woke him up—had to be changed. Eoin’s expression as he looked up at me, his gorgeous blue eyes sparkling with innocence, was nonetheless consise and to the point: What should we do? (I channel my thoughts through his random facial expressions.)

His brother Patrick, age five years, was to attend a birthday party that afternoon and we still needed to make the cake. Patrick’s food allergies make it difficult to go to that sort of event because he’s usually unable to eat any of the food. To smooth the process a bit we make our own double-layer chocolate cake with cholocate icing and contribute it to the festivities. Luckily it’s pretty tasty and devoured at most parties. In addition to the cake, lots of parents are incredibly accommodating and put a lot of effort into asking us what sort of things are safe for him to eat, and adjust their plans to use them instead. Absolutely amazing.

I parked Eoin in his exersaucer and started getting the ingredients together. Oven now heating up, I made it past the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt when he started to fuss a bit. I moved the exersaucer to give him a change of view and got the water, vegetable oil, white vinegar, and vanilla together. As I started mixing, he started to complain that this just wasn’t interesting enough. What to do?

Our kitchen is an open plan style with a room next to it lined with lots of shelves like a big pantry, an Ikea cabinet as our folding table, and a washer and dryer stacked up on each other. The washer sat with a finished load of laundry started before we went to bed last night.

Hmmmm.

A few minutes later I finished prepping the cake tins, the batter ready to be poured. Eoin was a couple of feet away from me, staring with fascination at the washing machine in front of him as it did a new rinse cycle. It began to spin faster and faster, and he giggled with delight.

It was six in the morning, another beautiful Irish day beginning outside. The cake went into the oven, the kitchen got cleaned up, and sanity reigned—for a moment. From one spin cycle to the next.

Patrick, age five, comes downstairs in his new Spiderman robe and plants himself down on the couch. “Can I watch something?”

“This is almost done.” I hear a sigh of resignation, the muttering of this is so boring hidden by closed lips. After Jon’s Moment of Zen, I make the MythTV box go to the set of children’s shows it’s been recording.

Seeing the first appearing on the list, I ask, “How about Bob the Builder?”

His answer surprises me: “I don’t like Bob any more.”

“What?! Why?”

“Bob’s stupid. He’s only for babies.”

“Why do you say that?” I ask with genuine curiosity. I already know the answer, but still, you have to ask.

“My friend at school says it too.”

No surprise. A short list of names quickly takes form in my head. “Which friend?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well I still like Bob,” I inform him, and press the button on the remote to make it start to play. I’m sitting in the chair still trying to hold on to fuss-monster Eoin. A few minutes pass, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Patrick watching the TV with me.

As the show continues, Eoin adds his own baby-speak commentary to the current episode of Bob. “Eoin, please, I’m trying to watch Bob the Builder.” By admonishing his little brother I seem to have given Patrick some sort of signal to share his opinion.

“Actually, I do like Bob,” he admits suddenly. Then he carefully qualifies that statement when I look over at him, a look of surprise appearing on my face. “But only a little bit.”

Small victories like this are all I can hope to get. We’re entering a new phase in our parenting: we now have to roll with the punches as these darling classmates attempt to change Patrick’s own mind.

Sure, he’ll be unconsciously fighting this sort of thing for the rest of his life. How to help strengthen his inner confidence when he likes certain music, believes something is wrong, or disagrees with what someone said? I don’t want him to care what people think of his clothes. I want him to try lots of books, music, sports, activities, food, everything. Then he can decide what’s good from his own experience, not what everyone else is telling him.

Accomplishing this is so incredibly difficult that most of us only succeed in small steps. It’s always going to be hard to keep your own thoughts, even as you’re still finding them and developing them. The reality that he’d be going through this so soon is the single biggest shock to me. He’ll grow from these experiences, of course, and I know he’s strong in his heart and will—and mind. All we can do is show him disagreement with others is okay.

The boy watching Bob the Builder across from me has smiles playing on the corners of his mouth. He is back to himself again, if only for a moment. And he knows I agree with him.

It’s apparently still safe to like Bob the Builder—a little bit.

We were getting ourselves together for a journey up to Blackrock to go shopping at the supermarket (SuperQuinn, better in so many ways than the Tesco alternative in Dun Laoghaire). I was adjusting Eoin’s car seat with its owner sitting in the pram doing a bit of fuss. Without saying a word, Patrick went over to him and started pushing the pram in circles helping calm down Eoin while I was finishing. I came out of the car and Patrick pushed the pram over to me, delivering the focus of his care.

Later, while driving home, Eoin started doing a good old cry. Patrick announced, “Tears!” Elana and I started offering reassuring comments to try to calm Eoin down a bit, and Patrick reassured us, “Don’t worry about him.  Don’t worry about him—when we get home I’ll wipe his cheeks.”

Oh my GOD, how can I put words to how much I adore him in moments like these.