What a Great Idea! #8

Little boys like to destroy. It's in their blood, it's what they do, it's just something that parents have to come to grips with. Sure, girls do it too, but not to the extent of boys. So my Great Idea is to design something made for destruction.

The idea is this: Make a toy (a cityscape, a DVD player, a glass vase, a replica of your high school baseball trophies, etc.) but make it out of a series of interconnecting parts. Then attach those parts with some kind of high-tensile strength cabling. Then attach the cabling to a spring-loaded spool. As the little tykes go on their rampage of destruction, all you have to do is pick up the toy, reel in the pieces until they fit (with a few slight adjustments here and there to ensure proper alignment) and then release the spool, thereby releasing the tension on the line and allowing for more destruction at your convenience. With very little effort a motor could be attached to the spool to provide the ease of push-button cleaning.

Where Ya Headed?

I think just maybe I can be good at my job. It will take a lot of effort (vice the typical little or none), but if I'm willing to go the distance, I really think I can accomplish great things. I won't, because that's just not the kind of person that I am. But it's nice to know that potential is out there. It wouldn't be much fun to have nowhere left to go, no mountain to climb, etc.

I can't imagine being obscenely wealthy. Man that would be the pits. And I'm being serious here. What would I do with my time? I couldn't take a job seriously, because the second an annoying, stressful situation came up, I'd be all like, 'I don't need this crap' and just quit. And there's only so much travelling I can do. I mean, I'd do a lot, like a lot a lot, but eventually that would wear thin. And as much as I'd like to spend my time in a hammock under a tall, shady tree with a cool breeze whispering through the leaves right now, I'm sure once I actually did it for an hour or two I'd be ready for something else.

I guess it would be different if I had some sort of passion. If I had a "thing" that I was really good at. Outside of remembering phone numbers (ala Rainman, only not that well. There's always somebody better) I don't have any amazing talents to expound upon. I guess i could try wood carving, but I can just picture massive amounts of blood from a whittling accident.

It doesn't help that I was never really a goal-oriented kid. I never had one of those "I want to be a _____ when I grow up" type goal. Again, I guess I'm just not that guy. I take that back. I did want to get married, because my parents made it look so great. Also I wanted to be a parent, so I could be the one bossing people around instead of being bossed. Outside of that, I don't think I ever had any real life goals. That's kinda sad. What's the point of life if you aren't heading toward something?




Huh...from another perspective, I've got everything I've ever wanted. When I look at it that way, it's kinda cool.

Kids on the Brain

I've been thinking a lot about what kind of parent I'm going to be, so if my posts lean that direction for a while, I apologize. I think I'm going to be a mean dad. I'm already coming up with ways to torment my children's Saturdays, and the one I have isn't even one year old yet. Cleaning the bathroom, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry. Pretty much everything I had to do as a kid. Of course, I didn't have to do any of that until I was like 8 or 9, but it's good to plan ahead.

I haven't decided if I'm going to pit them against each other, or overly discipline them equally, causing them to band together in their dislike for me. I know as a kid, through no effort of my parents (that I know of) my brothers and I were at each other's throats, constantly competing and bickering. And not in the "we really love each other but we want to have fun rough-housing" sort of way, but more in the "if I only had a place to hide the body" sort of way.

I definitely don't want my kids to be my friends. I think that's the downfall of a lot of parents. A fear of disciplining because their worried it will drive their children away. While I agree that can be true (there were times when I really really really didn't like my parents) I think it's short sighted. I blame TV. Our ADD-addled brains have turned our lives into 30 minute sitcoms, and if the resolution doesn't come quick enough then it's easier not to face the problem at all.

I like to take a longer view. Sure, my kids are gong to hate me. They're going to mumble under their breath against me, go to bed and cry their eyes out, and maybe even come right out and elucidate their disdain for me. But they don't have to like me. They just have to survive intact. If they have a good head on their shoulders, if they can make it out in the real world, that would be good too. If they are some kind of superstar athlete and can fund a world wide vacation for their mom and me, I ain't gonna complain. Nobel/Pulitzer prizes here and there would be a nice bonus.

Here a Blog, There a Blog, Everywhere a Blog Blog

The title doesn't have anything to do with my post, I just had that song running in my head for no apparent reason. Kids grow up so fast, don't they? I think my biggest fear for my child, outside of physical harm, is that they will turn out to be brats. I mean, how do you keep that from happening? It's not like there are parents out there actively nurturing their children toward brattiness, but there sure are a lot of them out there.


And nobody wants to believe their child is as bad as everyone else thinks they are. To the parent, it's just a phase, or it can be explained away due to some event going on in the child's life. "Junior had to go to bed without dessert because he set his sister's hair on fire. He's really a good boy most of the time."


I can remember as a child how frequently my mother was complimented on how well behaved her 3 boys were (4 if you count my dad, and she did). I always thanked lens-crafters and poorly constructed televisions for giving these people such bad eyesight, since I was certain if they could have seen how we really acted in that restaurant they would have been sharing asides about how the standards for child services stepping in had really slipped.


But as I visit such public arenas as an adult, I notice that it's true, we were well behaved. Heck, judging by some of the tantrums I see these days, we were down right angelic. What's really scary is these are the people who actually try and bring their children out in public. How much worse are the terrors left at home?


It all culminates in a fear for my own children. Of course, there's the equally likely chance of a knee-jerk reaction from me to pounce on them for the slightest infraction, terrifying them into a state of order that only lasts until they realize just how powerless I really am.

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."


Where's the balance? How is it so many others seem to have it all worked out, at least when I can see them? That's all I'm asking for. I don't care if they are holy terrors in the confines of my home. Then they're their mother's problem.