Hobbit Tales

I’m reading The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien, to M-ito. I’ve been waiting to read it to him forever. Well, since I read it when I was ten or so. My friend Joe showed it to me and I read it and fell in love with it’s total sense of adventure immediately. I’m a sucker for a fantasy story. Dwarves, dragons, elves, hobbits, hero’s wizards – you can’t beat it. Since then I’ve read it twice but it’s been over ten years since the last time. I’ve told myself it would be great to read it to my son or daughter one day. Now that I have a son, I’ve been eyeing it each year, and looking at M-ito to wonder if it was time yet. This year since starting school he read How to Train Your Dragon by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (traslated from the Norse by Cressida Cowel) and a number of other books on his own that speak of adventure and new worlds, swordplay and dragons. With Hiccup under his belt I thought it was time for The Hobbit. It’s dark and there’s lots of danger and the tone is menacing, but so far he’s loved it.

Reading it has been hard, though, bitter-sweet to be exact. My friend Joe, who told me about the book after he’d read it, had been my best friend since we were both in 4th grade together. We met the first day of school – a new school for me – I left my lunch box behind and Joe took it home with him. He lived down the block from me. I went to his house to retrieve it and so a friendship was born on a sunny September day. We saw each other every day until, when we were both in seventh grade, maybe a month away from the end of school, he was killed. It was a freakish accident. He walked home from school early without letting anyone know. There were torrential rains. Crossing the rail road tracks he was hit. I can still picture the black sky, still hear the downpour against the school roof while I sat in math class. They announced his death over the loud speaker just before school ended.

So many things I do as a father remind me of my own childhood. I watch my son and watch myself as a child, or I watch my son and think of what was and what could have been. I have to remind myself, like so many other parents, that he is not me. Now that’s a challenge they never told me about in the school for parents.

The Hobbit is a wonderful book and I love the way my son pulls the covers up closer around him while I read to him about the three Trolls arguing about how to kill and eat good old Bilbo and his dwarven companions. He peers over my shoulder, snuggling in close. At the scary parts he covers his ears with his hands and closes his eyes. “Don’t read anymore!” He says, then takes his hands off his ears and asks me to read on. “Which do you want?” I ask. “Read on!” he says. I love being able to comfort him, being able to be his warmth when the story makes him shiver.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says, “Hold the sadness and pain of smasara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.” I try to remind myself of this, when my heart aches. I try to see the beauty of my son’s smile.

Today M-ito told me he wanted to write a new book of his own. In school they’re writing stories now – fiction. They’ve moved on from non-ficiton memoir and he’s thrilled because he loves to tell stories. “I’m going to write a story,” he says, “about a character I’ve had an idea about for a long time. His name is the Sizzler.”

All I can think of is the restaurant chain called The Sizzler, but I tell him to go on – to tell me about him.

“It’s about a Sizzler that has never had any adventures but he gets dragged into a bunch of them and all kinds of things happen.”

Now I can see the Great Eastern Sun.

Humphrey the Hamster

The World According to Humphrey is M-ito’s newest favorite book. Muddle Earth has been slow going but he laughs when we read it and he loves the line drawings even if it is collecting dust at the moment. And… I’m still not sure Farradawn has been ousted from first place, but Humphrey is in. And I have to tell you, Humphrey is a pretty cool hamster and a very good book. Betty Birney is the author and she’s tops.

Why is big H good for you? Because it is all about values and good ones at that. It has a good sense of humor – always important in this day and age, has very few explosions (rubber bands not included) and many riffs on friendship and human beings as a species. And of course the characters are basically good, even the bad ones. All are human. All this from a book in the 7-12 year old reader  section. There are five books in the series and probably will be more as the fifth just came out this year.

What do I mean by values? Definitions of right and wrong, good and bad, and then in the course of the book, applied to humans and other species (frogs most notably). Yet the book is complex enough in its problems not to simplify or Disney-fie life. What a talent to have in a writer!

And perhaps what I love the most about Humphrey is my son will almost always wait until a night when I can put him to bed to read the next chapter so I can be the reader. I love reading to my son. I love stories and the two go together so well. I especially love when M-ito dives under the cover to hide from what’s going to happen next and says, “Yes!” when I ask him if he wants me to keep reading. Or giggles when the story is funny and burrows a hole deeper into my side. What a joy it is to hear and be a part of the written word being read aloud.

Now… if M-ito will just help me clean the Gerbil’s cages…

The Fog Mound Trilogy

Here’s a new book series M-ito and I have read that is terrific: The Fog Mound Trilogy by Susan Schade and Jon Buller. Alternate chapters are either narrative with illustrations (one on each page from big to small in size) or comics style. Each book has a different color scheme (one is blue black and white, one is green black and white, and one is purple black and white). The pen and ink artwork is beautiful. The story themes of love, friendship, helping each other, helping the environment, being careful not to tinker too much with nature, and observe the world around you, are wonderful. It was such a pleasure reading this with M-ito and not worrying about obnoxious, sarcastic, or foul mouthed characters (like there seems to be on every TV show and movie). Instead there was adventure (plenty of it) and thoughtful, interesting, real characters. M-ito loves to read and we alternated reading – he especially enjoyed reading the more visual comics chapters but the narrative chapters with a picture on each page kept him hooked. I can’t recommend these books highly enough. I’d say the age range is 6 and up because younger kids might not make it through the narrative sections and or they might be scared by some of the content.

Toys and Far Flung Adventures – Books to Read to a 6-year Old

M-itos’ three favorite books (these are books I read aloud to him, but he followed along as I read asking “where are you?” every once in a while just to make sure where we were on the page – and they all have lots of wonderful pen and ink illustrations):

Far Flung Adventures: Fergus Crane, by Riddell and Stewart (A wonderfully inventive  book about a boy whose father dissapeared on an adventure a long time ago and whose mother makes pastries at a bakery. It involves all kinds of mechanical inventions, a long lost uncle, three talking penguins named Bill, Finn and Jackson, and the Fatefull Voyage Trading Company. Great read-alone also for the 7-9 age. There are three more books in the series, Corby Flood – we’re reading now and M-ito loves it so far – this one with a girl protagonist! And Hugo Pepper. These authors also wrote a terrific fantasy series called The Edge Chronicles – but that’s really for older kids.)

Toys Go Out, by Emily Jenkins (Another great book about a little girl’s three favorite toys, a stuffed manta ray, a plastic ball, and a stuffed buffalo and their adventures with the girls other toys and household items. It has very funny stories and lovable characters. M-ito actually said this book beat out Star Wars as his favorite story.)

Toy Dance Party, by Emily Jenkins (Part II with a sad and sweet theme of growing up as the girl gets older and, though she still loves her three favorite toys, starts to leave them behind. It may not sound like it but there were laugh-out-loud parts here just as in the first book Toys Go Out. It gave us great things to talk about when were finished.)

Make-and-Mend Sunday

“What do I do when I’m not doing legos?” M-ito asks. He’s lying in bed, trying to keep his eyes open and failing, though giving it his all. Mom-ita is on one side and I’m on the other. We’re talking about our make-and-mend day – our Sunday. With snow outside (and me disappointed not to go sledding) we stayed in all day. M-ito had a bit of a cold so we decided to play it safe and do no-thing. This entailed the following some-things (not particularly in any order):

• Working on the “Death Star” lego model that his pop-pop bought him as the big christmas gift of the year. This is an over 3,000 piece model that is taking up a whole corner of our living room as he rummages through the pieces (and constantly asks us to help him find a piece) and the 200 page instruction manual. We figure it ought to take him a good two weeks to finish.
• Watching Animal Planet.
• Wrestling and jumping on the bed.
• Me reading him four chapters of Far-Flung Adventures: of Fergus Crane by Stewart and Riddell (a great read-to and read-along with book for a 6-year old with spectacular pen and ink drawings on most pages).
• Mom-ita reading him Max’s Words by Banks and Kulikov (a terrific picture book about the power of words and story telling).
• Watching the gerbils as I cleaned their cages (the two mommies fought so they’re now in two separate tanks of two mother-daughter pairs) and as they watched him play with his Star Wars lego characters.
• Watching the second half of Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace (we’d watched the first part earlier in the week).
• Watching the Secrets of the Furious Five (a sequel to Kung Fu Panda that we got as a boxed set over the holidays) two times along with learning how to draw Po, checking our Chinese new years and zodiac animals (M-ito is a horse, Mom-ita a tiger and yours truly… an Ox), watching different styles of kung fu based on the animals in the movie – moves modeled by kids, and finally each of us taking a quiz that determined which style of kung fu was most suited to us (M-ito the serpent, Mom-ita and me the crane). The movie, by the way was short at 45 minutes but really excellent and quite a good surprise. It is Po telling five stories, one about each of the furious five and a lesson each learned in order to become a master (courage, patience, etc…). 
• Taking a shower and had a huge meltdown (M-ito, not me this time).
• Eating breakfast and linner (lunch and dinner combined).
• Playing with his Didj (that’s for another column – ugh).

“What do I do when I’m not doing legos?” he asks again, cocking his head to the side, one eye closing. Mom-ita and I list what we remember of the day.

“Oh yeah,” he says and lays his head down on his pillow, Puffy the Puffin, his new favorite stuffed animal, close by his side.

Star Wars

Trying to explain to M-ito that episode IV is really the first Star Wars movie that was made has been challenging. “Which one is number one? Why didn’t that get made first? Which one should we see first?” are the questions that quickly rolled out. I decided to have him begin with episode IV as most of us did from back then because it just made sense to me. It was also the one with the least amount of epic violence in it, and the movie that is closest to my heart.

M-ito’s Lego love affair has taken him into the world of Obi-Wan Kanobi and Luke Skywalker. I think he’s too young for the futuristic western but he’s forging ahead, all six years of him. He’s built a good sized Lego Stormtrooper Walker and we’ve read five DK Star Wars level 1 and 2 reading books so he has some background on the world – the books being my idea on how to prep him for the movies.

So… over the last three nights, we sat down, M-ito half in my lap, curled up and frightened, one eye open one eye closed, a blanket covering us both in case we needed to hide from the movie’s images – and watched it from beginning to end. The only scene I skipped for him (and didn’t tell him) was the scene when Luke’s aunt and uncle are fried and their skeletons are shown toasting in front of their house. Powerful scene – but not for M-ito. It was bad enough that Obi-Wan disappears when Darth Vader cuts him in half. And that the ground is littered with dead Jawas. And that at least twelve rebel fighters get destroyed attacking the deathstar. And did I mention a whole planet? And the Death star. I’d better stop now. I can’t take the death toll. 

Let me be clear. I love this movie. I still remember seeing it when was a teenager, first row and in awe of the dream I was watching appear across the screen. But when your son is 6 and he wants to watch the same movie because all of his boy friends have seen it – it’s a whole ‘nother story. I guess I buckled to pressure. 

What I did was explain every plot point to M-ito before it happened. I told him what would happen to Obi-Wan – with the movie on pause. I told him what would happen at the end – right before the attack on the death star – with the movie on pause. And as long as he was prepared for the next plot point – movie on pause – he was okay. As we lay in bed afterwards, right before singing started, he told me that was the only way he could watch the film.

“It was too scary not to know,” he said.

I told him I wasn’t happy about all the violence in the movie and all the creatures, human and not human, that were killed.

“But not the important ones,” he told me. “As long as the important ones, like Han and Luke and Princess Leia, were okay it was all right.” I’m not sure if this is good or bad. It’s how I view violence on TV and in film also. It’s okay as long as it happens to a character that I don’t care about. How smart is my son?

“Do you think you’ll have nightmares tonight?” I asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He went to bed that night in my arms, holding my hand next to his cheek, a big Star Wars smile on his face while I sang him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

My father introduced me to The Mark of Zorro, The Seahawks, The Adventures of Don Juan, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Gunga Din, and Beau Geste. Errol Flynn was my hero. He was my father’s hero also. I watched each film with my father at my side – waiting for the next sword fight or battle scene – yawning my way through the love scenes. When we get the chance – very rare these days – we still watch Jackie Chan films or martial arts epics together – modern adventure stories. He gave me the Pirates of the Caribbean for a gift two christmas’ back.

I have mixed feelings about the violence in Star Wars. But I am so glad M-ito and I saw the film together.

Dad-dito’s B-day

I fenced this morning at HB studio, where I used to help teach two stage fencing classes - frequently (weekly) – and which I now teach (since M-ito was born) infrequently – ie: when I can grab a long lunch from my job and not have to pick M-ito up from school on that day. I fenced three hours – what seems like, and is, a true luxury. I’m achy and sore from swinging a sword and teaching and lunging first with rapier then smallsword. I have a big smile on my face. I love this kind of thing.

Afterwards I came back to Jackson heights and I picked up M-ito and Mom-ita and took him to his last swimming class of the season. He takes individual lessons at Saf-T-Swim on Long Island – where he has truly learned to swim incredibly well. Mom-ita found that it cost almost as much for half hour individual lessons in Westbury (40 minute drive from home) as it was to take a group class here in our neighborhood. Individual lessons it has been and it has paid off very well with a confident swimmer and a boy who loves to be in the water. I watched him laugh and joke with his instructor, then swim the crawl, the back stroke, the elementary back stroke, the breast stroke, dive, and do all kinds of search and recover underwater tricks. 

We ate dinner at a small Italian Restaurant in Mineola on the less formal pizza side of the establishment. M-ito explaining to me with a diagram where I need to sit tomorrow night at the Shiros in Atlas Park (a Japanese restaurant where they cook at your table) so that I don’t get burned by the cooking oil – which happened to him when he was there last and is also the reason he won’t return. So he won’t be coming with us as it’s date night for Dad-dito and Mom-ita – the first one we’ve had in almost six months.

Sitting in our kitchen, M-ito and I shared a blondie we bought from the Ambrosia bakery folks at their table at the Food Coop – Farm Spot, and laughed as he farted and I made silly noises to complement him. Mom-ita rolled her eyes at us while she finished the dishes. No dishes today for the birthday boy.

I put M-ito to bed, reading him the story of Stick Burr (and replacing Butt with Burr whenever I could – just to make M-ito laugh and giggle, then correct me) a comic book format favorite. We fell asleep together.

Mom-ita woke me up an hour later so I could do my prepare for yoga class in the morning. Writing this blog entry caps off, what for me, has been just about a perfect day.

Do Unto Otters

Do unto Otters: A book About Manners, by Laurie Keller has been our guide this month in behavior change. It’s a variation on the golden rule “Do unto Otters as you would have Otters do unto you.” So says owl when Rabbit asks him about his new neighbors, the Otters, and his concerns about how they will get along.

The first week of school is always stressful but this year has been even more so. And M-ito’s behavior at home has not been up to par. M-ito has told us that he always follows rules of good manners in school, but not when we’re home. This made us pause and think. Why would this be? We’ve always said he has to have good manners with everybody. Bad manners in this case seemed to go along with starting school – the same thing happened last year. We think it’s because he tries so hard to “be good” in school that when he comes home he lets loose. This means grumpy, sullen, dismissive, quiet, yelling. Perhaps this is all school age kids when they are finished with school.

Now we know all kids are tired after school – it’s a long day – but yelling, tantrums, attitude, and non-responsiveness in tidal wave proportions is a bit much. So we had another sit-down with M-ito after a huge fight about not wanting to take a shower – ever. We’re down to two days a week at this point but that’s as low as we’ll go. Stinky-boy can not rule all the time. So these are the rules and regulations we came up with, together, after a morning of fighting, a day of Mom-ita and me feeling terrible because of the fight we had, and en evening of calm:

• listen to each other (no hands covering ears, no turning away when someones talking to him)
• no flicking fingers or dismissive waves of the hand
• say please, excuse me, and thank you (loud enough so the other person hears it, and it only counts if it sounds like it’s meant!)
• take a shower without complaints or delays when asked to (consequence of not doing so is taking a bath!)
• put dishes away after each meal
• help set the table for meals
• put toys away after playing with them
• no hitting (already in place but good to have on the list as a reminder!)

We’ve had three days of peace since posting the list. M-ito seems to have found his bearings and our stomachs are all feeling more settled, school-wise and home-wise.

Drawing

M-ito and I have been drawing together using a book written by a seven year old called Drawing Comics is Easy (Except When It’s Hard), by Alexa Kitchen. She really is seven and the book is terrific. M-ito and I have followed her suggestions and after two weeks of drawings based on her book he’s improved significantly. So have I. Mostly though, it’s just great to sit on the couch together before dinner, take out our special pens, and simply draw on a large pad together.

If We Didn’t Have to Sleep…

M-ito, after peeing, brushing his teeth and washing his hands (not necessarily in that order): “Dad-dito. If we didn’t have to sleep we wouldn’t need to have a bedroom.”

“But we need to sleep.”

“I know. I know. But, if we didn’t have to sleep we wouldn’t need any bedrooms. Then we could read books and snack all the time and never get tired.”