As You Wish

Some time ago, my dad made a promise to Carys. I can't remember exactly how or when it began, but Grandpa promised that someday he would sit down and introduce her to The Princess Bride. She has speculated wildly these last months - wondering how Andre the Giant could possibly factor in to a movie about a princess. (She learned about him during a WWE feature story, in case you were wondering. If you're wondering why she's into WWE, I can't even possibly speculate because I do not know. Ask her dad.)

Anyway. Carys has pressed me often for more information about this mysterious movie, intrigued by the artwork on the DVD that Dad gave her for Christmas. I've refused to tell her anything...I just told her that her Grandpa promised to watch it with her Someday, and she would have to wait until then. Well Someday finally came yesterday. And I had forgotten just how much I love that movie until we were all piled together in the family room watching it.

Every genre of literature is neatly packaged in that wonderful film - drama, comedy, satire, tragedy, poetry. I hope they never remake it, and we can forever associate the fantastic characters to the legends who portrayed them first. The movie is timeless. It came out in 1987 and my kids were still glued to the screen despite its lack of animation, digital enhancements or CGI elements. I don't know how much meaning they drew from it the first time around, but I'm sure we will be watching it again and again. I'm going to pull out every metaphor, every allusion that I can, and quote this movie over and over until they know it as well as I do.

Some of life's biggest lessons can be found there, along with some of the best one-liners of all time.

"People in masks cannot be trusted." If there is a bigger metaphor anywhere, I'd like to see it. Sometimes the toughest adversaries are the ones who come wearing the mask of friendship. How many times in our lives will we misread the intents of an acquaintance? How many times will we be fooled by appearances? Painful lessons, yes, but important ones.

"Inconceivable!" This is going to be my new go-to response whenever the kids ask me if they can do or have something.

"Hear this now. I will always come for you." If there's anything I want my children to know, it is this. Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them, if they need me, I will always come for them. My parents gave this gift to me; they rescued me from deep pools and shallow ones. They came, every time I called for them, and every achievement I ever made, every risk I ever took, every failure and every success was possible only through the security of that safety net.

"We are men of action. Lies do not become us." This. Just - this. Even when the truth is hard to hear, truth is still what develops our integrity and defines our character.

"This is true love - you think this happens every day?" It doesn't. It really doesn't. And sometimes you think you have it, and you don't. And sometimes, you don't recognize it when you do have it. A tricky thing, love. But when you find it for real, and you know it for real, hold on real hard.

"There's not a lot of money in revenge." I hope my kids develop a sense of pride and integrity that prevents them from ever seeking revenge for an injustice. I hope that I can model that always for them, and live an authentic life free from the desire to hurt when I have been hurt. It just begets more hurt, and there's no recovering from that terrible cycle.

"Rest well, and dream of large women." Okay, this isn't a life lesson. It's just the funniest thing ever to say to your 9 year old when you are tucking him in at night.

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Oh yes, life is pain. Sometimes it hurts a little, sometimes it hurts a lot. I'm finding as I get older that the parts that hurt a lot are the parts I've come to value most. We learn the most from our biggest failures and heartaches; sometimes the heart aches with the loss of something so good, so wonderful, that the pain is a reminder of what we were able to experience, if only for a little while.

And, finally: "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a little while." True story.

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

It's true that you really have to be careful what you wish for. When Emma was very young, maybe 2 or 3, she was a little bit of a handful. Precocious, curious, fearless. Carys came shortly thereafter and complicated life even further...she was a master escape-artist, highly sensitive, emotional, and prone to meltdowns of gargantuan proportions. When I found out we would be having baby #3 a mere 10 months after baby #2 showed up, we might have panicked a little. As we adjusted our parenting game plan from a man-to-man to a zone defense, I am going to admit that I might have been praying fervently for a child that was going to be a little more predictable. I might have asked for obedience. I might have even asked for a rule-follower.

Well guess what? God listens. Because I got it. Cooper is a scientific, analytical, black and white little rule-follower. And it is driving me crazy.

Some examples: if you say off-handedly that you plan to leave for the store in ten minutes, that kid is dressed in his jacket and shoes and waiting by the front door in nine. Doesn't that sound awesome? Except that both girls (and even me, sometimes) don't function like that - we're usually ready in 15. And those six minutes that he is waiting by the door become eternally long and his mood begins to darken considerably. By the time I get there, he is CRABBY. I am learning to be less specific about timelines.

If I make one of those idle threats that parents sometimes make, like, "If you don't eat a good enough supper, there's no dessert tonight." I better prepare myself to follow through. If Cooper doesn't THINK he has eaten a 'good enough' supper, he will turn down dessert no matter what, because Mom said it, and he must comply. This is so maddening to me - I usually say these things because getting Carys to eat actual food is like trying to solve climate change. But Cooper takes it to heart, and he will flat refuse to put one bite of dessert in his mouth if he deems his commitment to supper as less than ideal. Even if I say later that he did, in fact, eat enough supper, he will say, "No, I didn't finish, so I shouldn't have dessert." I am learning to say what I mean and mean what I say.

This weekend we went up to Bloomington to watch Emma play basketball. Cooper was supremely difficult the entire weekend. At the hotel he remarked that he was really hungry. We wouldn't have time to go anywhere before Emma's first game so I offered to buy him a sandwich from the hotel lobby. He picked one out and on the way up to the desk I commented to Aaron that $11 was sure a lot for a sandwich. And that was it, he didn't want it anymore. Mom said it was too expensive. It took me almost fifteen minutes to persuade him to eat it, and we were almost late for Emma's game in the process.

Later, he asked for a few dollars to go get a slice of pizza. They were out of pizza. So he put the money back in my purse. Never mind that he was really hungry - he wouldn't buy anything else because he had told me he would buy pizza with it. I authorized pizza. If pizza is gone, we must therefore return the money. Who does that? Seriously, WHAT KID DOES THAT? When I found out about it, I persuaded him to come with me to get something else. He said, "maybe a smoothie?" Lo and behold - smoothies are gone as well. Crap. I tried again: "They have Gatorade...?" No. "Nachos...?" No. He chose to go without. And the hungrier he got, the crabbier he got, so that was super fun.

When we got to the gym the next morning, he asked right away if he could get a smoothie before they ran out. I said, "You bet." I gave each of the kids $4 and they stopped off at the concession stand to get one. We walked into the gym and sat down. Minutes tick by, and no Cooper. Finally, Carys comes running in to tell me that Cooper is refusing to enter the gym because there is a sign on the wall that says "NO FOOD OR DRINK IN THE GYM." Never mind that I am surrounded by people with nachos and pizza and hot dogs and Starbucks and even one lady that I'm pretty sure was drinking a whiskey/coke. Never mind that there are garbage cans all over the place expressly for the purpose of throwing away all the garbage that people are bringing into the gym. Cooper is standing dutifully outside the door, sipping a smoothie by himself. I walked over there to get him. He pointed to the sign and wouldn't move. I tried explaining, I tried persuading. I really wanted him to come sit down with his buddies near us and not be left alone like a parent-less vagabond, but that kid was not moving. Finally, I physically brought him into the gym and over to our seats. Where he proceeded to throw away the entire remains of a four-dollar smoothie because it was against the rules to have it.

This isn't an all-the-time thing, by the way. He's highly selective about where he applies this philosophy, and I'm beginning to think it might be centered on places where he feels he might elicit the biggest response from his mother. He has no problem skipping a homework assignment or two. (He claims he knows all the answers, so it doesn't matter if he actually does it or not.) He could not care less about how often he showers, whether his jeans have holes in them, or what time he needs to be in bed. He DOES care that his math tests are timed (why does it matter how FAST I can do them, as long as I can do them?)

I know that raising kids is no walk in the park, and I'm sure I'm in for some interesting years. Emma is probably doing too much, Carys is probably feeling too much, and I guess Cooper is probably thinking too much. My goal is to get through these next few years without drinking too much.