« September 2013 | Main | November 2013 »
On my most recent appearance on Breakfast Television Montreal, I sat down with Joanne Vrakas to talk about those mistakes we parents just can help making when we're tired, stressed and busy.
#BTMTL: Parenting Blunders with Kenny Bodanis
Here are three of of them:
The kitchen is clean, the lunches are made, Episode 3 from Season 3 of Breaking Bad lays dormant within Netflix's belly. Maybe, if all goes well, the Episode 3 viewing will be followed by Episode 4 before I fall asleep on the couch.
The only impediment to Episodes 3 & 4 about a Chem teacher turned meth dealer (manufacturer!) are Things One & Two who lurk upstairs...far from dormant.
*****
TOOTHBRUSHING:
"Okay! Let's go! Toothbrushing! Chop-chop!"
Initially, they both comply. Shocking.
They have retrieved their toothbrushes from their holsters along the bathroom wall, applied the paste (Watermelon flavored toothpaste? Really?), and put in two short strokes along their lower left molars.
Then, it begins: Procrastination.
The Boy parks his toothbrush in his cheek, sucks off and swallows any cavity-preventing ingredients, and asks: "What are we doing this weekend?"
It's only Monday. We have no milk or bred for Tuesday's breakfast due to the short-sightedness which seems to accompany being a parent over 40. I'll be lucky if these kids are still alive on Wednesday. The weekend? He's got to be kidding.
"Sweetie, please. I don't know. Just brush up and let's get to bed, okay? Daddy's tired."
During this exchange, The Girl has, unlike her brother, avoided swallowing the toothpaste (she believes me when I tell her it's unhealthy). Instead she is leaning over the sink, using clenched teeth and saliva to create a Watermelon Colgate volcano.
"Okay! Enough! Finish up! It's bedtime!" I bark. (Later I will hypocritically remember my essays which pontificate about not sweating the small stuff. But, caught up in the moment, I'm determined to kill joy.
PYJAMAS:
"Okay, go get your pyjamas on. I'll wait for you both in my room. If you hurry up there will still be time for story."
"Daddy, can you help me?" she puppy dogs.
"Okay. But quickly. Let's go."
"Race up the stairs, daddy!"
She puts her hands on the first step, waits for me to line up next to her. I know I'm going to lose - I'm clasping a small grouping of dirty laundry in my left hand, my balance is completely thrown.
I lose.
"Hop up, munchkin." I motion to her bed, wooing her with a pyjama top like a matador to a bull...a bull measuring 4'2" at the shoulder with a braid flopping over the top of its head making it look like something out of a Julie Andrews movie.
She hops up. And then hops up and down and up and down and somersaults and leaps and flops. How does she not puke?
"Sweetie. That's enough. If you want me to help you, stand still. Otherwise I'll go put my own pyjamas on."
"Okay, okay!" She complies. Angry Birds pyjamas bottoms: on securely; Angry Birds pyjama top: successfully buttoned.
Success.
"I have to pee." says the fully-dressed bull.
Sigh. "Gooooo." I sing-song.
While she tends to business and sings the accompanying on-the-potty set list, I call after The Boy:
"You ready for story?!"
No answer.
"Kiddo? Are you coming?"
No answer.
Sigh.
I head back downstairs to peak into his room.
He made it as far as pulling his pyjama bottoms around his ankles. His school t-shirt has not been removed, but he has had time to add several page-saving Post-Its to his book of science experiments.
"What are we doing this weekend?" he asks. Again.
"Buddy, I'm tired, your sister's tired..." (an outright lie) "...please get your pjs on and come for story."
I walk the flight back upstairs.
STORY
"Can we each pick a story?" they both ask in overlapping sentences.
"No. There's no time for two stories now. I warned you about that after supper: if there was too much goofing around, there would be less time for story."
I hate myself and the curmudgeon I've become. But there's not quite enough self-hatred to nullify my love for Breaking Bad. The kids are getting just one story.
"Can I chose?" she asks.
"Can I chose?" he asks.
"He chose yesterday!" she says (which is true).
"No I didn't." he replies (he and I both know he knows that's not true. But, I admire his effort - let the burden of proof be on the accuser).
"Daddy is choosing!" I insist in that infamous 'And that's final!' tone.
The each exhale a couple of syllables of complaint before I steal their momentum with:
"It's that, or nothing!"
Muffled grunts are close enough to silence. I proceed with my reading - two chapters of Mary Pope Osborne's "Magic Tree House" series. The language is advanced enough The Boy won't feel talked down to; the story is simple enough - and the chapters short enough - The Girl won't get bored.
TUCK IN
I leave him in my bed with his Tin Tin book as I stretch my arms towards her, inviting her to be carried to her room.
"Carry me by my feet!" she squeaks.
"Sweetie, that's really hard on Daddy's back." Who am I? When did I become this person?
"Pleeeease?"
Sigh. Her room shares a wall with mine. Just get it over with.
With a 6-year-old suspended upside down over the upstairs landing, I walk the 8 feet to my daughter's bed room. I feel something cinch between my shoulder blades as I lift and lower her onto her bed.
I don't worry about the pain. I'll lie on the heating pad during Breaking Bad.
"Song?"
"Okay. A short one." Although, truthfully, our repertoire of bedtime sing-alongs does not include anything longer the 75 seconds. The exception being those nights she insists on singing an original composition - those can be opuses.
"Wait!" she blurts "I didn't pee!"
Pee. Song. Hug. Kiss. Goodnight.
One down.
Back into my room to collection the first born.
He outweighs his sister by 10 pounds. A piggy back is the best I can offer.
I drop him on his bed and pull the sheets up over his shoulders. As I lean in to kiss him, his head connects with my chin as he sits up to get out of bed and go to the bathroom.
Resigned, now, to watching only 1 episode of Breaking Bad, I sit silently staring at Casper the Guinea Pig while I wait for The Boy's return.
Casper is already asleep - no song, no story, no piggy back. Her parents must have been real disciplinarians.
The Boy returns. He shuffles back into bed; I once again draw the duvet over his shoulders.
"What if there were no gravity?" he asks.
We talk for a short while about the universe.
"What are we doing this weekend?" he asks.
"Sweetie, enough." I kiss him one last time. "Good night."
I walk in the dark towards his bedroom doorway.
"Dad?"
"What?" I retort, somewhat impatiently.
"I love you."
He gets me with that every time.
"I love you, too."
"G'night" he sighs as he rolls over.
"Good night."
ADULT TIME!
I press play on Episode 3.
By the time I wake up half an hour later, Walter is back living at home, Skyler has spilled the beans to a lawyer and is sleeping with Ted, Hank has turned down the job in El Paso, and Gus seems to have been able to delay the Mexican cousins from assassinating the series' hero.
I'll try again tomorrow.
At least my back is feeling better. The heating pad must've done some good.
Blood on the ice. The barely conscious body of grown man splayed at his teammate's feet.
Good night; both to him, and to my 8-and-6-year-old children.
My kids did not watch the Canadiens' season opener against Toronto. My daughter did have a special supper in front of the T.V. while watching the torch ceremony preceding the game. But, thankfully, it was a school night. I marched her to bed before the first puck dropped.
There are Saturdays, especially during the playoffs, I will sit with them on the couch and watch the first two periods of a 7pm game. But, I do so reluctantly; nervously. I don't enjoy risking my elementary schoolers' final images before bedtime being the sorrowful outcome of a bloody fight.
I understand the threads of hypocrisy and illogic threading through this philosophy.
I GREW UP WATCHING HOCKEY FIGHTS
I am not a prude.
I grew up part of the "Battle of Quebec" generation. We would run from the family dinner table to witness the Canadiens and Nordiques or the Canadiens and Flyers compete against and often pummel each other relentlessly.
I loved it.
I remember asking my brother who the Habs would be playing that particular night.
"Philadelphia." He would answer.
"Will there be fights?" I enquired eagerly.
"Probably."
That answer piqued my interest in that particular evening's matchup.
But, I'm a father now. That job entails being an emotional and psychological barometer and protector for my children. Each family is unique. I know my children would have been bothered by the image of Colton Orr hauling George Parros into unconsciousness. Especially just prior to turning off their lights and laying their heads on their pillows. Consequently, I don't tune into the games. Just in case.
Foolish? Perhaps.
I don't believe my children will become violent after witnessing violence during a hockey game. I don't believe they will jump out a window after watching Superman. I never blew my brother up with TNT because I was addicted the The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show.
Yet, I am the protector of my little kids' psyche as I know it now, and not watching a hockey game is no real sacrifice.
The day following the Parros incident, I was listening to debate after debate on TSN690's Melnick in the Afternoon.
The show's offered its usual line-up of impeccably qualified guests: Scotty Bowman, Aaron Ward, Elliotte Friedman, Chris Nilan and quotes from an earlier conversation with PJ Stock.
The prevailing argument in favour of fighting was the following:
The players rely of their teams' enforcers to regulate fair play. Should fighting be completely removed from the game, the "rats" (dirty players) would be free to spear, slash and cross-check with impunity. The referees would either not see the infraction or--during playoff competition--not want to risk affecting the outcome of an important game by assessing a one-sided penalty.
The show also ran a quote from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettmen, in which he noted the players themselves had blocked attempts to scale back fighting.
But, aside from opinions gathered from players, from coaches, and from talk show pundits, there is one reason fighting will never disappear from hockey:
THE FANS LOVE IT.
It's a pure numbers game.
If it were announced tonight there would never be another NHL fight, how would arena attendance and TV ratings manifest that decision? Perhaps attendance at live games wouldn't suffer; people willing to pay current admission and concession prices are likely there for more than just the possibility of violence.
But, TV viewers? These are the fans who consume their sport through mass media. One only needs to look at what aspects of NHL play media focus on to understand what attracts viewers.
Sports news shows use fight highlights in their headlines and in their teases to commercials. They will use fight highlights repeatedly during the same broadcast under the guise of analyzing the game from a different angle than was discussed 5 minute ago.
Newspapers don't run photos of goal celebrations. They showcase violence photography.
Why? Because it sells papers and attracts viewers.
It's math and money.
PJ Stock argued enforcers are paid a lot of money and understand the risk associated with their role on the ice. Why do they earn so much? Because people love to watch them. It's math and money.
Hopefully, no NHL player ever dies as a result of being slammed to the ice after a fight, or due to a severe blow to the head during one. It would put the NHL in an impossible position. It would feel tremendous pressure to eliminate fighting, but it couldn't really afford to follow through. Math and money.
A generation after fighting is eliminated, perhaps a new fan base will form. One who grew up knowing nothing other than a fast, clean game called hockey. Then maybe Neilsen numbers will begin to climb to where they once were. Maybe a new breed of father with sit with his children in front of Hockey Night in Canada.
Until then, Mr Bettman et al are responsible for their game, I am responsible for my children, and what's reasonable probably lies somewhere between us all.
