Fads fade

Last Tuesday, Deion decided that he wanted to become a vegetarian. Thanks to the History Channel, who produced a documentary how meat is processed, Deion has left his carnivorous ways.

His first night was a success. He enjoyed a fine meal of rice and broccoli while my wife, Jordan and I gobbled down helping after delicious helping of beef stroganoff.

Deion was unimpressed. He brushed off the fact that his new diet would require him to bump up his fruit and vegetable intake. And he seemed even more unconcerned about having to be more consistent with taking his vitamins and eating leafy green veggies that are loaded with muscle-building protein. Protein he usually got from his beloved chicken breasts cooked their various ways.

My wife and I tried to remind him that he was giving up quite a bit. He loves shrimp from Red Lobster and nuggets from Chick-Fil-A. He was determined to go the way of the vegetarian no matter the cost. So my wife and I told him we would respect his choice and prepare vegetarian friendly meals just for him.

School was out for the boys on Wednesday. I got him and Jordan ready to spend the day with my mother. I told Deion that he might want to pack himself a little lunch, since Grandma Lorraine would not be prepared to cater to his new eating pattern. He could find nothing that would work. So I called mom and let her know that Deion would need to eat something fitting for his diet. And she all too happily obliged.

When I picked the boys up after work, I got the usual “fine” when I asked how their day was. Then I hit Deion with the question I was so curious to know: “So what did you have for lunch today?”

He cracked. I barely got the words out before the sob story came flowing off his lips like a flood.

“I’m not a vegetarian anymore,” he said.

“Why,” I asked.

“Because Grandma Lorraine made ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch and I wanted one,” he replied.

“So it’s over like that?” I asked.

“Uh, huh,” he nodded.

And so went my lesson on transitioning children. It’s all a fad. Everything. He barely lasted 24 hours as a vegetarian. And I was afraid he’d go on from there to putting daisies in gun barrels and standing in front of tanks. Silly me. Parental imagination can serve up some scary imagery sometimes.

On Thursday at Thanksgiving, he asked if he could grow an afro. Here we go again, I thought. But I was all too happy to allow it now, whereas I have not for the past year. How long can it last? After a couple of days or weeks he’ll be begging for the clippers when it itches or it gets hot on top or when he gets tired of washing it or when kids make fun of his dandruff. That’s already happened to him once, a funny story I’ll share another time. So I’ll play the role, support the fads and let the chips fall where they may because God only knows what he’ll try next.

Chris

360 degrees

Maybe it’s me, but it seems like nearly every time I teach my boys about something, I’m confronted with the same lesson within days. It’s quite a frustrating experience really, but it’s what I have to deal with if I want to learn and grow in my life as a parent. The latest lesson-go-round was in the area of rebellion.

I was sharing with Deion some of the symptoms of rebellious people – lying about things they don’t need to lie about, deceit, disobedience, etc. I felt like it was a good lesson…for him.

Enter Monday.

I go to work and I’m feeling under the weather (I spent a good chunk of Sunday afternoon and evening medicated in bed.). I have a stack of work a mile high and deadlines due yesterday. I was working on an ad magazine we produce in-house. My biggest pet peeve is clients who don’t get their ads done on deadline. I had more than a few of those, but I was alright. I nearly lost it when as I was coming close to being in the driver’s seat and my boss e-mails me about creating three ads, one of which is a full page ad. It was 9:00 am and my deadline was 10:30 am. His e-mail had 10 bullet points of products he wanted highlighted and have cute little pieces of art. Gag me! (that was my attitude!) I fought everything in me to not walk out, to outright refuse and not do it, and to lie and say that it was too late. All of which I was teaching my son just days ago. Ugh.

Has it ever happened to you like that? You tell your kids something and you get confronted with it in a different way in another setting. I fail oftentimes, yet expect my kids not to. What hypocrisy. It helps me to be gracious, though, and to see life through their eyes as I discipline them. It helps me to also be able to disciple in love a whole lot better than in frustration because I relate to the struggles they have. Not saying that I go soft, but I spend the time teaching and training with disciplinary measures that help them to use their failure as a learning experience. It’s how God teaches me.

What I find at work is this: As I teach them, I am taught. As I discipline them, I am disciplined. Maybe I don’t lose my video game privileges, but I may lose a promotion, the respect of a co-worker, or even my job. And those things - everything I do (and they do) - have a profound effect on my family…for better or worse.

Chris

Passing the Buck

It was all fun and games until the joke became an outright lie.

A few weeks back, Deion had playfully asserted that Huck – our dog – had opened the case to his Tony Hawk Xbox 360 game. The proof was certainly in the pudding. Huck’s teeth marks were throughout the disk. It was the issue of how Huck got the disk, to which Deion said, “He opened the box.” We had a belly bursting laugh about it and have since joked with him about Huck and his opposable thumbs.

The laughter turned sour yesterday. We have a rule when Deion gets home that he can not have any entertainment until his chores and school work are completed. I’m usually home within 10 -15 minutes of Deion’s arrival. I had to work late yesterday so when we spoke on the phone, I gave him the usual charge of “stay on task and follow your schedule.” He agreed to do so.

I arrived home, shortly followed by my wife who was picking up Chinese for dinner. It was supposed to be a night of family fun – dinner and a movie – something Deion loves to do. But we noticed something wrong. The power light for the TV was on. My wife asked if I might have watched something before leaving for work and accidentally left the television on. I didn’t and so we decided we needed to talk to Deion to find out what had happened.

He came upstairs and I asked him in an unassuming fashion if he had watched TV after school. He said no. Then I let him know that the green power light was on and neither mom nor I had been watching. He again said that he had not watched. Then he led me down this road:

The dogs might have done it. They bump into the computers and the computers turn on. They were playing around the TV.

I told him that it was not possible for the dogs to do such a thing without specific effort – like pressing buttons – and that the computers are always on so they respond to touch. He insisted that the poor innocent dogs were the culprits. I refused to relent, however, and finally he caved in. His head sunk and his eyes dropped.

He admitted to turning the TV on for the purpose of finding out what was on (as if he could actually watch those programs anyway!) Needless to say, we had a long talk and he spend the evening in his room where it wasn’t long before he fell asleep after eating his dinner.

I was upset and disappointed. As a parent, I hate for my kids to lie in my face. My wife and I pride ourselves in showing mercy when the truth is told, but for some reason Deion couldn’t tell the truth. He cited fear of getting in trouble, but in my heart, I know it’s deeper than that. And I know it’s only going to change with consistency and lots of questioning on my part and obedience and willing confessions of faults on his part. And I understand where he is coming from. I was the same was as a kid. I lied to escape trouble, but I’ve learned that even though the immediate trouble I escaped made it easier to lie, on the flip side, what I didn’t know at 12 was that a lifestyle of lying is destructive. And that’s what I hope to teach Deion.

Chris

Kids say the darndest things…and mean it.

So we’re out yesterday after church celebrating Jordan’s perfect regular season football record of 7-0 and his selection to the Pee Wee All-Stars. And as is our custom, the celebrated get to choose where they will dine. Jordan chose Country Cooking.

There wasn’t much chatter as we ate. Deion had gotten full off of butterflied shrimp, battred onion rings and Dr. Pepper. And like his usual self, he lowered his head into his arms and rested at the table.

Jordan on the other hand was going through salad, two varieties of mashed potatoes, a hearty portion of steak and gravy and a baked potato with butter. After finishing all but the baked potato, he asked for dessert. I declined, stating that he needed to first finish his potato. So he did and requested the green light for dessert, which I was then all too happy to give.

A few minutes later, Jordan returns to the table with a massive cone of soft serve topped with rainbow colored sprinkles. The rim of his mouth white. Deion is a bit more upright at this point, playing with an A-1 steak sauce bottle.

Then he said it.

“I just want smash this ice cream cone right in Deion’s face,” Jordan exclaimed.

Shock set in as I looked first at Jordan and then at my wife, who also looked at me. We were wide-eyed with amazement. Such a comment is very uncharacteristic for Jordan. My wife did all she could to not burst into laughter, as she later admitted to me. I was more in shock, but also later found Jordan’s remark hysterical.

“Why would you say something like that?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” said Jordan.

“That wasn’t very nice,” I said.

“What do you think you need to do to make it right?” my wife asked.

“Ask for Deion’s forgiveness,” Said Jordan.

So he did.

We later concluded out through some specific questioning that Jordan had become frustrated with Deion’s lack of cooperation in a game they were playing. He was new at it and Deion wouldn’t give him clear instructions as to how to complete the game’s opening level.

But I can say with great certainty that I was glad that his weapon of choice for vengeance was ice cream, for God knows it could have been worse. I recently heard that root beer in the eyes causes permanent damage.

Chris

Mixing Politics and Religion…and stirring well

Civics is one of Deion’s required classes this year. So far, they’ve learned about their duties and responsibilities as citizens of the United States. One of their most recent class projects was to create a political party. On this party, they had to create platforms on various issues affecting society at large. Some of the issues his party was slated to defend or refute were immigration, health care, taxation, marriage and abortion. This, of course, led to a few really good discussions that allowed him to take what he has learned in class to help him to develop his own convictions socially and Biblically. And that’s what I want as a parent - for him to ask me questions that will lead him to his own conclusion – not mimic mine.

And while I won’t get into every topic we discussed, it brought joy to my heart that he wanted to know and understand how and why he should believe what he chose to believe. I’m also grateful that he didn’t side with the majority in his class on issues that are against his faith and his convictions. How easy it would have been for him. Peer pressure for his age group is almost overwhelming. But that is something I appreciate about Deion. When he’s passionate about something, he will defend it. And while he may not always choose the best methods, he still defends his position because he has a conviction about it. Not that he doesn’t succumb to pressure at times, but he didn’t this time and I’m proud of him for it.

But these are the kinds of talks I’ve waited for; to be able to peer into my boys’ thought processes regarding tough issues, like those discussed in Deion’s Civics class. As a parent, I pray for my boys to see the world for what it is – lost, but redeemable – and to not accept the standard as the norm but to go against the grain. And so far, he’s off to a pretty good start.
Chris

Due Honor

My phone rang at about 3:17 pm last Thursday. I stepped outside of the building where I work to receive the call.

“Hi,” a semi-mature voice crackled on the other end. “When are we going to Red Lobster?”

I paused. “I don’t know,” I said. I missed the punch line and I knew it. He knew it, too.

Then as the words trailed out of the receiver and into my ear, it hit me like a 50-yard fly pattern down the right sideline.

“I made the honor roll!”

It was Deion. He was more excited than I had heard him in a long time. I welled up with pride and came close to tears. He had finally made the leap from mediocrity to honors - something we strive to impress upon him. And when I asked him was all of the hard work and study time worth it, he said, “Yes.”

It’s his very first honor roll. He made a strong run at it last year, but fell short because of science one time and math another. Not any more.

That was Thursday. It’s Monday night now and we celebrated the accomplishment. And to my wife’s dismay, he changed his mind and wanted Chick-Fil-A. The glory of All-you-can-eat shrimp was exchanged for all-white breast meat nuggets, dipping sauce and waffle fries cooked in 100% peanut oil.

I guess we all learned a lesson in change: grades can change and so can young minds, for better or worse.

Attitude is Everything

Jordan lost his championship game on Saturday. And quite frankly, the adults were more crushed by the loss than the kids. Jordan was hurt, too. But he showed no visible sign of it. Some of his teammates were in tears on the sidelines, some were cradled in the arms of their parents and others stared off into space in disbelief. But not Jordan. I could sense he was somewhat bothered by the loss, but it was what I didn’t sense that surprised me.

We got a bite to eat after his game and on the way I asked him how he was feeling. He stated that he wanted to win a championship… (I knew that, but what I didn’t expect was this) …but there’s always next year to win it. Wow. I grew up on perennial losing teams in soccer and baseball and I was crushed by the fact that we were out of contention after three weeks! Jordan made it to the big game and had awesome perspective. And maybe that’s why he was also voted MVP of his baseball team and an All-Star this year. His attitude.

I shared my experiences with him and he was even more delighted to know that comparatively, he was already having a better athletic experience than me. I didn’t play for a championship until college. We won our intramural basketball tournament (though I averaged a pedestrian 4 points per game) and lost the intramural football championship (I gave up a safety when I intentionally grounded a pass to avoid a sack). So needless to say, the sting of the loss, wherever it was inside of him, was gone because he realized that he has equaled most of his dear old dad’s accomplishments – which it took me until age 20 to reach – by the age of 10.

Chris