Welshrogue

King of broken things

I have two sons. One who is 5 at this moment is cute, talkative, a bit of a mothers boy. My other son is 6. He is, well, built like a brick shithouse. He isn’t fat, he is solid, he is also over 4 ft tall already. He is ‘The King of Broken Things’. He was named as such by his brother. Out of the mouths of babes.

My eldest son loves cars. Eats, drinks, breathes them. Show him a picture of a car, especially a high performance sports car and he can tell you what it is. He has hundreds of Hot Wheels cars, various other makes of cars. He plays car games such as Burnout Paradise, Need for Speed – Hot Pursuit, and of course Gran Tourisimo 5. He loves Ferrari, Lamborghini but his main love is Porsche.

For Christmas this year, he received a 1/18th scale Porsche Carrera S and his brother got a Porsche Carrera GT. After a lilttle bit of negotiation, monster trucks were exchanged for the pink slip of the Carrera GT so he had both cars. One of these cars went into the garbage on the 27th of December, It was missing a wheel, fender, lights, it looked like it had been in a bad accident. It hadn’t. My son had simply played with it.

He doesn’t mean to break things, he doesn’t try to. He just plays, he sits and watches TV while the car is in his hand and suddenly the windshield is no longer attached to the car. Along with other problems that he has, this can be more than a little frustrating. I know it isn’t his fault. Growing up I had a friend who was exactly the same, broke everything he touched. It does get frustrating when you spend money on what he wants and within a matter of days, it’s missing vital parts.

We recently went on a Hot Wheels cull, with any vehicle that didn’t roll properly, or had damage, missing parts, drawn upon, or generally didn’t look right, was driven into the garbage. A rough estimate would be two thirds of the cars went the way of the black bag.

I spent a week decorating the boys bedroom, painting, getting curtains made, hanging Star Wars spacecraft from the ceiling. Right now, there are two beds in the room and that is it. The Star Wars spacecraft were knocked down and broken, curtains pulled down, posters ripped. I can’t blame it all on my eldest son, I know that the little one can be just as bad, but it makes me not want to do anything for them, and that isn’t ever a good thing.

I love my kids deeply. They motivate me to be a better parent, to try to better myself and to laugh more. They are really wonderful, but there are days when I just want to go to bed, hide under the pillow and fall asleep. Of course, if I do that, I become the human trampoline! That generally makes me smile and everything is OK again!

My eldest son is very bright, can pretty much read anything. He understands a lot of stuff but he is still the reigning king of the broken things! Gotta love him!I just gotta vent once in a while!

5) Never kiss and tell. If someone asks, don’t deny, don’t admit, don’t lie.

6) If you love someone, tell them every converstation you have with them. You never know when it might be the last one you have.

3) Sun screen, even in March is important if sitting on a patio for more than five minutes. Red can look attractive but not if you look like a lobster!

4) I hope my sons learn a second language, be it French, Spanish or sign language. If you can talk in a different language, you can make friends that you wouldn’t normally have. Besides, foreign girls are hot *lol*

An ongoing list of things that I hope I will be able to teach my sons as they group up. Some things I know how to do, other I will have to learn.

1) I hope I can teach my sons how to use chopsticks when the food calls for it. Knives and forks are fine but its good to have different options.

2) I hope I can teach my sons to catch bare handed rather than wearing a glove. After all, if you can catch bare handed, you can use a glove but if you can’t catch without a glove…. you’ll never play cricket!

…to be continued…