Cool Whip

This anecdote takes a little bit of set up: Our three year old has interesting names for her imaginary friends. She had a "boyfriend" named Jacob Brownie. When she broke up with him, she got Jacob Marshmallow. There's even a Jacob Sundae.

My wife's Grandfather's name was Whilbert Langholdt. For years and years he ran a cafe and bowling alley in Ricketts, Iowa that bore his nickname, "Whip's Lanes."

Recently, although she never knew him (he passed away decades ago), Annamarie tried to explain to us that "Grandpa Whipped Cream isn't dead, he just had to go to his other house."

Adventures in language

Life with a three year old is never boring. Just eating supper can be a learning experience.
“Dad, the fish doesn't know we're eating it!” I was told, I suppose I have Spongebob to blame for that.

Fortunately my three year old is very competitive. The eight year old claimed that she felt sick and needed to eat only chicken soup instead. The six year old agreed to eat salad, green beans, and French fries, but boycotted the fish. These displays of civil disobedience only pured on the youngest of three sisters. She raced through her tilapia with uncommon gusto.

“I'm going to eat you now, fishy, okay?” Apparently even though the fish are unaware they were being eaten, Annamarie wanted to make sure hers knew.

She's just as proud of how she is the only of the three girls who likes deluxe pizza, as opposed to just hamburger. Although I'm not sure why she thinks this is an important way to win her parent's attention and approval. “Daddy, Daddy, I LIKE MUNCHrooms!”

While we're working on it, she doesn't know many of her letters yet, she can just about recognize her name. She found a bicycle license plate that I'd gotten her and knew it was hers. When we asked her how she knew it was hers, hoping that she'd recognize the abbreviation of her name, “Anna,” she explained, “because it has two 'A's in it!”

A little over a month ago, in a concerted effort to lose weight and get healthy, I gave up regular coffee and Diet Dr. Pepper. Caffeine stimulates your appetite. But I recently read that if you really want a soda, you should stick to clear ones, rather than colas because they have less phosphoric acid. So after lunch, I cracked a diet 7UP and had it in a glass of ice.

This seemed to unnerve Annamarie, because she began asking me if I felt okay. “No, I'm not sick, I feel fine, why are you so worried, sweetie?”

“Because you're drinking 7UP” In our house, tiny amounts of 7UP is the only thing you're allowed to have in our house when you're trying to recover from stomach flu.

“Oh no, honey, I'm okay” I tried to reassure her.

“Then don't dwink that, it will MAKE you sick!”

Then there are those times when it's your job as a parent to teach your children important lessons. When the sweet corn came in at my in-laws, the whole family chips in to pick, shuck, cut, cook, and can. It's quite a process. The magnitude of the volume of produce is more than enough to impress any three year old. When her grandpa parked his pickup in the shade for us to all sit down and get shucking, she surveyed the payload in awe and exclaimed “Oh my GAWD, what a lot of CORN!”

I tried to calmly admonish her that we choose not to take the Lord's name in vain in our family.

“Don't ever say that, Annamarie, that's like saying a bad word.”

“Why”

“Well, because God doesn't want us to use His name that way.”

“Oh, okay, well, um, what CAN we say? Can we say 'holy cow,' is that okay?”

“I suppose so, that or something like 'holy buckets,' you mom used to use that one a lot.”

So for the rest of the weekend, whenever anything was the least bit impressive, she'd exclaim “Holy buckets-of-COWS!”

Mammas, don't let your babies grow up

I asked my eight year old what she wanted to be when she grew up. Without hesitation she said “farmer.” I felt pretty ambivalent. Not because she’s a girl, but because as the bumper sticker says, “crime doesn’t pay, and neither does farming.” I felt the same way the last time I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she answered “teacher.”

So, I started talking to her about agribusiness, agronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering, marketing, veterinary medicine, all the different fields related to farming that she might want to consider pursuing. Especially considering how little she’s pursued helping her grandpa do farm work, let alone help her grandma work in the garden.

“Maybe you didn’t here me, I said FARMER,” came the indignant reply. Okay… a few years too soon to be a surly teenager, maybe I’ll talk to somebody else for a while. So I asked my three year old what she wants to be when she grows up.

“Um… I don’t really know what I want to be when I grow up yet,” she thoughtfully explained. Holy crap, I don’t know high school and college students who are reflective enough to admit that they haven’t made up their minds yet. This is why I’m convinced that this kid will become President some day.

Then a train drove by and she decided to change her answer, “Gwace says I can dwive a twain someday if I want to. That’s what I want to do when I gwow up.”
An engineer, fair enough. With airlines doing as wella s they are, I’m sure there will be plenty of railroad jobs when she grows up.

The last time I asked my six year old what she’s like to be when she grows up, she told me “I want to be a vegetarian, because I love animals SOOOOO much! Even though my MEAN dad won’t let me have a dog, that I promise I would take care of and take for walks and give baths, and it could sleep in MY room and it wouldn’t poop in the house, I PROMISE!”

Now, I know that she loves steak, pork chops, hamburgers, and chicken too much to ever become a vegetarian, so I’m assuming that she meant veterinarian. But she’d have to do it part time so that she could still manage her career as a pop-star like Hannah Montana or the Cheetah Girls.

When I was five I wanted to be a cowboy. Now you’d have thought that growing up in Arizona, I’d have been all over that. But here’s the thing, those boots- not all that comfortable. Definitely too much work to get on and off. Then they kind of make you walk funny. One of the reasons I’m glad I’m not a woman is that there’s no way I could do those high heels. Plus I have kind of fat calves, cowboy boots can really chafe your calves if you’re “husky.”

Then there were the hats. I don’t know, I always felt kind of conspicuous. Cowboy hats make me feel phony, like I’m putting on airs or trying too hard to be cool. And to be honest, I always believed that part of being a cowboy was real and not trying to impress anyone or fit into anyone else’s stereotypes. So forget the hat. The official state neckwear of Arizona is the bolo tie. Have you ever seen anybody wear a bolo tie since Barry Goldwater? Exactly.

Growing up in the rugged, desert southwest was great. Mountains and wilderness, cacti and sagebrush. But the only “cowboy” I knew was a guy who worked in freight at the airport with my dad, he just lived in a part of town that was zoned so he could have a couple horses and a mule (or donkey, or whatever it was).

At Boy Scout camp, I got the nicknamed “Whoa-boy,” after failing to earn my equestrian badge. It wasn’t my fault, the camp people insisted on putting me on a pigeon-towed horse named “spook” and gave his butt a swat and just expected me to know how to gallop.

This is time of year I have a huge amount of respect for the real cowboys. Those people who primp their calves with blow driers and Armor All and then lead them around the show ring at livestock shows and county fairs. They work their tails off and, like other people involved in farm related industries, they feed our country. Of course around here they’re called “cattlemen” instead of ranchers and it’s truckers who lead the herds to markets.

So whatever you became when you grew up, if you’re like me or my six year old and love a good ribeye, thank a farmer, cattleman, or trucker.

Holiday Road

Vacationing with your kids can be a lot of fun. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, but work can still be fun.

We had the audacity to take our girls, 3, 6, and 9 years old to supper in the Amana Colonies one night. I’m still not entirely convinced that they’re old enough to appreciate the historical or cultural significance of the experience.

“This place is SO awesome!” declared the three year old when we first entered, but it wasn’t long before she was dancing beside her chair and trying to escape our table to wander around to other people’s tables. This particular Amana establishment made things fresh and from scratch, this isn’t quick enough for any 3 year old attention span, believe me.

Our six year old was sulking. She’d enjoyed the Children’s Museum at the Coralville Mall so much that she was crushed that we had left the Iowa City vicinity. Our nine year old was sentimental about the restaurant’s music, since it reminded her of their late great-grandfather’s favorite radio show, Polka Party.

But none of them enjoyed the sweet sour kraut or the pickled ham appetizers. Guess it was a good thing that we ordered the chicken rather than knackwurst.

Middle children have it rough. Our six year old was particularly vexed when she found out that instead of another museum or the living history museum in Des Moines, we’d have to push on to get home in time for her older sister’s softball game. Amazing how one phone call to check the schedule changed it from “the best week in my entire life,” to “the worst summer EVER!” My hope is that if she gets the drama out of her system now, adolescence will go pretty smoothly. Right?

Ah, but the most fun was closest to home, when the circus came to Denison. We expectations as low as we could; “I don’t know, we’ll see… it depends on what’s going on that day… we’ll have to see how much it costs… so long as we don’t have anything else going on… as long as neither of you have ball games…you know, the fairgrounds were under a lot of water just last week…” and of course, “I heard from someone who went last year that it wasn’t really that good.”

In spite of our best efforts, the six year old was more wound up about the circus than she is on Christmas Eve. Asking when we were going every ten minutes, telling everyone that we were going etc. etc.

Finally the time had come. Six and Nine scurried upstairs to rouse Three from her nap by excitedly announcing that it was time to go to the circus. This evoked absolute TERROR in the three year old. I don’t remember her throwing such a fit. There was no way that she was going to this circus. She insisted that I stay home with her. The problem, an irrational fear of clowns. She’s three, she hasn’t read any Steven King novels, she’d never even seen a clown before in her short life. Somehow I calmed her down and reasoned enough with her to convince her to come with us, promising that I’d protect her and that there would probably be animals.

The clown was no threat. There was only one. He didn’t have crazy hair or even a face full of white makeup. Heck, he couldn’t have been more than twelve years old himself. It was a “family” circus after all.

Six year old won a balloon, making it “the greatest day of her life.” Then there was the elephant ride afterward. Six year old wanted it most, and Three year old was the most apprehensive. Nine year old was an old hand at this sort of thing because she’d already ridden one back in preschool.

Of course once we mounted the huge beast, things changed. Let me tell you, for adults, elephants aren’t nearly as comfortable as horses, especially if you’re stuck on the tail bone because three little kids got to sit in front of you. The three year old warmed up to it right away, but the six year old was in a sheer panic the while ride, sort of like her father is when I go on roller coasters.

This, along with the denial of an additional pony ride turned the experience into “the worst day of my life, EVER.”

You're only as young as you feel

One of the few things about winter that is easier than summer is getting your kids to get ready for bed.

“Annamarie, time to get in the bathtub!” I called to our three year old the other night.

“No Dad, it not even night time,” came her reply.

Glancing at my watch, I told her that it was indeed after seven and reminded her that bedtime was supposed to be eight o’clock.

“Dad look,” she pointed out the window, “it isn’t even dark, look Dad, the sky is still blue.”
How was I supposed to argue with such logic?

“You’re funny,” I told her.

“No I am’nt,” she protested in three year old grammar.

I realize that the correct contraction is “aren’t” but at least she didn’t say “Aint.” However, unless I’m mistaken, “aint” has be officially recognized as a legitimate word (much to the chagrin of my eighth grade English teacher), whereas, “am’nt” is pretty much Annamarie’s very own invention.

With her older sister finishing kindergarten, beginning to read and doing things like playing soccer and riding bikes and her oldest sister undergoing nine excruciating months of intensive therapy for her double-vision and therefore reaching her own milestones in balance, reading, writing, actually catching and hitting a softball… well, I guess that s lot of Annamarie’s life changes have been flying by.

Whatever you do, don’t ever call her a “little” girl, she’ll correct you, “No I am’nt! I’m BIG.”
Don’t try to pour the milk on her cereal for her “I kin doo it, I kin doo it!” she’ll say as she wrestles the gallon jug away from you, “Look! I kin doo it, I’m STRONG,” she’ll say, as she sloshes milk on the table.

Everybody tells me to enjoy them while they’re young, and they’re constantly warning me about how I should expect trouble with boys once they’re older. We already have a big problem with imaginary boyfriends.

“Dad,” Annamarie likes to tell me, “You’re my best fwend.”

“Aw shucks, thanks honey, I love you too.”

“But Dad, I have to tell you sometin,” she’ll explain, getting very serious.

“What is it, is something wrong?” I ask.

“It’s my boyfwend. You know my boyfwend, Jacob?”

“Jacob who?” Who is this guy, some kid at the babysitter?

“Jacob Brownie, my boyfwend!”

“Oh, THAT Jacob, what happened?”

“He died.”

“He died? Oh my goodness, you must be devastated.”

“yeah, but only now I have a new boyfwen.”

“Oh, already? Who is he?”

“Jacob.”

“But I thought Jacob died.”

“Not THAT Jacob, my new boyfwend is Jacob Marshmallow, not Jacob Brownie, Jacob MARSHMALLOW!”

She’s only three and I already can’t keep up. But I know she won’t be three forever.

The other day, I had all three girls in the van on the farm when we saw a farmer park a tractor, followed by his year old son moving his pickup. After living here in Iowa the better part of a decade now, I’ve gotten used to the idea of 10-13 year old boys helping move vehicles to help with planting and harvest. Be that as it may, my girls were all impressed with their very impressive. Ellen, who’s six asked how she’ll have to be before she can drive.

“Well, when you get into eighth or ninth grade you can take Driver’s Ed class and get a learner’s permit when you’re 14 or 15 and then you’ll be able to get your license when you’re 16,” I explained.

“I’M SIXTEEN!” announced Annamarie from her car seat.

“When did you turn sixteen? I could’ve sworn you were just three?” I said.

“I pooped in the big girl potty today and now I’m sixteen!”

Campaign for 2032 begins

Yet another phone call from yet another computer bank representing yet another candidate reminding me to caucus today came over our answering machine last week. This prompted our six year old, Ellen to ask who was calling.

“Oh, just another person who wants to be President,” I answered nonchalantly as only those of us who live in Iowa and New Hampshire can.

To which she gasped- “You mean, President Bush is been FIRED?!”

“Uh, no…” (I WISH! But I wasn’t about to go into the intricacies of impeachment with a six year old) “In our country you only get to be President for four years at a time and next year we elect a new one,” I explained instead.

“Then what are they going to do on ‘Cory in the House’ on Disney? Who’s gonna be Sophia’s daddy?” she worried.

The light bulb went on over my head. “Oh, no, honey- that’s not President Bush, that’s not the real president. That’s just a pretend character on a TV show. His name isn’t even President Bush, what is his name anyway?”

“PWesident MaWtinez,” her older sister Grace piped in (Grace has a bit of a speech impWediment- hope she doesn’t read this. I didn’t mean to make fun of you honey, you know I love you). Grace is very smart and she loves reading and Social Studies. She went on to explain that “There have been TWO Pwesident Bushes, first President Bush’s FATHER, and now the other President Bush’s SON!” She like to remind Ellen who’s the oldest by emphasizing how much more she knows. But sometimes she doesn’t know as much as she thinks, “There have been THWEE President Bushes.”

“Uh, no honey, just the two,” I tried to gently correct her, “although President Bush’s brother Jeb was governor of Florida.”

She capitulated on this point, but then decided to make sure we knew that the President has three daughters and that we have to call them all “America’s Angels.” This is another feature of the Disney Channel’s sit-com about Cory, a boy from California who moves to DC to live with his dad who’s hired as the White House chef while his mother returns to law school and his sister, Raven Simone, whom you might remember from the old “Cosby Show,” attends college in Europe. It’s a spin off of her show. President Martinez is a widower with a precocious, spoiled daughter nicknamed “America’s Angel.”

Before kids, we watched lots of different things on TV.

I explained that President Bush only has two daughters, twins named Jenna and Barbara who were young adults but that they’re not exactly angels, but I didn’t see the point in explaining why.

I did explain that I before and after lunch with some former students that day I had listened to two different presidential candidates speak in Denison. One was Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. They thought that was cool, we had driven through New Mexico last summer on our way to visit their grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin in Arizona.

Then I explained that the other candidate I saw was Senator Clinton, that her husband had been president between the Bushes (Grace had never heard of him) and that if elected, she would be our first woman president.

“Then I want HER to be president because girls rule and boys drool!” declared Ellen with gusto. That’s when my wife explained how just because it would be nice to have a woman president someday, we want to vote for someone who would make the best president, not vote for her just because she’s a woman… and that Senator Clinton may not necessarily the best person to be president. (all the Republicans out there are probably saying “Amen.)

Then I pointed out to Ellen that when her Great-Grandma Laura was her age, women weren’t even allowed to vote, let alone run for president. Although I don’t think that’s quite right, maybe within a margin of error of about a decade.

At this point, Annamarie, our two year old announced “Daddy, I want to be PWesident!” with a very determined look on her face. By the way, she doesn’t have a speech impediment, she’s just two.

“Well, okay, Annamarie,” I told her, “You’ve got MY vote.”

I understand that after Barack Obama told someone that he hadn’t always wanted to be president, the Clinton campaign went to work and discovered that he had written in kindergarten that he’d like to be president someday- no doubt hoping to paint him as somehow less than honest. I hope my daughter’s opponents don’t try to do the same kind of thing with this column someday.

Good luck honey. You may or may not be the first woman president, but I know you’ll be the best.

This time of year is for kids

Thursday, November 29 2007- Mapleton PRESS

The holiday season offers many opportunities to learn from kids, or hopefully to have them learn from you.

Case in point, I was sitting across from my 8 year old niece at a church dinner when she asked me a culinary question.

“Have you ever had Crème Brulée?”

“Mmmm, Crème Brulée,” I said, practically licking my lips. “Mmm, I like Crème Brulée, your Aunt Bethany LOVES Crème Brulée, you know, I bet that your Mom would like it too. It is SO good...” a look of abject horror registered on her face. How could any kid not like sugar custard topped with caramelized brown sugar?
“
YOU like fish eggs?!” she asked incredulously.

Obviously she got her French confused with her Russian.

“I think you mean Caviar, Caviar is fish eggs,” I explained. “It’s really salty, it’s really not as bad as you think, but it’s not my favorite. What you should really try is escargot. We had that once at a French restaurant in California. I love garlic, but I wasn’t crazy about the escargot itself. But You might love it, it’s very fancy,” after all, she is our princess.

She must have known better than to take another bite of turkey and mashed potatoes before she asked, “What’s es-car-go?”

“Snails,” I replied as matter-of-factly as I could. This exchange led to her father, my brother-in-law and I to begin discussing the calamari (squid) experiences we each had while living on the coast. I believe it was about that point when my daughter and niece both excused themselves from the table. They looked like they were heading for the bathroom, but who knows.

Then there was the concert the missionaries put on at our church one night. I guess it was pretty motivational for a lot of people. I know that they’re absolutely sincere and committed to the Lord, but I guess my musical tastes tend to be a little more worldly. But before our five year old became so disruptive that we had to leave, the concert provided a classic theological moment with our eight year old.

The husband of the duo stood up and walked away from his keyboard for a few moments of ministerial soliloquy before beginning a solo. Our daughter, Grace seemed absolutely mesmerized, no small feat with her younger sisters behaving as they were. It must have been because the man’s solo featured a piano accompaniment, but he was standing with his hands caressing a microphone, nowhere near his keyboard.

Halfway through the song, Grace leaned over to me and whispered, “Is God or Jesus playing the piano?”

See somewhere between enraptured Pentecostals and irreverent Agnostics lay we sensibly stoic Lutherans, so I pointed out the iPod held in the hand of the young man operating the mixing board in the middle of the pews. “Oh!” Grace whispered, nodding her head in recognition. She’s pretty tech-savvy so she knew what going on.

Fortunately, she still believes in God and Jesus although she announced on our drive to the family Thanksgiving that she “knows that Santa Claus is a fake.” She’d really into history and science so if we’d been alone, I might have tried talking about the real Saint Nicholas and generosity and faith all that grown-uppy stuff, but she dropped this bomb in front of her two and five year old sisters who were aghast.

Like any good parents we responded with an interrogation, “Who told you THAT?”
“A boy in my class,” for his protection, I will withhold his name at this time thereby preserving his anonymity.

“Well, you know what?” I went on, “I bet he’s just mad at Santa because he was naughty last year and got some coal in is stocking or something. Kids always say there’s no Santa, when really, they’re mad at Santa because they were naughty,” I reasoned.

After all, it has been my experience that there aren’t really any atheists. Probe someone who’s an atheist and you’ll usually find at most an agnostic who wants to be an atheist because they’re so angry at God. You can’t disbelieve someone and hate them at the same time. She seemed to buy it. Hopefully, in another year or two we can have “the talk” in private.

Ellen, our five year old is very concerned about Santa. Evidently, she’s worried that he’s getting very old and is much too over weight.

“Daddy?” she asked me one night after dance practice.

“Yes sweety?”

“I hope Santa Claus doesn’t die. What will happen to all of the children if he dies?”

“Um, er, uh…well, uh Santa is really good friends with Jesus, I uh” I was inches from going into History and Religion teacher mode and telling her about how Saint Nicholas punched out a Gnostic heretic at the Council of Nicea and how the legend started and how it has been adapted to different cultures all over the world, but she didn’t let me get a word in edgewise-

“Yeah, so God and Jesus won’t let Santa die because he wants all of the little children to have new toys for Christmas, like I want an MP3 player and a new Karaoke machine and a…” So obviously I have some lessons to go on selfishness, materialism, and the tragic discrepancies between the United States and most of the underdeveloped world. I let it go.

This was the same night that she told me that Elvis loved Christmas because he made all these Christmas movies that she’s seen in school and that “it’s too bad Elvis is dead because that means that she can’t marry him and that that’s why Aunt Lori had to Marry Uncle Mark, because Aunt Lori loves Elvis SO much”

Kindergarten Diva's Greatest Hits

The Mapleton PRESS Thursday, September 20, 2007
by Ted Mallory
ted.mallory@gmail.com http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com

During the summer at the PRESS office we were excited about the new NBC show "Singing Bee." We'd play it in the office, challenging each other to finish a stanza of old songs given only a few lyrics to begin with. It must be a popular game because FOX imitated their rival network's format with their own show, "Don't forget the lyrics."

My friends and I used to play the same game back in school, but it seems like the lyrics we most often got wrong were never as profane as the ones we had been mistakenly singing in place of them.

Maybe the goofiest one is what we did to Manfred Mann's 1976 cover of the Bruce Springsteen song "Blinded by the Light." "Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night" usually became "ripped-up like a douche." Why it never occurred to us that you're much more likely to sing about a 1932 Ford Coupe beloved of hotrodders than to ever sing about personal hygiene items.

Most people have trouble remembering the lyrics to "Louie Louie," but how could anyone learn the words to that song? When the Kingsmen recorded it in 1963 they sounded like a group of drunken fraternity boys.

But the people most likely to butcher an old standard, have to be little people. My five year old daughter, for example, loves to sing, but having the limited life experiences that she does, she's much more likely to get songs wrong than right. Here is a sampling of her expert song-styelings...

"God bless America
God bless for you and me
God bless our 'merica
God bless it and you too
For purple mountain's recipe!
God bless you, God bless me, we're a happy family..."

I don't know if I feel worse for Irving Berlin and Kate Smith, or Barney the Dinosaur. You also have to understand, that this song doesn't end here, Ellen (our daughter) went on singing for what had to be at least five more minutes. The average pop hit on the radio only lasts 2-3 minutes.

She eventually brought closure to her patriotic aria-
"God bless us every one!" Tiny Tim would have been proud.
The other morning, (this is September, mind you) we were treated to one of every kid's holiday favorites-

"Santa Claus is coming to town
you'd better not cry, you'd better not shout
you'd better not cry and shout
he knows when you are bad or good so be good for Heaven's sake
Santa Claus is comming to your town
so you better not frown
so you better not shout or frown
he's commin' around..."

And again, imagine this lasting about seven minutes. Getting lyrics wrong is bad enough, but doing it to a song that not just everyone, but every kid in the universe knows by heart is almost unforgivable. This grievous sin was compounded by the fact that Ellen's two year old sister Annamarie started singing along, repeating each lyric in about a five second delay, and often messing up Ellen's messed-up lyric. She also started asking me when Santa was coming to our house and if we could go see Santa. This from the kid who has been frightened out of her mind by the red elf every time she's met him her entire life.

The other night, she struck up a tune during supper. I'm never opposed to dinner entertainment, after all my parents were visiting us from Arizona. Ellen graced us with another patriotic song-

"Yankee Doodle went to town
Yankee doodle dandy
Stuck a bandanda in his hat and called it macaronis
Yankee doodle bandandy
Yankee doodle went to town
Yankee Doodle fancy
Yankee doodle band-aid
I am that Yankee Doodle dandy"

Now, ask her to sing the theme song to the Hanna Montana SHow on Disney Channel and she'll get every single line exactly right!

Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. 'Ted's Column' has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. You can see all of Ted's cartoons at http://tmal.multiply.com

Labor Day is a lot of hard work

NOTE: This cartoon didn't run in the PRESS. I don't know what the issue was, room, time, lost the file, or editorial prerogative- but in hind sight I think it may be a little over the edge. Not because it accuses Southerners of being sexist or racist, or because it uses the word "colored," but because cartoons usually accuse politicians of things, this one accuses you the reader. So if you feel accused of liking Fred Thompson because he's a male, white, protestant, conservative- sorry, but do examine your own heart and remember, "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..."

The Mapleton PRESS Thursday, September 13, 2007

My wife even prepared me for sleeping in a summer camp cabin with 12 other people at a family reunion by making sure that I brought some throat spray and “breath-right” strips for my nose so that no one would be kept awake by my snoring.

So it seemed like our eight year old was going to be the one who snored. I was having trouble sleeping and could hear her having trouble breathing. Everyone else had just nodded off around eleven, after several efforts at getting out two-year old settled. When she was five, we had Grace’s tonsils and adenoids out so that she’d get less congested. It hadn’t seemed to help that night.

I could hear the poor kid coughing and got up to grab some toilet paper to have her blow her nose. It was too late. When I got back from the bathroom, she was standing next to my wife’s bunk, asking permission to throw up. Who asks permission for that?

I ushered her in the dark to the restroom and she almost made it. I tried my best to console her and clean up after her without waking everyone else up, but to no avail. Her five year old sister and ten year old cousin were quite vocal about their distress over the odor, so the cabin door had to open and over head light had to come on.

Eventually I finished with Grace and the adults got the cousins to calm down and go back to sleep.

My mother-in-law objected to my leaving the bathroom light on, even with the door almost closed, but I understand the need for dark to help you sleep.

That’s when our two year old woke up. Sort of. We think she may have been in some kind of semi-conscious dream state, because she kept asking for her mother, who was already holding her.

Two year olds are notorious for being afraid of the dark and anxious in strange places. My wife and I and my mother-in-law all took turns trying to console the toddler, but to no avail. She was so distraught that her cries became coughs and- you guessed it, more vomit.

Two year olds are also notorious for not making it to the bathroom. After another round of cleaning up, my wife eventually resorted to taking the child out to our van to sleep in her car seat. Mosquitoes not withstanding, that was probably about as good as they could do.

Sunday afternoon we were all packed up and ready to head home after the big church service, business meeting and pot-luck. But, as will happen, we couldn’t find the two year old. I was searching the lodge inside while my wife searched outside. Finally, our daughter responded to my calling her name. She was in the lady’s room. I knocked on the door-frame and announced “man on the floor,” hoping she’d be the only female in there. Sure enough she was, and she was busy.

“I’m changing my poopy pants,” she explained. Part of me was almost proud, we’re finally getting somewhere with potty training. I say PART of me was proud. Pants at half-mast meant poop was everywhere.

I grabbed my wife. She’s clean up the child if I’d run to the van to get wipes and new clothes (sometimes it’s good to be a man- except for the guilt). Well, one of the dozens of second and third cousins happened to bring her two-year old into the bathroom right about that time. This second toddler was so overcome by the aroma of our child, that, you guessed it, she vomited. So now these two poor women are sharing the joy of cleaning up after both of their kids. Now, I was just outside, waiting patiently, providing distant moral support, so I didn’t witness this, but, as I warned, this was a classic situation…

I’m very proud of what a strong woman my wife is. She’s been through a lot and she can maintain her composure in almost any situation, far better than me. She had to be able to in this instance, because the other mother was so overcome by her daughter’s vomit, that she lost her lunch too.

Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. 'Ted's Column' has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. You can see all of Ted's cartoons at http://tmal.multiply.com

Language aquisition and other fun

Paris and Scooter- see more of Ted's cartoons at http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/2

Life with little people

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, July 12, 2007 – Page 3

Recently my daughter Grace (8) decided to review some very basic stuff with her baby sister, Annamarie (2).We were riding in the family minivan on our way to see fireworks in Denison. Grace began by asking Annamarie, "What's your name, cutie?"

"Annamree." she responded.

"What's MY name?"

"Gacee," she answered confidently.

Grace then pointed to their middle sister and asked "Who's she?"

"Elwen!" Annamarie again answered firmly.

"Who's that?" Grace then asked, pointing to my wife.

"MOM!" Annamarie was on a roll.

Then she pointed to me and asked "Who's that guy?"

"Dad," she said matter-of-fact-ly.

"But what's his REAL name?" Grace pressed.

"Dad-EEE," Annamarie explained, somewhat frustrated that Grace didn't seem to know the obvious.

Two-year-olds are amazing people. One aspect of her character that I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by was how short her attention span was at the fireworks show. This is an unusual two year old. She will actually sit for long periods of time with me and watch baseball games on TV. She's much more patient for listening to us read story books than either of her sisters were at her age. So I thought for sure that she'd make it through at least 15 minutes of a 20 minute fireworks display. My mistake, she barely made it through five minutes before asking if we could go.

The problem with having two older kids is that you tend to forget how limited they were when they were two and therefore overestimate the current two-year-old. As in- always bring a stroller, don't ask her because she'll tell you she doesn't want a stroller, because she's a big girl and can walk the whole way. Let me tell you, pushing a kid half a mile uphill on wheels is a lot easier than carrying them on your shoulders- especially when they're falling asleep. Plus they can't pull on your hair or your ears if they're in a stroller.

Pediatricians and child psychologists will tell you that two year olds pretty much operate under the delusion that the wolrd revolves around them. Be that as it may, I just can't get used to having Annamarie answer me everytime I ask anyone else, like her mother a question.

"Did you need me to run down to the store for some (name whatever item here)?"

"Yeah, Dad," Annamarie will pipe in.

I know that one of the ways that toddlers learn to speak is by immitating people, but this kid doesn't know when to stop. The other night we were having supper out at the farm and our nephue Nolan was explaining which roller costers he liked best from his trip to Branson and darned if his cousin wasn't trying to tell everyone at the table how much fun she had on every single ride, complete with facial expressions and hand gestures.

Of course, being only two she's not always that easy to understand. For instance, her favorite meal is "French fries and Dot-Dogs smothered in Tatschup."

Vacations are a lot of work

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, June, 28, 2007 – Page 3

Why is it you can never just get up in the morning and leave on a vacation?

It seems like my wife started packing a week ahead of time for our sojourn down to Phoenix earlier this month. I swear we even started loading the van a day before.

So finally the designated hour of departure had nearly arrived when our two youngest daughters came into the house crying.

"What happened now?" I asked incredulously.

"Annamarie was hanging on the mirror in the van and and (hyperventilating) she broke it and and (sniffle, whine) and it fell down and hit me in the head," reported Ellen, the middle child, "and and it hurts."

Perhaps she was hoping for tender arms and comfort, or perhaps for justice to be dispensed upon her younger tormentor, but instead she faced only the Inquisition-

"What were you doing playing out in the van? (first question) How many times have I told you to stay out of the van? (second question in this particular barrage- but the umpteenth time that day) Can't you just play outside (without getting dirty) or inside- anywhere but in the van? (that's at least 2, but could count as 3 questions) What were you thinking?"

"But, but ANNA wanted to play house in the van," she protested.

"SO? (I'm not sure if that counts as a question or not) You're older, why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you come get me? You know we're trying to get ready for the trip, why can't you listen? Why can't you follow directions? (technically these are the same question so it should only count as one.) Why was it so important to play in there? (obviously this was a rhetorical question thrown in for emphasis, but I think it counts anyway- so what is that now 12?)"

Fortunately she just pouted and muttered sorry instead of breaking down into tears because no longer had I finished the interrogation than I was beating myself up for sounding like such a typical over reactive parent hypertensive about preparation for vacation. Exhale.

So I proceeded to retrieve the two year old from the driver's seat and scolded her (much more briefly) and then retrieved the rear view mirror from the dash and called Jepsen's Repair to ask about gluing it back on so we could still leave that same day.

Eventually, we not only had out 5 million bags, cases, and parcels, toys, pillows, and audio-visual materials, loaded efficiently, but all 5 family members loaded and strapped in as well. Ready to go. "WAIT- everybody take one last potty break before we go." Everyone got out and ran back inside to use the restroom and then got reloaded and re-strapped. Four o'clock in the goll-darned afternoon.

I put the key in the ignition and started her up. Lo and behold, Annamarie had been back in the van since the mirror had been fixed. How do I know? Because the wipers came on, along with the heater on full blast, the turn signal, and the radio on full volume to a station I never listen to.

A helluva way to run an army, but at least we were finally off and running.

Whoops- almost 2 miles outside of town... we had to turn around and go back home because we'd forgotten Annamarie's blankie. Couldn't spend the night in a strange place without the two-year-old's security blanket.

At that point we were resigned that we probably wouldn't make it past Lincoln. We had found a terrific coupon on the Internet for a hotel in Lincoln. Unfortunately, we don't have a computer printer at home. No problem, no problem- we'll just stop quick at my classroom in Dunlap and print it there, back on the road in a jiffy.

Scientifically speaking, a "jiffy" is a unit of time measuring precisely 0.01 of a second. Twenty minutes later, my wife had started a DVD for the girls and was knocking on my classroom window, trying to figure out what was taking me so long. While I write this, I don't recollect it clearly, but I know it was technical- finding the right website, navigating the stupid website to the right state, city, hotel chain and coupon offer- and then getting the dang thing to print.

Pay dirt! Finally, we were on our way. Again. This put us in Omaha at the peak of rush hour. By the time we were just East of Lincoln, the kids were asleep (or at least docile) so we decided to press on. The further we could go that night, the better. So much for all that time and effort to get that coupon.

It's okay, we had another coupon in one of those tourist pamphlets for a hotel in Grand Island. Of course, at this point everyone was awake, hungry, tired, and crabby. And the youngest three were starting to get on each other's nerves- and therefore on their parent's.

We pulled into the hotel and what do ya know? The pamphlet people had made a misprint and the hotel refused to honor the coupon.

Thus we pushed on. I don't remember what little town was next, Hastings? It just seems like we were in the middle of nowhere when we pulled off for the next hotel for which we had a coupon.

As soon as we entered the parking lot, Ellen asked us, "Mom, why is our hotel next to a junkyard?"

It was more of a deteriorating trailer park, but it certainly was unsavory and at that point, in the dwindling light of twilight, that was enough for us to just keep on driving.

Finally we gave up and settled on a motel in Kearney that was much too expensive for the caliber of accommodations, but from the outside it looked safer than the last one.

So with two beds and five family members we had to figure out who was going to have to sleep with who. In a perfect world, the tree children could be together in one bed and the parents in the other. Just in case you were wondering, there is no perfect world.

I thought that since Grace, the oldest is the most patient (let alone sedate) and shares her room at home with Annamarie, they could sleep together and they may as well be with their mom. I figured that I'd be generous to her since Ellen is the worst sleeper of the three and most likely to toss, turn, and flop around.

This had Ellen seeing red.

"I don't want to sleep with Daddy!"

"Why not? What's the big deal?"

"He snores and his breath stinks!"

Maybe for other people, a perfect world would have had me in a separate room. Come to think of it, as long as it took to get the three of them to settle down and go to sleep, that may have been the perfect world for me.

And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Take me out to the ball game

Guess I'm terrified of leaving on vacation with gas prices the way they are.
See more of Ted's political cartoons at http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/2

Take me out to the ball game
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, June 7, 2007 – Page 3

Have you ever been to a Major league baseball game? At Chase field in Phoenix, the concessions areas have the feel of a typical large indoor shopping mall. This contemporary temple of America’s pastime has a retractable roof and is air conditioned. Of course, special Diamonbacks fans not only have sky boxes, the even have a pool.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve only been to two major league parks. As much as I love my D’Backs, I prefer their division rival’s home park, Dodger Stadium. This place is situated in Chavez Ravine in such a way so that the city is to your back and the ball field itself is sort of hugged by the hills. Griffith park is not far away. Palm trees and sea breezes contribute ambience.

In these places world class athletes ply their trades. Some, like the Red Sox’s Kurt Schilling analyze their performances and those of their opponents meticulously, others like the Giant’s Barry Bonds pump themselves full of steroids. All of them endure months of grueling training and years in the minor leagues. Their skills are honed to such a fine degree that their teams have decided to pay them millions of dollars.

This is a far cry from watching 4-8 year old girls playing Tee-Ball. This year, we had the good fortune of having both a 5 year old and an 8 year old playing on the same team.

When our 5 year old found out that not only was Charter Oak going to field a girl’s tee-ball team after all, but they were opening it up to TK (Transitional Kindergarten) through Third grade, she was jumping off the walls. Her very first question was would she get a hat.
Naturally, it was up to her 8 year old sister to share with her all of her well seasoned years of wisdom and experience in the sport.

In major league baseball, most of the mitts are brown or black. The Japanese have even added the technological advancement of polarized, transparent plastic where the webbing used to be, so that players can see the ball coming without the sun interfering.

In girls’ t-ball, most of the mitts are pink. Most of the ones that aren’t are black with pink trim or white with pink trim. Come to think of it, a lot of the batting helmets are pink too. The Dodgers don’t have holes in the back of their helmets for pony tails either.

In pro baseball some of the exciting plays happen when runners jump or slide in order to touch the base and avoid the baseman. In t-ball, there always seems to be someone who runs as hard as they can, completely oblivious of the bases. In pro ball, no one ever keeps running from home plate on to the girls bathroom.

In pro-ball, runners lead-off from their base, sometimes they even steal a base. T-Ball girls sometimes dance and twirl (or maybe wiggle a little potty-dance). Often they’re happy to just sit down on the base and play in the dirt or pick at the grass. Don’t think this is something that only runners do, plenty of outfielders can spend much of the game this way.

I’m never quite sure that I understand what ballplayers chant when they engage in dugout cheers and chatter. I swore that at the last game I was at, along with the usual “We are the Bobcats, the mighty, mighty bobcats,” I swore I heard something along these lines-

“We don’t play with Barbies, no no, nothing like that-
We just like to play with balls and bats!”

Now, that may be somewhat true during games, but I can tell you as the parent of two of these athletes, sometimes they don’t even wait until they get home- they break out the Barbies and/or Bratts as soon as they get back in the van.

You’ve seen professional baseball players celebrating after a game with Gatorade, beer, or champaign- depending on how far they’ve made it in the season, but kids just want candy and pop.

Pro ball players follow statistics religiously. And rightly so, not only their team’s standings, but their own careers depend on them. In t-ball all you count is the number of ups and the number of half hours that have past- sometimes you bother with innings.

The most important part of the game is slapping hands and shouting “Good game!” to your opponents in two big lines when it’s all over. If only all competition ended like that.

Of course, between school programs, Dance recitals, doctor's appointments, and leaving to visit family down in Phoenix- the Mallory girls only actually played in one real game this year. Grace was in two, Ellen, the 5 year old who was SO excited, only one. But we're already excited about next season!

Cabin Fever on Oak Avenue

Cabin Fever on Oak Avenue
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, March 8, 2007 – Page 3
Holy cow the things I could write about! It is almost frightening what’s been going on in the world, from saber rattling with Iran (see cartoon above) to the continuing saga of the Scooter Libby trial, to the daily carnage in Iraq, to the stock market roller coaster, to the 2008 Presidential election. A columnist could easily have fodder for seven days a week, not just one.

But I imagine that you’re as weary as reading about those sorts of things in this column as we all are of hearing about such tripe as Anna Nicole Smith and Brittany Spears on TV. I could get weird if you wanted, as I write this, historians believe that they’ve discovered evidence that nineteenth century German musical composer Richard Wagner (pronounced “Ree-Kard Vaug-ner”) may have been a cross-dresser. I guess Elmer Fudd wasn’t the only one to dress up like a Viking princess and sing to the Nordic gods.

Last Thursday when I wrote this column I was snow bound. This meant 24 hours in the house with three little girls. Barbies, play make-up, dress up (no not me, I’m no Wagnerian opera character), drawing, painting, singing, and mess making.

For years now, I think we’ve underestimated Grace, our second grader, because of her speech impediment. But I’m proud to say that seems to be very aware of what’s going on in the world.
“If I were President, I’d stop the war,” she told me. I couldn’t have been prouder. Who knows, there’s a woman running this time, maybe someday my own progeny will ascend to the highest office herself.

Then she snapped me back to reality- “And if I was Pwesident, I’d make a wule so that kids didn’t have to eat anything they didn’t want to, and there’d be no more school.”
Oh yeah, this is a seven year old I’m talking to. Nevertheless, I was still pretty impressed that she is so up on her current events.

“I wonder who the new Pwesident will be next time,” she wondered. Then she went on to explain to me how Dylan Hansen, a boy in her class wants to be President. Sorry kids, I’m pretty sure that there’s still some kind of age limit.

Then of course there is the precocious and effervescent Ellen, age five. Ever been trapped in a house with an effervescent and precocious five year old all day? Holy cow. There’s just not enough Tylenol in the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t love her more, but wow, how many times can one kid change clothes.

“Thank you for having me over to your home for dinner,” she said sweetly and sat up straight as we got ready to have lunch.

“Wha? Dis is YOU house TOO!” Corrected her big sister, Grace.

“Shhh!” Ellen tried to explain to Grace, “I’m betending!”

“Oh, okay,” I decided to play a long, “Well, we really appreciate it, especially since Mars is such a long way away.”

“Da-ad,” she protested, breaking out of character, “I’m not from Mars. I’m from Peeka, Peeka, KANSAS.”

“Oh, okay, “I said, “but it really is a long way for you to come to dinner, all the way from Topeka to the moon.”

“Da-ad,” she complained again, “this isn’t the moon, it’s Charter Oak. You can’t betend unless you betend what I’m betending!”

When I was a kid, I could never talk my brother and parents into playing Monopoly with me because they all felt like the game just took forever to play. We tried playing Monopoly Jr. with Grace and Ellen last week on our snow day and they lasted almost ten minutes. Then Grace wanted to go play video games and Ellen wanted to put on a show.

Now that she’s turned two, Annamarie, our youngest has been asserting her will. She likes to turn on the TV and if I turn it off she has no compunction about marching up and turning it back on.

Da-ad, come on! She orders me when it’s bath time. There’s nothing quite as cute as a two year old clomping around in plastic high heels and an old Halloween princess costume from the dress-up box.

But this column wasn’t easy to write because she likes to climb up into my lap while I’m writing on the computer and ask “Game? Game? Daddy, play game?”

Singing America's praises

Singing America's praises
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, February 1, 2007 – Page 3

This week I am proud to bring you yet another exclusive interview. This time with the international singing and song writing sensation, Ellen Laura Mallory (age 5) about her new patriotic song. Her parents are both History majors, but I'm not sure how well they've taught herabout America's history so far. Her father has a reputation as a progressive, at least as progressive as a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Western Iowa gets, but I think you'll see that Miss Mallory is pretty typical of the religious right. What's a parent to do?

TM: What is America?
ELM: A Planet

TM: What does it mean to be an American?
ELM: Well, I am an American and... America is a state of America of the Crawford County and I really love having a great time there.

TM: Where do you live?
ELM: I live in Charter Oak Avenue

TM: Can you tell me who is the President of the United States?
ELM: President Bush

TM: What is the President's job?
ELM: To be a money maker, well, he gives money out with a picture of him on it.

TM: What does the American flag look like?
ELM: Well, it's white with red stripes and a white thing with blue stars

TM: How did America begin?
ELM: Well, America started a long time ago.

TM: Who was America's FIRST President?
ELM: Is it President Bush?

TM: What is the symbol of America?
ELM: A Eagle, America eagle. It's white with brown eyes and yellow feet with brown wings and a white tummy. His name is America.

TM: Do you know what Congress is?
ELM: Um, no

TM: Do you know who Benjamin Franklin was?
ELM: I don't know

TM: Do you know who George Washington was?
ELM: He was a president Loo---ong time ago

TM: Who was Abraham Lincoln?
ELM: He was a king, he was the king of London.

TM: Who was Teddy Roosevelt?
ELM: I can't remember

TM: Do you know who President Bush's father was?
ELM: Uh uh

TM: Do you know who the last President was?
ELM: Nope

TM: Do you know what a Democrat or a Republican is?
ELM: Nope

TM: Do you think that President Bush is doing a good job?
ELM: Yes, because he is a president of the United States

TM: What is Iowa?
ELM: Iowa is a name for Charter Oak

TM: Do you know who Chet Culver is?
ELM: Nope

TM: Do you know who the Governor of Iowa is?
ELM: Yeah, Emily Paustch's, no- Emily Steffen's Dad.

TM: And how did he become Governor?
ELM: Well, first he was a firefighter. He gave up that job and became the Governor of Charter Oak.

TM: What do we do on the Fourth of July?
ELM: We celebrate Jesus, I think.

TM: Why would we do that on the Fourth of July?
ELM: Because he is our king. He's the king of the WORLD!!!

TM: Can you sing your song for us? (read the following to the tune of "America the Beautiful")
ELM: Hey everybody, America, America, where God sent us
America, America, where God sent us to be
I know that I love you, I know you
I love America, so you can be it too, wooo
America, America where God sent Grace to be
America, America where Grace shed shares to be
I know when I'm awake, I know when he is sleeping
So you better watch out... (this second stanza was to the tune of "Santa Claus is coming to town")
And...
That's it

TM: Wow, did you write that yourself?
ELM: Yep

TM: So, how long have you been a songwriter?
ELM: For about 30 years

TM: And when did you start?
ELM: When I was two

TM: What type of music do you usually write?
ELM: The international rock star pop star rock and roll and country

TM: Is there anything else that you'd like to tell readers about America?
ELM: Well... not really

SNOW business

No business like SNOW business

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader, Thursday, January 11, 2007 Page 3

NOTE: I SO believe that global warming is a genuine threat, should be taken seriously, and that Bush W. was sorely mistaken to pull us out of the Kyoto protocol- but I couldn't pass up a good joke. Especially considering what this column is about. As a cartoonist, I REALLY have to work on my Gore caricature though, but cut me some slack, I only do this once a week and have only REALLY been doing it for about six months.

Around New Years, when the storm blew through, all I could think about was staying inside with a hot beverage and read or sleep. My kids desperately needed to be out in the gale. I thought it was sandy, cold and wet. They thought it was pretty, fun and white.

We were visiting their grandparents’ farm when the snow came. I was worried about how to get our van up the hill and home across country roads. They were worried about where the sleds were and how quick they could put them to use.

I wanted nothing more than to be inside, warm and dry. They had no qualms about lying down and making snow-angels, this means actually lying down… in cold, wet, snow. Did I mention that?

As hard as it is for me to enjoy the frozen precipitation, it does make for some great memories. Last year, I relayed a story from their Grandpa Mallory. My Dad grew up in Petoski, Michigan. Seems he’d fill a bowl with fresh fallen snow and drizzle on some maple syrup. Grace, 7 and Ellie, 5 were thrilled with this idea. Once the sledding was over, Grace grabbed some bowls out of the cupboard and served up the snow. Naturally there was hot chocolate too.

Last summer we picked up a used snow blower. Arizona natives like me don’t have anymore experience with these devises than we do with snow shovels. Come to find out they’re even harder to start than push mowers, plus you have to start them in the cold. After doing more to pull my shoulder out of its socket than get the thing started, I sought the aid of the brother-in-law. Admitting you need help is a huge step for any man. Seems that while suburban high school students in Young Democrats of America take drafting classes but rural students in Future Farmers of America take small engines class. After fiddling a little here and babying the thing there and striking just the right balance of choke and throttle, he had me going.

Suddenly, I was one of those people I’d only seen in pictures of places like Buffalo or Minneapolis. Snow blower lesson number one; if it’s “self-propelled,” let it propel itself. If you try pushing it, you may as well be pushing a shovel, and oh yeah, you’ll clog it. Also, if you wait until too late in the afternoon, the snow will get too damp and too packed, this will tend to clog it too.

I may not be a native, but I am over 30 so I did have good sense enough to turn it completely off and disengage everything before unclogging it. But go figure, I couldn’t get it started up again. Cold and tired, I put it away, hoped the sun would do the rest of the job and got in the van to head over to my brother-in-law’s New Year’s lunch. On the two block drive, virtually EVERY homeowner between our houses was shoveling or snow-blowing their drives. When I pulled up to their house, both brother-in-law and nephew were shoveling their walk. I couldn’t take it. I went back home, determined to finish the job the old way. Fifteen minutes and a few coughs later, I decided to give the blower another try. Bingo! Thank God it started on the second try. This time I let it propel itself and sure enough it didn’t clog. Be that as it may, lesson two is that you still need boots. My shoes and sock weren’t frozen, but inside the soaked stuff, my feet felt like they were.

I was beginning to see why my dad decided to leave Michigan for the Valley of the Sun and why so many Iowa “Snowbirds” do so almost every winter too.

I changed into dry shoes and socks and finally sowed up for lunch. The kids? Knee deep in their cousins’ yard working on snowmen.

Finally coming down off the sugar high

Finally coming down off the sugar high
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper Schleswig Leader, Thursday, November 9, 2006 Page 3

Last week, of course was Halloween. I had at least a couple of students tell me on Monday, not to expect them to be in school on Wednesday, because they knew they’d be out late on Halloween.

I rolled my eyes and asked if they were between the ages of three and ten. My implication being that trick or treating is really meant for little kids. Responsible adults attend their costume parties the weekend before, pretty much only hoodlums and occultists find it necessary to be out late on Halloween.

Our nine year old nephew decided that he was too old to run around in a silly costume this year, he’d rather help his Grandpa harvest corn. For some reason, when people hit 14 they decide it’s cool to dress up and behave silly again.

Tuesday afternoon at junior high cheerleading practice, as the girls were reviewing chants they’d just learned, our new junior high mascot asked if he could visit the campus day care and surprise the children during their Halloween party. I thought it was a sweet idea, so I gave my permission and off he went.

I should’ve known better, I should’ve warned him or given him a quick training session.
There was no in between. Kids had only two kinds of reactions. A few stormed him as they might Santa Claus- he got tackled and wrestled and roughed up by one group of children,
It was the other group of children that was the real problem. They were so frightened and inconsolable about the big grey bulldog that he eventually had to take his head off and speak gently to them so that they’d know he wasn’t a monster. This of course violated the mascot’s cardinal rule to never break character or reveal your secret identity, but it was the only solution.

A colleague of mine reminisced two days in a row about the pranks and acts of vandalism that kids used to commit in his town, relieved that doesn’t happen so much any more, half hoping that it wouldn’t.

I did spy a pair of teens dragging a trash barrel up a hill as we brought out children home around eight o’clock. I was worried that they were up to no good, but we soon found out what they were up to.

As we unloaded our costumed candy-consumers, we heard a blood-curdling noise in the distance. They were racing the trash barrels down the hill, like sleds without snow.

“At risk behavior?” Maybe, but certainly not malevolent or malicious.

It was just one more way that Halloween is different than it was in the Phoenix suburb where I grew up. Several of the kids on the block all met at one kids house, took pictures and started out walking around the block. We’d end the night on a cul-de-sac where one family had set up a haunted house in their garage. 8-10 year olds sometimes served as chaperons for 5-7 year olds. Parents really only accompanied the 2-4 year olds.

Some parents made their kids bring light sweatshirts or jackets, but most kids stuffed them in their candy bags so as not to ruin their costumes. Most of the time, the polyester costumes over your jeans and long sleeve shirt made you monstrously hot.

You know you’re from Iowa when your parents buy costumes two sizes too big so that you can fit it OVER your heavy winter coat and gloves.

My wife and sister-in-law and I must be major wimps because we decided that instead of walking all night, we should shuttle the kids around in a minivan with it’s heater blasting.

When we took pictures of our 8 year old renaissance princess, our four year old pumpkin, and our 20 month old “Mary Moo-Cow,” I was reminded more of Jean Shepherd’s “The Christmas Story,” than Halloween. Particularly when his little brother is so bundled up that when he falls down, he can’t get back up.

The Princess looked walked like a penguin, the pumpkin didn’t need any stuffing to be round and the cow looked like a inflated car air bag, only with a Holstein pattern.

She HATED having her costume put on over her coat, but she was certainly excited and proud once it was on.

“Go bye bye now?” Yes sweetie, let’s go trick-or-treating. “Treat? Cream?” No, honey, no ice cream, just candy. “Crayondee?” Not Crayons, CANDY. “Crayansd?”
At our first stop, she wanted my attention as soon as we were out of the van.
“DA-ad?” Yes kiddo?
“Meeeyeow!” Everyone giggled.
No, no sweety, you’re not a kitty, you’re a cow. Can you say MOOO?
Her sisters and cousin all started mooing until they got up to the door.

I had to appreciate stopping at our kid’s baby-sitter’s house for pictures. Paul Bockelman offered us chips and homemade salsa.

Thursday morning, Ellen, the 4 year old pumpkin told us that she’d been dreaming about candy.

“Those dreams are supposed to be for Christmas Eve, “ her mother told her. Sugar-plumbs and all that.

I think if I’d been sneaking treats from my tick-or-treat bucket every hour for the past 72 hours like her, I’d be having nightmares about candy.

Sure enough,
“Daddy, my tummy aches.”
Oh, why do you think that is, Hon.
"Too much Halloween."

The more things change...

The more things change, the more they...

Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, September 21 2006

“Daddy...” started Ellen, our four year old while we were on a walk to the library one Saturday morning.

“Yes honey?” I responded, waiting for her to continue.

“I miss our old town,” she sighed.

Needless to say I struggled to imagine what she was talking about. She was born after we’d moved back to Charter Oak from Los Angeles. She’s never lived anywhere else and doesn’t have an “old” town. However, she does have an amazingly active imagination- like most preschoolers, and she tends to be our drama-queen, so she could be talking about anything.

She’ll often pretend to be someone we don’t know and engage us in an imaginary conversation about people and situations she makes up. The most disconcerting one had to be when we were driving home from getting groceries and she announced-

“Mom,” serious dramatic pause, “Dad,” another pause, “I think I’m PREVAnant.” Obviously we need to cut off this kid’s TV intake. Needless to say, this pretend soap opera scenario led to some discussions about the birds and the bees about a half decade earlier than we had hoped.

But that “I miss our OLD town” comment had me stumped more than anxious.
“Uh... what do you mean Sweety? Why did you say you missed our OLD town?” I inquired.

“Yeah, where’d it go to?!” demanded her older sister, Grace, who is seven.

“I mean I miss the way our town USED to be,” Ellen explained.

“Huh?” I muttered. She’s only four, how sentimental and nostalgic can she POSSIBLY get? She never know a Charter Oak with a restaurant or a grocery store, let alone a bowling alley, movie theatre or car dealership. Heck, I doubt she even noticed the graphic design studio or the archery shop that were down town just a couple of years ago.

“WHAT are you talking about?” Grace and I both said to her incredulously.

“Why did we need a new bank? I liked our old bank,” Ellen pointed out. Forget about the fact that she probably never set foot in the old bank on the corner of First and Main or the fact that the new one on the corner of Main and Highway 141 is much bigger and gorgeous. I was about to point out these facts to her, and the fact that we conduct our business at the bank where her grandmother has worked for decades in Denison when she went on-

“Plus now they’re going to build ANOTHER new bank across the street from the new bank...” she complained, “how many banks do we need, anyway?!”

This did actually remind me a little of one comedian’s routine about stepping outside of a Starbucks only to be confronted with what, just across the street? Another Starbucks. But heck, as guilty as I might feel about Rickett’s loss, another new business in Charter Oak has to be a good thing for Charter Oak, right? So I was ready to explain this to her when she continued...

“And why did they have to make all the streets BLACK? I liked the streets the OLD way...” she pined.

As nervous as I am about my property taxes, I for one really appreciate how Charter Oak has brought in an asphalt company to resurface our streets. Frankly, it’s downright luxurious to have a smooth ride and an even walk.

I was about to try to explain this to her, to try to help her listen to reason, when she went on-

“Plus, I miss ‘Shell,’ why did they have to change the name of our gas ‘tation? Do we have no call it ‘CEMM-EX’ now?” she grumbled.

I was prepared to prepare a case in the defense of the owner and to explain that the Cenex corporation would probably offer him less expensive gasoline than Royal Dutch Shell when her big sister Grace piped in-

“Yeah, I miss Shell too! Only I miss ZIT-CO too!” she complained.

“Yeah, I miss ZITS-GO too!” agreed Ellen. Before Cenex was Shell, it was Citgo- I suppose that’s why the owner also calls his convenience store “EZ-Stop.”

There are folks in Charter Oak who still call it “Maria’s,” but of course my girls wouldn’t know that. Plenty of folks will always thing of it as “the General Store,” for that matter, even though that gas station was actually across the street from EZ Stop.

“Wow, Ellie, you sure miss a lot of things about how our town used to be,” I offered humbly.

“I just wish things could always be the way they used to be,” she finished with a sigh. “Why do things always have to change?”

I thought to myself, “Boy kiddo, if you feel this way at four, how will you feel when you’re 34?” But I didn’t see the point in saying it to her out loud.

Girl Talk

Girl Talk

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper/Scheswig Leader Thursday, August 3, 2006

More than most men, I’ve had to build up my filters, almost an immunity, you might say to young-female verbal expression. Don’t get me wrong, I hope I’m not more chauvinistic, but I imagine I’m not less so than other guys. But either way I end up having to hear a lot more of it than other guys.

For those of you who didn’t know it or don’t remember, I- straight, middle aged, all American regular guy coach both middle school and high school cheerleading. And I have for about 12 years. But more meaningful than that, for about half those years I’ve listened to my own little girls.

Having daughters has always meant having pink clothes and Barbie dolls, but this summer we painted their rooms. Now their mom assures me that Ellen’s room is magenta and Grace’s room is lavender, but even with a college degree in Art they both look pink to me. One’s a reddish pink and one’s a purplish pink. All I know is that back when there was only one of them, I had a room with my junk where I could watch baseball, now half my house is pink.

But it’s the talk that confounds me more than their taste in décor. Teenagers will talk about boys, their parents, music, clothes, make-up, each other, you get the idea. My girls are 18 months, 4 and 7. They don’t always have the best luck communicating with each other, let alone with we adults.

Grace, our oldest is finally emerging as a conversationalist. When she was 18 months, she’d jabber away (saying nothing we could understand) and we couldn’t wait until she could speak for real. When she was two, we couldn’t wait, and when she was three…and four. After countless trips to doctors and therapists and specialists and consults and exams and tests it was determined that Grace suffered from a developmental disorder called dysarthria. It didn’t effect her brain at all, but her nerves and muscles were effected in that she’d less coordinated and lacks much of the fine motor control that other people take for granted. It hasn’t slowed her down intellectually or academically, but obviously it’s been a barrier socially. But time, speech therapy and practice have all helped her make great strides in communicating. Maybe more than we bargained for.

I always anticipated sighs and complaints from my kids once they reached adolescence. In fact that’s one of the most frightening things that students and cheerleaders can say to you- “Mr. Mallory, what will you do if your kids turn out like us?” But, I had no idea that Grace would start talking like a teenager before she even hit second grade.

I don’t know how many times she’s said to me, exacerbated, “Da-a-ad, don’t worry,” or “I know Da-a-ad, I KNOW.” I don’t know when my one-syllable nickname turned into a three or four syllable complaint. Then there’s, “You TOLD me already.”

Worst of all is this one- “I just want my privacy!”

Ellen, our 4 year old pretty much has only two speeds, high and off. That goes for her mouth too. She makes up lyrics to her own songs. In fact, she recently announced to me that she wants to be a country music singer like the ones on CMT. I’m sure glad we don’t have MTV on our cable system.

This middle-child is the one who serves us up the “but everyone else gets to,” and “I NEVER get to have any fun,” and the every popular “I hate this dinner.”

But we did get a big kick out of her after we’d redecorated in pink. She said to her mom, “Mom, do you know what I love?…” what honey?… “MY ROOM!”

Anyone who’s had two daughters knows that the talking never ends and occasionally can get pretty heated. “Fine, I’m just not going to play with you anymore, and I’m not going to be your sister anymore!” “Fine! And I’m never going to play with you again and I’m going to run away so I never have to see you again!” So? Fine! Fine! Go AWAY! FINE, I will! Fine, just leave me alone!

Pretty soon these sort of exchanges leads to this “Da-a-ad, she’s bugging me, Da-a-ad, she won’t leave me alone, Da-a-ad she says she gets to ride the but to our game, but she’d not on the team ‘cause she’s too little and we don’t even ride a bus, but she won’t listen to me and she won’t go out of my room and I told her to just leave me alone!!!” Etc. Etc.

Occasionally I’m not the only one syllable name to get stretched- “Mo-o-om, can you help me?”

“Your Mom’s on the phone with someone honey, can I help you? What do you need?”

“Not you Dad, I sa-a-id Mo-o-om, I want Mo-o-om.”

So far Annamarie, the baby hasn’t been drawn into any verbal scraps yet with the other two. In fact, so far the word she seems to use most is “this.” Sometimes “this” means, “can I have this?” or “I want this” or “can you open this?” or “do YOU want some of this?” It’s pretty interesting. Some people think of me as a writer and I’m not even sure what part of speech “this” is. Is “this” a preposition? Seems like it’s sort of like a noun.

Her first word, I’m proud to say was “Dad,” but of course at the time “Dad” referred not necessarily to me but to anything that is now “this.” Last night she was calling me “Mom.” She’s at that stage where once in a while we’ll SWEAR she said something but we aren’t sure, of course, she’s too independent to repeat anything like some trained bird doing tricks, so we can never confirm anything we think she’s said.

Just the other day I could’ve SWORE she said “Why did they send that Neanderthal Bolton to the UN when he doesn’t even believe in the legitimacy of the institution and we’re in such precarious times that require sophisticated diplomacy more than ever?”

Okay, you’re right, I made that up. It was more like her Grandma thought she pointed to the door and said “go outside, please?”

But I definitely KNOW that whenever I have any ice cream she walks up to me and clearly asks “some? Some?”

Man at war

It’s a losing battle. We should have known that. We should have seen that it was a quagmire waiting to happen, but no, we decided we had to go to war against the dandelions on our lawn.

We’re now in the third year of the insurgency. When it first started I figured I’d be a real man and do things the old fashioned way, on my hands and knees. I waited till a day that it might be fairly damp and I took one of those weeding forks. The thing is, the special operations surgical strike is supposed to be the best tool a warrior has. But obviously, our intelligence must have been bad. There were way more of the noxious weeds than I had previously assumed.

And even though this bunker-busting method is supposed to be the best way to get them roots and all, I think that our action only served to fuel the insurgency. There were even more dandelions the next year, and in even more places on the property.

So, I was determined to turn up the heat. An all out aerial assault. I searched out the most powerful chemical weapons I could find. My intention was nothing short of shock and awe.

The thing about weed killers is that your hand is what dies after about an hour of spraying this deadly dose of dandy lion killing drink. After flying sorties over several square yards I’d try to switch hands, but may left hand would tire much quicker than the right did. And it’s quite a operation to put the trigger-gun into one hand without dropping the jug or tangling up the hose.

The thing about bombing missions is that there’s always collateral damage. Sure enough, within a week there was all kinds of bald spots on the lawn where the weed-be-dead-and-gone had taken out an inordinate amount of innocent civilian grass. If only there was a way to eliminate the belligerent yellow terrorist invaders without sacrificing the natives.

Sure enough, the dandelions only increased their numbers.

Sometimes the only way to handle a situation is to cover it up or draw attention away from it. So I’d try to mow more often to that the weeds were still there, but their heads were cut off so that hopefully, from a distance, no one would notice that they weren’t just grass.

This year I have had to escalate. I came up with a three tiered strategy; rapid-grow grass seed on the bare areas, weed-and-feed-speckle-things fertilizer/weed killer, and another round of the spray (that now comes in a supposedly more effective and more localized foam). No more Mr. Nice guy, I figured.

Unfortunately, all the strategy and the best tactics in the world may not get the job done without good logistics. When I went to get supplies at the store, I was dismayed by the cost of lawn care products. The largest bag of the best name brand fertilizer was well over $20, so were the most reputable brands of grass seed. Here I’d just spent nearly $40 on fuel. What’s more the directions on the grass seed called for a roto-tiller. What a mess that would make of my lawn to tear up single square yards of bare spot. Not that I own a tiller in the first place.

But you don’t go to war with the tools you wish you had, you go to war with the tools you have. So I bought smaller sizes of off-brand products, and one of those little plastic hand-cranked fertilizer broadcasting (sowing?) thing-a-ma-bobs and I returned to the theatre of combat.

That was before the rains came. Reconnaissance is inconclusive as to the effectiveness of our latest campaign. If this didn’t take I suppose we’ll just have to pour more money into the ongoing war. Maybe we’ll even have to escalate again next year and contract mercenaries to carry out the battle instead of doing it ourselves.

“Daddy why don’t you like dandelions?” my girls ask me.

“Well, we just don’t like weeds, they make our yard look yucky, so I keep trying to get rid of them,” I explain.

“But dandelions aren’t weeds, they’re flowers,” our 4 year old tells me, “I think they’re CUTE!”

Many is the bouquet she’s picked for her mother or I that we’ve politely placed in a jelly jar vase on the kitchen counter. I guess we’ve got a lot of educating to do to win over the hearts and minds of these protesters.