![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Yard Apes Report
May. 28th, 2005 11:48 pmGot to chase the kids around for a while this morning, which is to say that I got to get chased by the kids for a while. The combination of that and our fourth-floor walkup comprise my entire aerobic exercise program these days. (Well, those and, um, other things.)
First we trundled over to the playground at Abbey's old grade school. Lemme tell you, I never had playground equipment at any of my schools; the new stuff looks like a hamster farm as designed by Rube Goldberg. Well, okay, Rube Goldberg with a consult from a fascist German expressionist gym coach, because you have never seen monkey bars that sadistic—bi-level hand-over-hand bars, bars at weird angles, bars that are actually giant wheels that you have to wing around in mid-air to get the next one. None of which Abbey had any trouble with, of course, the little monkey-child. I'm hideously jealous.
Nik didn't fare so well, I'm afraid. I've learned to dread the phrase, "Hey, Dad! Watch this!" because it invariably precedes Mr. Self-Preservation Instinct hurling himself head-first into, say, a pile of cinder blocks and thumbtacks. In this case, it was him leaping from a bar four feet off the ground, which wouldn't have been so bad, had he not bitten his tongue on impact. Yes, ow. I did a pretty good job of placating him, for the most part, until I totally blew it:
Abbey: Is he bleeding?
Me: Yeah, a little bit.
Nik: I'm not bleeding!
Me: Actually, you are.
Nik: No, I'm not!
Me: Open up for a second. [He opens his mouth; I dab his tongue with my finger, and show him the blood.]
Nik: WAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Good show, spudnoggin. And yes, I'm available for babysitting gigs this summer.
After a brief stroll down the nature trail near the school parking lot, we sat to watch the Memorial Day parade, which was sadly brief, but at least was blessed with about 10 bagpipers. (Nik covered his ears.) Abbey got to see her old Girl Scout troop leader and a few of her old troopmates, which put her in that happy-meets-homesick state that I always get when I go back to Illinois. Afterward, she...well, she has this annoying, sarcastic, condescending voice that she uses when she thinks you're being a doofus, which ordinarily irks the snot out of me, and I say so. But today was one of the rare time when she amused me with it:
Me: Nobody was throwing candy! What's up with that?
Abbey: [snarking like a so-and-so] Hel-lo? Memorial Day? Remembering people who died?
Yeah. Called out on the carpet by a second-grader. My wont in life.
First we trundled over to the playground at Abbey's old grade school. Lemme tell you, I never had playground equipment at any of my schools; the new stuff looks like a hamster farm as designed by Rube Goldberg. Well, okay, Rube Goldberg with a consult from a fascist German expressionist gym coach, because you have never seen monkey bars that sadistic—bi-level hand-over-hand bars, bars at weird angles, bars that are actually giant wheels that you have to wing around in mid-air to get the next one. None of which Abbey had any trouble with, of course, the little monkey-child. I'm hideously jealous.
Nik didn't fare so well, I'm afraid. I've learned to dread the phrase, "Hey, Dad! Watch this!" because it invariably precedes Mr. Self-Preservation Instinct hurling himself head-first into, say, a pile of cinder blocks and thumbtacks. In this case, it was him leaping from a bar four feet off the ground, which wouldn't have been so bad, had he not bitten his tongue on impact. Yes, ow. I did a pretty good job of placating him, for the most part, until I totally blew it:
Abbey: Is he bleeding?
Me: Yeah, a little bit.
Nik: I'm not bleeding!
Me: Actually, you are.
Nik: No, I'm not!
Me: Open up for a second. [He opens his mouth; I dab his tongue with my finger, and show him the blood.]
Nik: WAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Good show, spudnoggin. And yes, I'm available for babysitting gigs this summer.
After a brief stroll down the nature trail near the school parking lot, we sat to watch the Memorial Day parade, which was sadly brief, but at least was blessed with about 10 bagpipers. (Nik covered his ears.) Abbey got to see her old Girl Scout troop leader and a few of her old troopmates, which put her in that happy-meets-homesick state that I always get when I go back to Illinois. Afterward, she...well, she has this annoying, sarcastic, condescending voice that she uses when she thinks you're being a doofus, which ordinarily irks the snot out of me, and I say so. But today was one of the rare time when she amused me with it:
Me: Nobody was throwing candy! What's up with that?
Abbey: [snarking like a so-and-so] Hel-lo? Memorial Day? Remembering people who died?
Yeah. Called out on the carpet by a second-grader. My wont in life.
