Adventures With Tentacles

The other night, my day job sponsored an "end of fiscal year" celebration at Dave and Buster's.

I was one of the few who invited my wife. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who dragged along a small child.

It was fun. And Laura got lucky enough a couple of times that we were able to pick up enough points to walk away with some good swag (including a couple of spiffy novelty glasses).

We also got a little glow-in-the-dark rubber tentacle finger puppet thing. Every time Mal breaks it out, I act completely grossed out and terrified of it. He assures me that it's nice, and it's okay again until the next time.

This evening, I woke up from my knee-heating nap to hear her on the phone, engaged in some sort of serious conversation, and Mal demanding that she count for him.

So I shouted out that I'd do the counting and dived in to try to give her a breather.

We spent a while playing "scare and seek." Which is basically hide and seek, except that suppose the hider is supposed to leap out and scare whoever's "it." Something along those lines.

I'm not very good at it. I just hid until Mal tracked down Laura to ask for help finding me. The first time, she might have helped a little. Or maybe just encouraged him enough to convince him to put some effort into looking). The second...he wound up sitting outside with her for long enough that I just gave up on it and move to the recliner in the living room and broke out my phone to check the news.

He decided he was ready to move on to running races. Which basically amounts to lining up in a single file (we take turns in the poll position) and chasing each other in circles around the house. Eventually, we wind up in his room, with Mal proclaiming the he won.

I spent about 45 minutes doing this Friday or Saturday night, while Laura got some alone time. It was long enough that my ankles are still sore, but it was great exercise that the rest of my body desperately needs.

Tonight, I'm sore enough that I couldn't.

So Mal decided to just join me in the recliner.

He played a "game" that starts with cleaning Pepa Pig's teeth using a variety of dentist implements. He's already fixed hers, so he's unlocked Rebecca Rabbit's, which are much nastier. He always gives up as he's getting close to the end of hers, so he hasn't unlocked Emily Elephant yet.

Today, I messed with his ear with that tentacle thing from D&B while he told me that he couldn't and needed help.

I finally told him that he totally could, but didn't have to. It's a game, so he should stop playing if it isn't fun. He jumped right over to "What's a tentacle?"

I tried to explain it, then came up with the brilliant idea of showing him videos. So I googled for "tentacle."

For the sake of your sanity and whatever innocence you may have left, never make that mistake. Luckily for the sake of my illiterate child, the results didn't come back with pictures.


Searching for "octopus tentacle" returned results that were safe enough that I felt comfortable switching over to focus on videos.

We watched a couple of those. I don't think he was impressed enough by the ability to squeeze your entire body through a hole the size of your beak.

Fun fact: the real plural for octopus is "octopuses." A bunch of academic snobs managed to foist "octopi" on us a couple of hundred (or so) years ago. But that's Latin. Since the roots are Greek, the "proper" plural would be octopodes.

I don't think Mal appreciated the subtleties of these distinctions.

He got bored with the octopus video (it was too long, and the predation didn't have enough cheesy dialog), so we moved on to one about the skin of squids. I thought it looked fascinating, but he wasn't interested.

So we watched one about jellyfish for a bit. He proclaimed that they're "bad." I tried to explain that we should stay far away, but they aren't really "bad." That's another distinction that's lost on him. I probably should have just agreed, but I don't want to be one of those parents who tells their kids something's bad just because it can hurt you a bit.

Somehow, that led to a video about "the glass couldn't contain it."

It was a long video, but it was Mal's speed. Because it was basically a sequence of 3 second clips of predators in zoos trying to what they do. Except for the glass.

I think the scariest one was a polar bear in a swimming pool. There was a kid about Mal's age crouched down just below the water line. The kid stood up, popping his head above water, and the bear struck. You could see its jaws clamping down.

Mal thought the entire thing was hysterically funny.

He got bored when the pace slowed down and they switched to discussions about this time a bear (grizzly? it looks to big to be anything else) managed to splinter the glass, but it looks like it didn't actually break through. One of the witnesses commented about how the bear was a clown that had been playing with the rock for a long time.

He made me go back to the beginning so we could watch the first 12 minutes (or so) again.

The second time through, he allowed us to keep going. They showed a segment of a gorilla charging the glass and managing to make it spider web. They showed that segment over and over.

I'm not sure where they were going (the volume was way down). We moved on to playing Mal's "I don't know" game.

Laura wrapped up her conversation by describing that, then rejoined us before I could show him what that gorilla had really done to that plate glass. I think her conversation up to that point revolved around dysfunctional relationships and the difficulty of finding a good man.

I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the tentacle videos.

Honest, sweetheart. That's why that's why such an awful thing is in my search history.

Our Sunday

This morning, Mal woke up asking to go to Target. I told him we would, but only on the condition that he agreed we'd look at the toys but not buy any. "We can look AND play," he informed me. "Yes," I agreed. "Look and play with the toys, but we're not buying any today."

Not that it's incredibly relevant, but on Wednesday, we went to Toys R Us to see how their closing liquidation was going, and they had a Vampirina play set he'd really wanted for some time on sale 25% off, which was a huge improvement over the paltry 10% from the week and a half before when we'd gone in. It's a big one, and they only had two left, so we bought it. Then yesterday, we'd gone to Target and had gotten three (more) Disney Cars for him to add to his collection. So he's cleaned up this week.

We went to Super Donut on the way, I got a lemon kolache and a maple bar, both were amazing, but Mal only ate his sprinkle doughnut and decided to bring the chocolate doughnut holes home to Daddy because he was READY to go to Target.

When we got there, he immediately picked out three Cars that he wanted to get. I reminded him gently that I wasn't going to buy toys for him today. He said, "Mommy, don't talk and don't move your head." I was quiet until he asked for help looking at another car, when I said, "You can look at it, but we're not going to buy it." Very calmly, Mal said, "Don't talk or I'll have to kill you."

He was sitting in the basket of the cart holding these cars, and I suggested we go to other aisles and look at other toys. While I did, he said, "Daddy told me it was okay to buy these cars." Like about 8 times. I said, "You don't seem interested in looking at other toys, so let's just go get our groceries." As we walked past the Cars aisle, I asked, "Do you want to put the cars back now, or hold them until we get up front, then the cashier will have to put them away?" He elected to hold on to them.

I picked up a few groceries and we got in line. Mal was holding the cars close, saying, "I'm a super hero, and I'm protecting my cars!" I again gently reminded him, "You can hold on to them for about 3 more minutes, then we have to give them back." He said, "Pew, pew, pew, Mommy; you're dead!"

After I checked out, I leaned into Mal and said, "I need you to give me these so we can leave them here." He was so so sad, but just let them go and started crying. He said, "Now no one can ever play with Disney Cars!"

Walking out to the car, he said, "I don't understand why we have money for groceries but not money for toys!" Ahh, the eternal conflict. I tried to explain that we have to eat, and we have to budget for food so we can live, and also that we'd spent a LOT of money on toys this week. He cried most of the way home.

When we got back, we were talking and he said, "I had the cars, but you STOLED them from me!" He was so sad for about an hour, then we got distracted by reading books. He actually picked out "Red Hat, Blue Hat" by Sandra Boynton, and read it to me first. He announced, "'Red Hat, Blue Hat' by Sandra Boynton." It was so cool! I remember reading when D was a child that it was important to read the author's name after the title, just so they'd realize that humans produce books. Anyway, he "read" the picture book mostly correctly, though he skipped the next-to-last page, then asked me to read to him. We went through most of our Boynton collection before James got home and we'd started in on The Cube Game.

Now... before I go on, I want to mention two things: It's taken YEARS, but more, when Mal has times of pushing back against limits to his autonomy (i.e. he would have gotten those toys under his own volition), although I sometimes am worn out, I am genuinely not frustrated or angry. I can empathize, because I've chosen to.

Also, some people would find the "threats" and talk of death horrifying, but Mal has only cartoon context for what "death" is, and clearly no violent intent, as he physically wilted, surrendering the toys when I asked, although maintaining his verbal dissent. I think this is actually quite mature. He will, of course, learn in time that threats aren't the ideal way to handle disappointment, but today, I think we both did okay. And I did laugh, hopefully mostly internally, at many of the things he said in trying to persuade me to come around to his way of thinking.

We ended up having a fun rest of the day. James and Mal walked down to the park while I helped a little girl who'd had a bike wreck across from our side yard, then I joined them for a while. It was a gorgeous day, and the lake was packed.

Concentrating mightily on the climb.

One more funny thing Mal said: Tonight, I was putting on his nighttime diaper, a thing he hates (ironically, he also hates using the actual restroom right now, too; we're going on three days with no business and I think I'm going to have to slip a softener in his drink tomorrow, so when he finally does go, it's not horrifying and painful). James was standing there watching us, and Mal said, "Daddy! Get this woman off of me!"