The Lemur

What's Breakfast like at your house?

So, the friend boycott didn't even last 24 hours. The very next afternoon there he was asking if he could go over and get the little curly heady blond haired kid to play with. I said yes, but for now, he would have to play in our yard (so I could keep track of things and keeping any situations from getting explosive again). We're kind of the block hang out a lot of the time, so it's nothing for kids to come down to our place.

I don't want to give the impression that Lemur is a bad kid, because he's not. He's just our little challenge. He has been blessed with that most volital combination of intelligence, inspiration, and spontaniaty. Some day he will gift this world with something wonderful, I have no doubt. It's just my job right now to be sure that he doesn't get killed before he reaches that point.

Sometimes I get this picture that God looked down and said "there are a couple of parents that are doing so well with the two kids they have now, so I have a special assignment that I feel they would be capable of handling. It'll be a little more difficult than what they've been used to, but I think they're up to it." Other times I picture it like "Ok smart guy, you're just thinking that you are just 'all that' with your parenting skills. I think it's time to for a little humbling---here ya go." I've stopped giving parenting advice since Lemur came into his own. I've learned that two, three or even four kids don't give me enough expertice to speak to everyone's situation.

But I love him so much that the prividlige of being his dad is worth every minute of it.


It was 50s day last week.
He can't just wear the costume,
he has to BE the costume.

On Friday night, while all the kids were out playing in the yard and I was in the house doing Mr. Mom duty again, the boy from our carpool knocked at our door. He told me that he thought that I might want to know that the Lemur was in the street playing with the traffic. All I could think was, "Ah yes. . . of course he is."

Actually that's not true, I lept up and burst out of the door, snatched him up and brought him inside. Seems that there was a party at a neighbor's house that had the curbs on both sides of the street lined with parked cars. That meant that any car driving down the street had to go very slowly between the cars to get through. Apparently a car had stopped briefly and Lemur had run out behind it and pretended to push it as it took off slowly. He saw the car, had an inspiration and his spontaneity took off with him.

Now, I’m not a person who is opposed to spanking, but I hold myself to several standards when I come to that point:

1. Use it only as a last resort. I don’t spank for mistakes or childishness. I use spanking mainly when curbing rebelliousness. And even then, it’s not my first course of action. If they know the rule and choose to ignore it, that can lead to spanking. I give lots of warnings, some might think too many. But my thought is, if the threat of a spanking is just a good as a spanking, why not use that. However, sometimes you have to carry through or the threat stops having teeth.

2. Don’t give spankings in anger. I’m no 100% perfect but I try to come as close to that as possible. My aim is to make sure that the kids know that this isn’t my lashing out at them, but a promised judicial type of punishment that could have been avoided if they had chosen more wisely in their behavior. Of course I put in simpler terms for them. “What did you do?” “And what had we decided would happen if you did that?” “Ok, well then, let’s get this over with.”

3. That the spank is not harsh. It’s done to deliver discomfort, not injury.

4. That afterwards I hold them while they cry. Then we talk together to decide how best we could work to prevent a spanking from being necessary in the future. I sit down and look them right in the eye, and I think they believe me when I explain that this is a part of the dad job that I hate. I’d as much like to avoid this as they would, but if I did, I’d be letting them down as their father. When I explain why the spank was necessary, I’ve been know to tear up----for real too, not just for effect. I don’t mean to, but I’m getting soft in my old age----but Good Night, that was a little pillar of my soul out there playing in traffic. I think they understand.

But every kids reaches that age where spanking just doesn’t work anymore. You know you reached that point when, after the spanking, you try to be cool while holding your throbbing hand, and the kid looks back and you can see the “is that all?” just behind their eyes but they know that showing any sign of thinking that will only bring more. I’m not one to increase the ferocity of a spanking just to elicit the same response, so I’m thankful that this moment typically coincides with the moment when psychological punishments become more effective than physical ones.

And such was the case here. I discoverd a punishment that pierces him to his core and I thought that might be most effective in this situation. I advised him that his evening of play was now over and he would now take a bath and go to bed.

Oh the Horror! The writhing and the begging and the screaming. The face contorted in anguish. What kind of monster was I! It was only 7:30 and the sun was still up! Seems that there is nothing so cataclysmic as sitting in bed in a room as darkened as it can be with the sun still seeping in through the edges of the shades, listening to all the fun happening outside. Fun that you are being kept out of and it’s the best fun that will ever happen ever and you’re missing it.

So I got him in the bath and in bed, kissed him goodnight and left him to cry into his pillow.

Later when I passed by his room and I could hear him humming strains of some song from the musical Cats. I cracked the door to check on him and he looked up at me from the dusky light, with an unsure look of not knowing if he was in trouble again.

He had gotten a box decorated in green foil down from the bookshelf beside his bed. This was the box from a school project that he done with his mother. The project was to collect 100 of something to commemorate the 100th day of school (so that the kids would have a visual understanding of how much 100 was). His mom came up with the idea of finding, cutting out from magazines, and collecting 100 smiles. Which is what they did.

He had taken out the smiles and lined up all 100 of them on his bed. In the past he has gotten further into trouble by being sent to his room to sit in time out and later being discovered with a toy help him serve out his sentance less painfully. I could tell he was concerned if he was in trouble for that again.

I answered the question on his face by sitting down beside him on his bed, being careful not to disturb the ranks he had assembled.

“What are you doing bud?”

“These are my 100 smiles from school.”

“I see that.”

“100 sure is a lot.”

“That’s true.”

And then we talked about what I’ve written here. That he has a wonderful potential to be amazing someday. And that he is amazing today. And that if anything ever happened to him it would devastate so many people beyond my ability to describe. He doesn’t often listen to me babble very closely, but this time he seemed to. I hope he did. To learn. And to have no question every how important he is to this family.

He put away his faces and the next time I checked on him he was sleeping.

The next morning was Sunday, and as the kids emerged I let them know that we needed to be extra quite getting ready for Church, because mom had a migraine and wasn’t feeling well. Lemur is a late sleeper and so only heard about it through the grapevine when he finally woke. As I emerged from my shower, I discovered he had taken it upon himself to make his mom breakfast in bed. Peanut butter toast and orange juice on the breakfast-in-bed tray. And it was ok, he advised me, he had only dropped the toast once and it landed peanut butter side up.

It was a new day.


Watching TV on the human tree called Dad.