Stuff My Boy Does To Me - And To Anyone Else In The Line Of Fire

This is all about Ethan today. Because he's getting pretty creative in the things he's doing to me and to everyone else around him. And, considering that my parents take great joy in telling me that I earned every bit of it, I'm perversely happy to report that my Dad got caught in Ethan's sights a little this weekend.

Though hitting Dad with a few things doesn't mean Ethan was leaving me alone. So this week, there's one thing he did to me and two things he did to my dad.

1 - Ethan's into stop signs right now. A lot. I don't know why, he's just decided he likes stop signs. All right, he's three, they get these weird "things" sometimes. The problem is that he has to make absolutely, positively sure that I know when we're coming up on one. Or coming up near one. Or can see one on any nearby roads. "Daddy, there's a stop sign." "It's not on our road, Ethan, it's OK." "OK, but there's a stop sign. S-T-O-P. Stop." "OK, Ethan, thanks." If it's really facing us, it's even worse. "Daddy, there's a stop sign. You have to stop." "OK, Ethan, I will." "Because it's a stop sign, Daddy. You have to stop at the stop sign. OK?" "OK, Ethan, I'll stop." "OK."

So, the other day, I was driving him to gymnastics. We were cutting it close getting there on time, and I was coming up on a stop sign on the back country road we take to get there, at the intersection where we turn right to head to gymnastics. It's a great intersection with fields on every corner, clear for miles every way when (like now) the fields haven't grown very high. The sign is there because the intersection is impossible later in the season, when the corn's high. Then, you can't see a car coming until you're almost in the intersection, and the road does get a decent amount of traffic.

So, with that in mind, maybe, just maybe, possibly, I didn't make my stop quite as complete as I absolutely, positively could have that day. I mean, I could see coming up to the intersection that the roads were absolutely clear, and I really felt like I stopped. I certainly hit the brakes and slowed down to a point that any forward movement should have been imperceptible. I would certainly have called it a stop. But not my stop sign lover, oh no. As we started to speed up again following our turn, Ethan, who had been surprisingly quiet as we approached the sign, suddenly piped up, "Daddy, why didn't we stop at that stop sign? It was a stop sign, you have to stop." "Well, Ethan, it's like this - hey, look! There's a horse in that field up there! Cool!" Thankfully, he does still distract easily enough.

And yes, I will make sure the stops are more complete now. Thank you for the reminder, Ethan.

2 - At least mine was only safety related, and a good reminder for me. He gave it much worse to my dad this weekend. Due to some odd circumstances, Grandma and Papa (pronounced "paw-paw," but always spelled Papa, it's just the way it is, don't complain to me about it) came up to visit two weekends in a row, last weekend and this weekend. Memorial Day weekend, it came time to put the kids to bed, and Papa went to read to Ethan. Ethan picked one of his favorite Cars books, all about an off road race against Chick Hicks and his evil student, the monster truck El Machismo. (Yes, I do know all that off the top of my head, thank you.)

Now, I'm sure everybody has some thought in their head about how to pronounce "El Machismo." My wife and I both go with the "ch" sound like in cheese, so it's "El Mah-cheese-moe." A quick check online says that's probably right (though no doubt butchered by heavy Midwestern United States pronunciation), but not at all the way many English speakers would say it. Many would apparently say something more like "El Mah-Keys-moe." So, it's not entirely insane that good old Papa would read it "El Mah-keys-moe" that night. But Ethan would have none of that.

He stopped my dad in the middle of reading to correct him. My three year old stopped his grandfather to let him, "You're reading it wrong, Papa."

But it gets better. In a week, he apparently didn't forget.

This past weekend, my parents were up again (for Addison's baptism). It came time to put the kids to bed again, and Papa offered to read to Ethan. Ethan, my precious three year old, looked at his Papa and said, "I want Grandma Ryan to read to me. You say the wrong words."

We all laughed. A lot. Not that we wanted to encourage that, but it was really the only thing we could do.

3 - Finally, yesterday, their last day visiting, Ethan was out on his new swing set with his Papa. Ethan was up on the covered deck, and his Papa was standing at the bottom in the sun. Now, my dad's hair is, to be kind, thinning. To be less kind, it's mostly gone from the top. Ethan looked down from his shady spot on top of the swing set (a deck that will easily handle several adult men, thankfully), saw his Papa standing there, and told him he better join Ethan in the shade or his head would get burnt.  Not entirely nice, I suppose, but very practical.

So there, Dad. If I was a challenging enough kid to deserve anything Ethan can throw at me, how rough did you have to be to earn two generations of this stuff?