True story.
During a session of Aquanauts, wait let me back this up for a full overhead view.
One of the gifts I do not have is patience. As a result I know at my core I would be an unfit parent. From the top of our family organization my father was a study in living the American dream and occasionally the American nightmare. By this I mean that he was mostly overjoyed to have a family while IMO noticeably bordering on a psychotic break.
Now I am talking about a very good father who had five kids and worked his a** off to provide for his family. His patience ran thin at times and this is where I learned to be anxious. Back to media and guns.
In my married life I have negotiated a point system with the Misses. Because each of us has an extensive extended family there is literally a family event every other weekend. So in order to prevent oversaturation (mostly for me as she seems to enjoy these immensely) I devised a system of credits that I can accumulate and use for her family events.
The system works as follows;
Once a calendar year quarter I will attend one of her family functions. This is called a credit. That means I have to use four credits per year including Thanksgiving and the December holiday season. So if I go to say two events in a 3 month period I get a credit to use to not attend a future event. Now I can trade this credit for a future event or for something like; a stay at her sisters beach house, a day of my wife telling me how young and good looking I am, a prepared dinner by a family member where I get to wax philosophic and every has to remark on my complete grasp of the issue. You get the idea. Now I told you that story to tell you this one;
My two nephews, I will call the Bachman and Turner, are seven and nine respectively. They contain all the joy of and devilish behavior of an older and younger brother who compete at everything while trying to establish their individuality.
On a Sunday in July I was asked if I could babysit the dynamic duo for a credit (I negotiated two credits as it was an all day event) and took them on for the day.
Aquanauts is the game where I get plastic coated two and five pound weights, some hula-hoop knock offs and the neighbors swimming pool. BTW my wife and I live next to two of of greatest all time people in the world, but that is another post.
The purpose of the Aquanauts is to exhaust the kids as quickly as possible all under the guise of a game designed to be a covert military operation. The hoops float so I set them up in the pool with one of the weights holding them to the bottom of the pool. The pool is only about 4 feet deep at its deepest so they do not need ay self contained underwater breathing apparatus’ to complete their mission.
A series of tests are then run to see if they can get additional weights in a variety of colors of the bottom of the pool while swimming through the hoops. As an Uncle I know this is fun and it is also a lot of work to dive, swim, grab a weight, swim to the edge and go get another. We also float a hula-hoop on the surface to practice diving into without hitting the bottom and swimming to the opposite side.
Turner is a skinny kid in the mold of a really skinny nine year old. His body fat consists of his younger brother as he is all skin, bone and ligaments. Needless to say he cools off very quickly and has to warm up after a few dives. This ticks him off to no end as Bachman has the thermal qualities of a polar bear and can swim in the cool water for hours. So for Turner the game is “dumb” and his brother is “stupid” as the game wear on and Bachman completes more and more swim and retrieval challenges. In order to keep Turner engaged I have him participate in setting up a course his brother can complete, and Turner does have a great young mind for design. So he settles down eventually and we both go to work wearing out Bachman.
The media saturation bombing of our youth is lost on me as I am not a parent. I have no idea the level of defense that must be played in order to keep your child from becoming a walking, talking ad for whatever is tossed at them almost 24 by 7. From the Japanese anime shows, the cartoon network, the Transformers, Gogurt, string cheese (not just for backpacking apparently), hot dogs, gummy whatever, and it just does not stop. In fact one of the follow up activities to Aquanaut training is a sit down with Bachman and Turner so they can debrief me on the latest and greatest top of a seven and nine year olds’ mind stuff I need to know.
Bachman enters the pool by jumping rump first (our rule to slow descent a he is dense of body) and then is visible underwater swimming like all heck to go through the second hoop and retrieving a two pound weight. He is no Navy Seal but he loves the water and successfully grasps the yellow weight of five pounds and sputters to the surface. He spits out water and goes under again, quickly, so I get in the pool right next to him and grasp his T-Rex like arm and ring him up. Bad idea, as he scolds me and tells me, “Don’t!” Which I later learn is universal kid speak to lay off as you are a control freak and if I need your help I will ask thank you very much.
Releasing my grip on the toothpick-like appendage hanging off his junior version of Telly Savalas’ bod I watch him kick, paddle, bob, sputter and spew the three feet to the side of the poll. I have to say I am impressed with the effort and determination as he sits with the slick pool water cascading off him breathing quite hard and looking like it was all in a day’s work. A true Navy Seal (pup).
“Hey Bachman, that was close I thought you may not make it.” I say trying to obliquely explain my unwanted assistance. The next words out of his mouth stunned me;
Bachman runs his tiny hands over his face to clear any water running in his eyes and mouth, looks me in the eye like Damien in the Omen and not the crappy sequels. He then looks at the weight, balls his GI-Joe like hands into little fists, flexes his arms into the weight lifter version of The Crab (see the most muscular pose) and says, swear to god;
“It was easy with these.” As he admires his guns al la Ron Burgundy, kids these days.
During a session of Aquanauts, wait let me back this up for a full overhead view.
One of the gifts I do not have is patience. As a result I know at my core I would be an unfit parent. From the top of our family organization my father was a study in living the American dream and occasionally the American nightmare. By this I mean that he was mostly overjoyed to have a family while IMO noticeably bordering on a psychotic break.
Now I am talking about a very good father who had five kids and worked his a** off to provide for his family. His patience ran thin at times and this is where I learned to be anxious. Back to media and guns.
In my married life I have negotiated a point system with the Misses. Because each of us has an extensive extended family there is literally a family event every other weekend. So in order to prevent oversaturation (mostly for me as she seems to enjoy these immensely) I devised a system of credits that I can accumulate and use for her family events.
The system works as follows;
Once a calendar year quarter I will attend one of her family functions. This is called a credit. That means I have to use four credits per year including Thanksgiving and the December holiday season. So if I go to say two events in a 3 month period I get a credit to use to not attend a future event. Now I can trade this credit for a future event or for something like; a stay at her sisters beach house, a day of my wife telling me how young and good looking I am, a prepared dinner by a family member where I get to wax philosophic and every has to remark on my complete grasp of the issue. You get the idea. Now I told you that story to tell you this one;
My two nephews, I will call the Bachman and Turner, are seven and nine respectively. They contain all the joy of and devilish behavior of an older and younger brother who compete at everything while trying to establish their individuality.
On a Sunday in July I was asked if I could babysit the dynamic duo for a credit (I negotiated two credits as it was an all day event) and took them on for the day.
Aquanauts is the game where I get plastic coated two and five pound weights, some hula-hoop knock offs and the neighbors swimming pool. BTW my wife and I live next to two of of greatest all time people in the world, but that is another post.
The purpose of the Aquanauts is to exhaust the kids as quickly as possible all under the guise of a game designed to be a covert military operation. The hoops float so I set them up in the pool with one of the weights holding them to the bottom of the pool. The pool is only about 4 feet deep at its deepest so they do not need ay self contained underwater breathing apparatus’ to complete their mission.
A series of tests are then run to see if they can get additional weights in a variety of colors of the bottom of the pool while swimming through the hoops. As an Uncle I know this is fun and it is also a lot of work to dive, swim, grab a weight, swim to the edge and go get another. We also float a hula-hoop on the surface to practice diving into without hitting the bottom and swimming to the opposite side.
Turner is a skinny kid in the mold of a really skinny nine year old. His body fat consists of his younger brother as he is all skin, bone and ligaments. Needless to say he cools off very quickly and has to warm up after a few dives. This ticks him off to no end as Bachman has the thermal qualities of a polar bear and can swim in the cool water for hours. So for Turner the game is “dumb” and his brother is “stupid” as the game wear on and Bachman completes more and more swim and retrieval challenges. In order to keep Turner engaged I have him participate in setting up a course his brother can complete, and Turner does have a great young mind for design. So he settles down eventually and we both go to work wearing out Bachman.
The media saturation bombing of our youth is lost on me as I am not a parent. I have no idea the level of defense that must be played in order to keep your child from becoming a walking, talking ad for whatever is tossed at them almost 24 by 7. From the Japanese anime shows, the cartoon network, the Transformers, Gogurt, string cheese (not just for backpacking apparently), hot dogs, gummy whatever, and it just does not stop. In fact one of the follow up activities to Aquanaut training is a sit down with Bachman and Turner so they can debrief me on the latest and greatest top of a seven and nine year olds’ mind stuff I need to know.
Bachman enters the pool by jumping rump first (our rule to slow descent a he is dense of body) and then is visible underwater swimming like all heck to go through the second hoop and retrieving a two pound weight. He is no Navy Seal but he loves the water and successfully grasps the yellow weight of five pounds and sputters to the surface. He spits out water and goes under again, quickly, so I get in the pool right next to him and grasp his T-Rex like arm and ring him up. Bad idea, as he scolds me and tells me, “Don’t!” Which I later learn is universal kid speak to lay off as you are a control freak and if I need your help I will ask thank you very much.
Releasing my grip on the toothpick-like appendage hanging off his junior version of Telly Savalas’ bod I watch him kick, paddle, bob, sputter and spew the three feet to the side of the poll. I have to say I am impressed with the effort and determination as he sits with the slick pool water cascading off him breathing quite hard and looking like it was all in a day’s work. A true Navy Seal (pup).
“Hey Bachman, that was close I thought you may not make it.” I say trying to obliquely explain my unwanted assistance. The next words out of his mouth stunned me;
Bachman runs his tiny hands over his face to clear any water running in his eyes and mouth, looks me in the eye like Damien in the Omen and not the crappy sequels. He then looks at the weight, balls his GI-Joe like hands into little fists, flexes his arms into the weight lifter version of The Crab (see the most muscular pose) and says, swear to god;
“It was easy with these.” As he admires his guns al la Ron Burgundy, kids these days.
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