Rainy Days and Mondays

I used to really love rainy days; some, I still so. As the primary source of entertainment for my two progeny, four-year old Sam and seven-year old Lily, rainy days now come bearing a great burden.

Take away daytime options lime the wading pool, the walks at Maudsley and the beach, Plum Island, and I find myself claustrophobically short on options. In fact, all that is left is to entertain them myself, to try to do something educational with them. I must avoid falling into the trap of video marathons, achieving toxic levels of sugar through multiple ice cream snacks, reinstating kiddie naps, and other potential acts of avoidance.

I always embark on these wettish days with the best of intentions. I ponder the family calendar, hoping to find something scrawled in, like “puppet making at the library”, or “play date with Algernon.” On a good rainy day, I find something. On most rainy days, I don’t. I look at the workbooks, neatly piled on shelf, unused; and I immediately search for other books to read to the kids. But they are on to me.

“Come on Sam, I’d like to read this book to you.”

He eyes me suspiciously. I ignore it.

“Come on up here on the couch. It’s a book about a mouse and a motorcycle.”

He wanders over, pouting.

“OK, Dad, but you have to sit up.”

“Why do I have to sit up?”

“Because when you lay down to read to me you always fall asleep.”

Busted. So I sit up and read to him. I still start nodding off; each time I do Sam pulls on my beard or jerks the book out of my hand. It is something like torture.

Lily meanwhile busies herself in her room. Occasionally, she calls out, asking me to help spell a word. When she has finished her project, she brings it downstairs to show me. It is a card, hand-drawn, for a friend who lost her brother. There is a beautiful butterfly, and flowers, and the word “Tommy” on the card. I am very moved by her sensitivity; and I know that our friend will be as well. The card is for a friend of ours, Angela, who lost her much beloved brother Tommy on 9/11. Kids manage to really cut through to exactly what is important, and Lily has done so.

We are off to the library, where the kids are delightfully entertained by a woman who teaches them movement songs and nursery rhymes. Thirty minutes fly by, and despite my calling for encores and holding up a lighter, it is over too soon, and we head back to Camp Damp in the rain.

When we arrive, the kids plant themselves in front of SHREK and I take orders for lunch. We have a little ritual about summer lunch, a little duet we do.

“Hey guys, what would you like to eat?”

“What is there?”

“Same as yesterday.”

“What was for lunch yesterday?”

“Well, PB &J…”

A chorus of “yuck.”

“What about grilled cheese?”

Lily is unrestrained in her response.

“YES!”

“Sammy, do you want grilled cheese?”

Of course not.

“I want eggs.” Of course he does.

So I retreat to the kitchen, Chef Daddy, and labor over the hot stove. My first effort at grilled cheese is a failure; apparently I cannot really labor over e-mail at the same time as I am cooking. Finally, though, as the aromatic smell of burnt bread wafts through the house, lunch is ready.

Lily is not enthusiastic. After nibbling a quarter of the sandwich, she confesses she isn’t really hungry. Sam, after stabbing his eggs repeatedly with a fork, echoes his sister. I sigh, and grant their request to leave the table. Rufous, our dog, and I split the kids’ lunch.

A half-hour later, the kids return to the kitchen.

“We’re hungry.”

Without showing the slightest exasperation, I ask them what they’d like. Sam would like a grilled cheese sandwich, and of course Lily insists on eggs. I make them without complaint, this time not even burning the first grilled cheese sandwich.

Not 5 minutes later, the two additional lunches sulk on the counter-top, abandoned by the kids (again). After staring at the woebegone eggs & sandwich for a few more minutes, the dog and I split the leftovers. And as if the lunch debacle isn't enough to result in Nutritional Probation, when my wife gets home around five, she discovers Sam hiding under the dining room table, stuffing fistfuls of Goldfish into his mouth. When she tries to extricate him, he scuttles away, a trick we agree he has picked up from our dog, whose obvious willingness to eat anything makes him the most-fed member of the household.

And so, Chef Daddy is busted. Sure, I make nutritious meals for the kids, carrots and eggs and calcium and fruits. The problem is, they don’t eat them. The secondary problem is that the dog and I then eat them. And the tertiary problem is that both the dog and I need to lose weight. Weightwatchers does not make doggie low cal meals.

I figure the dog is on his own.