Pet Peeves

This morning, at preschool, my son threw a miniature fit. He drew a picture, folded it up neatly, and attempted to stick it in his pocket. “No,” said the teacher, “you’re supposed to hang it on the wall.”

This was not what he had planned; he cried a bit, stomped off to the hallway and pouted for a minute or two. The teacher, who is smarter than him, left him alone; eventually he came back inside and everything was fine. He just needed to get it off his chest. He forgave his teacher; she couldn’t know she had made a cardinal mistake by deciding something without him.

Mendel believes in discussing things, weighing options, carefully coming to an agreement. He is all about compromise and input, and would love it if we took a vote on everything. Maybe I have taken him to too many board meetings; he is a democratic creature, and does not respond well when simply told what to do.

Getting a little worked up now and then is acceptable behavior, I think; we all have our pet peeves. Mine is wasting food: you finish your plate, and if it really can’t be eaten anymore it is composted. My daughter hates turtlenecks and sleeping under a blanket. My husband has a thing about ugly shoes, and the use of the word “piggy-back” during meetings. The essence of a good pet peeve, however, is that it isn’t something you are confronted with all the time.

The thing with Mendel’s pet peeve is, he’s taking it too far. After all, you can’t argue every decision in life; at some point you just have to accept the status quo and get in line. You can’t argue with the weather or with traffic lights, and Tuesday will not magically turn into Friday just because you come up with great arguments. This means he gets his feathers ruffled on an hourly basis.

My hope is that, at some point, he will update his pet peeve. Maybe he can start disliking something that he doesn’t experience so often, like Christmas Elves, or people who hand out toothpaste on Halloween. Groundhog Day, Fireworks, or the Super Bowl: there are many things that you confront once a year, for a short period, so you more or less get 11 anger-free months. I think it’s a great idea.

Now, how do I go about fostering a deep-seated hatred of Elves?

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From Macaroni Art to David Lynch

My son came home the other day with macaroni art. Okay, technically, it wasn’t macaroni; it was differently shaped pasta, spray-painted and glued in a random pattern to a piece of paper. It wasn’t an isolated incident either; earlier this week, he glued Apple Jack cereal to cardboard; I ask you, is this an acceptable thing to be doing during an artist’s formative years?

“What are they teaching you at that preschool,” I asked him, “How do you ever expect to become a fabulous artist if you waste your talent on macaroni?” He shrugged and walked away. He didn’t ask me to put it on the fridge, either: instead, he kind of hid it underneath a pile of mail where I came upon it by accident. He seemed slightly embarrassed about the whole thing. “Don’t do this again,” I warned him, “or there will be consequences.”

Then I remember a documentary about David Lynch I watched years ago. In it, Lynch talks about some recent artwork he’s been working on: he has nailed several slabs of raw meat to a board, and is watching it decompose. First, it changes color, then it become infested by maggots; eventually it turns into a nasty slimy mess, crawling with bugs and the stench becomes unbearable. I think his son talks about marching ants in one of the scenes; the whole family appears slightly disgusted but otherwise unfazed. It’s art, although perhaps not for the masses, but what are you going to do in this day and age, when everything’s been done before? You expand your horizon, that’s what; you find society’s limits, and you challenge them.

The limits in our house definitely include macaroni art; it’s stale, it’s childish, and it’s something I thought Mendel had left behind when he grew out of his diapers. Maybe because of that attitude, we have turned it into a taboo: art with food? Bah!
Taboos are solid gold, as far as artists are concerned, and when you look at it that way, even macaroni art can become fresh and modern again.
Also, he’s watched that strawberry scene in Across the Universe many times, so maybe this isn’t a lapse; maybe it’s a developmental leap. Yes, that must be it. I guess this marks the beginning of Mendel’s food period; I wonder how long it will last. Perhaps I should dig up the macaroni sheet, and hang it on the fridge after all.

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Negotiating with the Tooth Fairy

When my daughter Isabella lost her first tooth, she was barely four years old. There was a lot of blood, and she was freaked out beyond anything that a lousy quarter could repair. And so, we set a silly and dangerous precedent: the tooth fairy left a present under her pillow. Many presents later, we realize how stupid we were; she developed a habit of losing teeth late at night, and while it is always possible to find some loose change in the couch, a present is not so easily pulled out of thin air.

Luckily, she’s changing her ways: these days, she tends to lose her teeth at school. It still happens way too often to my taste, but at least I have some respite from the frantic late night Target trips. She’s not squeamish about it either: she can leave home without warning signs, find a wiggly tooth during second period, and have it out by lunch time. No more patient waiting for that tooth to work its way out on its own; she yanks, pulls, and pushes until she has a beak full of blood and a prize in her hand. Voilà, another present comes her way.

The time that I lost my own baby teeth is about 500 years behind me, so this whole process gives me the creeps. Isabella is more concerned with the fact that she often misplaces those teeth. This is a normal side effect if you get it out early in the day, and you have the habit of forgetting everything that’s not screwed down. Also, Isa deems it necessary to communicate with the tooth fairy, a strange little thing she’s been doing for years.

The latest letter reads as follows:
“Dear Tooth Fairy,
I lost a tooth today. Really. I left it at school. So you can either trust me and give me a present anyway or you can wait until tomorrow and come back for it.
Love, Isabella.”

I tell her that the tooth fairy will believe her just fine, considering the gaping hole in her mouth, as well as the fact that she spent half an hour in the principal’s office trying to stem the bleeding. I wonder why we put so much energy in this whole tooth thing, but then I decide to be grateful society didn’t attach the same hoopla to hair, skin, and nails. Can you imagine how much fun that would be?

So why, you wonder, do we still do this; why do we not simply tell her it’s over, and stick a quarter under that pillow? For one, habits are hard to break; pretty soon she’ll be a teenager and we will have different problems. By then we will wonder why we ever fussed over a lost tooth and the accompanying ceremony. Second, I still don’t like the idea of putting money under her pillow. What if she grows up believing it’s okay to exchange body parts for money, and decides to sell a kidney? Or worse?

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