My Own Paparazzo

David is learning to use our old digital camera. He walks around snapping pictures like some 41 inch paparazzo. You might think that I’m being mean by describing him as a paparazzo but that’s because you haven’t finished reading this post yet, besides paparazzo is just a fun word to throw around. Almost as much fun as magniloquent.

Here are some of the first pictures that David took. They are of course copyright David 2008, all rights reserved, although I can’t imagine that you would have any interest in duplicating any of the works below, I won’t even hang them in my office.

That’s his brother’s T-Shirt which is clearly more interesting than a picture of his brother whom he sees every day. He only sees that T-Shirt once every couple of weeks if he’s lucky. The good news here is that he has good aim with the camera, he intentionally cut off Graham’s head.



This picture, I’m afraid to tell you, was staged. He used his sports whistles to hang his Bob the Builder toys on the back of that chair before taking the picture. (Helpful parenting tip: Don’t buy whistles for your kids.) The picture doesn’t make any sense to me but that probably just means that it will soon be considered high art and sell for thousands of dollars to some idiot with a pipe and suede patches on the elbows of his jacket.

This is the train track. This is the most important thing in our home, I know this by the 40 odd pictures of it that David took. I actually kind of like this picture, it has a certain je ne sais quoi about it or as the French like to say... No... Wait... That IS what the French like to say, that and “donnez-moi le fromage, s’il Vous Plaît.” (See Mom, 8 years of French is finally paying off.)

Not pictured: Me in a state of undress. I had just returned home from work and headed into the bedroom to change out of my suit when I heard David proudly yell “I’m going to take a picture of Daddy naked!” I double checked that the door was indeed locked and listened as my wife set some rules in place for proper camera etiquette. The number one rule was no taking pictures of Mommy or Daddy in a state of undress. It’s a good rule for him to learn because it turns out that it’s one of the more inflexible rules around here. I once found out the hard way that even I’m not allowed to take pictures of his Mommy naked.

Happy Father’s Day to my Dad and to all you other Dad’s out there reading this. I’m already working on another post that will probably go up next week sometime. It’s a story that happened a while ago, but one that I don’t want to forget so it will soon be immortalized here, and don’t worry, it’s much less magniloquent than this one was.

The Battle of Christmas

One of the many gifts that my boys received on Christmas morning was a pair of Nerf guns. They ooohh’d and aaahh’d at them for a few minutes, fired off a couple of shots and then moved lustfully on to the next present like George Clooney at a speed dating dinner. As we opened the rest of our presents I often glanced enviously at the sleek plastic toys of destruction, my itchy trigger finger begging for a scratching. What I missed amid all the presents was that my wife was apparently casting an equally envious eye at the Nerf hardware.

Sometime in the afternoon when the boys were calmly drawing in their coloring books, my wife loaded one of the Nerf guns and attacked. I quickly grabbed the second weapon and drafted David, my oldest son leaving my wife with Graham. The battle raged throughout the house, David and I would take cover behind couches and doors and at one point in time I think we even tried to duck behind the dog for cover.

I would on occasion find my wife without any ammo, it was at these times that I learned a dark truth about myself. I am perfectly willing and able to shoot an unarmed woman, in fact I actually derived a great deal of pleasure out of it. In those times when I was without ammo, I found myself telling my first born to run out in the open as bait so that we could collect the balls that his Mother shot at him.

While David and I were laying prone behind a couch I looked at him and said “I’ve got a mission for you but it’s a Black Op, do you know what a Black Ops mission is?”
“No,” he replied.
“It’s the kind of mission where you earn medals, but they have to send them to your next of kin,” I explained. “I need you to go find out where Mom is and then report back to me with her position.” David took off running, not even giving me the chance to explain that if he was caught by the enemy I would disavow all knowledge of his mission. “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die.” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Pretty soon we had recruited the younger boy to our side too, and I had David feeding me ammo while Graham did reconnaissance to determine my wife’s hiding place. This was short lived however, as Graham was easily swayed by my wife’s use of biological warfare (candy from his stocking) and his mental faculties were rendered useless. He was powerless to resist her chocolatey charms. I would later perform a Code Red (swirly) on the little one for his disloyalty.

The battle ended when David went out to gather more ammo for me. I heard my wife yell “Hey! You cheater, you can’t do that!” and I knew that he was about to make me proud. Sure enough, he came running around the corner carrying my wife’s gun with my wife in hot pursuit. I jumped up and laid down a barrage of suppressing fire, stopping my wife in her tracks and causing her to duck into the office for cover. I set my gun down and hugged my son. He had gone above and beyond the call of duty. Never had I been so proud of him, and never have I been so glad that I have boys.