Adventures Of Fatherhood

Adventures Of Fatherhood
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In a house full of males, no food should ever be left unattended.

In my home where the men hold a 4:1 advantage (including the dog) over poor Pam, food has been known to disappear quite often.

Food can be stolen off unattended plates at any time, and I learned that firsthand the other night when it was just me and Carson at home.

With Pam and Beckett out, Carson and I were eating together. After he finished, he asked to be excused before I was done. Since it was just us, I saw no problem with it. At one point, I got a work call that distracted my attention.

When I returned to my plate, I noticed it was missing along with the pork and watermelon that I left behind. I quickly found the plate in the sink with nothing with nothing but two watermelon rinds and a pork chop bone on it. When I got to Carson, he gave me the universal sign for “what?,” doing his best to act like he knew nothing of what he had done. He then pointed to the dog. I then called him a liar and wiped the watermelon evidence off his chin.

There is something about the male psyche when it comes to food. Those of us a little older have the ability to control our urges, but my kids do not. That’s why they are often reaching and trying to grab food on their parents’ plates. It appears their hunger gets in the way of their manners quite often.

That’s why whenever we drive back a Dunkin’ Donuts a chant starts for munchkins. That’s why Beckett has to often be reminded he can’t just take his spoon and grab food off my plate while I am talking. Oddly enough, this usually happens when peas are involved. He loves them.

While not much for the vegetables, Carson likes to try new foods. He’s always the first to examine what someone is eating. Whenever a plate is sat down on the table, he usually stops what he is doing to see what’s being had. He usually wants a bite or two, of course.

Bailey, the black Lab of the house, has the same urges and on more than one occasion has grabbed food out of the kids’ hands. Most recently Carson was holding a chicken finger in one hand while drinking juice out of the other. Bailey was able to knock the chicken out of his hand to the floor and run off with it. Indeed, no food is safe in our house.

This hunger extreme is best on display at the beach. I was reminded last weekend the same general approach to food — never leave it unattended — must be followed.

As is probably the case with most parents of young, active kids, there is little time to actually sit down on the beach for us parents. That’s why I often eat standing up. At one point on Saturday, I mistakenly set down a half-eaten piece of pizza on a cooler while I went to stop a body board from going in the ocean. When I returned a minute later, the pizza slice was gone.

I looked around to see if it had fallen in the sand and quickly concluded someone must have tossed it thinking it was trash. I just went in for a new slice.

Sometime later in the day, however, I realized who it was when Carson was bending over playing in the sand. Sticking out of his bathing suit pocket was the remnants of pizza crust, which he apparently was hanging on to for a snack latter. In this case, it looks like he was trying to conceal the evidence as well.

When I pulled the crust out of his pocket, he gave me the sign for, “what?”

Every beach day is different and sometimes it’s due to the folks near you.

On Saturday, when we got to the beach, a group of guys was working hard digging out something huge. For hours, we saw the men working and wondered what they were up to but never asked.

Eventually, Beckett noticed the large effort and approached the group. Next thing we know he’s in this huge hole helping. It didn’t take long for him to bore of that, however.

When he returned to our area, he said they were building a pong table, as in beer pong table, but they were not drinking. They were doing it for the sport of it or at least that’s what we told the kids.

They had built a nice flat surface to serve as the table with round holes to hold the cups, which did not have any alcohol, by the way. The area around the table was deep enough for adults to stand up directly to the makeshift table, which came to their waists.

Soon enough our group of six kids invaded and the guys let the kids join in and in some cases allow two boys — Carson and Beckett — to somewhat wreck their hard work. The young guys were great sports about it.

The kids moved on soon enough, giving these guys their space back once again. A couple hours later, after the guys abandoned their creation, which just so happened to provide a wonderful jumping area that kept the kids entertained for about a half hour.