Wrinkled Noses

They say that 90% of communication is non-verbal. Or is it 75%? I’m not a numbers guy so I don’t really care what the exact statistic is and, since you can’t see my face right now, you really don’t know whether I mean that or not. Regardless, no one can argue with the premise that body language plays an important role in communication. 

That's why I don’t like the Facebooking and Twittering world. Short pithy statements without the benefit of facial expressions and body language lead to miscommunication. At least with a blog, I can take a few minutes to support my arguments and emotions rather than just throwing a stupid meaningless statement like “Had a bad day” on Facebook hoping for someone to “like” it so that I can feel like somebody out there in cyberspace likes that fact that I had a bad day thus making me feel loved and cared for.  If you can’t give me body language, then at least have the courage to give me a thought-out explanation rather than making me fish it out of you by asking probing questions in the very public arena of the internet. 

Fortunately, as a parent of young children, kids don’t communicate with us through text messages and annoying social networking posts. I realize that as they age, my innocent children will turn into teenagers and try to drag me into an e-lationship, but for now, I am totally digging the face-to-face old school parenting style. I love watching their faces as they relive the scattered moments of each day. 

My wife and I frequently find ourselves laughing at one of the kids. It’s not just the story he or she is telling, but the facial expressions that go with it. I can’t even begin to capture Justin’s four-year-old face as he asks countless questions that simultaneously crack us up and annoy us to tears. And Cami’s six-year-old inquisitions are accompanied by the most complex assortment of facial cues known to man, but the one that has really been popping up lately is on the face of Maddie. 

At eight years old, Maddie Rae has learned to wrinkle her nose at me. This is among the cuter things a lightly-freckled nose can do and it carries a message that she hasn’t conveyed before. She usually gives me the wrinkle after one of the kids asks an unaswerable question such as, “How many elephants are there in Asia?” When presented with such a question, I do what any good father would do. I lie. “There are 7,031 elephants in Asia,” I would begin. Then I would follow it up with further false facts just to make it plainly obvious to most people that I have no idea what I am talking about. “Until last Saturday when a hunter named Bob illegally poached one for its tusks just after a female elephant in the Vietnamese jungle gave birth to twins. Now there at 7,032.”

The younger kids usually enjoy the story and half believe what I say, but Maddie has taken to giving me the wrinkle. She looks right at me and squinches up her little pug nose and conveys a wordless message: You’re bluffing again, Dad and I totally know it! For some reason I find that look amusing and it makes me want to tell more stories just so I can see it again. 

I suppose that someday when she is a teenager and she gives me the wrinkle right after I tell her that a particular boy is a puny excuse for a real man the conversation will have to turn serious, but for now, its a fun form of silent communication between a dad and his little girl and I intend to enjoy it while I can. 

Sunday Afternoon Naps

Our house is only one story...and it has a lot of tile. Those are two very important details when you have five children. For those of you who don’t yet get it, let me explain. Sound waves tend to bounce of hard surfaces more than they bounce of off soft surfaces. Get it now? If you are still struggling, perhaps science isn’t your thing. Maybe math is so I’ll try it this way. Noisy kids + tile floors + no upstairs to hide in = a very poor napping environment. 

As I write this I can hear a door repeatedly slamming in an experimental fashion, a baby laughing as another sibling tickles her, and somehow a scooter got into the house and is being ridden up and down the noise-amplifying tile. 

Fortunately the youngest of the five fell asleep in the car on the way home from church today so her nap was easy. We bought a car seat that reclines, pulled the car into the garage, covered her with a little Thomas the Tank Engine blanket and said good night. She slept blissfully for an hour untouched by the commotion in the house. 

With the baby asleep, Mom and Dad thought we could capitalize on the situation. Did I mention that we had a lot of tile? Did I mention that the tile actually extends down the hall and into our bedroom before carpet takes over? Did I mention the size of the gap under the door after we replaced the old carpet with tile? Remember the math problem from earlier? Now back to the story. 

So with the baby sleeping in the car and the big kids listening for her to wake up, we tried to catch a quick cat nap. Why we tried this on the day Justin got a new remote control car as a Christmas gift from his Sunday school teacher I’ll never know. Within minutes, the dog decided she was lonely and started barking so the kids would come out and play with her. At the same time the remote control car was zipping up and down the tile hallway outside our bedroom. Fortunately my wife and I were in good moods and were able to salt our frustration with a bit of a chuckle as we contemplated the futility of what we were trying to accomplish. With a good natured smile, I went out into the hall and politely asked the offending party to take the car outside and chase the lonely dog with it. He complied and immediately zoomed the car around the yard with the dog chasing it until it was right outside the sliding glass door of our bedroom and a happy tail was joyously thumping on the window. 

Somehow we managed to close our eyes for a few minutes before we heard the sound of a ten-year-old lugging a now awake and semi-happy one-year-old out of the car. Praying that they bigs would be able to keep the littles happy we tried to stay asleep. Predictably, it didn’t take long for the littlest little to latch on to the door knob of our bedroom, walk in, give us both a quick and amazingly silent-but-still-deadly look-over and leave. With the door wide open. 

“Party’s over,” was all I could say to the tired mommy next to me. “I don’t even know why I try this,” she replied back to me as we both rolled out of bed. No wonder we so longingly look forward to bedtime each night. At least then the house is quiet for up to an hour at a time.