Post-school challenges

I have described the challenges that daily face the stay-at-home father. I focused on the challenges involved in morning routines/preparing for school. Yesterday's post-school experience made me realize that I had neglected to cover some of the most pressing challenges that a stay-at-home father will face. These hurdles, as I see them, can be grouped into three loose problem categories: the walk home from school, physical violence between brothers, and psychological violence directed at the parental figure. I will offer some suggestions to overcome the obstacles that I mention.
1. The Walk Home
The walk home from school seems an easy-enough prospect. One might guess that my boys, who love their school, would hold on to the happiness that they experienced playing with friends during the day and transpose it onto our walk home. Thus making our brief journey pleasant and care-free. Although this has happened, it usually doesn't. The first road block to my perfect walk-home is well represented by my boys' reticence to discuss what they actually did at school. So often has my "what did you do in school today?" query been rebuffed by silence that I no longer even ask. Instead, I make statements. Ridiculous statements about what might have happened at school that day. "So, was it tough when that gorilla broke into your class and interrupted your teacher?" I have asked. Or "why didn't anyone play with you today?" (I love that question as an option to replace "who did you play with today?"). I get really creative at times: "did your teacher really throw your classmate through a wall? What did they do to warrant such an extreme reaction?" Perhaps I should revert back to traditional questioning. My line of creative questioning met with some initial success, but has been a dud for quite some time. My older boy, already burdened by my uncoolness, seems less impressed with me with every ridiculous question. "Of course that didn't happen," he frequently storms; this is followed by the silent treatment for the rest of the walk home. I turn to my younger child at this point. He sort of likes my ridiculous questions. The problem is he is a master at meeting something ludicrous with yet more absurdity. He'll respond to "how did you respond to the giraffe's chewing the gym teacher's hair?" by saying, "oh, the ROCKING giraffe. Well, he ate the gym teacher's hair, but I thought it was funny so I hit him on the butt [hitting someone or something on the butt is apparently the funniest thing that a pre-K boy can imagine] and he said, 'you're hot like curry; I want to date you. ROCKING BABY. YEAH." Perhaps this is better than an angry, silent treatment, but it does not yield better results in terms of learning what happened in school. I guess I'll have to work on this.
Another major problem that I frequently encounter during walks home can be summed up as the "happy feet" syndrome. My older boy seems to have so much energy that, as we walk home, he spins, jumps, stutter-steps, and dances. Just watching this makes me tired. I'm doubly tired when I have to consider safety (both my son's- ensuring that he doesn't stutter-step into a car- and pedestrians- ensuring that he doesn't spin into a person, possibly knocking them over. My younger son's version of the happy feet syndrome mostly involves his "happy feet" leading him into other people's property. Clearly, my boys feel that we live in a Communist utopia because they feel that they have the right to traverse every lawn that we encounter. It gets fatiguing constantly reminding them that, in this wonderful world of private property, there are rules. Foremost among them: stay off people's property, don't climb their trees, or don't poke in their flowers (even if you're examining some fascinating bug).
Yet another issue. And this delightful challenge seems to be just emerging like the birth of a star, a star that will be sure to fatigue and irritate. The issue? The throwing of coats, lunch boxes, and back packs. This is casually if aggressively done as we walk. My older boy doesn't merely throw these things. He follows through and painfully drags them on the ground. He has scraped the zipper of coats and detached them, scratched/broken back pack zippers, broken water bottles (tin canteens, really) inside his lunch box, and he has succeeded in finding yet another way to make me feel that, to my boys, my words carry the weight of a feather. Though I have to admit, throwing things can be occasionally fun. We have been known to have the occasional pine-cone fight. On the walk home from school, I am typically to focused on our goal of successfully reaching home to engage in such shenanigans.
2. Physical Violence Between Brothers
The second major impediment to a smooth afternoon, post-school experience concerns physical violence. There was a time, not long ago, when every time I looked at them, my older son was punching, pushing or pinching his younger brother. After a brief moment of peace only made possible by giving my older boy a timeout, making him apologize to his brother, and charging him some G-Bucks, the cycle of violence would continue. This is like, and I'm borrowing a phrase of my father's, watching the same bad movie over and over. The brother on brother violence in my house remains unabated, but there has been a significant change. Now, my younger boy is on the attack. He's a crafty one and has realized that even if his constant assaults on his older brother are overwhelmingly unsuccessful, he can still win. This victory occurs when his brother responds with force and gets in trouble. "But he started it," my older boy, now the aggrieved party, indignantly shouts from his time-out. My younger son will often have a small smile on his face upon hearing this. It is often a cruel world for the younger brother, and he's got to make his way any way he can.
3. Psychological Violence: I'M HUNGRY
The final challenge that I will discuss today is, by far, the biggest challenge for me. It involves psychological warfare. In this, my boys work in concert. Their goal: to drive me mad. The main culprit here (I said he was crafty) is my youngest boy. His weapon is a simple request. His completely maddening, yet fool-proof method of attack consists of two simple words: "I'm hungry." When I pick my younger boy up from his class after school, he usually gives me an adorable smile and says, "daddy" (this sounds really cute, and it is, but I now wonder if it isn't part of his master plan to soften me up with loving feelings before he assails me). The next words he says, and this happens every single day, are "I'm hungry." I'm resourceful and people have a soft-spot for stay-at-home fathers, so I am usually successful at getting my boy a quick post-school snack. This usually consists of graham crackers or saltines given me by teachers (although just yesterday, a mother handed me a fruit leather to give to my boy; she was probably thinking someone ought to take me to parenting school). My son's pre-K teacher has shown me a zip-lock bag full of snacks that she keeps for emergencies. My son and I are that emergency EVERY DAY. Still, she is super-gracious about it and doesn't make me feel bad. What kills me is that my boy has figured out that his post-school snack at school is easy for me to get. He doesn't want me to have it too easy. So, the "I'm hungry" refrain begins again as we start to walk home. At first, I am a wall of psychological strength. But my son's "I'm hungry" is the diamond-headed drill that can cut through even the strongest metal. He has perfected the tone of his plea so as to make it viciously effective. I literally cannot block it out. It is my Kryptonite. "I'm hungry," he says as we walk through the front door of our house. His tone is so perfectly pathetic, so maniacally meek, so greatly grating, so unending, so steady in its delivery, so powerful in its results. Much like the tide, there is no stopping it. Once the "I'm hungry" mantra has begun, there is only one conclusion. He will get a snack. The problem is that his plea for food will begin anew an hour after the snack. He gets another snack (because, let's face it, I'm weak), and then he has no room for supper. I have observed friends deal with a similar phenomenon. They seem to handle it with more grace. "I only offer healthy choices like carrots or cucumbers," one friend said to me recently, "they can take it or leave it." If only I was so strong. Perhaps I should wear head-phones that play soothing ocean waves upon entering the house, then my son's pleas would fall on deaf ears. He might turn up the pressure, increasing the desperation of his cries for food, but all I would hear is the wish-wash of ocean waves.
The walk home, the violence between brothers, and the psychological violence visited upon me by my children can be an impediment to the stay-at-home father's bliss. Hopefully, learning of the difficulties that I face can better prepare my readers for potential pit-falls that await them. The greatest stabilizing factor that will prevent the stay-at-home parent's going insane is a very simple one. Love your kids. If that love is a given, then the crazy-making things that kids do will not make you so crazy.