Adventures with two...: The Jeep

A post by Daddy!!

To paraphrase Elaine Benes, the male body is no thing of beauty. It’s made for gettin’ around – like a Jeep. After a coupla days with this little fella, I’ve come up with no better term to describe him than “Jeep”. The kid bounces around like a pinball, with no regard for life or limb (his own or those of others), and all the while smiling and laughing like a damn fool. Spills and wipeouts that would have Em bawling and requiring a minimum of 3 Elmo band-aids and 5 “Miyagi’s” don’t even register with this kid. I swear to God, he’s like the terminator crossed with the 4th stooge. We’ve already accepted the fact that there will likely be multiple trips to the ER – we’re just crossing our fingers that we can at least make it back to the States before the first.

For those of you who know Em, you know that this is not exactly her style, to put it mildly. So there have been a few ups and downs. At times she is absolutely disgusted and horrified with his displays of unbridled primal behavior – imagine Strawberry Shortcake sitting in the front row of WrestleMania. In the long run, I really think it will be good for her, having a rambunctious little brother to toughen her up a bit. But for now, his maniacal fits of exuberance invariably end with her slightly over-dramatized and tearful pleas to “give Eli a timeout” or to simply “get him away from me”. So our new family dynamic has become a balance between trying to tell a 19-month old Jeep to simmer down and telling a 3-year old Princess to grow up. Needless to say, we’re 0-for-2 at this point …

All that being said, there are definitely times when Em cherishes her new role as big sis. At least a dozen times each day she instructs mom and dad to “tell Eli to watch his big sister (fill in the blank – peel her own banana, do a somersault, take off her jammies by herself…” And it is obvious that little brother adores his big sis, and could just eat her up (literally). And Mom and Dad are doin well, too – adjusting to the new lifestyle, and for the most part getting a big kick out of it. We’re traveling with 3 families who are well beyond our paltry 2-kid stable – so that keeps us pretty grounded and aware of the reality that this really ain’t so crazy after all.

Oh yeah – we went to the Guangzhou Safari Park yesterday. Gotta be one of the best zoos around. Unfortunately (or fortunately, from a memorable-event standpoint) we got stuck in an absolute monsoon rain while we were there. At this very moment, there are no doubt countless families across Guangdong Province telling their friends and families about the crazy herd of white folks with Chinese kids running around in the pouring rain without even the good sense to open up a stinking umbrella. And I’m proud to say we were part of that crazy herd …