Thursday – Story Books and Hair Styles
Jun. 10th, 2010 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
My husband, Jeff, is very good at the whole parenting thing. In fact, he’s generally better at it than I am. Since our son was an infant, I have had to grudgingly admit that Jeff is a much better mother than I am. For awhile, I held an edge in the story-reading department, until Sweet Pea went through a phase where he insisted his father read the stories on the nights he was home. At first, he was a bit awkward, but after a few weeks he got pretty good at it. After a few months, he was very good at it, until he was even better than me (and I am good, darn it).
I suppose you know what a bad story-reader sounds like: monotone, dry, dull. A bad story reader can read the most interesting text in the world and make it sound like the instruction manual that came with your DVD player. Jeff is actually very confident in his story-reading abilities now, and even a little cocky. The Christmas before last, the Morning Edition show on NPR did a series of features on families and their holiday traditions. One family they featured made a point of reading The Night before Christmas together as a family out loud in the days leading up to Christmas.
“Did you hear that guy on NPR this morning, reading The Night before Christmas?” Jeff asked me later that day. “He was horrible! He didn’t put any tone or inflection into it at all. And they said they do this every year! His kids were how old?”
“I think they said 11 and 13,” I said.
“Yeah, so he’s been reading that damn story for over a decade and he still sounds bored out of his mind when he does it. How are the kids supposed to find it interesting if he doesn’t put anything into it? What a dick.”
“Not all dads can be as cool as you, Sweetie. Some kids’ dads are dicks. It’s just a fact of life.”
“No kidding. I feel sorry for them.”
Our son gets to pick what stories he will hear at bedtime. I love it when he picks Green Eggs and Ham by the late, great Dr. Seuss, because Jeff and I can read that one together as a pair. I get to read the part of Sam-I-Am, since I am short and like to try new and interesting things, and Jeff reads the part of tall, dour character that does not want to try green eggs and ham until he finally does just so he can make Sam-I-Am shut up and go away. Jeff is tall and gets very dour when I try to talk him into eating at a restaurant we’ve never tried before, or going to some sort of social event with people he’s never met before. The roles in the story book are kind of a natural fit for both of us.
There is one area in parenting our son where I lord over Jeff and he will never be able to match my prowess: parting our son’s hair. Jeff can’t do it at all. Sweet Pea inherited my fine, straight hair. Jeff’s hair is thick, course, and curly. When he goes too long without a haircut, he starts to look like the wild man from Borneo. His hair doesn’t grow down, it grows out into that unfortunate look I call “white guy fro.” His hair does not part. He brushes it back into waves and calls it good. It never occurred to me that he might not know how to part hair until the day I asked him to comb our son’s hair.
“You can’t just put it all going in one direction like that,” I told my husband, “You have to part it on the side.”
“I don’t know how.”
“What do you mean you don’t know how? You make a little line, and you make all the hair on one side go in one direction, and all the hair on the other side go in the other direction. It’s not that hard.”
He made an attempt at rearranging the hair on our little boys head and then took a step back.
“How’s that look?”
I inspected his efforts. I tried to be gentle with my assessment. “I said a line. I’m not sure what that is, but it’s not a line. Hand me the comb.” I combed Sweet Pea’s hair and made a neat little part to one side, and that was that. I haven’t asked Jeff to fix Sweet Pea’s hair since; it looks better if he doesn’t even bother.
I’m not complaining about this, though. At least there is one thing I’m better at than my husband.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
My husband, Jeff, is very good at the whole parenting thing. In fact, he’s generally better at it than I am. Since our son was an infant, I have had to grudgingly admit that Jeff is a much better mother than I am. For awhile, I held an edge in the story-reading department, until Sweet Pea went through a phase where he insisted his father read the stories on the nights he was home. At first, he was a bit awkward, but after a few weeks he got pretty good at it. After a few months, he was very good at it, until he was even better than me (and I am good, darn it).
I suppose you know what a bad story-reader sounds like: monotone, dry, dull. A bad story reader can read the most interesting text in the world and make it sound like the instruction manual that came with your DVD player. Jeff is actually very confident in his story-reading abilities now, and even a little cocky. The Christmas before last, the Morning Edition show on NPR did a series of features on families and their holiday traditions. One family they featured made a point of reading The Night before Christmas together as a family out loud in the days leading up to Christmas.
“Did you hear that guy on NPR this morning, reading The Night before Christmas?” Jeff asked me later that day. “He was horrible! He didn’t put any tone or inflection into it at all. And they said they do this every year! His kids were how old?”
“I think they said 11 and 13,” I said.
“Yeah, so he’s been reading that damn story for over a decade and he still sounds bored out of his mind when he does it. How are the kids supposed to find it interesting if he doesn’t put anything into it? What a dick.”
“Not all dads can be as cool as you, Sweetie. Some kids’ dads are dicks. It’s just a fact of life.”
“No kidding. I feel sorry for them.”
Our son gets to pick what stories he will hear at bedtime. I love it when he picks Green Eggs and Ham by the late, great Dr. Seuss, because Jeff and I can read that one together as a pair. I get to read the part of Sam-I-Am, since I am short and like to try new and interesting things, and Jeff reads the part of tall, dour character that does not want to try green eggs and ham until he finally does just so he can make Sam-I-Am shut up and go away. Jeff is tall and gets very dour when I try to talk him into eating at a restaurant we’ve never tried before, or going to some sort of social event with people he’s never met before. The roles in the story book are kind of a natural fit for both of us.
There is one area in parenting our son where I lord over Jeff and he will never be able to match my prowess: parting our son’s hair. Jeff can’t do it at all. Sweet Pea inherited my fine, straight hair. Jeff’s hair is thick, course, and curly. When he goes too long without a haircut, he starts to look like the wild man from Borneo. His hair doesn’t grow down, it grows out into that unfortunate look I call “white guy fro.” His hair does not part. He brushes it back into waves and calls it good. It never occurred to me that he might not know how to part hair until the day I asked him to comb our son’s hair.
“You can’t just put it all going in one direction like that,” I told my husband, “You have to part it on the side.”
“I don’t know how.”
“What do you mean you don’t know how? You make a little line, and you make all the hair on one side go in one direction, and all the hair on the other side go in the other direction. It’s not that hard.”
He made an attempt at rearranging the hair on our little boys head and then took a step back.
“How’s that look?”
I inspected his efforts. I tried to be gentle with my assessment. “I said a line. I’m not sure what that is, but it’s not a line. Hand me the comb.” I combed Sweet Pea’s hair and made a neat little part to one side, and that was that. I haven’t asked Jeff to fix Sweet Pea’s hair since; it looks better if he doesn’t even bother.
I’m not complaining about this, though. At least there is one thing I’m better at than my husband.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-19 12:33 am (UTC)White guy fros, though, have got to go.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-17 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-19 12:34 am (UTC)Apparently, too hard. :P
no subject
Date: 2010-06-18 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-19 12:36 am (UTC)