This week has been easier than usual. For one thing, Callahan wasn’t with us the first three days of the week. He went with the rest of the 5th grade class to Cal Wood, a camp in the woods used by the school system. He and the rest of the 5th graders stayed in cabins and, according to Callahan, had great meals, seconds and thirds on everything.

Lots of hiking and exploring too. Callahan found a somewhat rare Water Scorpion in one of the ponds there too. He’s always finding critters in the woods. He’s a natural born naturalist.

While he was gone, the house was calmer and quieter, with just the two boys home with us. Callahan’s energy usually gets Jake and Zane really going. I also felt like I was on vacation, having to only take care of the two of them.

The best thing that happened all week was, when the school week was over on Wednesday (a short week this week,) we realized that Jake hadn’t been suspended all week. This was the first week he made it through the whole week since he started back to school three weeks ago. His teacher also told me that Jake was quieter and less disruptive in the class too.

Jake did bring a note home with him when he came home Wednesday. Although he wasn’t suspended all week, he still did get in trouble. Apparently he burped in the cafeteria, not just once but over and over again. When I heard this, I just laughed. The schools are so uptight. What if he had farted?

Thursday and Friday were no school days – but the two older boys were tested for their reading skills. Both did well. I was worried about Callahan because he doesn’t like to read, but he did great.

Jake, of course, reads all the time, from the funnies to books on trucks and space travel and Star Wars to books like Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Calvin and Hobbs.) He’s also an avid game player on Mom’s computer.

Zane went to school all week, although he has had a cough. As the boys get older, they can better deal with coughs and other viral invasions. When Zane was younger, if he started coughing, he would always get really sick, scary sick. He was even hospitalized once with pneumonia.

So was Callahan, when he was younger. We almost lost him. He could hardly breathe. I saw that he wasn’t well that morning and called Doctor Weber, who, thank god, was in his office, although it was a Saturday. He took one look at Callahan and told us to rush him to the hospital. We did, and he was in there for five days. It’s scary being a parent.

Then there’s Jake. He has Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy. He’s in serious trouble, not expected to walk in a few more years, not expected to live much past 30. And he hardly ever gets sick. He’s always warm too, sleeps without a blanket over him all winter. And he sure doesn’t buy into the standard MD prognosis. He still walks, runs, jumps, hops, and almost leaps up the stairs here at home. He’s an amazing kid.

He can be quite depressed too. He knows what’s coming. His depression comes out mostly in anger or in expectations that he won’t get what he wants or sometimes just in not liking the world around him. “This foods tastes bad,” as he gulps it down. “This toy is broken. I might as well throw it away,” as he fixes it. “This is a bad movie,” as he watches it to the end.

Jake’s very good with his hands. He’s really good with all his many transformers. He likes all kinds of cars and trucks. He probably has a hundred or more. When he’s not playing games on the computer, he’s looking up various toys and seeing their larger prototypes. He knows the make and model and year made of all the cars and trucks we see on the road.

I have noticed something really interesting about Zane. He is only four, although soon to be five. I watch him as he decides to watch one of our DVDs. First he selects one, takes it carefully out of its case, turns on the DVD player and the TV, opens the disc drawer, sets the DVD in, shuts the drawer, uses the remote to start the movie, selecting what he wants to watch when the DVD asks for his selection. He’s like this with everything. He acts like he’s at least twice his age.

His brothers couldn’t do any of this when they were his age. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it said about younger brothers – and I have heard a lot said about them – but if Zane is any indication, they certainly grow up quicker.

I really don’t like having to nag at my boys, although folks tell me that it’s part of being a parent. I have never liked to tell another person what to do.

When I was an officer in the Air Force, I lived off the base in town. I lived with two enlisted men. I didn’t like most of the officers I know. They thought they were special. They weren’t. Even as an officer, I didn’t like to give orders, to tell others what to do. In fact, I refused to do so.

Most of the time, I didn’t have to tell Jonathan or Ariana what to do, maybe because each of them was the only kid I was raising at the time.

As a therapist, I have always focused on showing the client how to become his or her own therapist. Then they could heal themselves without my help, without me telling them what to do.
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I certainly don’t want anyone to tell me what to do either. I wrote a letter once to Jonathan when he was a boy and I couldn’t be with him for his birthday. The relevant part of the original, written in the mountains above Yosemite Valley went something like this:

There is no one who can tell me what to do. There is no one I can tell what to do. When I know this, I am free. When you know this, you are free too.

Everyone is doing the best he or she can. Everyone is trying to be a good person. When I know this, I am free. When you know this, you are free too.

I don’t need government. You don’t need government either. Government is telling people what to do. You and I don’t need to be told what to do. You and I don’t need to tell others what to do. Freedom and government don’t go together.

Be free!

I’ve written about the positive sides of parenting and how I feel blessed being the dad of my three young boys. But there is another side to parenting, one that I hesitate to share. However, I believe it is one that needs to be shared.
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The boys are always fighting. And it’s always the other boy who started it. They never really hurt each other, but they cry a lot – especially the two younger boys. Callahan’s too old to cry. He just gets angry and hurts back.

They argue constantly too. Most arguments include the word, “mine,” usually yelled loudly and with a lot of anger behind it. They also always argue as to who started the fight they had just gotten into.

They tell on each other constantly too – “mom, Callahan broke my toy” or “Zane spilled my water” or “Jake is naked,” God knows what else. Sometimes it’s not even true. They just want to get the other kid in trouble,

And then there are the arguments between the kids and us. These occur mostly when they don’t do what we ask them to do – like getting ready for bed or stopping the yelling or the fighting.

We have to tell Jake to stop screaming several times a day. He’s emotionally out of control because of the steroids he’s taking (without the steroids, he would already be in a wheel chair.) His yelling is very loud and there’s a lot of it. He also wakes up several times most nights, screaming from bad dreams.

I can’t believe I’m able to deal with it all. The noise in general is incredibly loud and disconcerting. I often wonder who is being killed or whose limb is being sawed off. And they yell at Aspen and me too, mostly for telling them to do something they don’t want to do.

There hasn’t been a lot of lying and stealing. Although Aspen discovered that several of her precious rings (her anniversary ring for one) were gone. And they seldom tell the truth, about who did what or even what their homework really is. On one level, we are living with people we can’t trust.

Every Monday through Thursday, Callahan has homework, and almost every one of those days, we have to nag Callahan into doing his homework. I’ve come to dread Monday through Thursday afternoons because of this.

Another thing that Callahan does is to keep everyone up when he can’t go to sleep. This happens at least once a week. Sometimes he keeps us all up until midnight or later. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s doing this. He must think, “If I can’t sleep, why should anyone else?”
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But when Callahan held my hand for hours in the tent on our overnighter last month, or when Zane surprised me with a big kiss and a “I love you” last night, or when Jake laughed when we were wrestling earlier today, then I know all the darkness of parenting is worth it – worth all their anger and fighting and arguing and yelling and lying and more.

They’re just boys being boys. They are really awesome, in terms of where they are at in their lives – further along than I was at their age. We all start out selfish and greedy and dishonest, with no thoughts of anyone but ourselves. And most of us turn out okay. They will too.

I remember when Aspen and I were living in Tucson and Callahan was still in her belly. I remember sitting outside the house on the front porch, looking up at the sky, watching father Jupiter cross the night sky. I felt really blessed then. And I’m still blessed now, what with my three boys.
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I’m flowing more easily with the school’s weird schedule this year. It’s back to “early to bed and early to rise” for me now.

But tonight, I should be going to sleep right now, but I just smoked (I’m medical) and it woke my creative side. “Stay with it,” Ariana would say, did say earlier today. Actually, I am in bed now, with the lights turned down low. I’m writing on a small note pad. Sometimes, when I do this, I can barely read my writing the next morning.

Maybe I’m starting to write a new book now, one about my many blessings, about my wife, my three boys, and my daughter Ariana. It would be another Wanderer book, The Blessings of Wanderer perhaps.
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Callahan is back into skateboarding. He started this afternoon at the skate park. He skated better than ever. He showed a lot more confidence than before. Ric, his skating teacher, said that Callahan had taken it up to a new level, a small but definite quantum leap.

Callahan’s a member of the skate club at the YMCA. We’re all members there. Aspen and I lift weights there, and she and Callahan are in a Karate class. They’ve both earned their purple belts a while ago and are ready to move up a notch next month.

Jake was suspended from school today, and tomorrow too. He got into a fight with another boy on the playground earlier today. The schools today are so uptight. Besides being fearful of boys fighting, they have gotten rid of all the teetter-totters and those little merry-go-rounds. The schools have forgotten that little boys like to be daring, like to take risks and have adventures.

Jake’s friend at school was asking him earlier today, before he was suspended, about his enlarged calves. His friend told him that they looked unusual. They are for most of us perhaps, but for kids with MD, they are quite usual, being one of the first visible signs of the disease. Jake was upset by this. He didn’t want to hear his friend focus upon his unusual calves.

We went with Zane to his school this morning. He’s going to Head Start. It doesn’t start for a week, but he got to meet his new teacher. And Aspen got to fill out more paperwork for the next year. Always paperwork. While we were there, he was shy in a cute way. Both of his friends from last year have moved away. He’ll have to make new friends. He will. Zane blesses all of us with his innocence, his fierceness, and his incredible love.

Later, when we were all home for the evening, the boys, anticipating Halloween perhaps, got out their old masks, their Nerf guns and their light sabers. They costumed up and went running around in the backyard, yelling and having a great time, until I realized it was way past bedtime for a school night. They didn’t want to come in, of course, but eventually they did. They don’t like the school schedule anymore than I do.