My Three Sons

You promised us McDonalds, dad!

Having children is more than just a privilege—it’s a huge responsibility.

Not only do you have to feed and clothe and care for a child, you also have to provide for that child’s upbringing and education.  It’s a lifelong process, and for some it can seem daunting.

With my boys, I started early.

High Five.  Fist Bump.  Gun Show.

As soon as I could get them to slap the palm of my hand, I would cheer and give them treats and tell them how smart and clever they were.  I’d also start to trigger a Pavlovian response by calling out, “Five!  Five!”  Once they had that down, which for my clever, smart and handsome boys wasn’t long, I quickly added in the Fist Bump.  This was easy, because they already enjoyed all the attention from the High Five.

Making the Fist Bump explode gave them giggles.  Normally, I wouldn’t encourage such behavior, but they had worked so well on the High Five, I let them have this one.

Do not attempt at home.

Now, the Gun Show, that was the hard part.  It’s not just the raising of the arms to show off their impressive biceps, but also giving the shine of saying, “Free tickets!”  Unfortunately “free” and “three” sound nearly the same.  Also, most of their young lives are spent counting things to learn numbers.  But a near success is better than outright failure.

Now, I’ve moved on to bigger and better things—Star Trek dialogue.  When we’re in my truck, they’ll ask me to “go turbo” to which I respond, “She’ll fly apart!”  They cheerfully yell back at me, “Fly her apart then!”

Most recently, I’ve started doing a bit of a scene from John Cusack’s seminal Say Anything:

Me: Hey my man, can I borrow twenty dollars from you?

Son: No my man.  You still owe me from last week!

This works with the biggest and the middle sons.  My youngest, for some reason, thinks he is extremely clever when the dialogue goes like this:

Me: Hey my man, can I borrow twenty dollars from you?

Son: Yes!

I’m going to hold him to that.  He now owes me $1,420.