The Aviator

So, yeah. It's been a heckuva long time hasn't it?

I had a really good experience at the airport last week and I figured that was a good reason to get The Creeping Kid back to creeping. It helps that Kiernan has not only given me permission to keep writing about him and what's going on with him, which was a very important consideration to me, but has explicitly encouraged me to start up the blog again. Well...okay then. 

Anyway, as I was saying, I had a really good experience at the airport last week. At the airport? You ask? I know...right?

It was a tough night for me, as I was taking my son there for his first flight alone. Of course this made it a tough night for both of us. He's eleven now--at least until the end of this month--and it was a super short flight, so it shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but I was nervous about it, and he was scared. I had to walk the line between being honest about also being scared, and being clear that I thought everything was going to be okay in order for him to feel calm and safe.

Lucky for the both of us, he was flying out of the smaller airport in our area, where the folks are pretty cool, and the people we dealt with from the airline--Southwest--were freaking awesome.

In particular the woman who was the Ground Operations representative at the gate. Her name was Valerie, and she was so good to us.

When it was time to board, she took Kiernan onto the plane first.

At first I was nervous about her. If you look at the picture above, Kiernan has a frog on his head. It's okay to stare; he knows it's there. That is his frog, Sapphire. The name is pronounced, "Saff-eye-yeah!" in case you were wondering. And Sapphire was the one animal he wanted to take on the plane with him. I mean, given that he couldn't take his dog Honey on the plane with him.

Photo Credit: Kiernan Murawski

Kiernan was concerned about the flight, as I said above, and to relieve some of that tension we started playing a game of catch, using Sapphire, who is kind of weighted like a beanbag. Imagine a big hacky sack and you'll get the idea. So we were there in the entry/exit area of the gate and tossing this frog back and forth to each other and this woman who works Ground Ops comes up to us and says that folks are about to be coming off the plane, so...

She was nice about it and all. I was just worried we were in trouble.

We weren't. People had been super cool with us so far. At the ticket counter when I showed my form to escort my Unaccompanied Minor. At security. At the check-in desk at the gate. All along everyone telling us he'd be first on the plane, and I'd need to stay there until the plane took off. All along everyone being super helpful and nice.

After the arriving plane's passengers all went through, Valerie returned to us and let us know that she'd be taking Kiernan on first, before any pre-boarding passengers. We stood waiting patiently until she came back to get him and I gave him a big hug and tried to be as strong as possible.

As he went through the door--I should note that this is the airport in Burbank, and you walk out the door across the tarmac to the plane and climb those rolling stairs to board; you don't go down those vacuum-cleaner tubes like at bigger airports--I started to tear up, as is my wont. The dude waiting to get on the plane in front of me tried to reassure me. "I've put my kids on a few flights. This is a short one. He'll be fine. I know it's hard putting your eleven-year old on a plane alone, but he'll be fine."

"Thank you," I said. I considered making small talk with him by way of thanks, but I realized I could not talk at that moment and moved away to find a place to sit down.

Valerie came back from walking Kiernan onto the plane and told me he was fine. She'd seated him on the side of the plane that would enable him to see me when I went to the windows. The boarding area was still packed with passengers--it was obviously going to be a full flight--so I waited for them to clear before I went to look out. Valerie returned a few minutes later and handed me some tissues, saying, "I think you had a runny nose, right?"

It was a sweet gesture.

I watched the plane through the window until the boarding area emptied, holding my hands up to block out the inside lights that were so bright and making it almost impossible to see out of the tinted glass. As I tried to see where he was on the plane, I heard, "Dad? Hey Dad!"

Confused, I looked up in the now empty boarding area. It was Valerie calling me over to the open door through which the passengers had just exited.

"Come over here and watch from here. When the plane pulls out you'll be able to see him."

She propped the door open and disappeared for a moment, reappearing with a cup of coffee for herself. "You'll be able to see him from here," she said. "If they pull out that way." She indicated the direction. "They don't always, but they usually do. And he's on this side of the plane."

We stood at the open door and she talked about her kids and asked me questions about mine. She told me that when the pilot waved, that meant everything was "Golden" and they were ready to go. The pilot waved and she waved back. The plane pulled out--or, rather, that tow-truck thing pushed it out--and she told me my boy was three seats back on the side of the plane facing us since the plane had turned out in the right direction. And there he was, waving at me. We waved back from the gate.

The plane taxied out of view. I still needed to wait until it actually took off though, because he's an unaccompanied minor and you have to wait until the plane is in the air. Every person you go through at the airport tells you that, as if leaving before the plane that's carrying your kid away for the first time could even remotely be an option. Valerie talked to the other Ground Op dude, who was working at the monitor next to the door, and asked which gate she had to report to next.

"Gate 4," he replied.

She looked at her watch. "I've got time to take him out front." The board op dude nodded.

"You need to stay until the plane takes off," she said again, as we walked. "Technically we should wait inside for that. But I'm going to take you to the best view of that."

She walked me out to the front of the airport and pointed to an area where we could sit down and wait and talk. It wasn't a bench or anything. It was just one of those planters in front of the airport, on the sidewalk where folks can pull up to drop people off for departing flights. We sat down and she took off her walky-talky, which she said would let her know if the plane wasn't leaving, and explained yet again that I needed to stay until the plane took off because sometimes people freak out on the runway, or whatever, and the plane has to return to the gate. I assured her I was in no hurry to leave and she smiled.

We talked about kids and how fast they grow up. One of her kids is two-years old, and one is seven months old. She cannot fathom, already, how you deal with them getting older so fast. An airport cop came by and she asked him about his newly born daughter. He took out his phone and called up a picture, then turned the phone to us, showing us a tiny little girl sitting on a couch next to an enormous pumpkin.

"You look after that girl, now!" Valerie said. He smiled and resumed his patrol.

A few moments later, the sound of an airplane. "Here it is," she said, pointing over the main terminal. And up over the airport leapt the Southwest plane. Blue and red and yellow winging off into the sky, delivering my boy to his mother.

"How do you know it's his?" I asked, stupidly.

She gave me a look. "I know."

I watched his plane go off into the night sky, out of sight, and tried again to hold back tears.

We got up.

She patted me on the shoulder and told me, again, that he'd be fine and walked on to her next assignment.

"Wait," I called after her. "What's your name?"

"Valerie."

I would have been such a mess without her.

Sometimes people are awesome.

And yes, He got to his destination less than an hour later, and his mom sent me a picture. Him looking so happy, and Sapphire clearly relieved, clutched to his body.

Picture for This Day

I'm looking for a file and I found this:

Pap-Pap is visiting next month. Can't wait.

The Natural

Many weeks ago Kiernan wanted to throw the ball around. Just a little soft rubber ball we had that we played with around the house. So we squared off to play catch for a bit. I didn't think much of this. We are often athletic. We wrestle around all the time. Jump on the trampoline. Play plenty of soccer. He's really, really good at soccer. He's never really taken to baseball, though, so I didn't think much of throwing the ball around.

Holy cats. Suddenly this boy can catch.

It was one of those moments when you realize your kid has made a leap forward on his own. I don't know how this happened. We've played around plenty. As I said, we're fairly athletic and physical together. But this. This was something else. This was like a leap forward in evolution. Or like a radioactive spider had bitten him.

"Geez, Kiernan," I said, catching the ball as he threw it back. "How did you start catching so well?"

He shrugged and his smile beamed back at me. "I dunno."

A couple weeks later when Pap-Pap was visiting we played catch in the back yard. Pap-Pap acted as a backstop behind Kiernan, lest the ball should go in the new pool Wendy had put up in the back yard. We wouldn't have needed a backstop necessarily since Kiernan is so good at playing catch now, but he was at that point where he wanted me to throw it higher so he could make tougher catches. I totally got this request since whenever I played football or baseball the most fun I had was when I had to make a really tough catch. I mean a dive-and-stretch-out-your-body kind of catch. I always loved those. He is clearly heading in that direction.

Which leads me to football and the picture that heads this entry.

We've never played football together. However, playing catch with him got me to thinking. I don't want him to play football in any sort of league. Not at this age. I don't think it's good for his body and his development. But learning the skills is fun, and this fact, combined with his proficiency in catching and throwing a regular old round ball with me made me decide to buy him a football for Christmas. His only real exposure to the sport has been through watching NFL games with his Grance and Gammy. The only time I've seen him handle a football was in playing keep-away with his friends after school.

So...a football under the Christmas tree. Cool. Then we went outside.

"You stand over there, Dad. Up the hill."

"Okay."

He threw me the ball for the first time.

Perfect spiral.

Oh goodness.

It was just one of those moments. I've always been good at sports, to an extent. I'm really good at the guard position in basketball and the receiver position in football. I've never been that good at throwing a football though. My son is. Wow. Out of nowhere. Wow. I hadn't even gotten into instructing him yet. I'm still working on that. Teaching him how to put his fingers on the laces. Getting him to concentrate every time when he throws the ball. Instructing him how to avoid getting his fingers jammed when catching the ball from me. Those things are happening now. But at that first moment, he just took the ball I'd just given him and threw it perfectly into my hands, twenty feet away and up hill, without even thinking about it.

Look, I'm not saying he's Peyton Manning, or that I even want him to be. I'm just painting a moment. The very first time my boy threw a football it was a perfect spiral. I had nothing to do with that. He just did it.

So...I'm bragging. Yeah. I know I'm bragging. But good lord, I think I have good reason. He threw a perfect spiral on his very first throw!

That's all. I'll talk about golf and baseball later.

Car Master

This is a Buick 8.

At least I think it is.

I don't know. I'm not that good at cars. Or wasn't. I'm getting to be.

There was a time I wasn't good at dinosaurs. I mean I loved them. We all do. And then I got good at them. Because of Kiernan. I used to know five of them. When I was a kid we had five dinosaurs. Now there are hundreds. So many of them. And I'll wager I could now name more dinosaurs than any member of my family save one. Kiernan could easily best me at this. But no one else could. I'm a stone-cold Dinosaur Master now. Because of Kiernan.

Same thing with the Solar System. I didn't know a thing about dwarf planets before I learned them with him. Now I can Haumea with the best of them.

Because of Kiernan.

And here we are at cars.

Tonight I got him in the shower and he asked me to read to him. "No. Not tonight. I just want you to get the sand out of your hair." He went to the beach with his mom and Gammy and Grance two days ago and still we wake up with sand in the sheets. "There's sand in the sheets," he said sleepily yesterday morning. There was a tinge of accusation in the tone. As if I'd loaded the sheets with sand as part of some new program I was trying out.

So he asked me to read to him in the shower and I decided I didn't want to tonight and he said, "Okay. Then will you come in here and talk to me about cars?"

Will you come in here and talk to me about cars.

Good lord. They say certain traits skip a generation. My dad, Kiernan's Pap-Pap, loves cars. He knows them. He can work on them. I don't know cars. All my life my dad has told me about his various cars. Jaguars he's owned that would make a car enthusiast's mouth water. Right now he owns a Morgan. Nothing ever sparked in me. And now my kid is talking years of cars and making lists of cars. He loves them.

Because of me. As it turns out.

"Where did this car thing come from?" He asked me this in the shower, as he cleaned himself and I sat on the floor, talking about cars.

"I think it came from the Slug Bug Game," I replied.

"I think it came from a dog walk, when you pointed out the car logos. You pointed out the symbols."

I beamed. I didn't mean to.

However we got to this point, we are here. This boy is nuts about cars. Wherever we drive, he calls out the car types. If a special car passes us, he makes note of it. When we walk our dog Honey now, he wants to walk farther to streets we have not yet traveled in order to see new cars. When we drive past a car lot that has cool cars in it, he calls it out.

"Dad! We have to go back!"

Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to save that story for another post. To distill it, through that experience Kiernan learned that driving down one of the main streets near our house and scanning the car lots would reap dividends. This lot was for a business that fixes cars after they've been in collisions. There seem to be a lot of places like that along Foothill Boulevard. So on this day Kiernan was keen to go looking at similar places. "Let's go to some more car shacks!"

Alas, putting in the search term "car shacks" doesn't give you much. "Old car shacks" doesn't help, as a bunch of used car lots pop up.  "Classic" in place of "old" helps a bit, and we went tracking down a few of those after a quick trip to the post office.

But first we saw this:

That's an Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce. As we drove away from the post office Kiernan saw this little flash of red and asked me, again, to turn around. This is happening more and more as we drive, and usually I just shrug it off, but today was about cruising around for cars, so I pulled a quick u-turn and pulled into the parking lot. We inspected the car, got super excited, then moved on.

The first lot was a disappointment. First of all, this day was a Sunday, and as it turns out all places that fix cars after collision are closed on Sunday. Who knew?

Still, we saw some pretty cool cars. We wandered into the lot in the picture above. They were mostly working on fairly pedestrian cars, but we found that sweet Buick 8 on the far side of the garage, and had some other finds as well. As we drove away to our next address we saw this:

I caught up with this sweet little car but we could not figure out what it was. Kiernan thinks it was some kind of Morgan. His Pap-Pap has one of those...

We pulled up next to the car to ask the driver what it was, me being keenly aware that folks do this to my dad all the time. They even follow him into his neighborhood when he's out driving. I know this simultaneously pleases and annoys him. So I was sensitive to that. Turns out I needn't have been. The guy was busy talking on the phone and smoking a cigarette. When we pulled up alongside his cool little car he glanced over at our eager faces, annoyance flashing across his face, and turned back to his conversation.

"What a jerk," one of us said.

We continued down Foothill and this caught our attention:

That's a Thunderbird. What year? I couldn't tell you. But look at him there, examining it. I love the way he views the world. There was also a Rolls Royce Silver Spur at this same lot, parked on the street to attract attention:

Yeah, that's just a twenty thousand dollar car, but still. How cool! It isn't the price tag so much as the rarity and coolness. He gets excited about so many cars. A run-down Datsun 280z will go on his list of coolest cars of the day. He doesn't care.

Oh, we keep track of the cars we've seen and discuss which was the coolest of the day. I love that too.

So this was a great day for viewing cars. We drove around a lot and were disappointed by the lots we scouted beforehand, but overall it was great.

Next up? The Petersen Automotive Museum. I'll let you know how it goes.

Research and Development

One of our favorite father/son activities these days is dinosaur printing. I'll explain it, and it won't sound all that exciting, but that's okay. We love it, and both look forward to it. Over the last few days we haven't done it as much, and I find myself missing it. There was a time things like this could get to be something of a chore. There is a certain boredom that can creep in when you get wrapped up in the taxonomic repetition of your kid's latest obsession, even if it is something as cool as dinosaurs. You try to keep your eye-rolling to a minimum, or at least do it when he's turned away, but boredom happens.

I don't feel that boredom anymore. Not about anything we do together. Be it calling out car types on the freeway, or reading the same dog detective book seventy-five times in a row, none of it is tedious anymore. No matter what else is on my mind I'm happy to interrupt my thoughts to concentrate on these things now. They are pure joy. It's funny how life teaches you things, and what it chooses to teach you. And how.

So...dinosaur printing then. Look, it's quite simple. Kiernan comes up with a list of dinosaurs from A to Z. Most of them are creatures I have never heard of since when I was a kid they only had five dinosaurs. He sits at the iPad and researches lists of ancient reptiles and comes up with things named Pleurocoelus and Gigantophis which sound like either random jumbles of letters or things he surely must have made up, but every one turns out to be a real thing. Most astoundingly he stores every one of them in that noggin of his. The kid is a machine.

After he amasses his list he brings it over to me at my computer and we set about searching for images. We sift through the results and go back and forth until we agree on which one is best and then save it to my computer. Hold on. Back up. First we have to create a new folder on my desktop. He insists upon this. We've done several sets of these A-to-Z printouts, so there's several folders on my computer. They all have goofy names. Like "Version Duoy" and "Version No Not That" and "Version Dorkopathic."

Once all twenty-six images have been saved we begin printing. We do nine pictures per page for the first two pages, and then four each for the next two pages. Then Kiernan labels them. Finally I punch holes in the pages and put them in a three-ring binder we have for the collection.

All of this is to say dinosaurs are a big part of our lives.

The other morning we were on our way to an acting job I had. As it is for the awesome children's theater company I work for, Creative PlayGround, I felt comfortable bringing Kiernan along with me for the morning. It meant him sitting through two hours of rehearsal and setup, and then another hour of performance and breakdown, but he's such a good kid he can handle three hours like that without breaking a sweat. Plus, he has an iPad and a Kindle Fire, so game on.

As we made our way into Topanga Canyon, Kiernan talked about different dinosaurs. He was reading his Children's Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and going through the pages and telling me which ones were found in which century. "First I'll tell you which dinos were found in the 1800's," he said, and then proceeded to let me know all that had been found then. Next he moved on to the 2000's. Next the 1990's. I'm telling you, the kid is awesome.

At one point he told me which was the biggest meat-eater. It's Megalosaurus. And the smallest dinosaur with the longest name. That would be Micropachycephalosaurus. I'm not kidding. That's a thing. Micropachycephalosaurus. Who knew.

At any rate, the show I was doing that day is our version of The Velveteen Rabbit, adapted by my friend Karen Hardcastle. It is an amazing adaptation, and even though I've done this show for well over a decade, it never gets old. It's such a great story. In the middle of the play, as the boy just gets to know his new toy rabbit, he takes the rabbit on an adventure that makes the toy come to life for him. This particular sequence is done in improvisational format and goes through several stages. We go on an adventure of imagination that is basically up to the actor playing the boy--in this case, me--to create every time. As Kiernan has grown up I've tended to incorporate whatever he's into at the time into the adventures, so on this day in the performance I had Billy and the bunny rabbit having to escape "the biggest meat-eater in history, Megalosaurus!" We did this by using our Micropachycephalosaurus launcher to launch the tiny boneheaded dinosaurs at the bully carnosaur.

After the show, as we packed up the car to head away from the job Kiernan said to me, "Dad, I'm proud of you."

I felt that little tingle that goes up my spine whenever Kiernan says something that really touches me. "Why?"

"I was proud of how you used dinosaurs in the play today."

"Thanks," I said, brushing away the tear that had sprung to my right eye. "I have access to an expert. Know who that is?"

He laughed.

There was a pause. Then...

"But I wasn't proud of you for one thing..."

I smiled to myself. Here it comes, I thought. "Go on," I said, encouragingly.

"You said Megalosaurus was the biggest meat-eater. Dad. That's Giganotosaurus. You know that. I've told you that many times."

"But...but...I thought you said on the way here it was Megalosaurus!"

"No, Megalosaurus is the earliest dinosaur they found. In 1823. Not the biggest meat-eater."

"Oh. Okay. Cool."

We drove on and went on with our day. Yes, I realize that the "I'm proud of you" thing was really a way of softening the blow of the coming correction, but I still loved that he said it, and I was proud of him for saying it, and knowing it.

UPDATE: As I sit here writing this I'm struggling to remember some of the details, and am really struggling with the spelling of these ridiculously named dinosaurs. Kiernan sits at another desk just behind me, our chairs touching, drawing pictures of characters from his new favorite show, Ben 10. He's really getting to be so good at drawing. It's astounding. I love this, since I never looked at drawing as a skill. I just thought I was bad at it and left it at that. Kiernan's Aunt JoAnne gave him a lesson in drawing and basically told him to practice, and that has so paid off. It's amazing.

Anyway, he looked at my computer as I wrote this and laughed at some of what I was writing. As I wrapped up our dialogue he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Dad, I wasn't softening the blow. I really was proud of you for using the dinosaurs."

Eight. He's eight. And utterly amazing.

The Annual

Every year at Kiernan's school they do something known as the Annual Project. The kids spend an incredible amount of time creating the year's annual project, and preparing for the moment when they will present said project to parents.  Parents are invited on a specific day at a specific time. They all assemble in the classroom and are educated by their children. Basically it's an opportunity for parents to see what their kids have been up to all year.

Did I mention that parents are invited? When I say above that "parents are invited" I don't mean the school sends out an email saying, "It would be nice if you could come by some time and check this out." No. This is a big freaking deal. It's a one time thing. It's an event. The invitation to attend is formal. Kiernan's invitation to us:

The Art of Nature. I know. It sounds hokey. The point is this. My kid's school did so much work to make art and math and science and language come together that I am a total believer. And I'll make you one too, before your reading of this is through. Yes, I kind of despise something called "The Art of Nature" as a knee-jerk reaction. The Art of Nature. Really? Are we in an episode of Portlandia here?

But it worked. It totally worked. Here's how I know it worked, in a few short steps:

1. My kid has started studying geometry. At age eight. EIGHT for goodness sakes.

2. I was asked to help with a photography project in the outdoor classroom at my kid's school. I readily accepted, and spent a morning helping kids take close-up pictures of plants and rocks.

3. I was told, as were the other parents, that this was for math.

4. Here is my kid's picture:

As soon as I turned in this picture, along with the other ones, I saw what the teachers were going for. There's all kinds of angles in there. You can see that. Anybody can see that. Even a math dope like me can see that.

So the kids worked out math concepts with their nature pictures (Kiernan's picture included a bit on acute angles) and then moved on to explore art concepts as related to studying plants and...well...that stuff plants grow in. Here's an example:

Each page of his annual project art book journal had a poem like this--a poem in a specific style, acrostic for example, or quatrain--backed by art inspired by a specific painter. Sure, I was a bit nervous upon seeing "Inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe" on one of his pages, but I got over it. Last week I was talking to a friend about my kid loving doing art, and teaching him about art. "Do you teach him about Jackson Pollock," my friend asked. "Because any kid can do that splatter stuff."

Fast forward a little bit. To the weekend before Iron Man 3. I decided we should watch the first Iron Man movie before taking Kiernan to the third, and he was up for it. At a certain point in the movie, Pepper Potts comes in and says some guy that wants to sell him a Jackson Pollock has another buyer for the painting. Kiernan says, "Jackson Pollock! We're doing him! Splatter art."

Turns out my friend was right. And I prefer Kiernan's version of the art:

The room was surrounded by huge cardboard murals decorated by the students. It was transformative. Beautiful and intimidating, as if Stonehenge had intruded upon the classroom in cardboard. It was so cool. Upon each mural the teachers had affixed examples of student work. Some of the work was string mathematic symbols I still haven't figured out. Some was the result of research the kids had done on endangered or extinct animals earlier this year, as Kiernan had done on a creature known as the Thorny Devil, an assignment that involved getting his first library card, which I chronicled earlier.  In the course of presenting his annual project, Kiernan systematically led us around the room, directing our attention to every detail. I cannot tell you how excited we were to absorb said details. Actually, I don't have to. This picture will convey it:

As will this one:

What joy it is to take pride in the work of your child. And what pleasure it is now to look back--no, that's wrong. It is a double pleasure to look back and think about the times my parents said they were proud of me, because now I get a glimpse of what that actually means.

Picture for This Day

Last night we decided to watch a movie. It's one Kiernan has seen before, but he was strangely okay with watching it again with his PapPap. So he likes to watch movies multiple times. Wonder where he gets that.

Not sure that should be a point of pride, but I'll take it.

Picture for This Day

I have no doubt I've posted this before, but I found it when going through some files tonight, and so have to post it again.

Enjoy.

From 2006. I send and wish love to all of you. And particularly wish well to Grand Daddy Jake.

Picture of This Day

Today we showed up at Kiernan's school for showings of the musical the third grade has been working on for the last few weeks. The musical is called "Pirates of Grammar Island" and this picture captures Kiernan right before the opening number of the first showing.

I'll put up some videos as soon as I can.

Chill

On Friday a good thing happened. Something my dad is sure to appreciate, as his grandson has. Menchie's, their favorite frozen yogurt place in the world, opened a new store just down the street from our house.

As the three of us drove home from school thinking about the weekend ahead, I recalled that Wendy had told me the place was opening on this day. It seemed to be "Coming Soon" forever, and when I turned onto Vanowen Boulevard there it was at the end of the shopping center with its doors open. Beckoning. I looked at Wendy and flicked my eyes over to the storefront. She nodded and I put on the turn signal.

They were offering free waffle cones. Well, not really cones per se, more like waffle inserts, and they were just okay tasting. But they were free, so what can you say but yes?

Speaking of which, since St. Patrick's Day was the coming Sunday, Kiernan got to pick clothes out of dress code. The shirt is this cool rugby jersey his godfathers, Darren and Daniel, got on a semi-recent trip to Ireland. It looks so cool on him. The hat he picked up when out shopping with his mom the other day. I love this outfit, and if he wanted to wear it every day, I'd be cool with that.

Coolest kid ever.