The Exhausted Dad: Ten thousand words on nail polish and wall ball
If I transcribed the words spoken to me this morning by my 10-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, this article would fill the entirety of the newspaper.
I love how much my two younger children share with me about their lives at school and other general interests. I don’t take it for granted, as my older two children often succumb to the single word responses when I ask them about their days.
However, when my daughter and son come at me early in the morning wanting to talk about random things, I best already have a cup of coffee in hand. I’m going to hear a lot of repetitive statements, lengthy references to schoolmates I don’t know and step-by-step recitation of remedial tasks.
This morning, my 10-year-old daughter came into my bedroom (early) to show me her painted nails.
“Oh, those look good,” I said. “I like the colors.”
If only it stopped there.
She proceeded to tell me about how she went about choosing the aqua polish that formed the basis of her manicure.
“First, I thought I wanted to wear one of my new pink shirts to school today, and because of that I thought I would match my nails,” she began.
My response: “Uh-huh.”
“Then I realized I wore a pink shirt yesterday and I didn’t want to wear another pink shirt. I don’t know why. It doesn’t really matter, but I wanted a different color.”
Uh-huh.
“Then I saw this color shirt, and then I remembered I had a blue polish that looked like the same color.”
Oh yeah?
“Yes, so I put this shirt on, and my other clothes. And then I got this color polish out.”
Yep.
“I started on this hand, and I did each of the fingers.”
• • •
“Then I moved onto this hand. And I think it looks good. It looks like the same color as the shirt.”
Uh-huh.
“Don’t you think that it matches?”
Yes.
“So, then I wanted to add some glitter or maybe a different color, but I had to let them dry first and …”
She continued on for a while. I’m sorry, but I stopped listening. The nails look very nice. No doubt she will repaint them after school and go through the whole process again. I closed my eyes, acting as if I was going back to sleep, but she just kept on talking. She never gets the message.
Then, after ALL that, my 7-year-old son entered the room to tell me about a new detail of his wall ball game at school the day before. It’s my understanding that my son does several education-related activities at school every day. The only thing I ever hear about is wall ball. Rain, shine, snow. Wall ball.
“Oh Dad,” he started, talking over my daughter’s (concluding?) thoughts about her nail polish. “Yesterday, in wall ball, Taylor was playing where you could have seven bounces on a turn. Seven!”
“Seven?” I said, desperately trying to remember any single regular rule about wall ball. “Did you talk to him later in class about following the real rules?”
He looked at me with disdain. “Taylor is not in my class, Dad.”
Me: "Who is Taylor then?"
Him: “A kid from another class. Yesterday was the first time I saw him. But listen, Dad, he was holding up the line because of these rules, and those are not the rules that we’re supposed to play. The rules are …”
I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, but whenever he starts in about the rules, I immediately stop paying attention. I’m studying for the bar exam! I can’t confuse wall ball rules with subject matter jurisdiction in civil procedure!
Anyway, there was a five-minute stretch where both kids were talking at me at the same time, about nail polish and wall ball, and I didn’t have my coffee. I’ll tolerate it because they’re cute and I love them, but just so you know, if anybody else approaches me to talk about nail polish or wall ball, I’m running in the other direction.
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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 7-13, He is tired. He can be reached at [email protected].
