Testing Homeland Security

My family recently went on a vacation to Seattle. In the airport, I carried two car seats, a suitcase and two backpacks.
What did my kids carry? Nothing. Which allowed my three-year-old son, Johnny, to run through airport security, giggling with joy as he set off every possible alarm. The Homeland Security officers were quite patient, politely asking him to come back and walk through the metal detector again. As Johnny walked back through the detector, his four-year-old sister, Belle, said, "I smell something stinky."

"Is it John's diaper?" I asked.

John giggled as he ran through the metal detector again yelling, "I smell like meat" three times in a row. Fortunately, meat is not an illegal substance on an airplane. But shaving cream is. They made me toss a perfectly good bottle of Barbasol. As if I was going to lather my legs in order to commandeer the plane.

Johnny enjoyed riding the escalators at the airport. "Can we take the escamater again, Daddy? Can we, please?"

At least my kids are polite. They say please and thank you. But sometimes their vigilance for manners backfires, like when we were boarding our plane. "John, you bumped into me!" Belle scolded. "What-do-you say?"

Other passengers giggled.

I sat down in my seat on the airplane and Belle said, "Congratulations, Daddy." I thought, did she mean congratulations on not being arrested by Homeland Security? Congratulations on carrying a mini-van's worth of luggage to Concourse Z?

Oh no. Belle said, "Congratulations on loving me, Daddy." I think we need to work on her modesty.

So my kids are a little wild. We don't call them "Thunder and Lightning" for nothing. That's normal, according to novelist Stephen King. "Schizoid behavior is a pretty common thing in children," King said. "It's accepted, because we adults have this unspoken agreement that children are lunatics." Thank God my kids don't live in a remote hotel like the ones in The Shining:

Lately I've been trying to calm Johnny down by teaching him to meditate:

Unfortunately, he even meditates to the extreme. Maybe he'll participate in the X-Games some day.

So far, he has agreed to take proper safety measures, like wearing bike helmets and life jackets. He recently got a new Disney Cars life vest.

He liked it so much, he wore it all weekend in our house--just in case of a flash flood or plumbing accident.

Grandma sat on a bench between Belle and John and said, "I'll be the pickle in the middle."

John said, "and I'll be the strawberry."

As a parent, some days you're the strawberry, some days you're the pickle.

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