Duking It Out Over Grapefruit Spoons

Dear Skeeter,

Thanks for the crate of grapefruit. They’re pink, sweet and luscious. But frankly they’ve caused a certain level of dissension. Leni might blame it on me, but believe me, it isn’t my fault. One of the worst things about having young kids around is that it makes it so tough to act like a 4-year-old yourself.

I mean I’m a slow waker in the morning. The other day was typical. Leni’s up while I’m still lying there with one foot in my subconscious, trying to pull myself out of the swamp with my personality in one piece, when the kids come tripping in trailing teddy bears and other appurtenances. They view my presence in bed as an invitation to climb in themselves. Soon Ariel has me under the covers playing camping with her (the covers are the tent, and beating on them means it’s raining outside, and we have to invite in sundry baby animals to wait out the storm with us); then Eric starts chasing her around under there and I might as well be trying to sleep in a sack of angry cats.

So I snappishly send them to their rooms to get dressed--not that my bark seems to bother them, which makes me ask myself if I sound this way all the time, and I wander into the bathroom just when Eric pops in for a weather report (he wants to know whether he can get away with shorts--he’ll wear sweat pants in extremis but refuses to wear jeans because they’re too crisp and crinkly) so I make up something--at least in Southern California you can’t go too far wrong--and steel myself for that first look in the mirror and almost step on Ariel who has made a sleeping bag of the bath mat.

She’ll only get dressed if someone will help. Leni takes her beauty time very seriously, so I lead Ariel to her room and embark on a protracted series of negotiations, in which I reason, threaten and cajole her out of dressing for school in her fanciest party dress and her slick-soled patent leather shoes (her “click shoes”), in spite of what her friend Leora will be wearing.

She’s done but I’m still in my pajamas, though all too awake, so I shave and dress in double time and get downstairs just as Eric comes in from getting the paper with the dog and the breakfast machine is grinding into gear. First, the daily sparring over who will feed Jessica (the result of a clever ruse I’ve grown to regret when I told them the dog will love whoever feeds her); then the making of the lunches, Ariel’s getting of the napkins, Eric’s setting of the table, and the double-checking by them both to see that the other one is doing his or her share (these chores not assigned for the sake of speed, of course, but to instill responsibility no matter how long it takes); the choosing of the cereal, the banana decision, and the orange juice. All against the impending toll of the Oakwood School’s 8:30 a.m. bell.

While Leni and I dance jerkily back and forth to the fridge slicing, pouring, putting things away and getting things out, the kids go about their tasks with serene, unhurried calm. How can they do it? Couldn’t they be at least a little bit more worried about being late? It’s downright unfair that they’re so mature about this.

Which brings me to the grapefruit thing. Now we all love grapefruit, but as you must know, sectioning them is not Leni’s favorite activity. It’s like peeling sunflower seeds, more trouble than it’s worth. We have those special grapefruit spoons you gave us last year, and a couple of bamboo-handled ones my mother gave us (the rest have died in the disposal), that all have teeth for cutting through the pulp, so we could probably hack at our grapefruit without sectioning them, except for one thing: I like my grapefruit sectioned. And if mine is sectioned, everyone’s has to be sectioned. At least in this household. So that means I section four grapefruit halves, which when you consider that doing one is barely worth the effort puts a severe strain on my already crumbling adult facade.

And that’s when it happened. Eric was setting the table while I prepared the grapefruit, and I was secretly pleased to see he’d given me a bamboo-handled spoon. (They’re rounder than the ones you sent, they hold more grapefruit, and I like the nubbly feel of the handles.) Since there were only two, he gave himself the other. At first Ariel wasn’t too worried about this--in fact, she was very generous about using what mommy used--when I let it slip that I wanted a bamboo spoon. I know this was childish of me. Besides, I had one already.

The reaction was immediate. Eric emitted a subtle frisson of victory--Ariel took one look at him and intensely desired a bamboo spoon too. Leni told Eric to give her mine, a standard damage-control, choose-your-fight sort of reaction, and eminently practical considering all the cross-currents of activity. However, I was not to be denied. It was my spoon. I wanted it. Ariel and I squared off in best schoolyard fashion; since I’m bigger, I got the spoon and Ariel got to cry.

But as any 4-year-old will tell you, that nubbly feeling wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. But why can’t I be a 4-year-old like anybody else? Why can’t I have a favorite spoon? Without kids, all that stuff can be coddled in the serene confusion of the early morning, but Ariel and Eric smoke me out. With them around, I can’t act like a 4-year-old without duking it out with the other kids.

Ariel, being a 100% 4 years old, recovered much faster than I did. Leni, to her credit, bit her tongue. I bet she’s waiting to talk to me later when I’ve calmed down, the way you’re supposed to when a 4-year-old loses it.

So thanks for the grapefruit. And if you can find any of those bamboo handled grapefruit spoons, let me know.

Ever your loving

son-in-law, Jon

This is one in an occasional series of columns written by a thirtysomething father trying to make sense of raising children in Los Angeles.