Children Tearing Up the House? Help’s Just a Bookstore Away

Didn’t you ever hear that you should never volunteer for anything?

Particularly when it involves people who are closely related and also happen to be less than three or four feet tall.

But you thought it would be nice to take in your sister’s or brother’s kids for a few days this summer while she/he recovers from the rigors of parenting.

You may be bucking for sainthood, but it’s going to cost.

Did you ever consider that you can only stay at amusement parks and movie theaters so long before the cleaning crew comes after you with vacuums large enough to swallow a person whole?

Are you aware that children get up with the sun without benefit of an alarm clock?

On weekends.

No, this is not a joke.

And it will be up to you--you good-hearted uncle, auntie or uncle or aunt figure--to keep the Kinder from killing small animals, each other and anything or anyone that can be bombed with a houseplant from your third-floor window.

OK. Not to panic.

There’s a way to keep them busy and out of Juvenile Hall.

There’s help to be had at the local bookstore.

No, it’s not the Terminator signing autographs.

Books--you know, with covers and information inside.

Take Toluca Lake author Andy Newman’s “What Every Uncle (Or Aunt) Should Know: 101 Fun Things to Do With Kids.”

He says his book will turn you into Mr. Rogers.

With an attitude.

A quick survey of the reading material, put out for $8 in paperback by Avon Books, reveals that there are indeed 101 things to do with kids and that none include sending them home via Federal Express.

The book teaches things like making a quarter disappear, pulling a coin from a child’s ear and the magnificent magazine miracle, which, for your information, has nothing to do with Playboy or Playgirl.

These are little tricks the author learned when he was growing up in Scarsdale, N. Y.

He can also juggle with fire and ride a unicycle, two tricks not included in the book.

When Newman is not writing how-to books, he is an actor. He has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, and way, far-off Broadway, meaning Hollywood, where he’s done shows such as “Murphy Brown” and “L. A. Law,” and he was in the movie “Lethal Weapon 3.”

Granted, some of the tricks in the book sound like something out of his leading role in “Little Shop of Horrors.”

The String through the Neck?

Thumb Removal?

Hand Sewing?

No pain, no sane, he seems to be saying here.

Turn to Page 113--Walking into a Wall--for a quick analysis.

Here’s a shortened description of the trick.

The child or children have hurt themselves so you have to cheer them up.

Slamming smack into a wall, says Newman, will wipe away the tears and make a child laugh.

What you do is run toward a wall and smash yourself into it. This will make the tots titter in glee.

Newman says the trick is to make it look like you are doing yourself great bodily injury, but your foot really makes all the noise.

That’s certainly a relief, but before you do the trick, you might quiz the kids on their 911-dialing experience.

And check your medical insurance to see if you’re covered for stupid people tricks.

But Newman’s book is not the only one about amusing kids that seems to have sadomasochistic overtones.

According to Marjorie Kassorla, manager of Pages Books for Children in Tarzana, no indeed.

She gives two examples: “365 Days of Creative Play” (Sheila Ellison, Judith Gray, Forward March Press, $14.95) and “101 Great Ways to Keep Your Child Entertained While You Get Something Else Done” (Danelle Hickman and Valerie Teurlay, St. Martin’s Press, $8.95).

The idea of Toddler Boot Camp in the Hickman-Teurlay book sounded like a perfect example, but they are just talking about how to lay out an obstacle course in your back yard.

The Ellison-Gray tome, however, could get you in real trouble, particularly if you value your dignity.

Case in point is the Rubber Neck Dance.

Basically the description of this amusement is this:

You have a lot of moving parts on your head, including forehead, ears, eyes, nose, mouth and tongue.

Right?

Turn on some music, look in a mirror, and make them all dance to the music.

It you want to retain your reputation and freedom, don’t try this away from home.

They Put Their Backs Into Eagle Scouting

Before you decide to give up completely on teen-agers, consider Jeremy Look and Ryan Blemker.

Both are 16, students at El Camino Real High School and from Woodland Hills.

Both are Eagle Scouts in Troop 464.

Each recently received a community service award from the Crippled Children’s Society of Southern California for projects at Camp Joan Mier.

The facility, in Malibu, allows disabled youngsters to have the experience of camp each summer, to live together and participate in activities designed for them.

Look put in about 600 hours building an aviary with a wheelchair ramp so campers could get up close and personal with the birds and observe their care and habits.

Blemker spent 400 hours building a wheelchair ramp in the side of a 13-foot hill at the camp, which allows campers to have access from the residential area to the farm area.

Radical dudes.

Strange Encounters of the Karma Kind

Vision Quest, the bookstore featuring metaphysics in Canoga Park, sponsors a variety of classes and workshops.

If your life is down the toilet, you might check out the Aug. 18 class on Feng Shui.

According to instructor David Twicken, Feng Shui teaches that it could be your sofa and Barcalounger that are giving you the miseries.

He says that where you place furniture in your home has a profound effect on the vibrational energy in the environment.

In this class you will be instructed on how to achieve the proper arrangement and placement of objects and elements in your surroundings so you can balance and maximize the energy flow of relationships, health, happiness and prosperity.

This may not, of course, be the ultimate cure-all.

You may want to clean up your karma, get in touch with your former self through past-life therapy and delve into the secrets of the mysterious cabala, which unlocks the door to Western occultism.

Maybe not.

Overheard

“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted.”

Stockbroker to an assistant at a Warner Center brokerage.