My Family Circus

Mary Margaret is now seven, but I still remember the Christmas when she was almost two. When she spotted a Santa Claus yard ornament in our neighbors’ yard, she smiled, waved to it, and said, "Hi, Noah!"

I'm sure that, like me, many parents of young children can't help but think of The Family Circus cartoon panel whenever one of their youngsters uncorks something like that. Bil Keane says his "real-life family circus" provides the inspiration for his cartoons, and he hopes readers react to his cartoons "with a warm smile, a tug at the heart, or a lump in the throat as they recall doing the same things in their own families."

This time of the year always causes me to reflect and to pull out a few snapshots from my own "real-life family circus."

When Lincoln was three years old, he was wanting some help one day with his Play-Doh. Susie, who was trying to feed a baby and prepare lunch at the same time, told him he would have to wait. Lincoln pondered the situation for a moment and said, "I wonder why God just made you with two hands."

I also recall a time I had to administer three swats to Lincoln's four-year-old rump. "None of them hurt!" he promptly declared. Thinking I sensed defiance, I found myself asking the obligatory paternal question, "Do you want me to do it again, and make it hurt this time?"

Imagine my surprise when he answered yes.

"You mean you really want me to spank you again so it will hurt?" I asked.

"Yes."

"But why?"

"Because the three didn't hurt. And they're supposed to hurt, to drive the foolishness out."

God bless that boy. When he was five years old, I remember telling him that both his mother and I would always help him with his schoolwork, but that his mom was better at, say, science and math, and I was better at other subjects. "That's OK," he replied. "I like you the way you are."

Then there was the time he told his little sister, "Lillie, you know if Mommy didn’t love us we could do whatever we wanted. We could eat candy all the time and watch TV all day and wear whatever tacky clothes we wanted."

I recall when Michael Jordan's retirement from basketball had six-year-old Lincoln curious about the whole concept of retirement. Susie explained to him that grown-ups save money during their working years so they can retire when they get older. Lincoln was concerned: "But Michael Jordan isn't very old. How is he going to have enough money saved up?"

That same month Lincoln and I were courtside one evening for a Harlem Globetrotters game, and he was still excited about it as I lay in bed with him the following night. A few minutes after I kissed him good-night, I returned to his room to find him fighting back tears. "Dad," he said, "when you leave sometimes I have a thought and it makes me cry – I think about how much fun I have doing things with you."

One summer evening at Braum's Susie dispatched seven-year-old Lincoln to the front counter for three junior-size cones. When he returned with three regular-size cones, he explained: "I told her junior but this is what she gave us. She was a rookie teenager who didn't know what she was doing."

Lincoln's little sisters also enliven our family circus. One day Susie was holding the baby on her lap and said to her, "Mary Margaret, your heart is beating fast!" To which four-year-old Lillie replied: "She must be in love."

Yes, Lillie can be very astute. After noticing that certain male members of her family are conspicuously absent on many fall Saturdays, she asked: "How long are Lincoln and dad going to be doing this football thing, anyway?"

While watching an episode of "Family Feud," Lillie once blurted out: "I am not for the family from New York. I bet all of them voted for Kerry." (Where does the child pick this stuff up?)

Once when nine-year-old Lillie was upset over something minor, her younger sister called her on it: "What's wrong, drama queen? Got a speck of sand on your nail?"

And in the fall of 2000 the kids and I were piled in front of the TV watching Monday Night Football. Lillie asked me who I was for, and I said I was for the team wearing the white jerseys. Two or three minutes later, two-year-old Mary Margaret plucked the pacifier from her mouth and announced, "You know who I'm for? I'm for George Bush."

Solomon was right: Children are a gift from God, and "happy is the man who has his quiver full of them."