Felix was in Kindergarten. He had the biggest head out of anyone in his house, including his parents. This was important, because in addition to being in Kindergarten Felix was the Grownup Teacher. It was Mother and Father's job to teach Felix about the letters and numbers, and how to read them. It was Felix's job to teach the grownups about all of the things that they didn't know.
Before Felix had been born, it had James and Owen's job to teach Mother and Father about how a child's house ought to be run, but Felix thought they hadn't done a very good job. They had been too easy on Mother and Father, and he was constantly having to correct some of the bad habits that they had slipped into.
For example, Mother and Father were very confused about what constituted edible food. Sometimes they would get all muddled up and try to feed the children things that were barely even food--things like fungus, or squash, or eggplant. It wasn't their fault. Mother and Father were both very tired all the time, and Felix knew that they probably had just forgotten about good and wholesome foods like waffles, nutella, and ice cream cones. Felix reminded them.
Mother and Father were also always getting confused about how they were supposed to help the children in school. Father would tell the children to read books for 20 minutes, but it wouldn't even be five minutes later that he would come into the library and get all upset because he found Owen and Felix reading Spiderman comic books. He didn't even seem to realize that he'd asked them to read, but would ramble on about nonsense like "homework" and "essays." Felix sometimes worried that Father was being too silly, especially when he used nonsense words like "adverb."
Felix also had to teach Mother and Father a great deal about chores. Sometimes Mother and Father would get confused about who was supposed to clean up the dinner table or put laundry away. They didn't remember that they were the only tall people in the family, so they were supposed to do these things. Instead, they would ask James or Owen or Felix to do them. Felix was polite and didn't criticize Father's bad memory in front of the other students, but just waited until Father forgot all about "chores and responsibilities" and just cleaned up the dinner table himself.
Felix also had to remind Father about bedtime every night. Father would often say, in the very middle of the day when no one was tired, that it was time for bed. It never actually WAS bedtime...it was always actually the middle of a football game or of a matchbox car race or of drumming time, but Father mixed up easily.
Once James read a book about people who got confused while climbing high mountains because there wasn't enough oxygen way high up in the skies. Felix thought that Father and Mother probably got confused from oxygen deprivation because they were too tall. But, on the other hand, no one else was tall enough to drive a car yet, so it was good that Father and Mother were still around. Still, neither of them drove the car very well. They were both so slow that they got passed by other cars all the time. If Felix was tall enough to drive the car, he would win every race to the grocery store.
Felix was a good teacher, and he often lay awake at night thinking of what he might teach Mother and Father the next day. Oftentimes he would call to Mother or Father in the middle of the night over and over again until one of them came into his room. He wanted to make sure that his students were both okay and not too scared, and it was good to check in on them.
Sometimes teaching Mother and Father was frustrating. They never seemed to remember that each of their boys would like a drink on the table (and they kept the cups too high up to reach), and they had a very hard time recognizing what the perfect football field looked like. (For example, both the library and kitchen table would make excellent football playing surfaces.) They got cranky when they went too many days in a row without a nap, and sometimes they would spend hours on silly nonsense games like "work" and "income tax."
Still, Felix kept patiently at his job. He made sure that he corrected bad habits. After all, you only get one chance to raise a parent.
No comments:
Post a Comment