It was a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon and Justin, Garrett, and I had nothing to do. GWE was on a flight to Toronto for a business trip and it was the first day of “Guy’s Week” aka “Home Alone: The Dad Edition.” As I looked at both boys lounging lazily on the sofa, I saw their pale skin and round bellies and thought they needed to be playing outside. Fresh air, physical activity, and sunshine would do them some good! However, I couldn’t get them to go to the back yard. No amount of passively saying “go outside” seemed to work.
And then, I had an idea! I walked over to the television, turned it off (to the sounds of bitter complaining and crying,) and told the boys to get in the car….or else. (“Or else” works a lot more than you might think!)
As we pulled up to the putt-putt place, both Garrett and Justin ‘excitedly’ screamed, “NO!!! WE DON’T WANT TO GO HERE!!” I turned around and informed them both that whenever they decide to get their driver’s license and buy their own car, they can go wherever they want! (Right…..that’s not going to come back and bite me in the ass in 6 years, 11 months, and 4 days from now.)
With anger in their eyes and hatred in their hearts (probably towards me,) they walked into the Sherman Oaks Castle Park. They were so angry at me, that I thought it would be hilarious to make them smile and look like they were having a good time. This is the picture:
I swear, they were not having a good time. They were angry!
Here is the problem with taking a 9 year old and a 4 year old to putt-putt. The 9 year old has spent months taking real golf lessons and is now competitive when it comes to the game of golf. He wants to play by the rules and WIN by the rules. The 4 year old DOES NOT WANT TO LOSE to his brother, but he also doesn’t want to follow the rules of the game either. So, this is what would happen: Justin would line up his shot, take his stroke, and usually be in the cup after 1 or 2 putts. Garrett would hit his first ball, run after it, pick it up, and then run over to the cup and drop it in.
Needless to say, Justin was having a meltdown every time Garrett did this and would get very upset because he felt as though Garrett was cheating. On the other hand, Garrett would see Justin get the ball into the cup first and then have an even bigger meltdown because he refused to lose to his brother. No matter how much I tried to explain to them that they were not playing against one another…..they saw it as all-out war against one another.
We only made it to the 6th hole before I gave up. Once Garrett tried to attack his brother with the golf club while screaming unintelligible words all the while having streams of tears coming down from his eyes and lines of snot pouring out of this nose, I thought….ok, we’re done.
Once we were in the car and everyone had calmed down, I heard Garrett ask, “Daddy? Can we come back tomorrow?”
Not kidding. He really said it.