The High Pitched Squeals Of Four Year Old Boys
My kids are really big fans of Minecraft. If you don’t know what that is, go have a boy and you’re certain to find out. It’s a computer world-building game, intentionally low-res, and you wouldn’t think it’d be of interest to anyone until you sit down and start playing with it. 90 minutes later, you’ll look up from the mountain hideaway you just finished building and realize with a start that you’ve spent the better part of your evening acting like a four year old. Then you’ll go back and put a battlement on your mountain hideaway because, and let’s be serious now, you simply can’t have a mountain hideaway without a battlement.
The funny thing is, my kids were fans of Minecraft before they even knew what it was. My six year old (turning seven in a few weeks) had heard kids at school talking about it, and although he only knew that it allowed you to “build stuff on your computer like LEGOs”, he knew that if his friends at school liked it, he did too. His younger brother, four years old, liked it simply because his brother liked it, and his brother is never, ever wrong (unless they’re engaged in a death-battle over a LEGO Star Wars character, and then he’s always wrong).
I swear, if I got my eldest son to say something good about auto-erotic asphyxiation, the four year old would fall in line instantly. “Yay! Otto-roddy fishy-ation! I want otto-roddy fishy-ation for my birthday, daddy! I LIKE otto-roddy fishyation!” Four year olds are real fucking idiots that way.
When I actually went ahead and installed Minecraft on the kids’ laptop, however, they took it to another level entirely. If they weren’t playing Minecraft (which they always were, except sometimes I demanded that they play with something else for the sake of variety and turned off the laptop), they were building LEGO models of the buildings they’d created in Minecraft. That’s the kind of obsessive, borderline-maniacal devotion you normally associate with mental patients or maybe Star Wars fans, but they’re little kids, so let’s be charitable and say that they’re just really enamored with Minecraft.
If they grow up like this, though, I’m taking them out myself.
Let’s switch gears for a second. When I moved this last December, I had to begin slowly replacing pieces of furniture I’d left behind. The boys really needed a dresser, but since they have drawers in their bunk bed, they had to wait until other pieces of much needed furniture were replaced first. This month, though, they were set to get their dresser. A day before I got it, I was in the store and stumbled across… Minecraft posters! For five bucks!
So the last couple of evenings were spent assembling their dresser and putting up framed Minecraft posters. When I was done, I began to look forward to showing them their “new” room when I got home from work. I mean, I really looked forward to it all day. I love it when little kids totally lose their shit with excitement. There are few more rewarding feelings in the world.
But instead of making a big announcement, and marching everyone upstairs, I played it cool. “Hey, can you do daddy a favor?” I asked my four year old. “I left my… uhhh… iPhone in your room. Can you go get it for me?” Now, the opportunity to play with Daddy’s Forbidden iPhone of Mystery was too great an opportunity to pass up, and so he violated his long-standing policy of not doing anything that didn’t involve candy or Minecraft, and marched upstairs.
And by “marched” I mean, spent the next several hours scaling the stairs like they were Mt. Fucking Everest. Should’ve sent the six year old.
Six Year Old: Hey, your iPhone is in your pocket!
Me: Shhh! Listen!
From Upstairs: (high-pitched squeal, approximately 47,000 octaves above high C)
The Dog: What the fuck is that?!?
My youngest son came tearing down the hall to the top of the stairs and yelled to his brother something that sounded like, “Wee-wee-wee-wee-weeeeee-weeee-WEEE-WEE-WEE-WEE-WEEEEEEEEE-WEEEEEEE! WIGHT NOW!!!” and then turned and ran back to take another look at his room.
His brother, of course could tell by the excitement in the air (if not the pee trickling down his brother’s pants) that Something Was Up, and ran upstairs to take a look, with me right behind, grinning from ear to ear.
4 Year Old: (arm outstretched to showcase the room, Vanna White-style) Wook!
6 Year Old: Minecraft! OH YEAH, BABY! YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!!!
Me: You got a dresser too, you know. That huge brown thing under the posters?
4 Year Old: Minecraft, Minecraft!
6 Year Old: Cool! Cool! Cool!
4 and 6 Year Old (in unison): Thank you daddy!
Me: You’re welcome. Now, remember…
4 Year Old: I love you, daddy!
6 Year Old: You’re the best daddy in the whole world!
Me: Well, naturally, but…
4 and 6 Year Old (in unison): Yaaayyy! Woo-hoo! (etc.)
So that went well. A half an hour later, when my four year old informed me that he hated me because I asked him to go sit on the potty, I hardly even heard it.
My four year old has been on the toilet for a million years. I feel so badly that he got my horse shit affliction.
🙁
Does he get the thing where his legs hurt from sitting on there too long? After my 4 year old gets off the can, he hobbles around like a drunken pirate.
Ha! Mine sings long enough that we ought to declare an intermission so other people can use the bathroom before the second half of WHATEVER IS TAKING SO DAMNED LONG.
However, he never has a leg problem, because he has never sat straight on any chair for five minutes. He’s probably in there, perching like a bird the whole time.
I don’t want to know.
I hear that’s how they crap in Japan, perched like a bird.
Mine mostly fidgets and talks, to no one in particular. He’s never complained about his legs hurting, but maybe that’s because he has a step stool to rest his feet on.
Yeah, the step stool helps, but with three toilets in the house and one stool, he doesn’t always get to use it.
Well, crap. I made that stupid sappy noise twice while reading this post. I love it that your little fella thinks his big brother is a hero and that your 6 year old declared you as the best daddy.
I’m not sorry I couldn’t hear the squeals though. As much as that sound signifies extreme happiness, it sends a shiver right up my spine.
I’m mostly a fan of that noise, but sometimes it erupts at 160 decibels right next to your ear. That sucks.
I am that dick Dad that accepts only chores for Minecraft time.
For the moment things are going pretty well.
Thank you, Mojang.
It’s the first thing I take away when there’s bad behavior or attitude. It works pretty damn well, doesn’t it? Thanks, Mojang!
Only you could write a mushy, ‘awwwww’ inducing post of cuteness that also includes the words auto-erotic asphyxiation.
Yes, I specialize in corrupting innocent things.
In college, we managed to convert the Smurfs into a drinking game: Every time anyone said “Smurf” or any derivation thereof, you drank. We, uhhh, got pretty fucking drunk.
So what you’re saying is that you got totally SMURFED?
I’m sorry
Drink!