I remember when I was twelve, just about to turn thirteen.  It was a time of tremendous energy and growth; I thought I knew everything.  I was still young, fresh, a spring chicken ready to run; I could see how my parents and teachers had somehow forgotten youth, had long lost touch with how thrilling it is to be a child, how they came up with all these arbitrary rules, got rigid, lost the laughter in their eyes.  Meanwhile I was bigger than a little kid, much bigger.  My leg muscles were pronounced, my voice deep and boxy.  I had only recently left those days of relative innocence though not yet caught up by the frantic hormonal rush of my teens, I was sitting on a precious and fleeting precipice - perhaps the wisest moments of my life.  The tender glow of childhood had not yet been obscured in my heart, yet my mind was sharp and aware of the world.  Did I know everything?  Was that why i was such a wiseass?  Could it be?

It grew into a goal of mine, to preserve some of that innocence in myself, not to become too ensnared by the trappings of growing up, but one can only do so much.  Already I have trouble remembering; I need cleanliness, order, routine.  I need to go to bed early and I like neighbors to be respectful.  I get angry about little, useless things.  No!!!  Its a rule of time that I should grow old, strangely rigid and attached to convention while my children should come in, look at me like a fool and try to destroy it all. Examples abound.

"Isaiah - don't put your feet on the table."
He slides his feet over so that he can see us.
"Huh?"
He has perfected this look of total bewilderment.
"We don't put our feet up on the table."
"My feet?"
"Yes, Isaiah, your feet."
"On the top of the table?"
"Isaiah!"
"They're not!"
We have a moment where we look at each other, both knowing that he is about to pull a full-blown-attempted-ambush that will seem vaguely plausible.  He always does this, excuses his impish behaviors with somewhat logical explanations.
"How are they not on the table?" I ask.
"They're just-its just my ankles, that are on the table.  My feet are actually just in the air.  That's why they're not touching the table."
He has now convinced himself of his own argument.
"Isaiah."
"What?"
"Put em' down."
"..."
Now!

I have these moments of terror where I can see it already starting, the wiser-than-thou approach.  He sees through our little games, alright.    It's like, you're the one who colored all over you legs, arms, face, chest, belly, parts of your back and privates with magic marker and I'm the one who gets a look of pity?  Yes, because in his world the rules are governed by the magic of the moment, by bringing fun and happiness into the world in the best way he knows how.  When he bends the car antennae back or puts tape on his sisters there is no before and after in his plan, there is only a momentous, happy experience that draws him in and engages his curiosities.  The floor does not have to be clean of toys and food bits, nor the dishes scraped of their crust for him to be happy.  For him there is only the joy of alternately pleasing and challenging everyone around him.  For us, there is the cleanup afterward.  The real challenge, however, is not to lose touch with sharing a little bit of that precious joy with him.  To keep order and safety for all involved entities, but to remember that we are moving in a world of children here; delicate and expansive, we must treat it with due reverence, even if its methods are chaos.

I look over, and Isaiah is putting green beans on Khaliya's head.

"Isaiah."
Again with that look of total astonishment.
"Seriously?"
"Dad..." he begins in what I know will be another strategic assault of charm and semi-logic.  I cut him off at the pass.
"No.  Don't say another word."
He finishes with, "she likes it."  Another secret weapon that sometimes garners his mother's support.
He stammers. I unsheathe icicles from my eyeballs.  He relents.
"Take the beans off her head.  Now."
And for a moment I can tell that through that cute little head of his there is flying the notion to again try to argue his case, that of course whatever reason i have for not wanting him to stack cooked vegetables in his sister's hair is nowhere nearly as persuasive as his reason for doing it.  Again, we stage a cold war with our eyes over dinner.  And suddenly, against my every expectation, Isaiah decides to demure in the way that sons do to their fathers in times of serious disagreement.

Wow.  Raising kids is crazy!