My oldest was faced with an opportunity that was likely to shape the trajectory of his school aged years.  Fortunately, he had no idea how impactful his trip to Marvel Live could actually be.  Before I get into the specifics of Friday night I need to give a bit of a back story.  Shirley decided late this summer that he would benefit from play therapy.  What is play therapy?  That questions will be answered as I get into the back story, but basically an excuse for a therapist to take money from helpless parents who aren’t quite sure how to deal with an unhealthy level of anxiety in their child.  Shirley attended the initial session which was basically an intake and then scheduled the following appointment.  However, she missed the next appointment and rescheduled the new appointment for a date that required me to take our oldest son, along with our youngest who appears to have about as much anxiety The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

So, the big day rolled around and I picked up the kids from school with a pretty nice window to make it to play therapy on time.  However, Shirley had given me the wrong address and Siri kept directing me to an address that didn’t actually exist, my anxiety and anger levels were at such a level that I was probably going to need some therapy as well and I called Shirley and asked her where the F is this place?  It had been pointed out to me a couple of times by my oldest but I believed Siri, who isn’t even a real person although I hate her just as much as an actual human, over my son.  Shirley found the actual address somehow, the therapist still had her old address on her archaic website which belonged to a demolished office building (red flag number one).

Ultimately we were a few minutes late and there was really no way to be sure the therapist actually knew we were there since there was just a waiting room with no receptionist.   More anxiety as I wondered if we would ever actually get in front of the the therapist but she did eventually make her way out to the lobby and greet us.  The first thing she hit me with was a $100 no show fee for Shirley failing to attend the initial therapy session.  Other than her criticizing my blog, I don’t think there was a worse way she could have started things off with me.  I begrudgingly handed over $100 and she proceeded to ask me what’s wrong with Kid 1.  Typically I would just say look at him, but I dint’ want to reveal immediately what his biggest obstacle in life was going to be, having a dick for a dad.  Furthermore, while there is plenty wrong with my kid, I felt like rattling all of his problems off right in front of him would only compound his problems.  (red flag number 2). I was able to divulge one of the biggest issues with both kid 1 and kid 2 and that issue is that they refuse to stay in their beds all night and end up sleeping on the floor next to our bed.  I disclosed that I had toyed with the idea of locking them in their rooms and the therapist immediately said that that ins’t allowed and CPS (child protective services) would have a serious issue with that.  (Red flag number 3, how is CPS ever going to find out?). She suggested a reward program to get the kids sleeping in their own bed, I almost laughed out loud, tough to use the reward system when your kids have every earthly thing any four and six year old could ever dream of having.

The therapy room had a couch and chair and then a door to a room containing a bunch of toys. (my kids have an entire playroom above our garage dedicated to their toys and they have about as much interest in it as sleeping in their own beds, but somehow this new toy room with a quarter of the toys was irresistible)  Child 2 wanted to hang out and play with Child 1 and the therapist instead of joining me in the waiting room where there was absolutely nothing to do.  To keep child 2 entertained I had to hand over my phone leaving me entirely bored for the half hour remaining in the therapy session.  So, to answer the question that I originally asked, play therapy is torture.  I scheduled another appointment while I was in the therapy room but called back a few days later to cancel, it was quite gratifying to tell the therapist we wouldn’t be coming back.

I’m not sure how this happened, but Child 1 was invited by the mother of one of the cool kids to accompany them to Marvel Live at Van Andel arena.  I love child 1 but he is kind of a weirdo, to his credit he’s funny but he has some idiosyncrasies that could be problematic when he is exposed to normal people who aren’t use to his behavior.  One of the things he does is hand holding, he feels the need to hold hands with adults whenever he is going from one place to another and apparently he held the hand of the cool kids mom whenever they were in transit.  I’m quite certain that there were other remarkable things that took place that I will never know about, but I’m fairly confident his peer group will be impacted at some point by the trip to Marvel Live.  Now with all that being said, he came home with a Toy from the show.  This was troubling to me because this thing was so last minute that we didn’t get a chance to give him or the parents money.  The tickets were free according to the the parents, but nothing else was.  Did my kid come out and ask that they purchase a toy for him?  I have no problem saying no to my kids (their other parent does) and I definitely have no problem saying no to other kids so I would have been able to thwart this, but I’m not so sure about other people, especially if they aren’t Dutch and frugal like me.

(This is the toy, it looks a lot cooler in the photo, and part of it already broke)

My estimate for what the toy set the cool kid’s family back was a bit low, and the only reason I know that is because my buddy invited me to take my kids with him and his kid to the Sunday matinee show.  I was a bit hesitant to agree to it after my experience with the dinosaur exhibit but the tickets were only $15 a piece and what else is there to do on a Sunday in November at 5pm?    My estimate for cost of the toy was $10 to $15 and upon entering the arena and going by the Merchandise stand I was immediately blown away, $25!

The fact that someone bought my kid a $25 toy is mind boggling for a number of reasons.  First of all, on rare occasions my parents would take a friend of mine with us to various things but primarily a movie, and if my memory is correct my friends always had to pay their way.  That’s how people rolled back then and this was when movies were like five bucks tops.  My parents were unwilling to spring for a child priced movie ticket and they never would have purchased me an over priced toy let alone one of my companions. Secondly, now we are placed immediately in the debt of the cool kid and his parents and have to figure out a way to pay them back.  There’s a monster truck thing at Van Andel in the spring but I don’t know if I can have that debt sitting out there for months having the cool kid and his family thinking I am a dead beat.  The other possibility is a movie but merely paying for a ticket isn’t going to cut it, I’ll have to purchase something tangible for the kid to take home and show his parents so they realize we are square.  “Mr. Jansma, why are you making me take this popcorn bucket and fountain drink cup with me home?”  “Just do it kid, and make sure your mom knows I sprung for extra butter”

I had very low expectations for the Marvel show.  However, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the show along with the choreography and the special affects.  There was a motorcycle jump that was pretty cool by Captain America and Black Widow (girl power!) as well as some acrobatic stunts that were pretty cool.  I assured the kids that they could have snow cones at intermission but wasn’t aware that they were $15 because I only saw the spider man light and not the snow cones as I was initially walking in.  When I saw the actual price of the snow cones every Dutch bone in my body was on edge and I immediately told the kids no.  Of course there was an overwhelming amount of brush back with my kids claiming I was a liar.  Fortunately they were also selling dipping dots (it’s been the ice cream of the future for the past thirty years) and I convinced them that a small dippin dots was an acceptable substitute for the snow cone, especially in light of the fact that it was only $5, what a deal.

The intermission lasted what seemed to be an eternity likely due to the fact that they are trying to peddle as much merch as possible.  On top of that I’m pretty sure the chubby kid sitting next to me on my right was dropping ass the entire first half of the show so I wasn’t that pumped about returning to the gas chamber.  However, I managed to survive the second act unscathed and was mentally preparing for what was about to transpire as we were leaving.  Kid 1 had a spider man web slinger light that he decided to bring along with him so there was absolutely no chance that kid 2 wouldn’t ask for one.  I was prepared to cough up the dough for another one if it was in the $10 to $15 price range but I wasn’t blowing $25 on that plastic piece of junk.  As he begged and pleaded for me to buy him one because his brother already had one, I was starting to think that maybe I don’t have a debt to the cool kids family due to the predicament I was currently facing due to their “generosity”.  Fortunately I can think on my feet and I told him that we would find him one on Amazon for much cheaper and that seemed to solve the problem. Maybe Amazon isn’t such a bad thing after all.