Looky, Daddy!

Ask The Dad

Martini Thursday turned into Hangover Friday, so I think I'll just answer an email today.

Dear The Dad,

After almost 10 years here at home rapidly losing brain cells, finances require that I need to re-enter the workforce at least part-time in the fall when my 6-year old starts 1st grade. I, like you, have an "ology" degree, which is pretty much useless, topped off by a Master's Degree that is so embarassingly stupid I won't even name it.

My question is this: do you have any suggestions for employment? I'm a great encourager, all the way back to, "Great, you made a poop-poop!" to "Yes, I love that Lego creation" (for the 40th time when each new piece is added), to standing on the sidelines at the soccer/basketball game and cheering like an idiot when they make a goal for the wrong team. Do you think anyone would consider hiring a pushing-40 overweight mother of two as a cheerleader? I'm certainly not sharp enough for much else at this point.

mommy24x7

Dear mommy24x7,

I'm sorry, but you seem to be confused about how this feature works. You see, you are supposed to ask a simple straight-forward question, then I am supposed to come up with a witty response. Like this:

Dear The Dad,

After almost 10 years here at home rapidly losing brain cells, finances require that I need to re-enter the workforce. Do you have any suggestions for employment?

Catching your pearls of wisdom, mommy24x7

Dear mommy24x7,

If you've been a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, you are probably good for only one thing: encouraging. Starting with "Great, you made a poop-poop!" to "Yes, I love that Lego creation" (for the 40th time when each new piece is added), to standing on the sidelines at the soccer/basketball game and cheering like an idiot when they make a goal for the wrong team, you can surely encourage with the best of them. Have you considered becoming a pushing-40, overweight cheerleader?

Hope this helps,

The Dad

You see? That way we all come out looking good. Especially when the pounding in my head is louder than the pounding of the twins on the lid to their daytime box.

Got a simple, straight-forward question for The Dad? Email me.

Email The Dad

More from the Arttis

Another piece from Kathryn's school portfolio:

Is that a stick being brandished? That can't be good.

I have no idea what's going on here, but I do have a guess. Do you?

Uplifting and Powerful

The Mom was out of town for most of last week, but the twins more than made up for her absence by screaming. Before she left, The Mom took Kathryn aside and asked her to lend a hand around the house which Kathryn happily did, interpreting "lending a hand" as "talking about Webkinz." It was a good time.

In other news, this website has begun to see a trickle of spamming comments, the usual porn stuff--grannies in nylons, nubile teens, and the like, in the archived posts. Right now it's just a few a day, nothing beyond my capacity to delete, but if it increases, I might have to institute some kind of anti-spam measure for comments. I apologize in advance if that has to happen.

There were many things that I was not prepared for when I started this website, not the least of them being how much free swag people would offer me, "to review for my readers." Mostly I get offers for books, assuring me my readers would love to be informed about these important and life-altering works. My favorite so far has been a book about a dad who lost his job and found himself at home with the kids. The email promised me I would appreciate reading the author's unique experience as he, a man!, entered a woman's world. Oh, boy, would I! And when I read the words "uplifting" and "powerful" I knew that this would be the book that could change my life.

I could not delete that email fast enough.

Actually, I deleted the one that began "Dear [Insert Name], Love your blog!" even faster than that.

But every once in a while I get an email offering me something that I might actually want. And I'm torn. Part of me is like, Whoo boy! I could really use one of those! But the rest of me knows I have no intention of actually informing any of my readers about it. Seriously, could you imagine anything more out of character for this site than for me to write a few paragraphs about how clean my teeth feel after I use the new Oral-B® Triumph™ with Smart Glide™? The first and only rechargeable toothbrush to combine best-in-class cleaning and gum care with a wireless display to promote optimal brushing habits? The product Popular Mechanics called the "smartest toothbrush ever"? The one that will be available at department, retail, and specialty stores in September? And looks like this?

I mean, that would just be weird, wouldn't it?

Really, I want to know if it would be weird. Cause that toothbrush looks pretty sweet.

Nah, nevermind. I'm holding out for the next generation of Wii.

Dear The John

Dear Lila and Victoria,

I miss you.

Love,

The Potty

Ask The Dad: The Clean-Out-My-Inbox Edition

Dear The Dad,
Whenever someone is 'expecting', people warn them constantly about the poop. But, I can handle poop all day long and twice on Sundays (that didn't sound right, but you get my meaning)... it's the throw-up that I can't stand. Don't you agree?
The Godfather

Dear The Godfather,
The only way I'd agree that puke is worse than poop is if my two-year-old twins still spit-up once a day and it was my job to try to teach them to do it in a little pretend potty.

Dear The Dad,
My husband and I are having our first child in November. For financial reasons, we will both be returning to work afterward, so we are in the process of looking for a nanny/babysitter. Do you have any suggestions of traits we should look for? Any questions we should ask during the interview?
Thanks, Randi

Dear Randi,
My neighbor once had an au pair who liked to hula hoop. I'd definitely recommend that as a trait to look for. It was awesome.

Dear The Dad (and The Mom),
Over the weekend, I attended the grand re-opening of Seattle Art Museum. In their African collection they had some carved wooden twins. The explanatory text accompanying the figures went something like this:
"It is believed that twins are able to bestow happiness, health and prosperity upon their family. However, since they can also bring about disaster, disease and death, they will be treated with all due respect, loving and care. Their upbringing is therefore far more permissive than that of other children."
(Which I just lifted from here.) Does that sound about right to you?
Not Erin

Dear Not Erin,
"Their upbringing is therefore far more permissive than that of other children"? That line is so much better than the one I've been using, which is, "Until I get some fucking help around here, these kids can do what they want." And that fucking help had best bring a hula hoop, thank you very much.

Dear The Dad,
I’m wondering how you handled (or handle) the issue of your twins not taking turns (ie: not sharing, or screaming bloody murder when one takes a toy from the other) yet in the same breath one laughs when the other smacks her on the head repeatedly?
Thanks, Shawn

Dear Shawn,
When I first read your letter, I thought it was you who laughed when one of your twins smacked the other one over the head. And for a brief moment, I thought the Internet had finally brought me a soulmate. At least this time I came to my senses quickly and it didn't cost me hundreds in pay-for-chat charges.

Dear Dad,
We are about to take a long car ride for a weekend of family fun? Any advice for keeping the kiddies quiet in the back seat?
Sincerely, Hopeful

Dear Hopeful,
Only $99 and fun for all ages. Let us know how the trip goes.

Got a question for The Dad? Email me.

Email The Dad

No More Gallery Visits for This One

Either Kathryn forgot a letter 't' or she has an understanding of the art world that far exceeds her age.

An Auspicious Beginning

Victoria came into the bathroom this morning during my morning constitutional, and it being Father's Day, I asked for something I never get otherwise.

"Victoria, can Daddy have some privacy this morning?"

"Okay," she said, then opened up the cabinets and started hunting around for something. Seconds later she found it.

"Here, Daddy. Here's your privacy," she said and handed me a tampon. She walked out humming.

"I gave Daddy a privacy," I heard her tell The Mom a few minutes later.

Long. Live. First. Grade.

First grade is fighting for its life and Kathryn is trying to wring every last ounce of bizarre and mildly anti-social behavior out of it before she puts it down for the count.

It was a physical year for Kathryn, a year that began with Kathryn limping at break-neck speed from the school doors that first day, left knee wrapped enough tape and gauze to support Doctors Without Borders for a calendar year, calling out, "Daddy! Daddy! I met the nurse!"

And a few weeks later, I received one of the most unusual introductions to one of Kathryn's teachers I've ever had.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mr Sargent? This is Mrs. P. I just want you to know I would never, never, intentionally hurt your child."

"Oh, dear."

It was a year that Kathryn answered virtually every inquiry about her day with, "Please don't be mad," as in, "Please don't be mad, but we were on the playground playing a game where you had to hurt someone to live and so I hurt someone in the head and it went into his eye and he had to go to the nurse." Which left me wondering if a game where you have to "hurt someone to live" was somehow an initiation to a starter gang, like the Brownie version of the Crips. (I've heard the Bloods have Webelos.)

Intellectually, Kathryn grew by leaps and bounds this year, learning about punctuation and the mystery of the silent "e" and by mid-year she wase. writinge. alle. ofe. here. sentencese. like. thise. which I guess will make her work easier to recognize when we start finding "Cripse. Forevere." spray-painted behind the old train station. Of course, while she was wildly punctuating her written work, her spoken work begantosoundmorelikethis withnotasinglepauseforbreathormoreimportantlythought.

She also grew from a child who couldn't read to a child who doesn't read, which is an improvement of sorts. For the betterment of the environment, we've given up trying to get her to read aloud, because her dramatic sighs at every word that was not "cat" were surely contributing more than our family's fair share to Global Warming.

It was a year that soccer practice morphed into actual soccer games and Kathryn, in turn, morphed into the most single-minded halfback in the game, ready to kick the ball out of the possession of any girl who happened to dribble it past her, color of her jersey be damned. "She's remarkably, um, focused," her coach once remarked to me. I chose to take it as a compliment.

But first grade will give up the ghost soon, and with it, so will whatever sense of domestic tranquility I've been able to achieve this past year. But they will both be replaced with Kathryn's shining eyes and sweat-matted brow, and that's a trade I'm willing to make. For a few months, at least.

Being Near John Malkovich

Where was I, you ask, while The Mom was hijacking my blog and racking up 20 times my usual comments not that I'm bitter? I'll tell you. I was not sitting in front of John Malkovich. That honor was instead held by Lila's godmother, Alexa. She had flown in for the weekend to see what's left of her self-destructing goddaughter and drink Dark and Stormies with The Mom into the wee hours while I, in turn, took the weekend off and traveled up to her place outside of Boston to drink beer and play cribbage with Alexa's husband, Mr. Paul.

Alexa and Mr. Paul are one of those modern couples who have eschewed children of their own and have filled that void in their lives with a fully-stocked liquor cabinet and fistfuls of disposable income. Which is why Alexa was within a peanut's throw of Mr. Malkovich on her trip, while I was traveling to her place, totally celebrity free, on the Chinatown Bus.

The Chinatown Bus between New York City and Boston is a fantastic way to travel. It picks you up on a seemingly random street corner in one city's Chinatown and deposits you hours later on a street corner in the next. You never really know where it is going to appear and, having traveled it a few times, I have learned that the best approach is just to walk the streets of Chinatown until it finds you. But before you head down there yourself, keep in mind the Chinatown Bus is only for you if you have all of the following: Fifteen dollars, a flexible travel time, and a complete and total disregard for your own personal safety. A disdain for celebrity sightings also helps, as does an acceptance of others who may or may not try to sleep on your shoulder. And drool.

The bus itself has all the amenities you need if all the amenities you need are tires. There is a bathroom in the back, but in the one English phrase I heard him deliver all trip, our bus driver warned us not to poop in it or we'd "be sorry". I'm not sure just how the sorry would evidence itself and I don't wish to dwell too much on it either. I recommend a seat near the front.

Of course, the front of the bus has its problems, too, namely that you are granted the ability to see the other vehicles on the road and take note of the various distances between them and your bus. If you are really foolish, you can sit close enough to the driver to see his reaction, or lack thereof, when said distances become closer that the one between you and Capt. Sleepydrool, your shoulder-nuzzling neighbor.

But, c'mon people, its fifteen dollars. So if your blog is getting hijacked and you've got an iPod loaded with hours of Savage Love podcasts (don't click on the link, Mom), then there's really no better route to Boston. Especially if you don't like being knee-deep in John Malkoviches.

Eating Crow and Nickels

The response to Thursday's post has been nothing less than awe-inspiring. The Mom badgered me for months to let her write that post, and I have to say she was right. Literally. I have to say it. She's making me. Every time a new comment comes in, she makes me say it. And if I don't, she threatens me with her army of full-term twin moms and their uterine cavities that could swallow me whole.

This whole blog thing has gone to her head.

Despite my lack of pregnancy parts, I can totally understand the need to publicly proclaim the astounding feats that have been posted here the past few days. Once, when I was thirteen, I swallowed a nickel. For the days following, as it lounged its way through me to the exit, it was all I could talk about. It was a BIG DEAL. And if that nickel had taken forty weeks to pass and had it weighed 15 pounds by the time it did, you better believe that even 25 years later, this blog would have been called www.ihadafifteenpoundnickelinsidemeforfortyweeks.com and every post would have begun "When I had that fifteen pound nickel inside me..." Which, of course, is just one more reason why I would make a sucky woman.

Despite the fact that I cut a nice figure in The Mom's little black cocktail number.