Looky, Daddy!

Dead Inside

It's been exactly one week since we moved in. And exactly four days since The Mom left for California. Still no phones. Still no Internet. Still no nothing that isn't packed away in boxes with labels that must have made sense at the time but are now totally incomprehensible.

Still just one adult for three kids--three kids who are wildly excited about the new house and all the new wiring to touch, hot water spigots to open, boxes marked "fragile" to climb, and beds to jump in. Jump in but not sleep in, I'm sure you noticed. No, we are way to excited for sleep. Way too excited.

I'm dead inside. Go someplace else. Find your humor elsewhere.

I recommend DadLabs.

Hurts So Bad

I can barely move my right arm. I certainly can't lift it over my head. We moved on Thanksgiving.

The rush up to the move involved more sanding, painting, spackling, and stripping than you can ever imagine. My right arm hasn't been this sore since I found that stack of vintage Playboys when I was twelve. And again at twelve and a half. And when high-speed Internet was invented.

Our new house was built in the early 1930s, smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression, which is why many of the building materials seem to have been empty matchbooks, old cigarette wrappers, and spit. Still, it has what my Realtor assured me was "character", and I am slowly beginning to understand that character means windows that do not close and a front room that is slowly, but not too slowly, falling off the front of the house. What character does not mean is a phone or broadband connection.

Character also does not mean The Mom, who after spending a mere three nights in our new house, fled to California for a week on "business."

Damn my right arm.

Happy Thanksgiving...

...from Sharon, Me, and our wonderfur grols.

Why I Prefer to Paint Alone

"You should post a picture of the wall."

"I did, last week."

"No, I mean post a picture of how it looks now."

"I don't think so."

"Why not? People obviously want to know."

"No, they don't. It's boring."

"Are you embarrassed?"

"No."

"You are! You are embarrassed by your patching skills."

"No, I'm not. Its just that if I post it, I'll get like fifty-million critiques outlining the right way to hang drywall. It's not worth it."

"So you're perfectly fine blogging about your ineptitude as a dad, but you're embarrassed about your drywall hanging skills?"

Silence.

"Is that it?"

Silence.

"You could always Photoshop it. You're good at that."

"You really need to stop talking now."

All I Can Say

Over the years I have read many a famous blogger regale readers with witty and charming tales of buying houses and moving, and I have decided one thing: Either they were all full of crap or they all lived a hell of a lot closer to Home Depot than I do.

One can either write about sanding a wall, or one can sand it. Both is not an option.

Midnight has found me, every night this week, paint-splattered, hand-cramped, and exhausted. So exhausted that yesterday the twins couldn't wake me in the morning. At least until Victoria found a screwdriver.

I'm just happy she used the dull end.

Number One on the List of Things You Can't Do in a Rental House

We closed on our new house at 11 AM. By noon I was alone in the house. With a crowbar.

Be happy you weren't in the way. It was the first time I smiled in months.

We Have a Winner

And the winner is: A head injury. If there's one thing we at Looky, Daddy! appreciate, it's generating attention with problems of the head. And apparently that's what the voters like, too, which now allows me to declare Abby the winner of the Second Annual Haiku Contest, with this entry:

First Head Injury by Abby

He lies motionless
On unforgiving concrete
Heart stops, mine, not his

911, ER
IV, CT scan, tears, fears
Looky, Mom, stickers!

It is, I must say, a very worthy recipient of the tons of coffee and sugar that will soon arrive at Abby's door, but I am a bit nervous about declaring this one the winner, for fear that next year's contest will generate a kind of one-upsmanship and in twelve months we'll see a bevy of young mothers throwing their kids to the concrete just to win a pound of coffee.

Not that I wouldn't chuck mine down a whole flight of stairs for a latte.

The Haiku Finalists

First may I say holy crap that was a lot of haiku. Over 2.5 thousand syllables of mini-poem madness. And even if you don't count the ones who didn't count their syllables, that's still a big ol' boatload of poems. (And really, can we begrudge those who missed a syllable or two? I've been known to lose over two-thirds of my kids just on a walk around the block.)

Luckily, I've got a professional on hand for these kind of events. Ladies and gentlemen, and by gentlemen I mean the four of you who read my blog, may I present Claudia Carlson, professional poet. Claudia has agreed to be this year's guest haiku judge, an honor that pays bugger-all, but it does have some perks, like getting email from me once every four and a half minutes asking if the finalists have been chosen yet. Which is probably why the judge of last year's contest hasn't returned my phone calls.

But Claudia is one of those rare poets, a published poet, and her book, The Elephant House, which you can buy here or here or stop by my place and borrow my copy because it's actually one of the books I've read this year, which is saying a lot (there's a reason I don't have a "Looky, Daddy! reads..." sidebar), is awesome, and that's not just because it has a poem called "Pornos: Muse of Hack." Claudia is also a graphic designer, and a blogger,and best of all a good sport, which is why she agreed to judge this contest in the first place.

So without further ado, I'll turn it over to her to introduce this year's finalists:

Dyslexic? by Heidi

Sarah reads her book
But the word "look" becomes "cool"
And bites her backwards

CSC's comment: Love the idea of misread words turning on you and biting.

Bathtime by Sharon

Three kids in the bath
Sudden shrieks and loud screaming
A large turd floats by

CSC's comment: I had to include at least one haiku-poo.

NO ONE WARNED ME by Kristin

breaking my pelvis
she shot out like a bullet
it was all worth it

CSC's comment: Violence of birth--so vivid--and the compensation, both heartfelt and shocking.

How I Find the Time to Shower by Sasha

"Hola! I'm Dora!
And this is my best friend, Boots!"
cheap babysitters

CSC's comment: Fun, from the too bright TV voices to the mother's wry comment. And yes we've all used those tube  sitters.

Approaching Two by Liza

Do you want some cheese?
No! Some apple juice instead?
No! No! No! No! No!

Cheese? Cheese? Cheese? Door? Cheese?
Can you say please? Peez. Tanku.
Mommy! Mommy! Kiss!

CSC's comment: Fantastic capture of two year old speech in rhythmic beat.

Summer, Summed Up by Krista

Two little girls, feet
in matching pink Crocs, fingers
popsicle-sticky.

CSC's comment: Yes, the summer of crocs was 2007, like fingers and feet being coated in pinkness.

Oh, The Shame by ozma

What is that itching?
Buy ourselves a special comb.
Hair's ecosystem.

CSC's comment: Brilliant non-use of the word lice and it plays with near rhyme too.

Blog Confession to My Husband (Basho would be proud) by Sarka

Feeling unsexy
We live only to serve kids
A touch: I quiver

Saturday morning
Cartoons keep them occupied
I am yours briefly

Kissing, just us, nice!
A father--my lover still
Don't you forget it

CSC's comment: Here the yearning is palpable. Nice use of punctuation to heighten turns of though in haiku.

First Head Injury by Abby

He lies motionless
On unforgiving concrete
Heart stops, mine, not his

911, ER
IV, CT scan, tears, fears
Looky, Mom, stickers!

CSC's comment: Such concision, the use of anacronyms, terrific and moving.

Untitled by Chickenpig

Years of IVF
Shots, pain, and money galore
Having twins: Priceless

CSC's comment: Yeah, good send up of the ad.

but I just loved this one too and it is the 11th one!

Peaceful by S

Finally bedtime
The weight of a sleeping child
Heavy against me.

Sadly, though, my webpoll will not accept 11 entries. Apparently it was not designed by a soft-hearted poet. So Peaceful, by S will have to be called an honorable mention today.

Let the voting and campaigning begin!

Updated to add: The polls close at 10 PM EST today, November 9th. Good luck.

Is "Minions" Too Much, My Minions?

So I haven't been actively promoting my Weblog Award nomination. Sure, I mentioned it, and I put up a little button, but I haven't told you to vote, have I? I haven't told you to vote once every twenty-four hours, have I? I haven't told you to rise up, my minions, and smite the Internet with your collective force, have I? Have I?

Well, now I have.

And in other contest news, today is the last day for haiku, so count those syllables and post away!

My minions.

The Second Annual Haiku-a-thon

I am writing to you in secret. My wife is in the twins' room, reading them bedtime stories, and I've stolen to the basement with my laptop to transcribe a few handwritten notes into a real live blog post. It's November 4th and we close on our new house in just four days. Four days. If my wife knew I was taking time out to post to my blog, I would no longer have a blog. Or fingers with which to type a post to it. We're lucky she hasn't taken this laptop away just as a precaution. Well, not really lucky. I hid it down here in the basement, under the cats' litter box, just in case.

But she'll find it eventually, yes she will, and then our midnight trysts will be over. I'll miss you and I hope to see you on the other side of this move. In the meantime, I thought I'd leave you with what you all come to my site for anyway, a poetry contest.

The Second Annual Haiku Contest to be precise.

The rules are simple. Write a 5-7-5 haiku. Post your haiku. Win a fabulous prize. The haiku must have something to do with children or childrearing in general. You can post as many as you like, the more the merrier.

On Thursday, Nov 8th, I'll post the ten finalists. At that point, I'll open the voting up to you. By Saturday we'll declare a winner. The winner will get one of my Please-Help-Me-Through-Another-Day gift packs: a pound of coffee, a pack of chocolate-covered espresso beans, and a dozen donuts.

I'll get us started with a few of my own.

Someone's in for an Asskicking When His Wife Gets Home

Curly blond tresses
"Looky! I'm a hairdresser!"
All over the floor

Please Bring Back Garanimals

Tiger with tiger
Koala with koala
Nobody goes blind

Two Out of Three Developmental Milestones Ain't Bad

Drink from a real cup
Sleep in a bed with no rails
Poop behind the couch