Looky, Daddy!

To Do

My latest to-do list, a pictorial essay:

Unpack.

Water the Chia Turtle. And re-wire our telephone jack.

Paint.

Unpack.

Shore up the back of the detached garage before it collapses entirely.

Find the rest of the blender.

Unpack. And paint.

Administer 1 tsp of acetaminophen every 4-6 hours to control fever.

I Almost Loved New Jersey

Boilers explode. Boilers explode and red-shirted Star Trek extras die. These things I know from watching TV.

Television has never shown a boiler on-screen that did not explode before the episode was up, not even on HBO, and so, ever since I moved to the Northeast, I've been living with the certainty that my boiler was always just an hour away from taking out my whole family. Forty-five minutes if I TiVOed through the commercials. But, it turns out, boilers don't explode. They simply stop.

Now on the outside, there is no noticeable difference between a working boiler and a dead one. They are both an old, scary mass of pipes, gauges, and vents. In fact, the only difference I can tell is that when you are looking at the former, you are probably not wearing seven heavy coats and a bathrobe like I am now.

Yesterday, New Jersey and I had a bit of a love affair. I spent the afternoon driving some old friends up to New York State on their quest to buy an old '66 Mustang they had found on Ebay. The day was cold and as we left the sprawling suburbia that surrounds Manhattan, we found ourselves bobbing over snow-covered hills and curving through rural towns and farmland. Kathryn was at Camilo's house and the twins were sleeping in the back of the van, and by sleeping I mean jabbering incessantly. Still, despite the jabber, it was a great drive, the kind that could get even a guy like me to write a few nice words on the Internet about New Jersey.

And then our boiler broke. And all those nice words were driven from my mind, replaced instead by an argument with my wife over how often we should wake up through the night to make sure our children had not frozen to death. She wanted to set the alarm for every two hours and I wanted it set for every three. Sure the temperature in this old, drafty house could drop significantly in three hours, I conceded, but I didn't think we'd lose all the children in such a short time, just the weak and sick ones. That's nature's way. She eventually won and the rest of the night she and I took turns waking and piling blankets onto our children to keep the icy claws of death at bay.

Now this morning, a repairman is down in the furnace room, tinkering away at the scary mass of pipes, bringing it back to life, and I am up here, all but choking on the fear that he's about to run upstairs and yell GET OUT! GET OUT! IT'S GOING TO BLOW! It doesn't help that he's wearing a red shirt.

The Jackhammer Ban

A jackhammer is the only tool my wife specifically forbids me to use. I don't know exactly how that rule would be enforced were she to catch me jackhammering, but I do know that I don't want to know. At the very least, the punishment would be swift, mean, and public. It would not surprise me if, at a company party, The Mom were to affect a convincing drunk and loudly announce my need to be called "Cocky McPenis" during sex. Or, of course, she could remain completely sober and simply tell everyone why the jackhammer ban was enacted in the first place. I won't steal her thunder here, but I will say that, if you've ever looked out in your backyard and wondered where, exactly, your main waterline was, I bet me and a jackhammer could find it in just two tries. We'd find your phone line in one.

And let me just pause a moment to tell you that, of all the lines going to your house, the one you are most going to need when a five-foot geyser of water suddenly engulfs both your husband and his rented jackhammer is your phone line.

So for about five years now I've been living under a jackhammer ban, which, it must be said, has not exactly cramped my style. Still, the ban has been taunting me of late because as I write this, I'm paying a guy an extraordinary amount of money to jackhammer the floor of my basement to rubble. And I'm up here, hearing him do it, thinking that it should be me. It should be me down there, taking out the floor, hammering everything I find back into its elemental particles. But no, one little mistake--alright two little mistakes--and all the sudden, I have to hire a contractor.

It's not a money thing, although that is part of it. Mostly it's a pride thing. It gets me right here (and you might not be able to see through the cloud of basement dust that I'm pointing to my chest) when I have to shake the hand of a person who has come to my house to do a job that I could do myself. I shake his hand and then take him around, show him what needs to be done, and halfway through I expect the man to turn me around, pat me on the head and say, "Go back upstairs, little writer-man. Go back upstairs to your baby girls and your laptop. I'm here now and I'll take care of this. No need to wring your little pasty writer hands over this big bad basement floor anymore." And it probably doesn't help that I meet him at the door wearing my wife's baby-blue flowered crocs.

But holy crap are they comfortable.

4:42 AM

4:42 AM. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, 4:42 AM.

For weeks now, Victoria has been waking up just a little bit earlier each day, and by that I mean a lot earlier, because face it, there is a world of difference between, say, 7 AM and 6:57 AM. The good people that invented the snooze button know that, and so do you. But each day, Victoria has been moving her individual crack-of-dawn up and up until today, when she successfully moved it right up my crack. Of dawn.

4:42 AM. That's when she woke up. 4:42. I guess she felt that these winter days are simply too short to squeeze in all the screaming fits she has planned, because, people, she is on a tight schedule and if she needs to wake up early to fit them all in, then so be it. The girl's got drive, is what I'm saying. And I ask you, when better to start a fit than 4:43 AM, right when I told her to turn off the light and get off the damned stack of books she was standing on to reach the switch in the first place. Because it's not enough to be awake by yourself, oh no, not when your twin sister needs to be told things, important things, like her teddy bear is on the floor, and God knows we need the light on to do that, right? And besides, we need the light on because it's dark outside, Daddy, look, it's dark. We need the light on because it's dark!

It's daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark!

Screaming fit number one? Right on schedule. Looks like we'll have no problem fitting the rest in at this rate. No problem at all.

In Which I Recall Laughing

Last night, just before we went to bed, it started to snow. Big ol' snowflakes. Snowflakes the size of your head. So outside we went, with no preparation for the weather, no twenty minutes of finding boots, collecting mittens, or arguing over hats and hoods, we just went out in the clothes we were wearing, and caught those big-as-our-new-house snowflakes on our tongues. Forever, it seemed, we were out there. Spinning, leaping, shouting, and laughing. Most of all laughing.

I don't spend a lot of my time on this blog describing the good aspects of having kids, and mostly that's because I don't spend a lot of time actually experiencing any of the good aspects of having kids, but sometimes, only sometimes, when it's well-past dark outside, and your fingers are cold, and your hair is wet, and you can't see the snowflakes until they are right there on top of you, and nobody is asking for anything, and everybody is living with all their attention focused right in that moment, waiting for the next snowflake and laughing to wake the dead, in those moments this fathering thing doesn't seem that bad after all.

Ask The Dad

I try to answer my Ask The Dad email in a timely manner, usually within a calendar year of receiving it, but some letters just tend to collect without any response whatsoever. This is especially true about letters on one certain topic. But, since I've got nothing else to write about today, here we go...

Dear The Dad,

Did I miss something? I have been searching the archives for posts on how potty training went. Spill the beans!

Spill the beans? Ask me about potty training again and I'll spill your blood. Next!

Dear The Dad,

I am a SAHM of 28-mo-old b/g twins. What advice do you have for potty training them? How did you do it with your girls? (They are potty trained, right?)

Of course they are potty trained. And they've also brokered a Israeli/Palestinian peace accord and devised a new, clean-burning, reusable fuel source. Tomorrow they are going to repair the hole in the ozone layer with a needle, thread, and a simple country-craft cross-stitch pattern. Next!

Dear The Dad,

How is that potty training coming? I was just curious because my 3 1/2 year old son will only pee in the potty sometimes and then refuses to poo in there. I am ready to ram the nearest sharp object through my head because it is making me insane.

I had never thought of shoving the nearest sharp object through my head. Thank you. That makes much more sense than my original idea. Next!

Dear The Dad,

Now that you're a father and have recently gone through some potty trials, do you view your parents differently?

Do I view my parents differently? Yes, I view them from behind this film of urine and feces that has built up on every surface of my life. Every surface except the potty, that is. Next!

Dear The Dad,

I am about to undergo the trial by fire which is potty training. We only have one toilet in the house, so I need to buy two of those little toddler potties. Any advice on which ones to buy?

Yes. Buy ones that look like the back of this:

Hope this helps,

The Dad

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What I Have Learned Recently

Do not try to get control of your household's sole television by promising your kids it will be showing "cowboys" and "giants." There will only be disappointment and tears.

It takes an ridiculously short time for a snowball fight between a second grader and two toddlers to turn tragic. Add in a thirty-eight-year-old and that time can be cut in half.

On a cold winter day when your dentist asks you, "So if you are a stay-at-home dad, where are your kids right now?" remember that he has a sharp metal object and possibly a limited sense of humor before you respond, "In the car--is this going to take much longer?"

If a seven year old sees a weather report predicting up to a foot of snowfall overnight, she will stay awake until she sees white through her window, even if the first white she sees turns out to be the sunrise.

A Little Knowledge...

Kathryn's eyes were wide. It was early summer and Kathryn's eyes were wide with knowledge. We were sitting in a river in Texas, a slow, lazy river, cooling our heels when Kathryn, who was a few months short of three years old at the time, said she needed to go to the bathroom.

There were people around, just a few, so I got way up close to Kathryn and asked in a whisper which number she needed to make. "Pee-pee," she said back, and so I told her a secret. I told her that sometimes, only sometimes, when you are sitting in a river, a slow, lazy river, and the camp bathroom, the bug-infested bathroom, is very far away, and Daddy's beer, his cold, cold beer, is already opened, then it is okay for a young lady to stay in the river to make a pee-pee. And that's when Kathryn's eyes grew wide.

"Really?" she asked. I nodded and her eyes grew even wider.

Then she thought about it some more and asked, "In my bathing suit?" and I said yes and her eyes grew wider still.

She looked at my face hard with those eyes, looking for a sign I was pulling her leg, and when she saw none, her wide eyes finally squeezed shut as she steeled herself and pushed an enormous turd out of her behind and into her bathing suit.

Apparently two years old is too young to bite the apple from that particular tree of knowledge.

In Case You Were Wondering

If the TV crews ever came, none of my neighbors would say they were surprised. None would stand there, in front of the cameras, and say things like, "He seemed so normal, so quiet," or "I've known him for years and I just can't believe he would do this."

There are many things I do very well, but impress people with my mental stability is not one of them.

I just thought you'd like to know that.

Ask The Dad

Dear The Dad,

I have nearly-three-year-old twins, and am growing frustrated with the comment, “Oh, it must be so great to have twins, since they play together!”  It is great that my daughters love one another, and yes, they do play together, but no, that does not mean that having two children is way easier than having one (which is often implied or actually said directly).  I often launch into a rather long-winded explanation about how, no, two is not easier than one, but find my explanations usually only convince people that I’m a big whiner.  Any suggestions on pithy responses, or am I doomed to smile and nod?

Look them in the eye and say, "Well, it's not like the second one is a fucking Au Pair."

The "play together" comment is a frequent one, and, as someone who had a single child for about four years before my twins came, I can totally understand it. Imagine this: A singleton parent is in the kitchen, cooking dinner. The singleton child wants attention, so the child spends the entire time trying to climb the parent's leg, making a sound reminiscent of a bagpipe being shoved down a cat's throat. Sound familiar? Of course it does. But then one day, right around dinner-cooking time, the singleton child has a playdate, and all of the sudden, viola! the child and her friend are off in another room, playing happily, and for the first time that the parent can remember, cooking dinner does not necessitate a bottle of wine and half an Oxycodone. That is the image that singleton parents have when they tell you how great twins must be.

Of course, what they don't realize is that for us, that magical second child, the one that is supposed to steal our child's interest away from us, is still our child. For our twins, this is not a playdate, they are not happy to be there, and they are not excited about all the toys they see, and therefore, the second child spends all of our cooking time clamoring for our attention just like the first one does, but even more so, because now it's a competition.

But now I, too, sound like a big whiner. Oh well, maybe a smile and a nod are the best way to go. But make sure you add, "Oh yes! And their poop smells like sunshine!"

Dear the Dad,

I am a stay at home mom with year-old twins.  This is the most fun, easiest job I have ever had and the idea of returning to a cubicle when they go to kindergarten already fills me with dread.  What steps can I take now (and don't even think about suggesting that I have another baby) to find some kind of money making opportunity so I don't have to go back to cubicle hell.

You could always try drawing robots on the Internet. There's got to be good money in that. But if that doesn't pan out, might I suggest removing the spam filter off your email. Lots of delightful job offers to be had there.

Dear The Dad,

Yesterday, I called the Poison Control Hotline number when my son tried to eat a drinking bird because I had no idea what the red liquid contains other than crazy amounts of permanent dye.  Turns out that it's non-toxic; it's just the broken glass he chewed that we have to worry about now.  Trent is 21 months old. So, I'm wondering when you first called Poison Control and what the kid had eaten when you did?

Oh, my. Chewing broken glass can't be good. I hope everything turned out okay. Believe it or not, I've never called poison control for something my kids ate. Once, however, my wife brought home from a spa party (spa party?) a goodie bag full of homemade, cookie-sized fizzing bath cakes which I, not my children, saw fit to snack on the next day. I didn't call poison control, but I did call my wife at work, spewing out both obscenities and aromatic foam all over the phone.

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