Looky, Daddy!

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 Case You Weren't on the Plane

Happy Holidays from Lila, Victoria, and the rest of the crew.

Hold Your Applause

It was all over when they clapped. Any chance that anyone had of a restful, quiet 4-hour flight to Dallas was all over when the people in rows 18 through 20 clapped.

Victoria loves her some clapping.

As always, we waited until the last minute to board the plane for our annual flight to Texas for Christmas; pre-boarding kids is like showing up to a Kevin Costner movie early enough to see previews of other Kevin Costner movies. So yesterday morning, when everyone else was on board and strapped in, my wife and I herded our girls onto the plane. And as Victoria climbed up into her window seat at 17A, she saw the people behind her.

"Oh, hi!" she said to them. "I'm Victoria! And this," she pointed to me, "this is my Brian!"

The laughter was their first mistake. Talking to her was their second.

"Your Brian?" the woman directly behind questioned.

"Yes! My Brian! He's my friend! And now I'm going to sing a song!"

And so she did, standing up in her chair, looking out over the sea of  people in the rows behind her, she belted out "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." And the people clapped.

They clapped because she knew the words. They clapped because she sang those words well. They clapped because it was probably the cutest thing they had ever seen before 7 AM on a plane heading to Dallas. But most of all, they clapped because they did not know how many Christmas songs Victoria knew.

They know now.

There Goes My Productivity

We only moved one mile down the street, but it took the Internet over two weeks to find us. But find us it has, and in celebration, I present to you a post composed almost entirely of the Google search terms that have found my site in the past three hours. That, my friend, is the power of the Internet.

There's a nude woman jogging in a sweater that says Grammy past the trees squirrels pee in, loudly wondering can I see someone poop online , when she stubbed her permanent fake toenail on John Malkovich as he was convincing wife for kinky sex but she wanted no part in his hot kinky twin fantasy with those twins that were born inside each other because she was too busy finding songs for my mom's funeral which is weird because my mom isn't dead but she will be if she learns about the pictures of dad's pubic hair he took at the potty playdate party that was cut short due to the sewer poop smell in the house from the anal glands in humans attending to say nothing of the severed finger or the seven-year-old vomiting on and off for three days and the daddy and babysitter sex, but that girl is a fockmom so who can blame him, really, but even she won't touch him when daddy pees in diaper like a baby, so she went back to her videogame obsessed boyfriend and his poopy pull-up with her shopping bag full of cow colostrum for human babies.

Happy Thanksgiving...

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

Because It's Not Like Moving Will Add Stress to Our Lives

Dear Rental House,

You are small. I'm sorry if that hurts, but you are. When we moved in three years ago, we found that a good deal of our furniture could not fit inside you. Our bed frame and mattress, our dresser, one whole couch, and a desk all went back to Texas in the moving truck that had brought them here the day before. The driver said he'd donate them to charity at some point down the line, but secretly I think he's kept them to make his own portable bedroom in the back of his truck. He seemed the type.

You weren't always so small, of course. Almost 200 years ago when you were built, you were spacious: A grand and glorious house replete with bedrooms, dining rooms, parlors, and the like. But then someone had the idea of putting up a wall right down the middle of you and doubling your housing capacity while halving your housing space. Who wouldn't like that, right? Who, indeed.

Rental House, I don't like you. There, I said it. And I don't think I'm alone. Remember that young man, over a hundred years ago now, that young man who lived here with his parents? Remember that day, in 1905, that fine day in May when he hatcheted his mother to death in what would later be our living room? Then he went upstairs and shot his father five times, once in the head? Happily they didn't make guns very well back then and the father survived. Of course, they didn't make houses very well back then either, no offense. It is rumored in the publications of the time that the young man was unstable, which begs the question of what need a stable young man might have of taking a hatchet to his mom, doesn't it? But I think his stability is beside the point. I think he did it because his parents chose to live in you.

Rental House, you were not always sitting where you are now. No, about ninety years ago you were down the block, right where that five-lane street is now. Finding you a hindrance to the building of that street, yet not wanting to deny anyone the pleasure of living within you, the good people of this town moved you. They built you a big basement and then moved you on top of it, and who am I to complain if the two of you didn't match up exactly right? I mean, I can barely set a cup of coffee down in a saucer correctly. And if those gaps between you and your basement let in a little dirt, a little sunshine, and sometimes a little water, well that's just part of the charm in living in you. You charmer, you.

Oh, how I'm babbling on, Rental House. I'm sorry. I never was any good at break-ups. Because that's what this is, you know: a break-up. My family and I have found someone else. A real house, the kind you take home to meet your mom, the kind you buy. And buy it we did.

Rental House, simply put, we're through. I hope the new For Rent sign doesn't hurt much when we pound it into your front lawn. Well, not too much.

Love,

Brian

I'm Still Two!

There's something that we do everyday, but today I will refuse to do it. I don't know what it is yet, but it will most likely be something important.

I have so many toys, it is impossible to choose one. I'll just take my sister's.

When you pick me up and toss me into the air, I am overcome with a happiness that I never want to end. See that it doesn't.

Breakfast is only the most important meal of the day if it is Goldfish.

Did you know it is possible to scream so much you throw up? Here, watch.

I'm Two!

I am thinking of an object, but it is a secret. Bring it to me. Quickly. It will be the third thing you bring me, but it will not matter as I'll be incoherent by item number two.

Kindly do not suggest we go to the park before I suggest it myself. If you do, I will need to rub my face on the ground in anger.

Pick me up. No, not that way. Pick me up the other way. Nevermind. Try again when I stop screaming. Tomorrow.

May I wash my hands by myself? Very good. First I must let the water run for twenty minutes. Please do not disturb me for the duration or the time will start over from the beginning.

Television is the perfect compliment for any activity, don't you agree? I'm already filling my lungs in anticipation of your response.

An 85% Accurate Birthday Wish

Dear Kathryn,

You were a day-and-a-half old when your mother woke me to tell me you were choking. It was sometime around 3 AM and you, your mom, and I were all sharing the same hospital room. Never in my life before or since have I moved as fast as I did then. You were lying there, still, quiet when I jumped up from my cot and wrapped my hands around you, not knowing what to do but knowing that picking you up was probably a good start. And you wailed. And that was how I interrupted the first full hour of sleep I had had since you were born.

You weren't choking at all, of course. You were sleeping. The word your mom had said was "joking", not "choking," and to hear her tell it, she had said it a good fifteen minutes before I jumped up and made you cry so pitifully. It seems your mom had woken up in some discomfort from her surgery and had asked me for a cup of water, prompting me to stand up from my cot, walk to her bed, and hand her my pillow. As I shuffled back to my cot, she asked if I were joking.

Fifteen minutes later my sleep-deprived brain processed that last word. With about 85% accuracy.

Since that day, I've tried to maintain that same 85% success rate in my raising of you, my first child. Certainly some days have been better and some days have been worse, but all-in-all, I feel that I have earned a solid B on any fathering report card I might be issued.

And now today, Kathryn, you are seven years old. So far the biggest change is in your timeline for the future. For the past year, seven was everything to you. At mealtimes you'd regale us with tales of your future seven-year-old accomplishments, and now that you are there, you have already begun the monumental task of shifting those feats up one more year. Like when you're eight, you'll read that book we bought you. Or you'll swim the width of the pool. Or you'll be famous. And then we will all celebrate by jumping in our rocket-powered hovercrafts and jaunting over to your favorite restaurant where the food is cooked entirely by robots.

But seven is still really exciting to you, and when we were driving the other day, in one of those rare moments when the twins were quiet and we could speak to each other, you told me that you thought Kate or Katy might be a good name for a seven-year-old. You said it hesitatingly, nervous how I might take it, as in the past I have expressed a general dislike of diminutive nicknames. But you were about to turn seven, a wonderfully delightful seven at that, and I was determined to not fall below the 85% mark on this occasion, so I said that you could certainly call yourself anything you wished, because it was your name and you were the boss of you.

Then I asked if you thought it would be okay if I still called you Kathryn, because calling you that made me happy. For a long time you were quiet, and when you spoke, you sounded two years younger. "Daddy," you said, "I really like it when you call me Little Bear."

So Happy Birthday, Little Bear. May your next seven years be at least as good as 85% of your last seven.

Love, Daddy

In Which My Brother Ages

Today my older brother turns 40. All last week the girls and I were making cards and crafts for this monumental occasion. We made designs of black paper pasted on black paper, colored more black paper with black markers, drew black flowers with little skulls in the middle (Kathryn's touch), and were altogether hideously tacky individuals. Long ago my family forswore pleasant Hallmark birthday greetings for more irreverent fare, and as the youngest of the bunch, I can be as tasteless as I want, knowing that everyone will always be older than me. By a lot.

As we worked, Kathryn recited a stream-of-conscious series of poems all about death and old age, each one more disturbing than the last, making me wonder if my ability to choose to stay home with children should have been curtailed by a more conservative Supreme Court. Each poem was titled Turning Forty, and there were maybe a dozen in all. Here's the one she wanted included on this site:

Turning Forty, by Kathryn

Time turns weary
You moan for your bed
And then one day you rest your head
And never awaken again
Until it's time to say goodbye
And go into the grave

After she dictated the poem to me, I asked her if there was anything else she wanted to add to it. She said, "Oh, yes. Please make the last line say 'Happy Birthday Uncle Randy.' With an explanation point."

So Happy Birthday Uncle Randy. With an explanation point.