Barrettes are not cheaper than haircuts

I don't believe in cutting Baby Girl's hair. Mommy talked me into giving her hair a trim once about a year ago. It will keep it out of her eyes she says. I know it's silly, but I was disappointed for a week. Not to mention we're now months behind in growing it out, so really it just prolonged how much time her hair is in her eyes. Mommy disputes this point. So anyway, Girl's hair is getting long which creates hair situations. A 2-year old isn't exactly the neatest when it comes to paint, food and the such. Things get in there. So we must do something to get her hair away from her face. Now, getting some sort of hair accessory into a 2-year-old's hair is difficult. She doesn't sit still for anything. We have tried many different things. Clips, bobby pins. Well, let's be honest, here's where my knowledge of little girl's hair basically ends. I'm not sure I even know what a bobby pin is. So I must trust those in the know. Namely, Mommy. And she tells me that after the exhaustive research of hair products sold at the Claire's in the mall, that the best solution is these little clips she's found at some random little baby clothes boutique a half an hour away. You squeeze them to open. Let go to close. (Mommy note: they are called alligator clips) Pretty intuitive. Especially with a squirming child. I've only poked her in the eye once or twice. They stay on her head pretty well, when she is not being funny pulling them out. They fall off after a certain amount of play anyway, but luckily they are easy to put back in. If you can find them. Mommy keeps buying more as we lose them. I keep randomly finding them around the house. Mommy gets excited every time. It's like I'm finding a Jim Rice rookie baseball card the way she reacts. Different colors and patterns elicit different levels of excitement.

Here's where it gets difficult. These things are not easy to find. Mommy calls the store she buys them from her "supplier". She has spent somewhere between $50 and $100. At least that's what I've been told, which makes me think we're closer to $200 at this point. We, of course, have to have them for all the different outfits. Rainbow stripes. Bright green plaid. White for spring. Yes, they are all quite adorable. Now, I'm a dude, so I immediately think to myself, wouldn't it be easier to just buy 10 black ones to go with everything? Not to mention the black won't show the crap she gets in her hair. I'm learning to keep these thoughts to myself. Now the store (The supplier) goes out of business. Why wouldn't it? This, of course, causes all sorts of commotion. (It's like when my favorite Design markers were discontinued. The ones with the aluminum bodies and Xylene in them) Now the Gramdmothers get involved. Finally, Grammy finds a place at her mall that has them. They cost 6 bucks for 2. I think one of them has Hello Kitty on it. Problem is, she thinks the dude at the kiosk swindled her out of a 20. So really, they cost 16 bucks. She didn't have it in her to argue. Really, it just adds to the mystique of Girl's barrettes. So now, there's no way I'm ever allowing any sort of cute haircut. I'm in way too deep.

The day Mommy almost inadvertantly ruined barbecue

Halloween, late afternoon. Mommy is helping Boy put on his Halloween costume to go out trick or treating. He's a pirate. Auntie made great pirate costumes for both Boy and Girl. As Mommy is putting on Boy's pirate vest, she bumps his ribs. Owww. Oh I'm sorry Mommy says, did I bump your ribs? Boy looks concerned. His face falls. Ribs? People Ribs? We eat people ribs? It dawned on me that the only experience Boy has with ribs are pork ribs. I like to break out the smoker and make ribs a couple times a year. Boy goes to town on them. Good times. He never gave any thought to the idea that he, himself, also has ribs. He suddenly went back in time to the last time he ate ribs and in his 4-year old mind, for one split second he thought that he had actually eaten people ribs. We explained that he has people ribs, we don't eat people ribs.

My hopscotch.

As every parent of a young child knows, the size of a child is inversely proportional to the size of the toys that they have. The smaller the child, the larger the toy. We have a small house. It is full of plastic, rubber, foam, paper, cardboard, wood, metal and other unimaginable space age materials in all the colors of the rainbow. My feet are calloused from walking on all sorts of sharp things. My living room is like the scene in Die Hard where Bruce Willis needs to walk across the shattered glass in bare feet. Needless to say, I get a little bent over this from time to time. I declare that it's time to purge.

Purging is no fun, so you need some sort of a system. More importantly, you need commitment from all parties involved. Leave your emotional connection to objects at the door. Just because your adorable baby girl once played with a cute stuffed animal and you will never get that adorable image out of your head doesn't mean you must carry the prop around with you forever. Toss it is what I say. I know it's cold, but you gotta live your life. I like to begin with finding 2 or more objects that are similar and get rid of the lesser favored of the 2. Or anything with any kind of broken part should be tossed. We tend to do this when the children are sleeping. Late at night or possibly nap time. So we rarely have the time. So when we do I like to make quick difficult decisions and hope for the best possible outcomes. Please don't let this random toy be the toy one of my children is about to want to play with.

Which brings me to the hopscotch set. A giant foam puzzle with giant foam pieces that connects to form a giant hopscotch (I think it's called a) court. Let's go through our purging checklist shall we?

1. Do we have other toys like this one? check
2. Are we missing any parts? check
3. Is the carrying case broken? check
4. Does it take up far too much room? check
I feel no need to continue. Into the garbage.

Boy loves garbage trucks. The garbage men love Boy. When Boy hears the truck rumbling down the street he runs to the front door to see the truck and to watch the men throw the garbage into said truck. There he stands, in our full view front door, often only in underwear marveling at the process. The guys always wave. They honk the horn. They stop and make a point of dumping the smaller garbage container on the front of the truck into the back of the truck while boy watches. It's almost like a dumpster on the front of the truck with forklift arms that turn it end over into the main garbage holding area in the back of the truck. It's industrial. It's loud. Boy loves it. I admit it's pretty cool. I assume you know where I'm going by this point.

The giant foam hopscotch set has made it from our garbage barrel into the front dumpster without being noticed. Phew. Moment of truth. The arms slowly lift the front dumpster to unload into the back while Boy stands in awe. In my head, the theme song from 2001: A Space Odyssey is playing. It is all in super slow motion. From the dumpster comes tumbling giant foam pieces in all the colors of the rainbow into the back holding area. Crap. There's no way he's missing this. Boy sadly says, "my hopscotch", in a tone somewhere between statement and question. He is slowly learning that life isn't all cupcakes and cookies. Sometimes it's rough.

"Before we get started I'd like to take a moment to talk about shop safety"

Boy and I watch TV together sometimes. Girl watches also, but she's still a little young to express her opinion on specific programming. So the boys tend to take over, except for the specific times I put on Elmo's World during Sesame Street or Jack's Big Music Show. Both excellent shows. Anyway, Boy and I like to watch some specific shows when we watch TV together. Dirty Jobs on Discovery. Good Eats on the Food Network. The This Old House Hour and New Yankee Workshop on PBS. Good times. We talk about animal poop, cooking and tools, respectively. The thing that cracks me up is the fact that he typically doesn't name the show host by name, he assumes the show host's name is the name of the show. To Boy, Alton Brown's name is actually Good Eats. Where is Good Eats going? he'll ask. Norm Abrams and New Yankee Workshop are interchangeable ideas. Except for some strange reason he knows Mike Rowe by name. Mike's become family, so to speak.

Boy recently celebrated a birthday. His 4th. He basically received a giant pile of toys and a giant pile of clothes. He plays immediately with the toys. The clothes pretty much are at the discretion of Mommy. She takes out his clothes in the morning. The clothes choices tend to not be a problem. He rarely questions Mommy's style aesthetic. Getting Boy to put the clothes on his body is the larger problem. I've pretty well established this fact, so I won't dwell. A couple days after the party, Boy says to Mommy, I want to wear my New Yankee Workshop shirt. Your what? My New Yankee Workshop shirt. Then, he goes to the closet and points it out. Grandma had given him the shirt. It's pretty cool. A dark plaid flannel shirt. Like Norm Abrams wears. Now, I feel the need to point something out here. This is a leap that he made. Never once have we discussed the wardrobe choices of any of our favorite television personalities. He, in his head, must have made some sort of mental note of how good Norm Abrams looks in his plaid flannel shirt. Or perhaps he sees plaid flannel in association with tools in general. Like some sort of woodworking uniform. And we all know how cool tools are. I'm not sure. I just enjoy the thought process. Clothes are somewhat of a novelty to young children. They don't really have any kind of established societal norms built in their heads. A Halloween costume is perfectly appropriate attire for the grocery store. A fireman rain coat for playing soccer. Why not? The lines are blurred between uniforms and costumes, pajamas and clothes. So I think he sees the shirt as some sort of uniform and in his head, he wants to try out the role.

Oh and this next point is somewhat irrelevant, but Boy is wearing his New Yankee Workshop shirt reversed. I have no idea why, but the buttons and collar are facing backwards. Just to complete the image. Again, he's not naked so I say go with it.

Birthday Dinner

Well Boy turned 4. I've always had a tradition growing up that when it's your birthday you get to decide what the family has for dinner. No questions asked. So I ask Boy. What would you like for your birthday dinner? Pie. With cake for dessert. As a lover of pie, I couldn't be happier. Mommy and I had wedding pies instead of cake. There are endless directions we can go in there being infinite configurations of pie. Savory meat pie. Fruit pies. Endless. I could go on for pages. Sounds good to me. Boy says, no, wait. Sushi. I want sushi for my birthday dinner. Now, Boy is turning 4, not 34. That sounds good too. I'm really not sure if he actually likes sushi or if he likes the novelty of the sushi experience. Soy sauce. Salty. Pickled ginger. Spicy. Wasabi. Too spicy. Chopsticks. He's actually kind of got it figured out. So we go and pick up the sushi at our take-out place. Boy comes in with me. He tells the man, it's my birthday. Good for you, happy birthday. I'm 4. Wow, 4, that's a big birthday. Nice guy. Then Boy says, I'm going to eat sushi. We get the package home and Boy does what he says he's gonna do. A first in our house. We ordered a couple with raw fish and a couple just vegetables and a shrimp tempura. All rolls. He starts shoving food into his face, he's got 2 pieces in there at once. Not the vegetable stuff, either. The raw fish stuff. Mommy asks if he should he be eating all that raw fish? Neither one of us is too sure. So we push the veggie rolls. He shovels them too. He's talking with a big smile. Mouth full of rice. I was actually a little hungry at the end of the meal as I didn't order enough food. This kid doesn't fool around. He eats sushi, lobster, ribs, all the good stuff. Needless to say I'm very proud. We next ate celebratory birthday cupcakes and opened presents.

from the wilderness archive

Here's a good story. So 2 days ago (actually, it was 2 years ago, I just never posted this anywhere and I came across it in my email and it made me laugh), there is clearly a skunk in the neighborhood. I was away from home for the night with Boy. Mommy smelled it in the air. It had clearly sprayed in the yard. Nobody thinks too much of it, just that it sucked. So yesterday morning, Mommy and her parents (who were in town visiting the just born Girl) are leaving the house to run errands at about 9. Mommy calls me to say they see the skunk roaming about in the back yard and could I deal with it. Wildlife apparently falls under my jurisdiction. This is bad. Skunks don't come out during the day, only at night and dawn. He's nosing around in the garden, then in the sand box Mommy tells me. Great. I get to come home with Boy to deal with this. Poor timing. I stop at the garden center and pick up some fox urine. It's a skunk's natural predator, but really, it doesn't do anything. Anyway, I'm putting the urine out in the yard in tiny little bottles when I see the tail. It's just a little feller. He's wedged in between the little rock wall in our backyard and a large pot we grow tomatoes in. I was a couple feet away. After a pause, I take off running. No chase. Thank god. Then I wasn't sure why he didn't move so I went back a little closer. He seems a little off in the head. There are flies buzzing around him. Big flies. I poke in the area with a long stick. He doesn't move. It could have been a cartoonish scene if he all of the sudden jumped up, but nothing. I think to myself that Costco probably has giant cans of tomato juice just in case. I love Costco. I call the police, who are somewhat helpful on the phone, but they do nothing. They give me the number of some guy from some licensed wildlife company. I get him on the phone. He says he can get rid of it. $100 cash. Cash? Trying to avoid paperwork. He says he'll call back when he's on his way. Fine. Couple hours later he calls to say he's on his way. It sounds like he's at a BBQ or pool party or something. I run out back to see if the critter is still there. Yup. Tail sticking up. Come on over, make it snappy. While I'm waiting for this dude, I go to watch the area. The skunk shuffles his way back a few steps, then falls over on his side. Flies buzzing. A pickup truck pulls up. Big dude gets out. I show him the scene. He goes over to the fence. Where is it? Turn around I say. He turns around and makes a wincing face. Oooooowwww. Without skipping a beat he bends down and picks the thing up by the tail and starts heading towards me on the deck. Did I mention I stayed on the deck? At that very moment Boy comes out the back door in his underwear. Seriously, no pants. Is the skunk sick?, he asks. Yes, Boy, the skunk is sick. The man is going to take him to the doctor. The thing had clearly died when I saw it fall over. He has some foam around his mouth. The dude says something about rabies or distemper and to look out, cause these things sometimes have a family. Rabid animals will attack. Super. Thanks for that. He takes the thing out front and asks for a garbage bag. I bring a large garbage bag out front and open it as if I'm looking to help. I'm not. He takes the bag and says he better do it as he's up on his shots. I did not argue, as I'm not really sure what kind of shots I would have needed to get to have been helpful. Not to mention, that's one of the benefits of a paid service. You really don't have to assist. As he's dropping the animal in the bag, Boy, of course in his underwear, is standing in the picture window out front of our house watching. The man take the sick skunk to the doctor? Yes, Boy, the man take the sick skunk to the doctor. I slip the man a benjamin. Best money I ever spent. I just paid a man (that the town referred me to) cash to remove a dead rabid skunk that had fallen dead on my patio. I then went and hosed off the area. Oh, and I got a quote for the groundhog we have digging up the yard. $275 to trap and dispose. $100 to just dispose if I catch him. He says they are tough to catch, you need special traps, says I might get lucky though. I think I've decided I like having him around.

Vomit Part I Reprise

Well, Boy vomited in the car again. He is coming down with something. Of course all the grandparents decide to feed him chocolate ice cream to make him feel better. Super. Mommy leaves Nana and Papa's house with Girl and a sick Boy full of chocolate ice cream. Here's the irony. He vomits at the exact same spot in the trip as he did on Thanksgiving. Right outside a liquor store. What I mean by exact same spot is where on the road on which the car is traveling. It's as if his belly has timed the trip exactly. An internal alarm clock, if you will. I won't go into the details (see Vomit Part I if you want them). Let's just say the stink is still wafting subtly in the air when I open the car door. Later that day Mommy calls me on the phone to let me know the situation. Vomiting definitely qualifies as a "situation". When she is telling me about what happened, Boy overhears about how he vomited in the exact same spot during the car trip as he vomited in on Thanksgiving, outside the liquor store. Upon hearing about how he's a repeat location vomiter I hear over the phone, "Oh, I'll have to find a new place to throw up".

Pants Optional

I can't get Boy to wear pants. I'm lucky if he's running around with even his tighty whiteys on. I was travelling for business the other day. My flight left late, shocking, so I got home around 8:00. I was expected a little earlier. I typically take cabs back from the airport. I live pretty close, it's convenient, hop right in the cab and go home. I live in a 1950s cape style house. The front door opens right into the living room. I walk in, the lights are low and nobody is there. There is a door at the rear of the living room leading to a hallway. I haven't announced my presence at this point in case Mommy has attempted to take the children upstairs to bed. Suddenly, Boy bursts out of the back hallway. Yes, he's completely naked. Why should he care about clothes. He proceeds to go into a body builder flexing the muscles stance. Big growl on his face. Grrrrrrrrrrr. You know the stance, both arms flexing down in front with fists, to truly maximize the muscle tone in the chest, shoulders and arms. I burst out laughing. The beach is that way! I yell. This gets him to do the stance where both hands are over his head pointing to the side. An alternate body-building stance, my personal favorite. Boy of course has no muscles. He is a wiry 3-year old. Mommy follows, looking irritated. I have to assume she's spent some time trying to get Boy to put on clothes, at least underwear. Clearly, she has fought a losing battle. At least she still tries. I take my pants off in solidarity.

Vomit Part III: Deli

We stop at the grocery store to pick up food for summer vacation. We rent a house in the middle of nowhere, so we stop when we see a store. We get all the random stuff. Milk, butter, bread and all sorts of meat for grilling. It's summer vacation after all. A couple hours earlier Boy had thrown up in the car on the highway. Remember Cookies and Cream? He's apparently just off today. By now enough time has passed that I imagine his stomach is pretty much empty. The whining starts. It's that whine. I'm hungry. They are able to hit that note that goes right through the skull. I become tense when Boy goes into whining mode. Please stop. Please don't say it again. I start blinking rapidly. I'm hungry. I break. Ok, let's get you something to eat. We have just walked through the produce section, I spot the deli. The deli. We order our stuff, some ham, turkey, cheese. Could you please leave a slice of turkey and a slice of cheese out of the package. Boy loves a turkey and cheese rollup. Who doesn't? Not three bites and he's making a face. Fantastic. I see it coming, so I have a split second to make some decisions. It's coming. I am holding one of those little 69 cent spiral-bound pads you buy at the drugstore that has our list written on it. I cup both hands with the pad in the middle and I catch. What has he had to drink? I can't remember anything. I am wrong. My cupped hands are full of what liquid was in his belly and chewed up cold cuts with a soaking wet notepad with blue smears right in the middle. Almost like a little raft. I'm awful without the list, but it's too late. At this point I have no options. I need to stand there with the vomit. It's dripping. Mommy goes right back to the deli. My son has just thrown up, do you have any paper towels? The teenage girl behind the deli counter gives Mommy a single paper towel. In my head she delicately tears a single sheet off along the perforations being careful not to tear the sheet. Mommy grabs it and runs over to help me. One paper towel is not very helpful. A band aid for a broken arm, if you will. I appreciate Mommy's quickness in getting the paper towel, but in haste she didn't stop to think about the situation completely. So now I'm holding a soaked pad of paper, a saturated paper towel, and a healthy amount of liquid. Hands cupped. Dripping. Grocery stores are active places. I can't really hide what I'm holding. The deli is like Grand Central. People walking buy. I nod with my jaw clenched. 45 minutes have gone by in slow motion. Ok, the time is in my head. The liquid is dripping down my arm. Mommy confronts the clueless deli girl. She comes back with the roll. Put me out of my misery. I wipe up the mess and go to the bathroom to wash my hands and Boy with soap and water. There is a line. On humid days I can still smell the combination of deli combined with cookies and cream on my hands.

Victory chips

Boy likes to do his own thing. He really doesn't listen to anything I say and demands instant gratification. When he wants to play baseball, we play baseball right then and there. When he wants to eat, he eats. Somehow it's completely ok that he helps himself to whatever he wants. Who am I to judge? Let's be honest, he has learned that from me. So on day, I come home from work and I go into the kitchen to help get dinner started. Boy is hungry. Great, he's gonna whine until dinner is ready. I hurry. Next I hear the door to the bathroom shut. Then it locks. I don't think much of it. A few minutes later as I walk by the bathroom I hear some rustling. I know that rustling. He has gotten himself a bag of Cape Cod potato chips, gone into the bathroom, shut the door, locked it and now he's laying on the floor going to town. This is the big Costco bag, by the way. I know this from the rustling sound. I'm no stranger to Cape Cod potato chips. They rock. I've been to the factory where they make them. Even ate more than the allotted sample size. Didn't feel the least bit bad about it. I've been a valued customer for years. They owe me. So it's clear to me what's going on. Also at this point he realizes what I know. He also knows he's smart enough to lock the door. And that he's wrong. Giggling. Rustling. Crunching. Giggling. Rustling. Crunching. Oh, game on, Boy. Open this door I say. Giggling. Rustling. Crunching. The thing about a 3-year old is they don't have any feelings of what's gonna happen next, only what is currently happening. I destroy a coat hanger to get it through that little hole in the bathroom door to unlock it. The door flies open. He panicks. He grabs the chips and runs behind the toilet. He, of course is only in his underwear, holding a bag of chips half his size. He manages to eat more chips as I grab the bag. The worst part about it? Even though he knows he's clearly in the wrong, he still gets mad at me and has a tantrum. Somehow, I'm the bad guy. I'm not going to apologize. Even though these are my chips and I can do what I want, I still conceal the handful of chips that I eat when I reclaim the bag. I have a fear that Boy may see me. I can't close up the bag without a few for the effort. But somehow it's tainted. I enjoy my victory chips like someone who said they quit smoking but didn't. In shame.

Boy only listens when it benefits him

So we stop to get Ice Cream at about 6 o'clock at night. Yes, this will spoil everyone's dinner, but we're on vacation and it's a beautiful night. We walked about 2 miles on a jetty cutting right through the ocean, me with girl strapped to my back in one of those little kid backpack things. They're awesome, by the way, I highly recommend. Anyway, we're all pretty tired, Girl is sound asleep in the back of the car. We get our ice cream in shifts. I take boy first. He gets a cup of moose tracks. I get a blueberry cone. Yes, I'm lame, I don't get the flashy flavors. We go back to the car and Mommy goes to get her ice cream. A group of about 10 people had formed behind Boy and myself, so I figured Mommy had a wait. The girl at the counter had efficiency issues. Boy pounds his cup of Moose Tracks. We like to share, so that means he also eats a bunch of mine. We're both finished by the time Mommy comes back. She eats most of her cone and we get in the car. A few minutes later, Boy decides it's time for Mommy to share. "Just a little taste," he says. "I won't even eat any of the cone. You're not sharing. You need to share." Throwing it right back in our faces, he is. This goes on for a good 5 or 10 minutes. Mommy has a limit. She hands him the cone. Within about 10 seconds I hear a crunch. That little liar. He goes to town on the thing, claiming he's entitled. I manage to snatch the last little bit of cone with the liquid chocolate ice cream soup in the bottom from his grubby little hands for Mommy. The chivalrous gentleman I am. Mommy's pretty disgusted at this point. She eats it. He cries for 10 minutes. As if I did something wrong. "Daddy hurt my feelings. Daddy grabbed. You shouldn't grab." I'm not sure if I'm sorry I grabbed or if I'm sorry we didn't stop at a second ice cream stand and eat an entire ice cream cone in front of him and not offer him any of it while I commented how the ice cream was better than the ice cream at the first ice cream stand.

Vomit Part II: Cookies and cream

We like to go to Maine every summer for a week. We rent a house on a little cove on the water about midway up the coast. We usually go one of the weeks at the end of July. The rental runs from Saturday to Saturday. I like to pack and gas the car up the night before and hit the road bright and early. Mommy likes to make sure we take more than we really need. I don't mind because I enjoy the challenge of packing the car. I'm very anal about it. Since I was a little I've loved the whole vacation experience of getting the most out of the trip. Get up with the sun and go. Mommy and children humor me. One of my concessions (let's be honest, I love it too) is to stop at Dunkin' Donuts on the way. I'm a medium with milk and one sugar. Iced in the summer. Mommy likes something flavored. I can never remember so I make her write it down. Boy gets munchkins and milk. A trip like this, I get him the big box, not the bag with 4 in it. He loves the chocolate. Girl is sound asleep. So here we are, the Griswolds, making our annual trek to Maine. Enjoying a hot summer day with my coffee finished and road tunes playing. Sun burning the left side of my body. Boy has picked out all the chocolate munchkins. Me, the glazed. time passes. The sounds start. A cough. A sniffle. Another cough. "Crap". A wretch. 80 mph on the highway. Wave 1: a splatter. More of a volcano down his chest than a spray against the seat. Thick. Chocolate munchkins + milk = cookies and cream. Wave 2: thicker. "Crap". So we pull over on the side of the highway. Strip the boy down. Strip the seat fabric down. Now is where the meticulous car packing comes in. Yes we have a change of clothes & wipes. Where are they? Yes, at the bottom. Boy half-naked on the side of a highway. Our entire vacation packing strewn over the grass beside the breakdown lane. The rest of the ride? Cookies and cream.

Vomit Part I

Let's just say the Vomit series will probably go on longer than the Rocky series. Let me set the scene. Thanksgiving 2006. 9 PM. In the parking lot behind a sketchy liquor store. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll back up. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. Football, wine, unbelievable food. We go to my grandparents house. We usually get there around 1. There is a constant flow of food. The kind of food that a 3-year old can really eat as much or as little as he wants. Of whatever he wants. Who knows what he ate. If I had to guess, I'd say chips, nuts, cheese, crackers, pepperoni, pork paté, goldfish crackers, turkey, squash, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, squash, bread, carrots, cheesecake, butter tarts, pumpkin pie, apple pie, whoopie pies, fudge, beer, wine (no wait, that's me) all with gravy. We watch some football, laugh with family and then head home. 8:55 PM. As Boy gets tired he demands milk. I have no idea what he's eaten and I can't stand whining. Sure, here ya go. He fills his belly with milk in a sippy cup and we hit the road. About a mile or 2 down the road (\'oerwgujkpkkp\\\\---Sorry, Girl is interrupting me with typing, back to the story) Boy starts coughing. Then a wretch. A dead giveaway. His belly is full of God-knows-what. PULL OVER! We're never in time. This one is particularly bad. It hits the back of my seat. Velocity. I'm shotgun. Mommy is driving by cause of the wine. Then wave 2. Oh no. It's always in waves. We make it into the back parking lot behind said sketchy liquor store. Middle of November New England. Boy is half naked. Vomiting like a 60 year old wino. I'm holding him up. I'm good in crisis mode. We have a 20-minute drive in front of us. About a year ago I decided to keep a spare pack of wipes in the car. They, of course are missing. You ever try telling a cold, sick 3-year old that they must get back into the vomit covered seat for safety? The smell? Not good.

Give him about 9 years

I take the train to and from work. Mommy, Boy and Girl pick me up at the station. I walk to the car from the train. Boy asks what's in my hand. Why, that's a magazine, Boy. Here, look at it. Thanks, Daddy. I get a whole bunch of magazine subscriptions. I'm in advertising. I love looking at magazines. Especially with the amount of time spent on trains and planes. This one happens to be ESPN the Magazine. He's flipping through it. He gets excited when he sees baseball. "Big Papi!" Then I hear tearing. "Are you tearing the magazine, Boy?" "No," he says. He clearly is. He is tearing out an ad he wants me to see. Magazines are pretty disposable, so I really don't care that he is ripping it. I do not appreciate the lying, but now is not the time. He hands it up to me. I show it to Mommy at a stop light. It's an ad for Old Spice. Look, here it is. I start laughing. That's my Boy. Mommy is annoyed. Boy yells up from the back seat, "Look at the fish Daddy. Look at the fish."

Things I've found in my acoustic guitar sound hole

lego
guitar pick
matchbox car
block
crayon
plastic fireman badge
tiny strips of torn paper
Cheerio
pasta
barrette
Superball
action figure
animal cracker
harmonica (is this the definition of ironic?)

These items are very awkward to retrieve as the strings cover most of the space of the sound hole.

You sit at a restaurant

Boy sees the Dunkin' Donuts logo on the outdoor signs a good half mile before I do. That kid loves munchkins. Who doesn't? Usually the nice people at D&D provide the boy with free munchkins. Keep 'em comin' people. We have a pretty consistent routine. 3 munchkins for Boy. Various flavors. We encourage independent decision-making. Hot coffee with milk & one sugar for me. Occasionally I'll add a glazed donut. I could eat those things everyday if they weren't less than good for you. One day we went to the neighborhood D&D to grab a quick coffee. Auntie & Nephew were on their way over so I didn't have much time. Boy says he wants to go. I enjoy the D&D bonding so I say "what the heck". Put some pants and shoes on and let's hit the road. Oh, our house is apparently pants-optional. That's a whole other story. I get to the counter and place my coffee order. I look at Boy. He orders the donut with the chocolate frosting and sprinkles. Manager's special. I think that it's out of character, but OK, nice call. Make that two I say. He then turns around and walks to the cooler, grabs a bottle of chocolate milk and takes a seat in the back. We have a pretty good routine, get the coffee and munchkins and hit the road. What's going on here? For some reason, today is a restaurant day. He doesn't want to hit the road. Let's sit in the restaurant he says. The stray stools in the back of the shop aren't really a restaurant, but OK. Honestly, I have zero control. We sit until he finishes every bite of that donut. Half an hour. Mine was done in about thirty seconds. Then he falls asleep in the car on the way home. It's not like we have nothing to do. Plan ahead, kid. A rule has been established this day. Munchkins are to go. Donuts are for sit down. It helps for Sunday planning.

Why does he aim for the middle?

Remember, we've already thrown modesty out the window. Our house is set up where there is a bathroom upstairs in between our room and Boy's room. This is the bathroom I shower in. It's pretty private, so I don't always take the best care in covering myself up in between the bathroom and my bedroom where I get dressed after a shower. I used to wear the towel around my waist but I'm not consistently responsible. I wouldn't hang the towel up back in the bathroom after I was finished getting ready. Apparently, Mommy doesn't "appreciate" picking up after me. So I adapt. I walk in "God's vision of man" back to the bedroom. Out of nowhere Boy comes bursting in. "I'm going to bang your bum! I'm going to bang your bum!" he screams and tries to slap me on the ass. I'm not the quickest in the morning and sometimes he gets me. It's all in good fun, but he doesn't aim for the meaty cheek. He aims for the middle. That's just uncomfortable. I guess when you think about it, the line acts as a target.

Keep track of the sippy cups

Boy has a couple of routines when it comes to drinks. First thing in the morning I must get him orange juice. After dinner and before bed, he gets a cup of milk. And various beverages in between. If we forget, he gets insistent. I want my juice. His inflexibility is particularly difficult on Sunday mornings. usually around 6. Anyway, he has this horrible habit of dropping his cup when he is finished with it. Whether it is done or not. Right where he is. "I am finished. I no longer need cup. Open hand. Cup fall." You can imagine what this leads to. Sippy cups found in various places around the house. You do your best to keep track of them but you just can't. I happen upon them all the time. Digging through the toy box to get Girl a specific toy. Uh-oh. Lifting the couch to find Girl a specific toy. Uh-oh. I've found them outside. I've found them in his bed. Behind the toilet. In my closet. In my shoe. At the bottom of the laundry basket. On the stairs. In the kitchen cabinets. Oh, and the car. Always under the seats. Those are the worst because the change in temperatures wreaks havoc. If you're curious, orange juice gets pungent. I can't really add to that. Pungent says it all. And yes, solids form in the milk.

Daddy Tip #1

Let your children pick out their own clothes. There are things in their drawers and closets you never would have imagined.

That's not Elmo

Boy has always had a fear of people in mascot suits. That goes for Mall Santas as well. He just won't go near the things. I really don't blame him. He's a pretty perceptive kid. We're at his preschool Halloween Jamboree or whatever the heck they call it. Boy is dressed as a fireman. Again, I call attention to his love of occupational uniforms. It's time for the costume parade down the halls of the school. All the kids line up for the photo-op. And look who they drag out to lead the parade. It's Elmo! All the kids are very excited. Who doesn't love Elmo? Even Boy loves Elmo. Girl can't get enough of that Elmo TMX. Boy is excited when he hears Elmo is in the building, his own school building. Then sees him. Of course it's one of those furry costumes with somebody inside. His face drops and he grabs me. "That's not Elmo." "What do you mean that's not Elmo?" "Elmo is small." I've got to agree. Can you imagine how freaky it must have been for Boy to imagine cute little 2-foot Elmo and out comes gigantic diorama crushing Elmo-zilla. The scale really is not correct. How come none of the other kids have a problem with this?

Luke, I am your father

I am a man. Therefore I urinate standing up. I usually go to the bathroom first thing in the morning. I get up, I walk into the bathroom and I go. Kids mean zero privacy. Zero shame. Zero pride. I can't tell you how many times I'll be at the toilet, the door bursts open and Boy comes running in with his pajamas at his feet, saying, "I want to go to the potty with you". I have no choice. It happens so quickly. I'm not the most alert first thing in the morning. The next thing I know, he's standing next to me at the toilet going with me. Streams crossing. What bothers me the most is that he usually finishes before me and says things like "I beat you". It's bad enough I get no privacy in the bathroom, but why does it always have to be a competition?

The day Boy stopped opening beers

Since he was young, Boy has always been social. We like to have a bunch of friends over in the summer. I cook some meat. We drink some beers. Good times with some good friends. Boy is always right there in the mix. I go to the fridge and grab a beer and open it. Boy watches. Yes, I know I'm a bad influence. That's not the point of the story. He's always had a fondness for tools, therefore, he's always wanted to open the beers. What the heck, right? Mommy is in the other room. I'm in the kitchen with some buddies, let's see what happens. I set the beer on the kitchen floor. He grabs the opener. Excitedly. As if it's a characteristic he's been born with, he knows just what to do. I hold tight to the bottle. He pops the top right off. Not even any foam over.

Now this goes on for some time (no, not the same night). In fact, he starts enabling. Daddy, you want a beer. Sure, why not. It's called good parenting. I'm supportive of a skill. It's not like he's drinking the beers, he's just being helpful as is his want.

Then one day he gets lazy. As tends to happen the more comfortable one becomes with a skill. He bends down with the opener. It's a church key type. I'm holding the ice cold Sam Adams bottle on the kitchen floor. Boy is somewhat distracted. Probably full of sugar. He sets the opener over the top of the bottle. He pulls up. Excitedly. Whack. Right on his forehead. Big mark. Mommy was not pleased.

Cars in the oven

Boy likes to take cookie sheets, muffin tins, things like that and pretend that he is baking. He will fill all of the muffin tins with paper muffin cups. Then he will fill all of those cups with things like matchbox cars. We pretend to eat them. It's lots of fun. They are tasty. It's all good pretending. The problems arise when it comes to attention span. He puts these trays of cars in the oven then moves on to playing baseball, going to the potty, painting. Really, anything different.

Who checks to see if anything is inside the oven when they turn it on to preheat it to make Tater Tots? Well, not me. The cars get really hot and the wheels develop a flat spot where they melt. So I need to leave them to cool down, much like one would leave actual muffins to cool down. Some of the nicer cars are made of part metal and part plastic. Those are the best. The pipe truck has 3 plastic pipes on the top of a flatbed truck. They are all curled up. God forbid I throw any of the ruined cars away, though. He has four thousand of these things and knows all of them. We have bins of tiny matchbox cars, many with melted parts and wheels with a flat spot.

Mommy is not a job

Boy decides to offer this thought to Mommy the other day. Now, to remind you, Mommy is a stay at home mom. This could easily be perceived as some sort of politically charged comment. I take no responsibility for this. I have not taught him the stereotypical male chauvinism. Well, not entirely. Mommy decides to see where this is going. "What do you mean Mommy is not a job" she asks. The boy's answer, "you don't wear a uniform". Boy's entire view of the workplace environment is based on what uniform someone wears. Firefighters wear a uniform. Police officers wear a uniform. Mommies don't wear a uniform. So, how does Daddy pass this job test? I certainly don't wear a uniform. Unless you count jeans. Well, I take the train to work in the city. Somehow, a train ride supercedes the uniform rule. Well at least someone thinks I have a job.

Underpants

Boy wears his underpants backwards. Children's briefs for the most part have some sort of large character on them. Bob the Builder. Lightning McQueen. Firefighter Elmo. Being in advertising, I appreciate the thought that goes into these things. Anyway, the large "graphic" is always printed on the largest open area on the underpants. Seeing that they need to leave room on the front for the seams and access hole that no 3-year old will ever use, the characters end up on the back. So, why on earth would you want the character on the back? You wouldn't. You want him on the front so everyone cn see. So Boy wears his underpants backwards.

At first it was funny. Now it's gone on a little too long. Boy never seems to want to wear pants, so I'm faced with the sight of his skinny little behind hanging out of these things as he runs around. A 3-year old with a wedgie. He doesn't care, so I guess I shouldn't either. It just can't be comfortable. So, this is the story I have to tell people when they come to my house for a BBQ or something and Boy has no pants on.