Owner: Make it a Double URL:http://bgathen.wordpress.com Join Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:38:54 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: I am the father of two boys, one who refuses to sleep and one who refuses to eat, and the husband of one woman who for some reason has permanently attached herself to me "like the thing from Alien" as she puts it. We share our house in upstate N Site statistics:Click here
The Hills Are Live With The Sound Of Goat Puppets 2007-11-14 09:56:27
I think I get my sense of humor from my mother. This is not to say that my father isn’t funny because he is, but in more of a “I consistently mistake actors for other actors who look almost exactly alike” (see Bill Pullman and Jeff Daniels or Helen Hunt and Leelee Sobieski) or “I’ll turn off all the lights in the house while you’re mother is out with her friends and scare the ever-loving bejesus out of you with a plastic skull mask.”
Nana though was a natural vaudevillian entertainer for us growing up complete with musical numbers, dancing, magic, and some stand-up comedy (mom always worked blue) but the best part of the Mom Show growing up were the hand puppet shows she would put on for us before we went to bed. These weren’t just single character, free-form, off-the-cuff pleasantries with an audience who was already up well past its bedtime. No, these were epic productions with costume changes, a myriad of voices, accents, songs and a cast of thousands. These were pe Read more:Hills
, Sound
, Puppets
You’re a Writer Charlie Brown. 2007-11-13 09:27:53 Yesterday I received some incredible news that I wanted to share, but I also know that my experience with the intrinsically cruel nature of the universe would be that it would take me behind the woodshed and pelt me with my unhatched chicken eggs had I counted them yesterday. The news was confirmed today though and now I feel safe charging towards the football certain that the cosmos won’t Lucy Van Pelt it away at the last second.
“The news! The news! Tell us the news already; enough of your tired analogies and axiomatically annoying metaphors you handsome devil.” rises the collective ennui from the crowd. Alright then, so be it. Without further ado I would like to introduce to you for the first time anywhere (drum roll ensues)… the newest contributing blogger for Babble.com’s Strollerderby!
Babble is a behemoth of an online parenting magazine and community and its crown jewel Strollerderby is its “Mother of all Parenting Blogs” and they like me, they really like and want Read more:Writer
, Charlie
, Brown
They’re Here…To Rake Your Leaves. 2007-11-12 09:32:40 (Before I relate this tale of neighborly autumnal good deed-ery I’m going to qualify it by saying that I almost didn’t write this because parts of it involve references to religion and for all my irreverence towards essentially everything, religion has traditionally been a taboo hands-off run-in-the-other-direction topic for me. Whereas it can unite it can also be powerfully divisive; so that being said I hope no one takes offense to this post as it is all meant in good fun and happened pretty much exactly as I’m about to tell it.)
Last Saturday morning began as a typical one for me and the boys. Kathleen was working her regular weekly 4-hour shift at the dry cleaner down the road and I was fulfilling the role of the archetypal bungling father by chasing a half naked Adam around the house with a diaper. Adam was toddling just out of my grasp, his unbuttoned onesie flapping behind him like tuxedo jacket tails, he looked like a concert pianist escaping a prostate exam; and Jack was Read more:hellip
The Vanishing Point of Childhood 2007-11-11 09:45:41 This weekend was one of firsts and of letting go. As I posted yesterday, Adam was cleanly shorn for the first time like a sheep in the spring; the golden locks of his cranial fleece sealed in an envelope. Looping gossamer strands of a script narrating a bittersweet tale of separation and transformation for us the read in years to come. Even today though, two days after the haircut Kathleen and I are still looking at him like, “Who are you and what did you do with our baby?” He so far has denied any wrongdoing, but we’re still going to continue the investigation for a couple more days. Perhaps even call in David Caruso to deliver some patented, stilted, uninspired dialogue while he slowly removes his sunglasses.
Yesterday though marked the long overdue dénouement of Jack’s infancy in my mind thus beginning his inevitable march towards adolescence. For weeks I’ve been promising him that I’d take the training wheels off his bike and teach him how to ride a two-wheeler. He was Read more:Vanishing
, Childhood
A Sealy Posturepedic Bumper Crop and Adam’s First Haircut 2007-11-10 21:21:13 Adam’s first haircut was last night and all day today I’ve been mentally crafting this post in vain looking for the right approach. There was Jack’s first time propped up on a cracked vinyl booster seat at the neighborhood barber shop around the corner from our house, and how I arrived late because of work and missed the first few snips of the scissors. There was the predictable “my little boy is growing up” angle, the sadness of cutting away pieces of his infancy and revealing an early glimpse at the little boy he is becoming and the man he will someday be. And of course there was the pressure to make the story amusing, witty and entertaining because I can never take anything seriously and I use absurd humor, sarcasm and obscure, and oftentimes unsuitable cultural references, so that I don’t have to deal with emotions on anything more than a superficial level.
But to be honest, his haircut was just that, a haircut. I didn’t feel pride, loss, nostalgia, sadness, or even Read more:Bumper
, First
, Haircut
Can You Catch Crabs From A Horse? Only If it Throws them Underhand. 2007-11-09 21:50:37 Occasionally I’ll check my blog stats to see what type of interesting, salacious, perverted, questionable, and borderline illegal, terms and phrases people type into search engines to accidentally stumble onto my blog. In many ways I’m disgusted at myself that search phrases such as the ones below result in hits on my site, but if you look at the ways I categorize my posts I suppose I shouldn’t be all that surprised. Then again, on my blog’s busiest day the two top search terms were:
james dean - 164 hits
Rammstein - 42 hits
Two ancillary and obscure references that for some reason drive unexplainable amounts of traffic. Anyway, since it’s Friday night and I’m completely distracted by Adam’s first haircut (future post) and a WWE Smackdown (Jack’s obsession) match between Rey Mysterio and Finley I’m going to use what Chag over at Cynical Dad called his crutch and give you a peek behind the curtain to see what drives traffic to Make it a Double.
(The views Read more:Catch
, Crabs
, Horse
Parenting, it turns out, is world of never ending happiness. U can always see the sun, day or night. 2007-11-08 16:35:18 (Strollerderby put out a call for new writers last week and this was one of the pieces I submitted for review. It’s a little different from my usual style that involves references to venereal disease, oral sex, my incompetency as a father and a self-deprecating self-defecating humor, but I thought it was a worthy effort.)
Parents are you feeling stressed out, anxious, or just good old fashioned psychologically imbalanced? Are you filling the candy dishes with Prozac and the sugar jar with Zoloft? Have you fashioned a makeshift padded room in the linen closet from stuffed animals, water wings and Pampers Cruisers? Well as it turns
out that you may not be able to blame your depression, malaise or facial twitches on your kids anymore.
A recent survey published in the American Journal of Public Health identified lower levels of anxiety, depression, and other measures of psychological distress among parents than among non-parenting adults of the same age. (Obviously! Remember how str Read more:Parenting
, happiness
, always
Hepatitis C, Mary Jane’s Jiggles and When I Lost My Virginity 2007-11-07 09:55:55 Jack turned 5 years old a few weeks ago and at his garishly over-the-top Spiderman Themed party aside from developing a sudden and acute allergic reaction to latex balloons that caused his lips to puff worse than Jessica Simpson’s in the recovery room of a Hollywood Collagen Clinic, he also received a king’s ransom of Spiderman-related gifts toys, games, clothing and activity books. Initially, this wasn’t going to be the gist of this post, but since I brought up the topic I think I’ll first address what an over-exposed commercial shill the web-slinger has become and the ludicrously nonsensical crap that is being passed off to our kids as legitimate playthings.
Among the thoughtful gifts Jack was given were:
1) The Spiderman Bump & Go 4-wheel Quad Running Dune Buggy. Aside from already having one of these that Jack used to give Adam his first haircut, can someone tell me why Spiderman needs a 4-wheel dune buggy? Was there a “Spiderman: The Baywatch Years” I’m not aw Read more:Hepatitis
, Mary Jane
Maybe It was Something I 8? (I’ve Got Worse Delivery Than a One-Armed OBGYN) 2007-11-06 21:46:48 I got bagged and tagged for the Crazy 8’s meme by Lotus Carroll at Sarcastic Mom and she should know she has taken my Meme virginity. I also want everyone to know though that she was a thoughtful and passionate Memer and I’ll never forget her. Day 6 and I’ve resorted to a NaBloPoMeme for a post? Dear Lord… Well, here goes nothing…
8 Things I’m Passionate About
1. Jack and Adam – My two sons. My greatest accomplishments. My greatest challenges. Being a father though flip flops between feeling natural to feeling unnatural more often than Former Sen. Fred Thompson flip-flops his position on the Fair Tax Bill. (How’s that for obscure strong-armed political commentary?) I’m determined to be as good a father to my boys as my father is to me.
2. Running – I was always the “fastest kid in school” and… (please look away if you don’t want to see me toot my own horn, unless that turns you on. Does that turn you on? Do you like it when I toot my own horn?)… Read more:Maybe
, Delivery
, Armed
One Flew East, One Flew West, Daylight Savings I Detest 2007-11-05 21:09:22 Yesterday, while childless heathens across the United States were nestling ever-deeper into the warmth of their childless beds, pulling their covers ever-closer to their smug chins and reveling in the circadian aftershocks of William Willett’s tireless advocacy of later tee times, Sunday morning in the psychiatric ward of our mental hospital began an hour earlier than usual because you simply can’t turn back the Combine of a child’s internal clock.
So, at a couple minutes before 7:00 am on Sunday morning Kathleen and I sat slumped over the dining room table in the common area of our institution, chronics in a vegetative state, our lifeless hands wrapped around our coffee mugs, sections of the Sunday Paper opened ornamentally in front of our thousand-yard stares.
Before I could even finish my first cup of dark roast or even garner enough indignant energy to launch into my compulsory and always relevant Sunday morning comics-induced tirade about how Bill Keane of Family Circus noto Read more:Daylight
, Savings
, One Flew
, Daylight Savings
Indulging Random Whims of Procrastination 2007-11-19 21:27:16 On nights like this when I could write about the rats nest of electrical wires my father discovered in our attic that is going to prevent us from having the house insulated this winter, Adam’s fire hose of vomit in my face last night and his repeat performance this evening on the floor of the toy room or even his strange fascination with brooms, mops and rakes I somehow find myself at a complete loss for words. When this happens I employ an exercise from my teaching days I used with students to help them get through writer’s block. The exercise is to simply write without stopping. Not to think about what you’re writing, whether it makes sense, whether it’s good or whether it’s absolute shit but just to keep writing. It’s been a long time since I’ve used this device (well except for the absolute shit part), but tonight as the witching hour approaches and the cursor blinks in the upper left hand corner of a blank page I needed to call in a favor. I suppose I could post more Read more:Random
, Procrastination
Welcome To The House Of Pain. Would You Like Some More Cake? 2007-11-18 09:04:24 Deciding on the location of your child’s birthday party demands a keen evaluation of the setting, the atmosphere, the ambiance, the inherent evil and the long term scarring effect on the attendees. Which is why I am baffled as to why someone would decide to have a child’s birthday party at a place that’s best described as a gruesome amalgam of Santa’s Workshop, Frankenstein’s Laboratory , The Island of Dr. Moreau, the set of Saw III and a 19th century trading post on the Oregon Trail.
Yesterday, Jack attended the 5th birthday party of his friend Ethan held at a Build-A-Bear Workshop (formerly doing business under the name Taxidermy Tykes) and if you’ve yet to have the misfortune of patronizing your local Build-A-Bear on a Saturday afternoon at a crowded mall just a week before the Christmas shopping season officially begins I can only hope that my story helps prevent future acts of uncivilized butchery and over-priced costumes and accessories.
My concerns were validated the Read more:Welcome
, House
Tell Me About Eddie Rabbit, George. 2007-11-17 21:22:59 For the record I didn’t get to bed before midnight last night even though I had planned to. So, my plan tonight is to take advantage of something Sarcastic Mom and Crooked Eyebrow used as personal inspiration for their posts today called Photo Hunt (created by TNChick) then power down the laptop, crawl into the plough marks on my side of the bed and sleep, perchance to dream, but what’s that they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? That’s right, they get a bullet in the back of their head with their dream just out of reach.
This week’s photo hunt theme is “I Love ____________” and for me there really was only one answer. I love a rainy night. I love to hear the thunder, watch the lightning when it lights up the sky. You know it makes me feel good. Yeah, I never miss an opportunity to pet a rabbit or drop an EddieRabbit
reference, but despite my fondness for stroking soft furry things and nocturnal precipitation (which occurs most commonly during a young man’s Read more:George
The Triumphant Return of M.C. Shadöe 2007-11-16 20:47:47 Friday night and I had this crazy idea that I might actually get to bed before midnight. (We’re over the hump NaBloPoMo’ers, it’s all downhill from here. After tonight just 14 posts to go.) There were a few requests for me to post one of my dope rhymes from my rapper days so I went through some boxes in the attic and found them in a….who am I kidding, I’ve got them all framed in Shadöe boxes in a sealed fire proof vault. You can find a sample of my hip hop acumen at the bottom of the post. What you need to know about M.C. Shadöe is that he was a no holds barred politically charged lyricist with a guido mustache and a weakness for parachute pants, skinny ties and anything from Chess King. Despite growing up as a white kid in middle class suburbia he wrote in the tradition of Chuck D from Public Enemy. Below is from a song called White Palace for which Come Together by The Beatles was sampled as a music bed. But first some pics of my posse. Word to your mother.
When the D Read more:Return
Pain Don’t Hurt But My Tescalators Are In The Frigible 2007-11-15 09:41:27 Here is an idea pilfered from Sarcastic Mom called Thursday 13. In a yellow notebook I keep jammed in the front pocket of my computer bag I scribble events and ideas down, some good and some not, which I plan to eventually write about. Here are 13 of them that I will never write about or play with so this Thursday 13 is where they have come to die, or to live for one more day depending on how you look at it. Bless your soul if you make it through this mélange of misfit posts
1. Adam turning it to 55 for Roadhouse: Over the weekend Kathleen was paging through the TV Guide and saw that our favorite bad movie of all time Roadhouse with the legendary Patrick “Nobody puts Baby in a Corner” Swayze was on Spike. I told her I didn’t want to lose the next two hours of my life and I wasn’t sure which channel Spike was anyway. Adam, our 1 year old, grabbed the remote out of my hand and punched in 5-5 and left it there for a second then punched in 4-5. Kathleen said, “No …wait. Wha
Lost: Sunday Morning 2007-11-25 20:59:06 This morning I finally did it. After being awakened just after the 7:00 hour by the determined and brusque “all hands on deck come wipe my ass” proclamation of DONE! matter of factly howled by our the heir to the empire from his porcelain throne, I finally did it. After being greeted by an early morning chill upon rolling out from under the warmth of our blankets, my boxer briefs drooping off my hips like a Hanes skort, I finally did it. After helping Kathleen clean what looked like shepherd’s pie from the diaper of our oddly unaffected toddler who tragically was born with a civil defense siren instead of vocal chords (sort of an Edward Scissorhands scenario but with an Emergency Public Alert System and a larynx) I finally did it.
After Adam alerted me to an approaching tornado and Jack’s third query of “Daddy what’s on TV?” his 11th plea of “I want to watch a movie.” and his 37th request of “Can we get our Christmas Tree today?” I slipped on my boots, pulled on m Read more:Sunday
, Morning
, Sunday Morning
One Very Lucky Dutch Bastard 2007-11-24 19:30:26 Have you ever heard the story of Rip Van Winkle? He was an idle and lazy man who, while wandering the mountains to escape from his wife, encounters the ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew. After drinking some of their wine, and they always had some mighty fine wine, he falls asleep under a tree for twenty years. I mention this tale of prolonged slumber because as the universe enjoys a certain cosmic balance that yins every yang and embodies the Ouroboros through fooling the serpent into eating its own tail by putting it in a hot dog bun and topping it with sauerkraut and mustard I have become the insomniac recess partner on the other side of the see-saw from one very lucky Dutch
bastard.
Adam, the guiltiest of the usual suspects contributing to the staccato of my circadian rhythm is currently eluding capture from the matriarch of the household with a mini-nativity scene Baby Jesus stuck in his mouth, literally consuming the wooden body of Christ, while Jack is still dipping his first Bisqu
That Horse-Toothed Hermaphrodite Is Wearing An Eyebrow Headband 2007-11-23 09:46:42 One of the lesser publicized perks of being the father of a 5 year old is to get to see their unabashed discretionary carte blanche to basically say whatever they want, whenever they want to whomever they want without repercussion or fallout. It’s a perk, that is until it’s directed at you and for some reason I have been in the cross hairs of Jack’s brash unfiltered painfully honest observations for the past couple days.
While he was helping me select mortifying pictures for my 80’s time capsule post on Wednesday, one of the photographs I didn’t use was of me at the kitchen table on my 16th birthday flashing the Benjamins (somewhere around $25) I’d received in a card from Nana and Pops.When I asked Jack if he thought I should include it with the post he said, “I don’t think so Daddy. Look at your eyebrows. They go all the way to your feet.” Now, granted I used to be severely eyebrow challenged and even looked into eyebrow reduction surgery due to extreme lower neck p Read more:Horse
, Headband
I’m Thankful For The Dale Earnhardt Story 2007-11-22 20:13:37 There’s something about Nationally Recognized Holidays that makes my family highly susceptible to communicable diseases, viruses, bugs or essentially any other super germ that causes flu-like symptoms including but not limited to cramping, cold sweats, projectile vomiting, projectile diarrhea, projectile diarrhea while you are projectile vomiting (the effect comparable to stamping on a half-dozen mustard packets) dry heaving, dizziness, sudden hair loss followed by sudden hair growth, lack of muscle control, and the Jimmy Feet (when I’m sick I constantly rub my feet back and forth until my socks are on backwards; seriously)
The last three Christmases have in fact been marred by one or all of us contracting some form of influenza or strain of the Black Plague. The worst occurred when Jack was two and my parents had to take Jack to their house for a day while Kathleen and I writhed on the living room floor taking turns to crawl to the kitchen to fetch ice pops, Jell-O and Pedialight Read more:Thankful
, Earnhardt
Have I Always Been This Awesome? 2007-11-21 09:17:39 People often ask me, “Have you always been this awesome?” to which I respond “All questions must be directed through my publicist. Autographs are $100. Get that camera out of my face.” But the answer to that question is simple, “Yes, I have always been this awesome and I have the photographic evidence to prove it.” And thanks to Wordless Wednesday I’m going to let these pictures speak for themselves; for the most part.
(There were many to choose from and I apologize for the quality and the graininess, but without a scanner I was reduced to the picture of a picture method.)
Here’s a rare photo of me backstage at SNL. I was a stand in for Patrick Swayze in his Chippendales dance-off competition skit with Chris Farley. As much as I wish that was my hair behind my right shoulder it’s only a shadow…or should I say a Shadöe?
Dig if u will this picture. Maybe I’m just 2 demanding, but I insisted that all my pants had suspenders attached to them.
Wallace and Vomit: Little Help? 2007-11-20 09:45:06 A few nights ago while I held Adam in the upstairs hallway Kathleen was straining her hands through the slats of Adam’s crib struggling to stretch the bottom sheet over the corners of the mattress without removing the bumper pad; the material just out of her grasp she looked like a double-homicide lifer at San Quentin grabbing at the passing shirt-tail of some fresh meat. The lengths she’ll go to assure all our beds, even our 10-year old queen size Serta Perfect Sleeper farmstead, are draped in clean linens.
So, while she struggled to establish her place in the coil spring pecking order, I paced lazily to and fro appreciating Adam’s weight on my forearm, the faint scent of the soap from his bath, and his right hand clenching the back of my shirt collar. When we stopped to turn in front of our bedroom I felt his stomach spasm. He jerked his head off my shoulder and spit up the tiniest bit on the front of my shirt. My reaction was the same as if I had overthrown a Frisb Read more:Wallace
Breakfast Sandwiches Big Enough To Cover Your Crotch 2007-11-30 09:05:08 I am a creature of habit, although the word “creature” implies a certain wildness or a snarling wantonness of the spirit which really doesn’t capture the essence of who I am. I’m really more of “blobby find an osmotic balance with my environment” sort of guy; like an amoeba.
OK then, I am an amoeba of habit which is why at 5:45 am every morning the alarm on my cell phone goes off across the room and I struggle to roll out of the deeply formed impression in the mattress that just happens to be the exact shape of my body at rest; a free falling skydiver achieving the terminal velocity of sleep, the ripcord malfunctions nightly and I plummet towards consciousness but not before I deeply embed myself into the mattress’s surface. The phone tweets its digital song from its perch on Kathleen’s dresser for only a few seconds before I reach it and strangle it until it is silent. As I leave the room the harness of my failed chute is usually twisted into the down c Read more:Breakfast
, Sandwiches
, Enough
, Cover
These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things 2007-11-29 20:49:16 Jennic over at Sweetisu posted a popular meme she entitled Looking Back 5 Times yesterday and since we are in the final sprint of the NaBloPoMarathon what better time to take a quick glance over my shoulder, to look back on November and beyond, to reflect on how far I’ve come to get to this point.
The simple Rules of this meme are:
1. Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given below.
2. Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.
3. Don’t forget to read the archived post and leave comments.
The Key Words for this Meme are Family, Friends, Yourself, Love and Anything. I’ll include a snippet of from each post to give you an idea of what is was about before you decide whether or not to click through to it
Family: Unnatural Selection: How I Failed to Inherit the Vacation Gene
“I can say wit Read more:Favorite
Christmas Time Is Here And I’m Such A Blockhead 2007-11-28 09:33:59 If all the 24 hour Holiday music stations, every dirty Santa suit clad Salvation Army Bell Ringer set up in front of every Target, shopping center entrance, post office, and strip mall, every annoyingly polite pimply-faced Boy Scout Troop camped outside my neighborhood mini-mart badgering me to buy one of their crappy $17 merit badge Christmas
wreaths and every Dunkin Donut clerk who half-heartedly asks if I want to donate a $1 to support some charity then insists I write my name in Black Sharpy on a piece of yellow paper shaped like a star so that it can be hung with the rest of the stars and I do it when I all I really wanted was a Pumpkin Spice Latte and a Blueberry cake donut… if all these sources are to be believed… this is the most wonderful time of the year.
Not to go Charles Shulz on you, unless that’s the type of thing that turns you on - I believe it’s called a Peanuts Shower, but for as much as I love this time of year, and it really is my favorite time of the year, Read more:Blockhead
, Christmas Time
Two Turtle Doves: Our Christmas Card Picture 2007-11-27 20:10:00
Our Christmas
card picture this year of Jack and Adam. Details to notice 1) The double bruise on Jack’s forehead from slamming his face on the basement stairs and an unsuccessful attempt at tackling Adam 2) The matching Rugby shirts. I’m not a huge advocate of dressing the boys in the same outfit but Kathleen asks so little of me I felt this was a concession I could make 3) Adam’s teeth. 13 months old and the kid’s already got a set of choppers 4) The early formation of a vampire fang in the upper corner of Adam’s mouth 5) Adam’s red pupils. Irrefutable evidence that Adam is the evil yet lovable spawn of Satan 6) Though you can’t see it I’m tickling them with one hand while I snap the picture with the other. I know I’m their father, but good god these are a couple of good looking kids.
(Quick post tonight. I’d apologize but I think it may be a relief to many. Not to worry. I’ll be back to my epic posts tomorrow.)
Read more:Doves
, Picture
Water Stain Looks Either Like Buddha With Erection or Mr. Weatherbee From Archie Comics 2007-11-26 20:52:26 Whether believers see the erect penis of Siddhartha Gautama the Awakened One or the silhouette of Waldo Weatherbee the principal of fictional Riverdale High School the recently discovered water stain has become not only a source of inspiration and hope but a powerful reminder of the how objects bearing an image that might be a religious figure or a beloved comic book character can serve as a divisive element between groups who traditionally follow the convictions of peace, love and frolicking high school hijinx.
Thousands of Buddhist Monks and Archie
Comic enthusiasts are flocking to the upstate New York home of famed blogger and former Jiffy Lube attendant Bill Gathen to pray to, weep before or to just catch a glimpse of what has quickly become perhaps the most famous water stain in recorded history.
Upon discovering the watermark early Monday morning Mr. Gathen immediately contacted the Institute for Water Stain
s, Comic Books and Religious Iconography. “It was like that picture of Read more:Looks
, Buddha
, Comics
Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy And Neither Is The Riemann Hypothesis 2007-12-06 09:55:56 It’s not easy being a disjointed imperfect anti-hero in the absurd bizarro universe of raising children. That alternate reality of never-ending happiness where children utter sentences like, “Daddy, in gym class today we played Oscar the Grouch and I got to be Oscar the Grouch with Maddie and everyone was throwing their balls in our can and we had to grab the balls and throw them out because Oscar doesn’t want balls in his can.” and tender simple requests like, “Daddy can you play Beaver with me?” before running into the living room chanting, “Beaver…Beaver…Beaver…”
Where toddlers regularly fire hose the contents of their recently consumed bottle plus 1.5 oz. of antibiotics on the angora sweaters of their mothers and the finely sculpted trapezius muscles of their fathers. Where I have implored more than once to “Just give me a second, I’m trying to figure out the best way to get this vomit off the draft dodger.” Where 14 month-olds have the hand strength of Read more:Neither
How To Get By Without 25% of the Alphabet With A Little Help From Your Friends 2007-12-04 09:49:07 A few weeks ago we had our first Parent-Teacher conference with Jack’s Kindergarten Teacher, the lovely and conveniently named Mrs. Rogers. Ahhh…Mrs. Rogers, I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you, I’ve always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you. If only I was 32 years younger I’d let you teach me a thing or two about phonetic awareness. So, at first I was relieved to learn from Mrs. Rogers that Jack has a strong recognition and application of rhyming words which to me indicated that he has inherited the M.C. Shadöe gene. However, it was while I was picturing Jack in an Adidas sweat suit and matching Kangol hat that she told us that when last tested there were certain letters that Jack had some difficulty recognizing. We were directed to the appropriate section of the assessment sheet and sure enough, under “Letters that your child does not recognize:” were the lost characters of Jack’s alphabet.
D, G, L, O, Q, T, V, and Z.
He didn’t know his ABC Read more:Alphabet
, Friends
The Calls Are Coming From Inside The Pretzel Rod 2007-12-02 09:50:02 Sometimes I forget the two-ply super absorbent fluid locking surveillance sponges Jack and Adam can be when it comes to every dribbled vulgarity, every unconsciously uttered impropriety, every sassa-frassin’ racka-frackin’ carrot-chewin’ fur-bearin’ varmint I take for granted, every breath I take, and every move I make because even when I think they won’t be, oh they’ll be watching me.
I have been moderately successful in my vigilance to avoid soiling their innocence, for example steering mostly clear of episodes of road rage wherein I become the face that launched a 1000 of F-Bombs, yet they each from time to time will say or do something that is a reminder that it’s not just my verbal incontinence or the impurities that trickle from me that are soaked up by the two of them; the adult diapers of my indecent vocabulary. No, my two “Depend”-ants come with tabbed straps and are fitted for maximum protection to absorb every ounce of my verbal and nonverbal le Read more:Pretzel
Why We Chain Emmanuel Lewis To Our Christmas Tree Stand 2007-12-17 09:55:39 Growing up my family was no different from any other family in the traditions we practiced during the Christmas
Season. There was the custom of waiting until the last possible second to get a Christmas Tree which usually resulted in a tree either shaped like an open beach umbrella or a portabella mushroom. This was later replaced by the spurious efficiency of an artificial tree we kept stored between January and November under the stairs like a coniferous Wes Craven movie. The color-coded branches and their corresponding slots in the trunk faded quickly though and my teenage years are filled with the memories of poorly constructed trees that looked like a Spy vs. Spy comic strip.
Another tradition was receiving new pajamas from Mom and Dad on Christmas Eve to wear in anticipation of Santa's arrival that night and for opening gifts the next morning. The pajamas were always the same; one-piece front zipper footie pajama's with non-skid soles and our names decaled above the heart in c Read more:Stand
, Lewis
, Chain
, Emmanuel
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