What the hell has parenthood done to me?

So I'm driving around town today with my son in the back seat.

  On the way to Little League practice. 
  
  While I was driving my minivan.

  With Kelly Clarkson on the radio. 

  And my son and I were singing along. 

I don't even know me anymore  Man, the 31-year-old, post-punk listening, PBR drinking, Nat Nast wearing, online-dating, international-vacationing, Bohemian-index-lifestyle version of me would pity the 41-year-old version of me.  And the 25-year-old version of me wouldn't even acknowledge the current version of me (likely because of the alcohol-induced myopia and excessive narcissism, drizzled with a healthy dollop of denial)

I blame my kids. 

But... Don't tell anyone... I kinda liked it. Especially the Kelly Clarkson bit.

Yo no hablo Espanol

My son is taking Spanish.

This matters to us for a three reasons I can think of right now:

1. My wife and I both think there is a richness that comes from appreciating other cultures, and language is a big part of that.  So yes, we'd like our kids to be able to travel internationally, and at least have two languages in which they can ask for simple directions only to get blank stares.
2. The missus is a Canuck, so multi-culturalism and multilingualism is in her blood. That said multi-culti blood is hoity-toity French rather than Spanish is beside the point.
3. And, in no small part, because one of my big regrets in life is that my ability to speak in a foreign tongue is limited to mangled French that prevents me form speaking in either the past or future tense - I can only discuss what I am doing.  Right. Now.*  And yes, before you say anything, I'm aware my interest in having the kids be polyglots is both vicarious and ironic.

* I can also tell someone to "stay here" in German.  Or ask "What is this?" Both of which are of extremely limited use.  I can also say "Word to your mother" in Greek, which is only useful if I was a rapper. In 1991. Who wanted to get his ass kicked.

He's quite good, or at least he is when measured by the yardstick of being a  four-year-old, non-native speaker.  Heck, this morning he was reading a book to his sister (Knuffle Bunny, if you must know), and started randomly replacing the English words in the story with their Spanish counterparts. Okay, granted, many of the words in question were ones like "Mommy" or "Daddy, but I'm still impressed because (a) it was unprompted, and (b) as mentioned, he's four.

Two-year-old Claire is not far behind in her interest in Spanish.  Her ability to be condescending about it, however, is FAR more advanced than her brother.

See, we have a few Spanish books. And, when it's storytime, Claire occasionally picks one up.  When she does, I get the rolling insult:

"This book is in Spanish.  Mommy reads Spanish.  Connor reads Spanish.  Juanita reads Spanish.  But Daddy doesn't read Spanish."

Yes, my daughter makes a point of listing everyone she knows who can habla Espanol better than her old man. Which, admittedly, is everyone who can habla Espanol.

I get that insult every time.

What a jerk. My only solace is that she doesn't know more people who speak Spanish.

The past-tense pasttime dream

I merely want what all parents want in life: for my son to throw a 98 mile an hour fastball and bat .300, ensuring a free-ride scholarship at a top-flight university (in part due to good grades), thereby saving me and the missus hundreds of thousands of dollars in education costs which can then be funneled into my dehabilitating addiction to single malt scotch.  

I know I'm not alone in that desire. Why? Two key reasons:

• Because by the time he's 18, inflation will drive the four-year cost of an Ivy League-or-comparable education will run $400k+.  I'd prefer to pocket that money instead, because (a) I am selfish, (b) I am a dick, (c) I am lazy, (d) I clearly put my own needs over my children's well being, and (e) as previously mentioned, I really like Oban and Laphroaig 18 year scotch.  
• They don't give scholarships for mathletes,  there's relatively few good football schools with academic bona fides that my wife wouldn't dismiss quickly, derisively, and fairly, and my son likely will top out below 6' 4", leaving basketball greatness outside of his wingspan reach.  That leaves baseball.

So we signed Connor up for t-ball.  And I now know I better start saving for his higher education, because a five-tool player he is not.  His hitting isn't hot. Hitting for power is a pipe dream at best.  He can't field.  He can't throw - I mean, he had the ball in his mitt, went to throw - with both hands, ball in mitt - and proceeded to launch the ball an exacting three feet in the opposite direction form the coach who was his cut-off man.  And hell, he can't even run.  Well, he can run, he just doesn't know what he's doing. He batted, got to first, ran to second, rounded third, and didn't know where home was - so he ran back to the bench.

In fairness, t-ball with the preschool set is unfathomable.  Ever seen little kids play soccer? The way you have the ball and twenty kids in a scrum around the ball, chasing it wherever it might go? Yeah, that's what fielding is like at t-ball, except with more staccato action and a greater chance for injury.  One kid hitting on a tee, ten kids blobbed together in the middle infield, and a mad tangle of grabbing and squabbling with each bunted ball.  I expect Connor's first loose tooth will be by week four, when a slow dribbler results in him being accidentally tackled by his teammate.  And heaven help us if any of the kids develops into a hitting prodigy who belts line drives off the tee - Connor spent as much time with hisback turned playing with the loose infield sand as he did paying attention to the batter.

What does this teach me?  That this "extremely limited TV diet" is clearly not working.  If Connor at least watched a few more Yankees games, at least he'd have the basics down.  Like what the basepaths are. I mean, I was uncomfortable - even the fat British grandmother of one of the kids howled in laughter as Connor  moped when neither the first nor second grounder of the day was hit to him.

Whatever. I guess Harvard's out of the question.  Sigh.

At what age can you administer sleep aids to a child?

Please tell me 30 months.  I think that's more than fair.

Listen, it's not that my kids don't sleep.  They may require some coaxing at nap time, and my daughter has more bedtime rituals than Wade Boggs at his most superstitious, but they fall asleep.

But, like the living dead, just because they were put down doesn't mean they stay down.

Case in point: Saturday night.  While I volunteered at a fundraiser for my son's preschool*,  my wife took the kids to a birthday party for our ex-babysitter Patty's kid.  Now, a few weeks back, we went to a birthday party for one of Patty's elder kids.  We knew what to expect: Peruvians party 'til late (no matter that the birthday girl was a toddler), cake wouldn't make an appearance until 8 or 9 PM at best, and with so many games and activities they kids would never want to leave. So after face painting, dances, sing-alongs, and enough food, chips, cake and candy to make Connor puke (literally), Janelle took the kids home.

Bedtime: 10:30 PM.

Granted, it was a 30 minute drive home. And the kids needed a scrub-down with makeup remover.  But 10:30? That's at least 2 hours too late, maybe more.** My wife told me of the late tuck-in when I got home at 11, and I began to steel myself for Sunday morning when we'd deal with the unholy terror that is two sleep-deprived kids.  But the telling comment from my wife was "maybe this means Claire will sleep in until 8 or so."  I arched an eyebrow at that one.  And I think I had the wisdom to keep my mouth shut and not comment.  That, or I blurted my feelings on that being a pipe dream or crazy or some other ill-advised and not-so-pithy comment that was greeted with a judicious beat-down that I have wisely blocked out.

No matter.  At 6:30, Claire emerged from her room, storybook in hand. crap-filled diaper around her waist. Now, the optimist would say "hey, she often gets up at 5:50, that's a good 40 minutes of extra sleep". The pessimist would take the soiled diaper, shove it down the optimist's throat, and try and sneak in one last REM cycle while his daughter struggled to amuse herself for an hour.

As my wife will tell you, I was the pessimist, as I buried my head under a few pillows and stayed in bed past 8.  Yeah, not the most supportive I've ever been. Don't worry, though, the joke was on both of us - later that day, we took the kids into Manhattan to visit the Guggenheim.  And if you've ever tried to deal with overly-tired kids around a mess of Modern Art that's protected only by small lines on the floor that intimate "please don't touch" - this, after letting them play with a participatory piece in the lobby that encouraged adding graffiti to a wall with crayons - you know the unique brand of hell that was Sunday morning.

* I'd like to say that my volunteering was me being more noble than my wife, but the event was called "Dads Can Cook", so unless Janelle got gender reassignment surgery, this was an event with my name on it.  Oh, and I didn't volunteer so much as I was volunteered (shanghaied?) by my friend Victor.  Aaaaand they had booze and a band, so torturous it wasn't.

** Unlike my wife, I would have packed up the kids and left by 7:30 or 8.  Because I am a dick who puts bedtimes above my kids' enjoyment.  Yes, this is why they will eventually rebel by partying all night as teenagers.  Or, if they are more passive-aggressive, why they'll write tell-all books when I'm a retiree in Boca.  Either way, there will be retribution, and I'll be on the receiving  end of it.

They should really have a warning about this sort of thing.

Morning. I'm prepping lunches for the kids. Claire "finishes" (a spurious distinction, but whatever) and departs for the living room.  Five minutes later, screams.  My daughter runs in, crying and clutching a mini toy car to her head.  She's blubbering something I cannot understand. Then she grabs hold of my leg and hugs me with both hands.

The toy car is still hanging from her hair.  And I can hear its wee motor straining.

Hoo boy.  So I fumble for the off switch. Then I spend five minutes unwrapping her locks from the axles, only to be greeted by a handful of hair.

Indemnifying disclaimer: The hair that was lost? I didn't rip it out, Claire did.
Damning disclaimer: Had Claire not done it first, I clearly would have done
even more damage.

So we've long since discarded the packaging for this gift, and I have no clue whether the product disclaimers warned "Please keep this from the long hairs atop a toddler's head" or "Warning: allowing the car to take a batter-assisted summit of a 2-year ofd's mane will invalidate the warranty." I suspect not.

The F-bomb

Yesterday. My son is napping, sleeping off the last bits of whatever gave him a 100 degree fever.  The phone rings.  It's the pre-school disciplinarian, calling with a question: 

Were you aware your son dropped the f- word in aftercare yesterday?

The backstory: Connor was, unbeknownst to everyone, busy rocking a fever. Shortly before getting picked up, falling asleep during the 7 minute car ride home, and sleeping for fifteen hours, a playmate snatched a toy away. When that happened, Connor muttered, "What the fuck!?!" 

The aftercare teacher wrote us a note, and let our babysitter know. So yes, I was aware.  But she goes on.  

When he said it, the teachers were shocked - shocked! - that a student would say such a thing. 

I'm sorry to hear that. Clearly, no student has ever sworn in class before. My condolences to you and your staff for having witnessed such a traumatic event, the loss of innocence for my son, the other four and five year olds in your care, and for your teachers, who clearly have been blessed to be untouched by the harshness and cruelties of this plane of existence.

And the kids all heard it and went "oooohhh!"

Huh. If this has never happened before, how were the kids attuned to react to one of the seven  verboten words? I call bullshit. (I know, my choice of language clearly makes me guilty.)

I'm not questioning where he heard this language...

Read: I know you swear in front of your kid.  And I am judging you.

... I just wanted to let you know.

Read: You are going to talk to him about that, right?

What I wanted to say was:

Really? Let's get a few things straight. First off, I'm more than aware of his cussing.  The after care teacher wrote us a note, she told our babysitter, and now you've told me. So no, there wasn't some catastrophic organizational failure that prevented this from being known.  You know what? the only thing inappropriate was his choice of words - his reaction was totally appropriate.  Inappropriate would have been what I did at age two, sitting on my grandfather's lap in church, singing the alphabet at mid-volume during service: "A-B-C-D-E-F-G... shit! Shit shit shit!"

And the teachers were shocked? Really ? If they haven't had to deal with outbursts of salty language then they're so new at the job I should be concerned.  Hell, I've been to playtime at that school and heard a few toddlers use words that would make a sailor blush. And if the kids had any understanding of how inappropriate and powerful such words were, they'd blurt them in front of the teachers, when the Mayor comes to visit, and any other time when they know they're guaranteed to get a reaction.  And yes, I admit, I swear in front of my kids.  In fact, I'm not proud to say it, I've sworn at my kids.  But - and this might shock you - my son has only used the mother of all profanities once in my presence, when he parroted the exasperated phrase I uttered as a mantra after a skateboarder plowed into the side of my car while I was waiting at a stop sign... when said board rat didn't get up for two minutes.  And I prided myself in calmly dealing with the issue, removing any power from the phrase so his two-year-old mind didn't lock in on it.

Oh, and let me add - his context was immaculate.  That is precisely the right time to blurt "what the fuck?!?"  You know what? I'm proud of him.  He may read at a third grade level, but his profanity is high school quality.  Call me back when he starts using the gerund version of the f-bomb, or when he moves to graduate level cussing (i.e. interstitial profanity, like if he were to mutter what I said to myself when you called: un-fucking-believable).

Yeah, that's what I should have said. But what I did say was, "I already did."  But I did hang up the phone right after, as passive-aggressively as I could.

A list of things my son requested on his sick day

Connor came home from preschool last night with a 100 degree temperature. That meant, of course, that he got to enjoy an all-expenses paid trip to the living room couch. Sure, the trip was earned - he slept from five at night through to 7:30 the next morning, with only an hour-long spat of writing around in bed kicking my wife and I at 3 AM.  But having a fever at night's end, as any parent knows, meant Connor would wake fever-free, ready for a fun-filled day off from school. And after that much rest, his neediness was off the charts - mostly because he knew he could play me like a kid at Chuck E Cheese with a bucket of tokens (if you've never been, well, don't go - but for reference, it's like a Deadhead winning the lottery and going to Amsterdam... But I digress).

But what did he ask for? Here's but a partial list:

• Can I have some juice?
• I would like eggs. 
• No, wait - French toast.  
• No - eggs and French toast.
• Read me a story.
• Can I watch an episode of Super Why!?
• I want another episode of Super Why!
• Let's play legos.
• No more legos - can we play trains?
• Can we go to the playground?
• Can you read another story?
• Can I have another episode of Super Why!? Please?
• For lunch I want peanut butter and jelly.
• No wait - tacos
• No wait - hot dogs!
• Can I watch Curious George? No? How about Super Why!?
• Naptime? Why? Can I stay up?
• Can I read a story?
• Can i write a story?
• Hey, remember that episode of Super Why!?  Why didn't I get that?
• I want Claire out of my room.
• I want to lay by myself. 
• I want to go back to the playground.
• Ooh, Little League tryouts - can I play?
• Why am I too young? I want to be six. 
• Ooh, I know what I want - an episode of Super Why!
• I want pulled pork for dinner.
• Asparagus or spinach? Asparagus, please. 
• I don't want pulled pork and asparagus.  Macaroni and cheese, please.
• I finished my dinner. Can I have ice cream?
• No - a cupcake.
• No, a cupcake and ice cream.
• Um, is it too late for some Super Why!?

The only logical way to celebrate the mysteries of faith

I always liked Easter as a kid. Granted, there were some strange traditions in my household.  Three come to mind in particular:

1. There would be footprints marking the Easter Bunny's presence in the house.  My Mom would take some talcum powder and make bunny prints from our bedrooms to the living room.  Pretty cute, right?  Just wait.  The carpet was forest green and of an unholy polymer that rendered such lovingly-created footprints into mongoloid shapes.  And they were huge footprints, so we had a monstrous, mongoloid bunny. In our house.  And the footprints originated from my bedroom.  And unlike Santa, this stealthly entrant wanted us to know mot just that he had visited, but that he liked exploring - and, logically, from whence he had come. No, I had a monstrous, mongoloid bunny that clearly LIVED IN MY BEDROOM.*  Traumatic times for a four-year-old with an overactive imagination.
2. Weather permitting, the Easter Bunny provided an egg hunt in the backyard.  However, we are talking late March or, at best, early April.  Before Dad would start raking or doing lawn upkeep.  And we had two  small mutts with prodigious colons.  So the egg hunt usually involved some ill-timed stepping-in-turd mishaps.
3. My Grandmother would get us chocolate. She balanced the books for a warehouse, so getting voluminous candy was not without precedent: Many Halloweens involved getting bags of Jolly Ranchers so big they'd last through the following April. But the candy of choice was chocolate crosses.  To clarify, we'd get a 16-ounce block of chalky chocolate molded like Jesus on the cross.  Eating a chocolate bunny can be traumatic, especially when your Mother has a nasty habit of devouring the ears off of your hollow lupine treat.  But taking the head off the chocolate Jesus - which required the use of a steak knife, given the temper and thickness of the chocolate in question - is the stuff of psychoanalytsts' dreams.

That said, Easter was always pretty cool in our household because CANDY.  And lots of it.  

But we had an Easter egg hunt in our house today, and I suspect the kids will call us on it when they're older.  While I was making dinner, my wife hid plastic, goodie-filled eggs all over the living room and dining room. Then, with my parents and my sister and brother-in-law as witnesses, we let the kids loose to rip the house to shreds.  My four year old overestimated the degree of difficulty used in hiding the eggs, my daughter didn't, and my niece was confused why there were not two large dogs trying to bowl her over each time she uncovered an egg (she lives with two sweet but overactive pups).  But the issue was not the hunt, but what was in the eggs.

A third of them had gummi letters.  A third had candied apricots.  And a third had Brazil nuts. Now last year, it must be noted that they searched for popcorn and were pretty delighted.  And the gummies and nuts seemed to be a hit (the less said about the apricots and the girls the better).  I feel my wife is missing the point of the holiday: being traumatized by visits by monstrously tall, podiacally-deformed rabbits that lurk somewhere in your house, providing treats of deities embossed on torture devices  that require gruesome dissection in order to be consumed.  I mean, if they don't get their psychoses via such sugar-induced concerns, the source of their dysfunction will have to instead be fueled solely by our poor parenting.  Of which there are ample examples.**

* Note: as a pre-teen, I now realize there was a second option to the mysterious, monstrous footprints that  originated from my bedroom - I was a were-rabbit, who would change into his bizarre form on the eve of the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring.  This thought, strangely enough, was not as traumatic for me, which is wholly disconcerting for altogether different reasons. 

** Case in point - on this Easter evening,  my folks watched the kids while my wife and I went to see The Book of Mormon.