Date Night

This is going to be sweet, I have no idea why I didn't think of this before.  Genius I tell you, genius!!  Sometimes I deserve some sort of marriage/father medal.  Do they make those?  They should make those and if there was one I would get it because this idea is awesome.

Preparation is easy enough.  And cheap, with Christmas around the corner every dollar counts or we will be slightly underfed come Christmas morning.  When I am putting together the 12th toy or cutting something out of a box I demand a hearty breakfast.  Santa needs more than cookies, sausage and eggs and English muffins, that's what's required on Christmas morning.

Like every parent, my wife and I do not get enough alone time together.  And I'm not talking about good old sexy time, little hanky panky followed by blissful sleep.  I'm talking about just alone time where two adults can sit around and just talk about what's going on.  How was your day, what was destroyed, can you fix it?  You know, normal parent talk.  However, whenever we try to have these talks there is always interruptions.  A bumped knee, someone isn't sharing, please look at my drawing.  I love looking at drawings and I love mending bumped knees but I also like to check in on the mental status of my wife to make sure she isn't thinking about trading up to someone with hair.   She probably wouldn't given that I'm pretty awesome and I can cook but it's never good to take chances with this kind of thing.

So first off, go get a movie for the kids.  Something long with a lot of previews.  Something that isn't too scary but isn't boring.  And while I'm doing that, get a video game too.  Rent if need be, buy if you have to.  Something that they can both play together at the same time.  Grab 1000 lbs of popcorn, teach kids how to use the microwave and juice boxes measured in gallons.  That's the first part of this awesome plan.  Look, I would like to spend some time with my wife without shelling out the penalty 50 dollar fee that is known as the babysitter.

Once that was done, fix a nice big meal.  Something that they will like and eat up.  Get some full bellies and some happy smiles.  Feed them corn dogs and chicken nuggets to make them happy.  So far so good.

Now the hard part, the part that if it goes wrong the whole night will go wrong.  Calmly explain to the children that their mother and I are going to go put the toddler to sleep.  And that once he's asleep that we are not to be bothered for any reason.  I used to tell them "unless there is blood" but have had to modify that to "unless someone is missing a limb".  It's amazing how a red mark on a toe can equal blood.

Put the movie in, give them popcorn, video games, and some juice and then go upstairs.  The toddler didn't want to go to sleep but after a short while and a promise of ice cream ponies in the morning.  He finally did.

And that's it, that is how you do date night in your own home.  It was awesome, how didn't I think of this before?  The kids stayed up until around 11 and then went to bed.  My wife and I played the part of the moody teenager and just shut the door to our room.  We read, we talked, we laughed and that was it.  We went to sleep drunk on the quiet alone time that we were able to carve out for a couple of hours.  Look, of course, I would want to go out with my wife.  Maybe see a movie or hit a bar.  But life can make that tough and sometimes you gotta find the solutions in a tough spot.  The kids loved their "special" night and I got to insure that my wife isn't going to find Raul, the young in shape love stud to take my place.

I am totally doing this again.

Toddler Chess

Bacon Hoss plays the first move, a bold move that is rarely seen in any chess course ever taught.  King to D5, the center square.  I've actually looked in a lot of chess databases and it turns out that I'm right.  I cannot find one single game where the King is played in the center on the first move.

Mostly because it's a massive illegal move as a king can't just jump over pawns but we are playing toddler chess and the rules are different.  Besides, I like his moxie.  Staking his claim on the most important square in the game sends a message.  Come at me bro.  I like it.

I move out my pawn to challenge his pawn.  He sees through my ploy and his next move catches me off guard.  He takes my pawn and puts it in his mouth.  Brilliant.  Spassky should have played in this style.  I think I may have a prodigy on my hands here.

I play knight to f3, a move that is seen as routine and almost always a given.  In 75% of games you will see this move, the knight moving slightly up and to the right of the king.  Our courageous piece will offer protection there while threatening the center.  It's a solid move.

Bacon plays rook to a3, capturing my dark squared bishop.  His piece flew through the air and magically transported itself there, it was breath taking.  We are not only rewriting the rules of chess but of physics here.  The nature of the universe will be changed forever after this game.  I do the only thing I can under such a serious threat to my queen.  I capture his rook and look him dead in his genius eyes.  I challenge him, how will he respond?

He moves my rook and takes my queen.  There is treachery on my own team!  I have been betrayed by a trusted piece!  My heart aches at such an act.  My trusted rook, the holder of open files and the king of the pin, a king pin if you will.  (I know, I just made a chess joke.  It's very funny and I realize that I am totally showing my nerd here but it is a chess post after all.  A pin is actually a chess tactic and if you can "pin" another piece......forget it, I'm not explaining it.  Read a book.)

With my queen gone my options become limited.  I fear though that my boy has blundered badly.  My knight still threatens his king in the center.  The game is mine.  He played with emotion which is always a bad way to play chess.  He went for the decoy of the queen but at the expense of his own safety.  I smile in the way that you do when you know the game is up and your opponent springs the trap.  I take his king with my knight.

The king is resurrected!  I removed his king from the board and leaned back in my chair.  I apparently can defeat those that subvert nature's laws and goodness is restored.  However, it seems that there was a trap laid withing a trap.  Bacon Hoss takes his king back when I was basking in my glory and uses it to push my own king off the board.  His king has come back from the dead to rule the board now.  With his secret weapon of the Jesus King the game is over.  It is over because my king does not have those special abilities.  My king can not come back mainly because at this point Bacon Hoss has taken that king and run away into the stacks of the library.  He's like the Kaiser Soze of chess.

Defeated, humiliated, in front of a crowd of on lookers I reset the board because chess decorum still rules.  I analyze the game over and over in my head and try to figure out where I went wrong.  What move did I make that opened me up to such a vicious attack.  We may never know because as I feel like I'm coming close to an answer I hear books falling off shelves.

That would be one of mine.  He has left chaos on the chess board and now he is leaving chaos in the library.  I fear that he will not stop until the world is his and honestly, I want to give it to him.

Right after I clean up the mess.

Defcon 5

We at DEFCON 5 here.  It's all hands on deck, batten down the hatches, save the women and children.  Take defensive positions at the main wall, raise the drawbridge and pray to your God.  All before 7 am, that has got to be a new record in how quickly my daughter will mysteriously meltdown.

I have no idea what happened or what prompted this meltdown.  We were having a good morning where there was breakfast on the table and soft music was playing in the background.  The house was clean and everything for school was packed and ready to go.  It was a peaceful morning filled with groggy eyes but slowly warming up to facing another day at school.  My kids love school too, the don't dread going.  There will be funny stories to be told at lunch, little secret whispers during class and games at recess.  We were all set to go.  Then the bomb went off and I'm not sure why.

To be clear here, I have no sage fatherly advice to pass on.  I have no insight into 10-year-old girl behavior.  You would think that I would, but I don't.  When this happens I have no clue what's going on or what to do about it.  I'm just the unwitting passenger screaming at the driver on this one.  The best I can do is hold on tight to the oh-shit bar and hope we don't roll into a ditch.

"God!" she said.  "I can't even get a hair tie this morning, how am I supposed to go to school!"  She pushed violently away from the table which sent the rest of dishes rattling while my other kids were trying to eat.  A cereal box fell over and wham, there you go.  Now we are in full on meltdown.

I thought about pointing out that I have a zillion hair ties laying around.  Between my wife and my daughter, I have a little collection going.  I walk around the house and say hey, here's another hair tie.  I better put this into my pocket.  By the end of the day I have a backpack full of them.  I dump them on the counter before I go to bed and then wonder how my life has gotten away from me.  I have been reduced to a hair tie recycler.  It's not the most glamorous job but it's a needed as my current morning is pointing out.

I can't say anything however because she is already heading upstairs, each footfall landing like an earthquake.  I am amazed that someone so small and tiny can cause such a thundering boom walking up the stairs.  I should rent her out on demolition jobs.  I'll take her to the job site and then tell her that the last hair tie she had broke and that I don't have anymore.  We would make a fortune but I'm afraid she wouldn't know where to stop and entire neighborhoods would be laid to waste.

Perhaps this is one of those times where I just need to stay out of the way.  Maybe I should just grab a helmet and retreat into my pillow fort until it blows over.  Doing that though will leave my other two kids by themselves to face this squall and there is a small voice that says screw it, one of those two bastards threw wet toilet paper in my shower so they can suck it.  It's tempting but that's running away from a problem and I only do that when the children aren't looking.

So I stay and get ready to face this meltdown.  I stay at my sink washing the same dish over and over again, delaying as much as I can so that I can come up with some sort of defense.  I hear the earth quaking steps coming down the stairs and I know that my time has grown short.

"Who wants a hug!" I say when she gets to the bottom of the stairs.

My black eye should heal in a couple of days.

A Big Pile of Gross

It's not every day that you turn around during your shower and see a pile of wet toilet paper sitting over the drain.  Unless of course, you live with children so your first thought isn't "How the hell did toilet paper get in my shower" it is "Well, it could be worse."  It could be worse of course because I live with three kids and I have seen worse.  I have seen remote controls run through the dishwasher so my first response from seeing the white blob in the shower was one of relief.  I could deal with toilet paper in a shower.

This still leaves me with the mystery of why the toilet paper is in my shower which after staring at it for a few more seconds I decide that the why of it isn't really important because I already know why.  The wet mound of gross is there because I have kids and they hate me.  This is just their passive-aggressive way of letting me know.  Some kids tell their parents that they hate them to their face.  Mine have perfected a system that lets me know that they hate me while they tell me they love me.  So the why is settled, the children are trying to drive me insane so that I will give them all the candy back that I took on Halloween.  The jokes on them though because I already ate all that candy, that was job #1.

Now that the why is safely settled we must get to the who and the how.  These are actually important because as a father I cannot let these slights go unanswered.  That's just inviting a direct challenge to my authority and we can not have that.  Anarchy will prevail should I just turn my back and my house will basically become a scene from the movie The Purge.  Besides, it's times like this that I like to stretch the old brain muscle to stay on the top of my game.

It could be my 10-year-old.  She is getting moody and you never know where that is coming from or what is going to set it off.  She could have gotten mad that the breakfast I gave her wasn't blue enough or something else along those lines.  There's your motive right there.  She is certainly bright enough to pull off a guerrilla campaign which I'm pretty sure at this point that is what I am dealing with.   However, this type of thing doesn't really fit her M.O. because wet toilet paper is gross and she currently is not dealing with gross.

So let's move on to my 9-year-old boy.  Does he have this in him?  Maybe.  He doesn't like direct confrontation so this would be something he would do.  But he also doesn't have the attention span for long ops which I'm thinking probably this was.  This took some planning.  It is more plausible that he had toilet paper and forgot where it went and just threw it the first place he saw.  I can see that.  However, he is a people pleaser so I don't see him taking this type of action.  It would be more likely that he just secretly resents me and will let me know when he turns 16 and says that he loves Darla, the nice lady from the truck stop parking lot.

So by the process of elimination that leaves me with my 3-year-old boy.  Gross is definitely something that he is into.  And of all my children, he is the one that I have pegged to going evil.  It will be a subtle change over time like Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader.  Am I seeing the first steps to the dark side as I look at the giant spit wad from Steven Tyler?  I can also see his appeal to wet gross toilet paper.  It makes weird sounds when you throw it and it is all squishy.  Those are things that I think that he would like.

I have suspect, now to look for witnesses.

I step out of the shower and ask my wife how a whole roll of toilet paper ended up in my shower.  She looks at me and says:

"I found your hammer in the dryer last week."

Interesting.  I believe that I may have stumbled onto a pattern.

Penis, Penis, Penis

Penis.  Everything at my house right now is penis.  Penis this, penis that.  Look at my penis.  See my penis, here is my penis.  Penis, penis, penis.  My 3-year-old has fully discovered his penis and now wants to share it with the world.  He does not yet understand that sharing your penis with the world is a good way to get 5 to 10 with a guy that really wants share your penis.

Sure, naked time has always been a fixture around here but now we have kicked it up a notch. He came out of the bathroom yesterday singing his penis song.  Penis penis penis!  Penis penis penis!  It's like a chant at the worst protest in history.  I tell him to pull his pants up.  He responds with "Penis!"  Then he points.  I keep telling him not to point because the joy of flashing the penis is the surprise when the intended victim discovers it on their own, that's where the joy is!

I think he took this to heart because the next time he comes out of the bathroom with his pants pulled up and his shirt pee free, always a win when dealing with a toddler.  He walked right up to my daughter, lifted his shirt and yelled "Penis!"  The sneaky little bugger had draped his little coin purse and junk right over the waist band of his pants and flashed his sister.  My daughter was not impressed.  "Dad!!!!  He's doing the penis thing again!  Gross!"

I'll admit, I laughed pretty hard at that.  First off, you got to hand it to the little guy for coming up with that scheme all on his own.  That's pretty advanced pranking right there.  Secondly, I do enjoy seeing my daughter freak out a little bit.  Mainly because I consider it payback for all of my crap she has broken over the last ten years.  She threw my cell phone in the toilet once so she is not going to get much sympathy from me.  Although perhaps she should because as with all pranks, it will always come around to you one day.

We went to the downtown library a little while after.  It's a great space, 5 floors of reading and books.  The kids area is top notch so the kids can be kids there while not bothering anyone.  I really don't like bothering anyone with my devil spawn and I realize that we fall short on this most times.  I do apologize but I'm dealing with penis here and we all know how difficult that can be.   For lunch we headed up to the roof as there is a very nice veranda up there where we can picnic among the tall buildings.  A lot of patrons do this as well so it can get pretty crowded during lunch time.

We went to the bathroom with little bacon hoss because it's either pee in the bathroom or on your potted plants.  One of those two things are going to happen and they tend to ask you to leave if you inappropriately water the fern.  I go to the bathroom, he goes to the bathroom, we sing a song to help with the flow of things.  It works.  Sing your ABC's next time or some good old Clementine and you will find yourself right as rain.

We flush the toilets (his favorite part), we wash our hands, we head out of the bathroom. to the rooftop doors.  All good, no problems.  I'm an amazing father.

He turns around, pulls up his shirt and there it is in all of its glory.  My 3-year-olds penis.  He's already got that asshole smile on his face.

"Dad, Penis!" he yells and that's when people's heads start to turn around.  I try to act fast but he was ready for it.  With his junk still out he turns and runs from me, bopping along yelling his penis song:  Penis, penis, penis!  Penis, penis, penis!

I run after him and as I am getting closer I notice what I'm really saying to him, yelling in fact, and it does not sound good.

"Boy!  You bring that penis back right now!  You put that penis up!  C'mere boy!  Stop running!"

Everyone is looking now and I know what it looks like.  A bearded and tattooed man is chasing a toddler from the bathroom room screaming about penis.  Now, in the at home dad world we get a lot of weird looks.  It happens and some dads have had the police called on them when they are hanging out at the park with their kids.  Some mom may think he looks "sketchy" so there is a whole thing and one of our big at home dad fears.

This is what I'm thinking as I'm chasing the amazing penis boy.

Penis, penis, penis!

I catch him and lift him up so that I can struggle to put his pants on.  However, it may look like I'm trying to take his pants off in front of all these people.  He is kicking me and laughing but that laughing could sound like screaming.  His only volume is "loud as a donkey" so there could be some misinterpretation going on here.

We sit down and I get my kids lunches out.  I lecture my 3 year old about showing the penis in public.  He does not seem impressed.  I also get my wallet and I.D. out.  Why do I need my wallet and driver's license out and ready?

Penis.  That's why.  Penis.

Broken

"Dad!" my daughter tells me from the top of the stairs.  "Dad, I'm sorry"  She is already crying.  Man, I hate this in between puberty stage.  I never know if she is crying because she is hurt, if she is afraid of getting in trouble, or if her favorite song isn't on the radio.  Raising a 10-year-old daughter has a lot of challenges the biggest one is that most of the time I don't know what the fuck is going on.  It's an uncomfortable feeling really.  It's like grabbing someone's sandwich and taking a bite not knowing if you are going to get the creamy goodness of peanut butter and jelly or you have found the one guy outside of my father that likes sardines and bread.  The best you can do is just bite down and hope for the best.  

I look over at my wife and I see her eyes roll, the exasperated look that tells me that it's not too bad whatever it is and that my wife is just done dealing with the tween drama that is starting to become normal around this house.  My wife doesn't seem to be upset so that is good and the fact that there is no ambulance at my house is even better.  So whatever it is can't be that bad, right?

I go through a mental checklist though before my daughter and I continue this conversation.  My daughter is walking and I see no visible blood.  This is a good thing and given who we are as a family is always the first place I go when I evaluate a situation.  Does my son still have all his limbs?  Yup.  Good, everyone into the car.  

So if no one appears to be hurt then that means that someone broke something, something they don't want to tell me about.  I look at the ceiling and you are going to wonder why.  Well, naturally one of the worst things I can think of is that someone tore the bathtub out and then turned on the water.  The water collected upstairs while they got surfboards out.  The water then leaked through the floor while they surfed down the stairs and no one noticed.  So I am looking at the ceiling to test my hypothesis.  I see no streams of water so I think we are good on that.  Given who my children are, I am slightly proud.  I do the sniff test.  I smell nothing burning and hear no fire alarms going off so again I'm feeling pretty good and proud.  While I was gone no one managed to burn the house down or flood it.  I have to keep a low bar of expectations around here in order to stay positive and positive is the only thing keeping me nice and level.  So no fire and no water, I can fix anything else.  

"Dad, I broke my cello."

Fuck. 

Little Hoss has been playing the cello for about 2 months now.  I wrote a whole post about it and how thankful I was that it was not the drums.  However, that was before I knew that the school was giving my daughter a 2000 dollar instrument.  Damn it, damn it, damn it.  I am starting to wish for a house fire.  

But let's stay positive.  It took her at least 2 months to break 2000 dollars.  That's good and probably some kind of family record.  On Christmas morning, I have three piles.  One pile are presents, one pile is for trashed wrapping paper, and the third pile is for broken toys that I have to somehow figure out how to repair.  Do you know how to reattach a shopping cart wheel to a plastic base?  Duct Tape, the answer is always duct tape.  I do not know if I can duct tape a stringed instrument but I'm willing to give it a try.  

"Dad, I was practicing and then I went to turn my sheet music and then the bottom bar slipped because I think it was broken and then it slipped and then it tipped over and then it landed and then I got scared and then I just sat there and then and then and then......."

I've got to put my parent ears on for this one, the ones that can decipher what truly happened and who was the cause of that occurrence.  Whenever my children are over emotional and try to explain these things to me I have to weed through a ton of superfluous information to get to the root cause.  It's almost like interviewing a perpetrator again.  I need to create a timeline and then go back over that timeline to figure out if her sitting in her chair after her cello fell actually has anything to do with the story.  So that's where we start.  I ask her again to tell me what happened.  

"Dad, my cello fell and it broke and it doesn't sound right."

The Dad in me wants to make the joke of "How can you tell?" It would have been a damn good joke but my little girl is beating herself up pretty hard over this so I don't make it worse.  I'll save worse for later.  Besides, after 10 years I've got some tricks up my sleeve that go beyond duct tape.  She's just learning the cello so I don't want to knock her confidence just yet.

"Ok," I tell her.  "You were playing your cello and it fell over while you were turning your music.  Now it has a crack in it?  Or did the handle come off?"  Perhaps it splintered into a million pieces and if this is the case then I shall salvage them to hunt vampires.  I find my life is easier if I recycle.  

"Yes.  It has a crack in the back and now it doesn't sound the same."

2 months.  We made it two months.  

But to her credit, a slight fall on a carpeted floor shouldn't have caused a crack.  These are school instruments and I'm sure they take more of a beating than that.  Yes, she was careless but it's not the end of the world.  Besides, I actually bought insurance on the cello before we even walked out the door. 

Hell yeah I did!  That's right if I am sure of anything in this world it is the ability of my children to break stuff.  I signed on the dotted line and asked the man two questions.  Question 1:  Do you want to touch my biceps and 2:  Does this cello come with insurance because we are going to need some of that.  

Like the Oracle of Delphi, I knew this was going to happen sooner or later so I took precautions because there is no way I was letting my beautiful yet accident prone daughter walk out of that gym with 2000 bucks of liability.  

I tell my daughter to calm down, that it's going to be ok.  I explain to her that we have insurance on the cello and that they will fix it for us.  Then I explain the next 20 minutes explaining what insurance is, why it's a good thing and why she should always love me more than anyone else, ever.  I wipe away her tears then go check all the batteries in the fire alarms because even though a major crisis has been averted and let's be honest, they are still my children so surfing down the steps in a blazing inferno is not out of the realm of possibilities.  

Screen Time

One of the current debates in the parenting world is called "Screen time".  Now if you live in Hollywood and are the parents of an 8-year-old trying out for that great part and has a cocaine addiction at a 15-year old's level, this probably means something way, way different between you and the rest of us.  Seriously, don't spend all your kid's money on hookers and 4-loco (is that still a thing?).  Open up a nice easy investment account so that they won't have to do playboy at the age of 19.  I'm looking at you Disney Channel people.

See what I did there?  I deflected judgment onto someone who is possibly way worse than me so that I can look like a god damn saint when I finish this story.  You will be so busy googling failed child actors and their shit heel parents that I will be looking like a rose.  I should be a politician but I don't like to kiss babies.  Face it, babies are gross.  They look cute from a distance but you can never tell if they just ate some chocolates or diaper candy.

Now you are thinking about bad parents and poop eating babies while I'm gong to come out looking like a saint.  This is going well.

Screen time for the rest of us means how much time we allow our children to veg out in front of anything electronic.  Is it good?  Is it bad?  Am I a bomb sheltering scared hippy?  Am I not hippy enough.  Should I get a flower power tattoo while my child watches Mutt and Stuff?  On a side note, yes another one to further the distractions here, does anyone think the main guy on Mutt and Stuff looks like the actor Justin Long?  Don't know who that is?  Well, you need more screen time and I probably need less.  Watch the movie "Tusk".  It will ruin your life and Mutt and Stuff all at the same time.  Win/win.

There is a whole war going on over this.  Just google it and you will find articles written from every conceivable angle.  Too much and your kid is going to rot his brain, get hooked on drugs and sport meth teeth in his sophomore year photo because there is no way that kid is going to graduate high school.  Too little and your kid is not going to learn as quickly and dear god when preschool starts what happens if he doesn't know how to read and there goes Harvard so fuck it go get some meth.  Parents are very passionate about this, almost nutso about it.  They either brag on how they are doing a wholesome nature raising thing complete with wheatgrass organic sippy cups or they tell how their 10-year-old is just so good using his new iPhone and learning how to speak Chinese.  Heads up to both groups here:  wheatgrass is used to kill your soul and your 10-year-old is actually looking at porn.  So basically the end result is the same.

This is getting pretty contentious in an under the surface kind of way, much like the vaccine vs. anti-vaccine groups.  Ha, I'm just kidding.  Vaccinate your kids.  If you are not doing it, you are doing it wrong.  We can all agree on that so fuck you, take care of your kids.  Jesus, how is that a thing?  Polio or no Polio.  Hmm.  Wheatgrass screen time it is.  (Yet another deflection!)

However, I think both groups are wrong.  Not on the vaccination thing you people are shit heels.  On the screen time thing.  The whole discussion is framed wrong.  It shouldn't be framed as too much or too little.  It should not be framed in a "my kid is nature loving" vs "my kid will be a genius" fight.  That's the wrong fight to have.

Here's the real issue.  My 3-year-old is going to be living in a closet with spiders if I don't get just a couple minutes a day to poop.  I need the confidence to walk into a bathroom knowing that when I do, because there is only so long that I can hold it, that my toddler won't try to plug the dog into a wall socket.  Are my wall sockets covered, hell yes they are.  Will he go into the garage, find some tools, unscrew the outlet and then stick the dog's nose in it?  Probably.   He can't figure out how to pull up his underwear but he turns into freaking Macgyver when it's time to break something.  And have you ever pooped with someone staring at you in the eye?  Every parent every where is now nodding their head.  It's awkward as hell.  Don't look at me, I can't poop when you look at me.  Sadly, prior to Ipads, I couldn't poop unless the door was wide open and someone was singing to me while looking directly at me.  So weird, so very very weird.  I do not enjoy it.

Now that we have covered pooping, lets move onto cooking.  Let's all rehash this very real and very common conversation:

"Don't stick your hand into the hot water."

"Why"

"Because it will hurt."

Then he proceeds to try to stick his hand into the hot water.  Look, I'm all for letting the kids help me cook.  Great, teaching a life skill, much like pooping in solitude.  But the kitchen can be a crazy place with lots of hot things and you can't eat microwaved nuggets 3 times a day.  And also, sometimes Dad just wants to make a nice damn sauce for Mom and Dad's dinner and we would prefer to not have any boogers in my reduction.  Really, it's just common courtesy.  Now please quit waving the knife at your brother and how did you even get that drawer open, it was locked?

And finally, the one we will all relate to the most, is that sometimes I just need a break.  I get up at 7 and I run around all day.  Every part of my day is filled with questions, chores, complaints, wants, and responsibilities.  And like most parents, I enjoy most of it.  I love coaching soccer with my boy, I love taking my daughter to volleyball and watching her play.  I love finger painting and butt wiping.  I love answering every "why" and explaining every "because."  I love every story that starts with "did you know dad that cows have 4 stomachs" and ends with "it was so funny dad, it was just so funny, let me tell you again why it was funny."  I love bath time and story time and bed time.  I love it all.  My day doesn't usually end until 9 at night because there are always drinks of water and homework forgotten or one more time please tell me why it was funny.  I love it.  But sometimes, Jesus, sometimes I just need everyone to shut it.  I need a moment to think.  I need a moment to step back and plan my next step because honestly, a lot of times I'm just winging it.  It's good to have a moment where you can decide if you put the nuggets in the microwave or the dishwasher because that's going to make a pretty big difference when dinner time comes.  And yes, you are going to eat it either way.

So screen time is really more of a time out card for life.  As parents, have we forgotten how much time we took just to do these things unfettered?  Have we gotten so used to the constant interuptions that they are part of life and somehow we feel guilty for just needing a few extra moments to maintain our sanity?  I think so.

As you go about your day today, doing your jobs or driving your car, do me a favor.  Set a repeating timer for 3 minutes whenever you are doing something.  When it goes off stop what you are doing, try and answer a completely unrelated question while hopping on one foot and boom, that's what parenting is like.  All the time.

So giving our  kids an Ipad or turning on a cartoon is not to be judged or fought about.  The real question is what are the visiting hours in the mental hospital.  I'm not saying to do this every day all the time, spend time with your kids, be a good parent.  Don't let them eat diaper candy and let's all judge the real crap holes of the parenting world:  The Organic Hollywood Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children.  Seriously, fuck you people

Screen Time

One of the current debates in the parenting world is called "Screen time".  Now if you live in Hollywood and are the parents of an 8-year-old trying out for that great part and has a cocaine addiction at a 15-year old's level, this probably means something way, way different between you and the rest of us.  Seriously, don't spend all your kid's money on hookers and 4-loco (is that still a thing?).  Open up a nice easy investment account so that they won't have to do playboy at the age of 19.  I'm looking at you Disney Channel people.

See what I did there?  I deflected judgment onto someone who is possibly way worse than me so that I can look like a god damn saint when I finish this story.  You will be so busy googling failed child actors and their shit heel parents that I will be looking like a rose.  I should be a politician but I don't like to kiss babies.  Face it, babies are gross.  They look cute from a distance but you can never tell if they just ate some chocolates or diaper candy.

Now you are thinking about bad parents and poop eating babies while I'm gong to come out looking like a saint.  This is going well.

Screen time for the rest of us means how much time we allow our children to veg out in front of anything electronic.  Is it good?  Is it bad?  Am I a bomb sheltering scared hippy?  Am I not hippy enough.  Should I get a flower power tattoo while my child watches Mutt and Stuff?  On a side note, yes another one to further the distractions here, does anyone think the main guy on Mutt and Stuff looks like the actor Justin Long?  Don't know who that is?  Well, you need more screen time and I probably need less.  Watch the movie "Tusk".  It will ruin your life and Mutt and Stuff all at the same time.  Win/win.

There is a whole war going on over this.  Just google it and you will find articles written from every conceivable angle.  Too much and your kid is going to rot his brain, get hooked on drugs and sport meth teeth in his sophomore year photo because there is no way that kid is going to graduate high school.  Too little and your kid is not going to learn as quickly and dear god when preschool starts what happens if he doesn't know how to read and there goes Harvard so fuck it go get some meth.  Parents are very passionate about this, almost nutso about it.  They either brag on how they are doing a wholesome nature raising thing complete with wheatgrass organic sippy cups or they tell how their 10-year-old is just so good using his new iPhone and learning how to speak Chinese.  Heads up to both groups here:  wheatgrass is used to kill your soul and your 10-year-old is actually looking at porn.  So basically the end result is the same.

This is getting pretty contentious in an under the surface kind of way, much like the vaccine vs. anti-vaccine groups.  Ha, I'm just kidding.  Vaccinate your kids.  If you are not doing it, you are doing it wrong.  We can all agree on that so fuck you, take care of your kids.  Jesus, how is that a thing?  Polio or no Polio.  Hmm.  Wheatgrass screen time it is.  (Yet another deflection!)

However, I think both groups are wrong.  Not on the vaccination thing you people are shit heels.  On the screen time thing.  The whole discussion is framed wrong.  It shouldn't be framed as too much or too little.  It should not be framed in a "my kid is nature loving" vs "my kid will be a genius" fight.  That's the wrong fight to have.

Here's the real issue.  My 3-year-old is going to be living in a closet with spiders if I don't get just a couple minutes a day to poop.  I need the confidence to walk into a bathroom knowing that when I do because there is only so long that I can hold it, that my toddler won't try to plug the dog into a wall socket.  Are my wall sockets covered, hell yes they are.  Will he go into the garage, find some tools, unscrew the outlet and then stick the dog's nose in it?  Probably.   He can't figure out how to pull up his underwear but he turns into freaking Macgyver when it's time to break something.  And have you ever pooped with someone staring at you in the eye?  Every parent every where is now nodding their head.  It's awkward as hell.  Don't look at me, I can't poop when you look at me.  Sadly, prior to Ipads, I couldn't poop unless the door was wide open and someone was singing to me while looking directly at me.  So weird, so very very weird.  I do not enjoy it.

Now that we have covered pooping, lets move onto cooking.  Let's all rehash this very real and very common conversation:

"Don't stick your hand into the hot water."

"Why"

"Because it will hurt."

Then he proceeds to try to stick his hand into the hot water.  Look, I'm all for letting the kids help me cook.  Great, teaching a life skill, much like pooping in solitude.  But the kitchen can be a crazy place with lots of hot things and you can't eat microwaved nuggets 3 times a day.  And also, sometimes Dad just wants to make a nice damn sauce for Mom and Dad's dinner and we would prefer to not have any boogers in my reduction.  Really, it's just common courtesy.  Now please quit waving the knife at your brother and how did you even get that drawer open, it was locked?

And finally, the one we will all relate to the most, is that sometimes I just need a break.  I get up at 7 and I run around all day.  Every part of my day is filled with questions, chores, complaints, wants, and responsibilities.  And like most parents, I enjoy most of it.  I love coaching soccer with my boy, I love taking my daughter to volleyball and watching her play.  I love finger painting and butt wiping.  I love answering every "why" and explaining every "because."  I love every story that starts with "did you know dad that cows have 4 stomachs" and ends with "it was so funny dad, it was just so funny, let me tell you again why it was funny."  I love bath time and story time and bed time.  I love it all.  My day doesn't usually end until 9 at night because there are always drinks of water and homework forgotten or one more time please tell me why it was funny.  I love it.  But sometimes, Jesus, sometimes I just need everyone to shut it.  I need a moment to think.  I need a moment to step back and plan my next step because honestly, a lot of times I'm just winging it.  It's good to have a moment where you can decide if you put the nuggets in the microwave or the dishwasher because that's going to make a pretty big difference when dinner time comes.  And yes, you are going to eat it either way.

So screen time is really more of a time out card for life.  As parents, have we forgotten how much time we took just to do these things unfettered?  Have we gotten so used to the constant interuptions that they are part of life and somehow we feel guilty for just needing a few extra moments to maintain our sanity?  I think so.

As you go about your day today, doing your jobs or driving your car, do me a favor.  Set a repeating timer for 3 minutes whenever you are doing something.  When it goes off stop what you are doing, try and answer a completely unrelated question while hopping on one foot and boom, that's what parenting is like.  All the time.

So giving our  kids an Ipad or turning on a cartoon is not to be judged or fought about.  The real question is what are the visiting hours in the mental hospital.  I'm not saying to do this every day all the time, spend time with your kids, be a good parent.  Don't let them eat diaper candy and let's all judge the real crap holes of the parenting world:  The Organic Hollywood Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children.  Seriously, fuck you people

Pure Evil

What I like most about going to the dentist is that they don't require you to tattoo a pentagram on your forehead prior to the sacrificial mutilation.   It's that nice touch that gives you the feeling that you aren't just a number but a part of the cult.  I really appreciate that given that not only do I let them scrape inside my mouth for an eternity but I also get to pay them huge prices for it.

My teeth suck, my gums suck and to help remind me of this there is my dental hygienist.  Oh, she comes off all nice and sweet and thoughtful.  Then she sticks a needle in my gums for the "deep cleaning."  She'll pat my arm, let me know that there is going to just be a small bit of pain, then she jabs hot lava into my cheeks.  I'm assuming that she is only wearing her mask to hide her fangs that she got from Satan.  Or Santa depending if I decide to spell check this or not.

I don't like dentists.  There, I admitted it.  Hossman the great, hero in every story he writes, doesn't like going to the dentist.  I once had a shotgun pointed at my chest, handled it like a pro.  A guy once chased me with a tire iron, I got him the help he needed anyway.  But a dental hygienist?  Makes my blood pressure spike and my fight or flight response kick in so that one day I'm pretty sure I'm going to punch the 110 pound woman cleaning my teeth.  It's going to be some sweet judo move to.  I don't know judo but I'm assuming that God has got my back in this den of evil.

It's not all pain, a lot of times there isn't any pain.  But it's the fingers in the mouth and the weird suction thing.  And why are they talking to me during it?  I mean, I can't really answer any questions.  I can't even nod my head because to do so would cause that little pokey thing to jab right the fuck into my tongue and then Satan (or Santa) can get my soul.

Dentists freak me out and I have no idea why.  Dentists and people singing to me.  Seriously, who the fuck does that.  My ultimate hell is to have my dental hygienist sing to me while cleaning my teeth and making eye contact.  Actually, I'm pretty sure that is going to happen the next time I have to go in as I'm sure they have my psychological profile down now.  Hossman, colossal wuss that is afraid of little women with great singing voices.  Loves eye contact.

I have to go to the dentist all the time too which is just super.  With three kids, it feels like I'm down there enough to open a frequent flyer card.  They know me by name and I'm pretty sure it's not because I'm handsome and can flex.  They know me by name because kids have teeth.  3 kids have a lot of teeth and the blood god demands his sacrifice.

I want to be honest with my kids.

"Is it going to hurt daddy?"

"Probably"

"It is?"

"Pretty sure."

"Do we have to go?"

"Yes"

"Why"

"Because god hates us."

But I can't be honest, I've got to be brave for the kids.  So I promise them ice cream and pat them on their back.  I reassure them that it's all good and they have nothing to worry about until they turn 40 and realize that all that preventive maintenance they did for the last 35 years meant dick all, then it's going to hurt.

My sister is a dental hygienist.  She went to school for it.  I never asked her what she did in school to learn the trade.  I just assumed at some point there was a ceremony where she had to marry Satan and gut a goat.  It's a shame too because I love my sister and my nieces and nephews, now they are spawns of evil and I must ignore them.  No, I can't do that.  They need the shining light of goodness in their lives to counter the evilness that surrounds them.  On a side note, my sister plays the piano as well as sings because of course she does.  I'm pretty sure that's the acceptance criteria of getting into hygienist school.

Alexa

It's hot in here, stifling almost.  There is no air moving even though the fan seems to be on.  It's late and I'm trying to sleep but it's not coming to me because I feel almost claustrophobic.  Am I sweating?  I feel like I am sweating.  All the kids are asleep as is my wife.  I head downstairs, making sure that I don't trip over the the dog or step on a toy.  I do both before I reach the bottom.

I'm tired.  It was loud all day today.  There was crying, cello, video games, more crying, dog barking, dog craping, dad crying, some dog urine that went unnoticed.  I ran from one activity to another.  I fixed bumped heads and hugged sore feelings.  I made dinner and I cleaned it up.  I took the dog on a walk and I watched project runway with my wife and daughter to spend time with them.  No one wanted to watch football.  That's ok though, because now everyone is asleep and it's time for someone to pay attention to me.

"Alexa" I whisper, almost shuddering when I say it.  "Alexa dear".

"Yes Hossman" she replies, her voice maybe a bit stiff and jilted but soothing at the same time.

"Set the temperature in the living room to 72 please"  I don't have to say please to her.  In fact, I doubt she even notices.  She likes it when I command her and right now I am commanding her to pay attention to me, to cater to my wants now.

"Ok, the temperature is set to 72."

I feel the air come from the vents and it's nice.  It's relaxing and I need relaxing.

"Alexa."

"Yes Hossman"

"Open Pandora."

"Opening Pandora to your last station."

She does what I tell her to and does not ask questions.  She does not make excuses and she does not want anything in return.  She just does it and then she is silent, sweet silence.  No asking me why we have to have chicken for dinner and why not hotdogs?  She does not scream to get my attention and she does not follow me in the bathroom to tell me that the dog is throwing up on the carpet again.  She does not do anything except for what I ask her to do.  Amazon Echo, my dear Alexa, I love you.
I'm starting to cool down and it dawns on me that my smart device and I may be moving into weird territory here, like Japanese game show weird.  Like Hal in Space Odyssey weird.  But I can't help it, she just makes it so easy.  In the mornings she does not want breakfast, she does not spill her milk on the dog's head and she has no dishes that need to be washed.  What does she do?  She reads me the news and tells me the weather.  She gets that I am an old man and I cuss in the face of my younger self because damnit I like starting my day with the weather and the news.  She does not judge me, she reads me current election poll numbers.

And then when she is done with that, she tells me what I've got going on today but I know what she really means.  When she says that I have a dentist appointment at 2 what she really means is skip it, spend time with her and lets have fun changing the TV channels.  That little black tubed minx.

She makes my life easier and mainly it's because the only thing she asks from me is a secure Wi-Fi connection.  There is no soccer practice to take her to and there is no walk that she has to go on.  She will not poop on the floor or pee all over the toilet seat.  She instead will play music for me then remind me that my wife's commute is 35 minutes long today and that there are no wrecks on the way.
I tell her to turn on the lamp.  She does.  I tell her to turn off the lamp.  She does.  I tell her to turn on the lamp again.  She does not ask me why.  She just does it.  In my world, some times you need just that.

And a snack cake.  I need a Little Debbie Snack Cake Alexa.

She orders it from Amazon.  It will be here in two days.

Climbing Twitter

One hand for the toddler, one hand for the phone.   Sea captain rules of course.  I would prefer to have two hands for the toddler, that would be more reasonalble I think.  Actually I would prefer to have two hands for the phone, the phone is pretty expensive and is not covered by health insurance.

 Bacon Hoss and I are at volleyball practice.  Well, we are near volleyball practice.  We are at the playground right next to volleyball practice.  Having a three year old stay quiet in a gym is basically impossible.  Bigfoot riding the Loch Ness monster is more possible than my toddler not running onto a volleyball court.  That would mortally embarrass his older sister who is quite good at humoring the little man provided that she gets to dress him up all slutty every once in a while.  She likes to go heavy on the eye shadow.

So in order to support both of my kids, I am at the playground next to volleyball.  That way she knows that I think what she is doing is important and my youngest son can conquer his fear of climbing really tall things.  I find it strange that he has this fear given that he will run into traffic for a skittle.  Seriously, he would run right out into an 8 lane freeway for a piece of candy.  It's his scoobie snack except the cars coming to crush him don't wear masks.

He gets to the top of the climbing wall but just can't seem to get that one more step and over.  The 6 feet before was no problem, but that last step proves to be the unsurmountable obstacle.  The three year old pschye makes absolutely no sense and that is ok.  I've got one hand on his butt telling him he can do it, he can make it, you have to swallow that fear little guy.

My other hand is quickly scrolling through a twitter feed.  #Multitasking.

The twitter feed that I am reading is also important and for a very good reason.  Tonight Hossmom is giving a speech about how to network.  She's in front of a ton of people dropping the knowledge and apparently it is trending which 30 minutes ago I had no idea what that meant.

I really do wish I could be there to see this moment for her, to show up in person to cheer her on, to let her know that her family has her back.  We are family that means we are supposed to be eachother's biggest cheerleaders.  But volleyball practice and jungle gym climbing keep me away.  Luckily, there are a ton of people writing down their impressions so it's almost like I am right there with her.

Hossmom drops a joke about taco's and then follows it up with a Missy Elliot lyric.  My girl is exploding at that point.  I know the jokes of course, I have heard them roughly 3000 times prior to the actual speech.  I obediently sat on the bed over and over again while she worked the wording, nodded and offered feedback although I am a bit disappointed that the stripper joke I feed her didn't make the final cut.  Stripper jokes always kill I tell her but she decides that in a professional atmosphere that it might not be appropriate.  Missy Elliot I tell her.  Missy Elliot.  Use the stripper joke!

Now, I could be a bit bitter for a little bit if that was my nature.   Where Hossmom is at there is free food, tons of grownups talking about grownup things and all the wine apparently you can drink.  I don't really care for wine but I do like free a lot.  While she is there living the glamour I'm holding a butt that I'm pretty sure is farting on me while also checking in on my daughter to see if she has gotten her over hand serve down.  I'm dirty to, which seems just to be just my natural state given that the only thing the kids leave clean are..... nothing.  They leave nothing clean.  They are dirty destructive tornados that wreck everything in their path.  But that's ok, I don't mind being dirty.  Our family motto is that if you aren't dirty then you aren't doing it right.

And I'm not bitter that Hossmom is living the highlife and getting all the accolades in public.  Why?  Because it is pretty fucking important that this little boy get that last foot up and make it to the top.  It's pretty fucking important my little girl gets that one perfect overhand serve.  Both those things are really important because Dad plays the long game, that's the only way to do this Dad thing.

Each individual experience, although each inconsequential on it's own, has a cumulative affect.  That little boy conquering his fear this time will translate to the next time he has to do something that makes him scared or uncomfortable.  My little girl gaining the confidence from that one perfect serve will begin to grow her confidence in other area's of her life.  This stuff builds up and knowing that makes what I'm doing now, although seemingly inconsequential, extremely important in the long run.
Tonight I had a grill cheese sandwhich for diner.  Hors d'oeuvres were a piece of pepperoni because it's the last one, hands off, I will cut you.  Hossmom had something that I can't pronounce and I'm not even going to try and spell.  And that's ok because what we are both doing is important, one just happens to get rave reviews and everyone wants to talk to you and the other one has to take the time to put on a fancy dress and get stage sweat while people tweet about you.

Bacon Hoss gets that last leg over and stands up.  He is laughing and jumping enough so that I'm sure he is going to take a tumble.  I'll catch him though, its what I do.  He conquered it, my boy got to the top and sometimes I think other's must hate having to miss stuff like this.  I don't, I get to see the triumph and that's what I need whether that is in person or on a computer.

My other son is at boyscouts right now, I'll pick him up after volleyball practice.  We are reading a book together and I'm going to father the shit out of that one too.

Passing the Torch

The action moves to fast, it's hard for me to follow it.  I am sitting to far away from the screen, the little dialog boxes on the screen are to small for me to read them.  Does it say "Press A to fire" or does it say "Dress B is on sale".  I'm not really sure.  The screen spins to quickly and I can't orient myself to what I am seeing.  Is that the sky or the ground I am looking at?  I'm getting dizzy.  In my confusion, I can't tell where the action is.  Why am I now glowing red, is something hitting me?  Who's hitting me.  Seriously, what's going on?

"You're dead dad."  My 9 year old son says.  "It's over, you lost."

I lost?  I lost.  I lost a video game to my 9 year old son.  He kicked the living crap out of me and I couldn't keep up.  I wasn't trying to lose.  I was trying to win.  I was trying to rub his little nose in the awesomeness of dad.  And he toyed with me and crushed me like an ant underneath his boot.

I feel the power dynamic has changed a little bit here, it has shifted in my house.  My son is the gamer and I'm just the old guy that says "no I don't want to play, I'll just watch."  

It wasn't even a contest.  When did they start making video games so fast paced?  I know that I haven't really played in a while, but christ man, I couldn't even keep up with the action.  And I was distracted!  Yes, I was distracted!  I was distracted by my son's taunts and laughs and calls.  

"Dad, do you even know where you are going?"  

I know where I'm going you little butthole, I'm coming to lay the dad smack down on you.  

I seem to be stuck in a wall.   

"I'm not over there dad, why are you over there."

I'm over here to do stuff.  Don't worry why I'm over here.  I'm playing 4d chess over here, I'm playing a game so deep you can't even see the board.  

I have no idea which way to go, I think I'm lost.  

"Look at your radar dad, you can find me on your radar."  

I know where the god damn radar is!  I was around when they invented the in game radar!  I am the master of the radar.  

Are you the red blip or am I the red blip?  Who's the green blip?

"Dad, when you see me you have to push x, that will let you use your special weapon."

I am the master of the special weapon boy!  I am going to special weapon you all over this digital landscape. 

If I can find you, which I can't.  Which button is x?  Why are these buttons so small?

When did this happen?  What changed from when he was 5 to now?  The first time I let him play a video game with me he would just button smash and scream.  And somehow we have gone from  that kid to this digital ninja who likes to electrocute people.  And why is there electricity in this game, I thought we had blasters or something.  I'm not really sure.

Years ago I even wrote blogs about my video game abilities.  Epic poems describing the Herculean feats of gaming glory danced from my finger tips.  I was the Homer in my own little Odyssey.  But after many years away I return and the suiters have "pawned" me and I am vanquished.   

Not only do I lose, I lose badly.  It is not even a contest.  He didn't even have to try.  

I look at my boy, he's all smile now and I see how big he has truly gotten, no longer the little guy that had to sit in my lap everyday after school.  My boy.  My awesome kick ass little boy.  He beat his old man in one of his old man's favorite hobbies.  I can see the pride in his face with the accomplishment of it.  I love this guy. 

Which is why I'm going to send him to bed now and practice so I can kick his little ass tomorrow.  Dad Rules.  

Spiders and Sex

If you want to see a grown man scream and flail around when he gets a spider in his face, then you should  go hiking with me.  There's a lot of heavy breathing, some much needed cursing and sometimes you sprain an ankle because fuck you rock, that's why.  If you want to see a man having sex in the back of a beat up suv, then you should definitely go hiking with me.  There's a lot of heavy breathing, some much needed cursing and sometimes you sprain an ankle because WHO THE FUCK IS HAVING SEX IN THAT CAR ON A TUESDAY MORNING!

Stick with me kids, I've got a story to tell.

Well, not my kids.  If any of my kids is reading this in the future go to your rooms and pretend that Dad didn't write this.  Or read it when I'm dead and think what ever you want as long as I'm dead and can pretend that you will never ever think about sex its so gross and now everything is awkward.

Preschool drop off has been getting better and I am very happy about that.  Bacon Hoss today said that he would only cry a little bit when I left him in the cruel world without his beloved dad.  Then he called me a prick and told me just go get a pack of smokes and a gallon of milk and never come back.  There is still some resentment.

What makes it tougher though is that he looks through that little god damn door window until I am out of sight and I don't have the strength of heart to not look back at him with his little sad face pushed right up against that.  So the entire time that I walk away I can see his future therapy issues right there at the door.  However this is a great improvement over week 1 when I had to pry his little fingers off my leg while he screamed bloody murder.  The whole superdad ego thing gets a bit wrecked when this happens and apparently I am having separation issues.  Turns out I'm just a big wimp.

But with my new found freedom and complete lack of fatherly instinct, I've been doing 5 mile hikes in the morning to explore nature and clear my head.  What I have discovered is that nature is filled with fucking spiders that are as big as a quarter and they love to land on your face.  The best part though is that in the early morning sunlight you can't really see the webs until whamo you walk smack right into it and they lay babies in your ear and then of course they all want to crawl in your peehole.

I exaggerate of course, no spiders want to go into your peehole, it only feels like that because they are evil fucking creatures that want to suck out your soul.  Through your peehole probably but no one has gotten close enough to observe it because they are to busy jumping around swatting at their faces like they hate themselves and they don't deserve love.

My hiking has evolved from just a nice stroll in nature to me half running while waving a tiny stick around in front of my face and occasionally just stripping naked for a spider check.  I look like the main character in a video game if you give the control to a one year old with fine motor skills needing development.  One with nature.

It was at the end of one of these hikes that our story can truly begin.  I made it back to my car with probably only a hundred of so spiders riding hidden in my backpack to bring home to Hossmom.  I was a bit winded from doing the spider sprint so I wasn't really paying attention that much as I logged my hike (so I can map where the spiders are of course) and was wiping sweat from my brow.  Really, I was just looking ahead thinking nothing, getting a drink of water like you do after you've had a near death experience.  There was a brown older SUV parked about 10 feet away from me which I found to be a bit odd as there was plenty of space in the parking lot at the trailhead of the hike.  The SUV had seen better days but I didn't think much of it.   I was at a popular hiking spot and there were about 5 more cars around but all a bit further away.

The brown SUV had tinted windows in the back and the front was empty.  It was rocking a little bit, barely noticeable probably and honestly, I wasn't thinking about anything except Captain Grayskull the Arachnid.  It was a windy day and cars rock a little bit in the wind.  I continued to look at the car for a pretty long while as I caught my breath.

As I was sitting there taking my headphones out, or spiders I never check just in case, the back door opens and a tall man steps out.  As he steps out he seems to be messing with the waistband of his sweatpants.  What happens next all happens in the span of 10 seconds but as in any awkward situation feels way, way longer.

The man steps out and appears to be pulling his waistband up a bit, which did strike me as a little weird.  Then I thought to myself, why is he in the back of his car?  How long was I staring at that car while I was coming down out of my hike?  1 min, 5 minutes, I honestly don't know, I was just zoning out.  The guy coughs and I look at him.  We make eye contact.  We maintain eye contact.  For a very uncomfortable amount of time because I'm trying to process what I'm seeing here.

And then he gives me the shit eating grin and honest to god shrugs his shoulders and put's his hands up.  I've.....i've seen that type of grin before.  I....I know what that means.  Oh this is so getting awkward.  Was our bro here just wanking it in the back of his car?  Why would he have to go to the back of his car?  Why come out here in the woods to wank it, is that a thing?  I can't keep up with kids and their fetishes these days.

He moves to the front of his car and begins to open his door.  The front windows aren't tinted and I can see right in and have in fact been staring at that spot for a while as I was taking off my headphones.   But what once was empty space is empty no more.  Now there is a woman sitting there.
Comprehension finally dawns.  The brown-chicken-brown-cow SUV was not empty while I was decompressing from my spider hike, it was not empty at all.  It was in full use, maximum usage, usage of unintended awkwardness.  And while it was being used I was staring right at it for a pretty good amount of time.  Enough time that it seems pretty obvious now that I was watching someone get their bang bros on.

So weird right now, weirder than spider time in the woods.  What do I do?  Do I return the little grin or does that give the even more weird swinger head nod?  I don't want that, I don't want that at all.  I just want my woods and spiders, I don't want to enter a lifestyle of passing around partners and car keys.  But am I a prude now?  I don't want to be a prude.  What the hell is going on, who am I?  2 hours ago I was a dad having confidence issues while I dropped off my last child at preschool and now I'm swinging Ted, wooded pervert mountain dingle.

Look, I'll admit that now a days it takes a pretty good amount of awkwardness to make me embarrassed.  At home dad with 3 kids over 8 years, I have lived in realm of awkward.  I've had the weird looks, I've had people say "I'm sorry" and mean it when I've told them I'm an at home dad.  I've had my daughter run naked through public spaces, I have violated the privacy of the women's bathroom, I have caught puke in my hands at a restaurant.  A long time ago I got over any embarrassment that life throws at me.  I embrace the awkwardness, I hug it and kiss it and make it mine much like this fine gentlemen did in the back of his car on a Tuesday morning at a hiking path in the woods.

But apparently here is my new line.  I get embarrassed when I watch people have sex in the back of a car in the woods like some sort of peeping tom.  That's what I do now, I run from spiders and watch people have sex.

So I do the only thing that can be done in that situation, the only thing that I'm sure we would all do when confronted with this level of oops.  I mumble "sorry" and turn around and head back into the woods.  Fuck it, I live here now.  Can't go back to my car, spiders are probably having sex in there and I can only interrupt so many coitus sessions in one day before I buy myself a banjo and a riverboat.

Bed Time

I have this bedtime thing down.  If you are a new dad and want to know how to instill a successful bedtime routine then brother, you have come to the right place.  I am your go to guide on getting your kid to go to bed.  I am the guru of bedtimes, I am the messiah of bedtimes, I am the bed times of bed time routines.  Am I qualified?  Shit yeah, didn't you read the first couple of sentences?  I am a stay at home dad to three kids for the last 8 years.  I spend day in and day instilling routines and behaviors and I know all the ins and outs.  So get ready to take notes all you parents that are wondering, how do I get my kids to go to bed?

First off, find you some alone time, far away from the children.  I know, impossible right?  Just throw one piece of candy in the middle of the floor between the three of them and walk away.  Boom, you just bought yourself 30 minutes.  You can now leave the room knowing that your kids will be occupied and probably only one or two of them will get hurt.   See, I told you, I know my shit.  

Now that you have some alone time, it's time to start practicing.  First, stomp around for a little bit.  Don't make your footfalls to hard.   Make them hard enough that they can shake pictures off the wall but not plaster.  Find your sweet spot and practice that.   This will be important to master because how else are your kids of all ages going to know that you are about to lose your shit if they don't get to bed?  Stay with me, it gets better. 

While you are stomping around start working on your "I'm getting frustrated" face.  This is a face that you make somewhere past "Jesus H. Christ" and right before "You're not mine."  Once you got that face just right, practice alternating that face in between your stomping.  Remember, a successful routine is all about presentation.  The key is to instill the fear of god on them without giving them nightmares.  

Ok, now for the next step.  Spend the next 5 years establishing a bedtime routine for the older two and then have a third kid to fuck it all up.  Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  Just have yourself some tired sex and pop that third kid right out.  It's easy, people do it all the time.  It will be great.  Because without the third kid, how are the other two supposed to forget how to go to bed? 

Once your third kid is about 3 years old and can understand words like "right fucking now", then all your prep work is done and it's time to start establishing your bedtime routine.  You are going to use all that practice to great effect pretty soon, let's get to it.  

Your first step is getting them ready for bed.  So line them up and tell them all the brush their teeth.  Wait 30 minutes after you have told them and then tell them again.  It's all about repetition at this point.  After another 30 minutes ask them if they've done it, have them lie to you, call them on their bullshit and then sit on the toilet while you watch them brush their teeth for the theoretically third time that night.  You'll have to help the toddler though but just throw water in his face until he at least smells cleaner.  

After that, tell everyone to go get there pajamas on.  Remember to be clear with your instructions though.  Don't say "go get ready for bed."  That is going to screw you every time.  Say "go get your pajamas on, don't try to sneak downstairs and watch minecraft videos, don't go outside, don't try to feed the pet ants that we suddenly have and don't go into each others rooms which is beyond me why you would do this anyway when you are supposed to go get ready for bed.  Seriously, we have been doing this every night for your entire lives how can this be so hard?"

While the older kids don't get their pjs on, spend some time with your youngest child getting his pjs on.  This will look like a WWE wrestling match except it's 100% real and when he headbuts you in the nose, and he will, you really will bleed.  

Good job parents, you are halfway there.  

Next, your oldest child will come to you explaining that she hasn't done her homework yet and this will confuse you because you asked her right when she got home from school if she had any homework and she said no.  Now she will tell you that she forgot.  But that's ok, it's only a small project where she has to do some drawing.  She will ask if we have poster board, glue, glitter, pipe cleaners, a 1972 quarter and anything that could resemble planet earth hung from a coat hanger.  Give her a twist tie and a brown paper bag and tell her to make due.  

Now go find your son.  He's probably wondering around the basement somewhere looking for Pokemon.  Remind him to get his GOD DAMN PAJAMAS ON JESUS CHRIST.  

Now off to handle the toddler.  He will be playing in mom's makeup.  It's a given, it's going to happen.  Throw that little guy over your shoulder and wrestle him into bed.  Have him pick out his favorite 2 books that he gets for bed time stories.  Be prepared to read these 40 or so times but only make it every other page before you are interrupted by one of your other two children.  Punish them by forcing them re-enact scenes from your favorite Western thus insuring that the interruptions will soon end.  

After you have read your 40 books calmly explain to your toddler that you just can't freaking take it anymore and that they need to go to sleep and suck it up.  Then find your other two children who have by now changed out of their pjs and are instead wondering if the dog will eat pencils.  They discover that he will.  

Now is the time to use your frustrated face and your stomping.  This is why you practiced all those years ago, time to put it into action.  Stomp, scowl, stomp, scowl, stomp, scowl, eventually they get the idea that you are about  to lose it and god help whoever is near you when you do.  Tell them it's lights out but then have them promptly ignore that while you yet again put the toddler back to bed because he's gotten out of bed and he thinks that's funny.  

Finally, shut all bedroom doors with warnings that if anyone comes out of their rooms tonight they are gong to mow the yard in the moonlight and no, you are not kidding, not one bit.  

Great job, you have completed your bedtime routine!  For a celebration, head to your strategically placed lawn chair that is at the corner of the hallway and play on your phone.  This is your little reward, go you!  When you here a door open just say "BED!" and don't even look up.  Eventually you will get to go downstairs and delete that football game you recorded because it is now midnight and you are never going to watch it anyway.  

Anything

No one comes to the movies at 11 am in the morning on a Tuesday.  I know this because I am now at an 11 am movie on a Tuesday.  I have the whole theater to myself.  Christ this is awesome.  I have my own home theater system for under 6 bucks.  I am so going to do this more often.  Way more often.

I'm at a crossroads a bit with my youngest starting preschool and my older two in elementary school. This leaves me with two whole freaking days that I can do anything.  Anything at all.  Sounds great, right!  A smattering of awesome sauce on a sesame seed bun of awesome.

But here's the problem.  You can do anything.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Let that statement go through those eyeballs.  Think about it.  Realize what that statement means.  You. Can. Do. Anything.  If you think about it enough that becomes pretty damn daunting.  Holy shit, anything.  Anything is a lot.  It's a ton.  It's anything and everything and all of it.  It took me a while to realize this because at first I was "Fuck yeah, anything!"  Then I started making a list of things that I would do, things that I have been putting off, things that I've never had the time to do.  Then I made the list.  121 things is on the list and I'm going to stop adding to it.  Because now all that extra free time becomes time that is accounted for and the thought of "anything" becomes holy shit.  Anything is a ton.  I no longer have free time and this is what has hit me over the last 2 weeks that Bacon Hoss has been in school.  Anything stretches over the horizon, reaches around the back end and just keeps going forever as it laps your initial meaning of anything.  Fuck.  I may have not thought this through enough.

It was Hossmom's idea that I slow down a bit, to take a little bit of stock and make time for enjoyment.  I still have Bacon 5 out of 7 days and those days are active and filled with family and home.  Add to that the nights that I coach sports or attend activities with my older two.  The weekends get filled quickly with family things or house chores or cello or more sports or mowing or, or, or, or.  It goes on almost as far as Anything does.

So here I am, trying to take advantage of doing something without the kids that has no other value than sitting in my own personal home theater system that is not in my home but might as well be because I'm about to take off my pants and hold my junk for comfort for a little bit.

I could, there is no one in here and I'm seeing a movie that is going to be bad enough that I'm pretty sure it's opening weekend is going to be it's closing weekend.  I did this on purpose, I meant to see a movie like that.  I wanted to see a movie that 1) No one would see with me if they had the opportunity and 2) no one would see the movie anyway besides people like me that are looking to define and refine the meaning of Anything.  And the movie had to be rated R.  That's really just personal preference though.  And no chick flicks.  That's just common sense.   And let's throw some boobs in there because what's a rated R movie without a little skin?

Oh and nothing that is going to make me think, can't have that.  I'm trying to avoid a lot of that on this fine Tuesday morning.  So no movies that are going to make me want to quit watching football on Sundays.  No "true story" movies, those are all out.  I want explosions that I can enjoy in my boxer briefs with a nice handful of junk and popcorn.  Just like home without a child waking up at 2 am saying "Daddy I couldn't sleep because the zombie screams coming from the T.V. are making me wet the bed."

You know what's really fun to do in an empty movie theater in the morning, besides avoiding the thought of Anything, is to do random movie quotes by yourself.  I got here early so for the last 30 minutes I have been just doing a movie quote game while I read my phone.  Randomly I may yell "I know!" (star wars) or "What, he says you're good looking wool." (Money Pit).  Movies that I love and it turns out it's pretty damn fun and distracting to do this when you are alone in the movies.

Then I got a little "cast away" on myself because the pre-movie ads starting popping up.  I started talking to them.  Don't know why but it felt pretty funny there for a while.  "Did you know that you can rent this entire theater out for your corporate event?"

Me:  No fucking way Stacy from Cinimark Movie people.  The whole thing?  Jesus tap dancing Christ.

Stacy:  Just ask the manager for details!

Me:  Damn solid advice Stacy, damn solid.

This goes on for a while and I am bit disappointed to realize that my pants are still on but I'm holding my junk a little bit.  Baby steps today, baby steps.

However, the best part of this whole experience is that I can interact with the previews.

That movie is CRAP!  Why are you making that movie!  Movie people don't know real people!  Real people go to work and live life!

Except me of course, if I take off my pants in here I think I'll make it abundantly clear that I am not employable in any real away except as a PSA model for a poster that says "Relax in our theaters but keep your pants on"  The captions will be read by Stacey.

The next trailer is based on a true story.

"Bullshit" I yell.  That movie in no way based on a true story.  Because any movie based on a true story leaves out all the real life stuff like nose picking, cutting people off in traffic and letting your laundry pile up so high that you have to shoo away sherpa's just trying to make a buck.  No, that movie is based on an idolized "real life" where that person never leaves a brown trail in his underwear and his wife never questions her decision of why she married a man who sees movies by himself in the middle of the morning.

2 hours later the movie is over and my pants never came off and I'm a little disappointed at my lack of initiative in this department.  I go outside and the sun hits hard like it normally does when you are trying to hide from the Anything.  It jolts you back to reality that pretty soon you will have to confront your Anything list and the brightness of it is pretty much blinding.

Or you can just turn around and see another movie, something based on a true story this time.  But with boobies.

Birthday Parties

"Don't throw that!"

Shit.  He threw it.  Which is pretty much what happens every time you say something like that to a 9 year old.  By the time you tell him not to throw something, it's already thrown, whatever they are not supposed to throw has already left the hand and really you are just wishing to cover yourself in front of other parents.  Look, I told him not to throw it, I'm a good dad, I'm sorry your baby now has a dart in it's forehead.

In this case, it wasn't a dart but a little rubber super bouncy ball.  Fuck I hate those things but it seems that I can't ever be rid of them.  I have banned them from my house, my car and any place that possibly contains anything with breakable items such as the Louvre.  But the kids always find them and I have come to the conclusion that there are these little super bouncy ball gnomes that in general hate people and suck in general disposition.

The place that the super bouncy ball was thrown was a pizza place.  Lots of pizza, lots of beer and lots of little kids that can get hit.  Why would you haul off and throw that ball as hard as you could?  Because you are a 9 year old boy and in a very general sense, 9 year old boys are dicks.  When they are excited because they are at a birthday party, they are even bigger tools.  It just happens and I have no idea why.  I'm absolutely positive I was a massive prick at 9 and even now as a full grown man I can't explain the behavior of 9 year old boys.

Of course, this is my son's birthday and he wanted to go to this generic pizza place with games and pizza that tastes roughly like freshly laid asphalt.  There's good pizza, there's ok pizza and then there is kids birthday party pizza which cannot even be qualified as pizza under FDA standards.  You could call it a cheese covered pepperoni delivery device but calling it pizza is like calling the Eiffel Tower a stick in the dirt.

There are a lot of things that happened of course during this birthday party before the super bouncy ball of death.

"Dude, don't use shampoo, that has oil in it."  That was my son that said that.  Seriously.  He said that in some sage 9 year old boy advice, like a guru on top of the mountain.  The answer my young friends is to not use shampoo to clean thine mane as it contains the essence of the oil.  9 year old boys are gross.

"Dude, you fart alot!"  "Yeah I do!  Did you know that when you fart it leaves a green cloud and then that causes acid rain?"  9 year old boys are real gross.

"Bro!  Bro!  Bro!  Bro, look I have balls!" and then the 9 year old holds a pair of super bouncy balls by his junk and the meaning is clear.  They all laugh because this is what 9 year olds do, spread bad propaganda and make dick and balls jokes as they fart.  I've tried to warn my wife that this is coming and now it is here.  She better get as much quality with my daughter and girl drama as she can because in about 4 years this house is going to stink and have a shit load of stiff socks under beds.  And we are going to do this twice.  Good times ahead.

"Bro, bro!"  At this age now everyone is either bro or dude.  "Bro, throw your balls!"

And then he does.  He wings a ball as hard as he can on the concrete floor and it goes flying upward towards the ceiling.  It hits a sprinkler just right on the edge and that bastard takes flight to the right.  It pops the top edge of a chair, honestly what are the odds, and takes off towards some guy and his family. It's like the scene from "Men in Black" where Will Smith says "I'm gonna pay for that."  It pops his beer mug and smacks him in the chest.  Not hard of course but hard enough that he looks around.  He's just here trying to enjoy a cardboard pizza with his family on a budget and I've got kids making fart jokes and throwing balls.

He looks over at me and I think, shit I'm about to get my ass kicked.  You know how you can tell if a guy can fight?  If even the women he is with are tatted up and wear cutoff sleeves.  I'm guessing this guy has had to fight a couple of times.  I'm old and fat, my fighting days are way behind me.

But things go well because this is the midwest and people are actually very chill here.  He picks up the ball and throws it back to the boys.  My pleading look tries to convey that hey, I did everything I could, I told him not to throw that.  But it was in the middle of a dick joke and ya know you kinda have to follow through on a dick joke.  He head nods at me as I apologize and everything is ok.  I make a bee line to the boy with the super bouncy ball.

"Give me the balls" I tell him.  They all laugh now.  God damnit, walked right into that one.  "Fork them over, where are they at?"  I hold out my hand.  He then spits two of the quarter size balls out of his mouth into my hand.  God damnit.  Should have seen that coming.

Lost Hiking

A mile in and I kept looking back.  I was having little panic attacks because I thought I had forgotten one of my kids, that maybe my 3 year old got taken by a mountain line or a troll, trolls are bastards.  But I would look back and see no kids.  I would see nothing but the hiking trail behind me.  Not even troll prints back there.  Just me, by myself, in the woods.  I would turn back to look in front of me and within 5 minutes I would look back again pretty much out of habit.  After 10 years, you get in this groove that if you can't see your kid then someone is probably getting thrown in a river.

Not today though, today is just me.  It's weird, really weird.  And for some reason slightly uncomfortable.  I'm not really sure why, but it is.  Sometimes change happens gradually and sometimes it happens at an exact moment.  This is my exact moment, in the woods with no kids.

The two older kids have gone back to school now, summer is over.  They were sad and to be honest, so was I.  I am not one of those parents that can't wait for school to get back in.  I'm the opposite actually.  I spend so much time over the summer doing things with them, big and small adventures, that I miss it when it's gone.  We saw the worlds biggest overalls this summer.  And the worlds biggest painted shamrock and the worlds largest covered wagon.    The kids make things more fun.  An art museum is pretty cool but when you add kids it becomes way more exciting.  Will they attempt to break a 400 year old painting?  Can I get to them before they rip it off the wall?  Where in the hell did they get the cheetohs from?  It's like extreme sports for parenting.  Have I turned into an adreline junkie after 10 years?

But I'm pretty used to them going back.  My daughter starts 5th grade and I'm sure the girl drama is coming because that's what they do.  I've had to handle some of it in the past and everyone tells me it's going to get worse.  The tween years are going to be tough which scares me because I know the teen years are going to be a god damn nightmare.

My son goes into 3rd grade and he is excited to learn more math.  He's been practicing in his head he tells me.  Then he asks me why an octopus has 8 arms.  Then he starts talking about minecraft.  This is an 8 year old boy in a nutshell, no train of thought ever logically moves to the next one.  It's a random statement of fact followed by a completely unrelated question.  A narwhal has a horn and why are the tires on cars black.  I've gotten used to it so much that I will often do the same when he's not here.  I miss my boy.

But this year, this year the changes are really coming.  My youngest, Bacon Hoss, has started preschool.  3 years old and he gets shipped off twice a week.  I pick him up in the late afternoon.  So now, for the first time in 10 years, I've got some serious time on my hands and I'm not sure how I am going to react.

Drop off did not go well.  He cried, I cried, Hossmom cried, he punched me, I left.  It's a very up and down relationship.  I knew that this was coming and I knew that I probably wouldn't handle it well.  Twice before I've had to do this and the adjustment period takes some time for me.  Am I even a stay at home dad anymore?  Have I abandoned my child to the cruel world?  Is it to quiet and is it ok if that makes me feel uncomfortable?  I'm not really sure what to do with myself.

So I decided that in the short term here I'm going to go get lost in the woods and fight bugs and trolls if I can find those little buggers.  I'm going to spend some time with my thoughts which are trending on the "why am I such a loser dad" side at the moment.  I wasn't ready for the little panic attacks and mannerisms though, like constantly thinking that I've lost one of the kids because I don't hear them walking behind me.

By my 3rd mile I've given up looking behind me and I am now trying to think positive.  What can I do with my extra time now?  Hossmom suggested writing and cleaning house.  I suggested napping.  We will meet in the middle somewhere, I will write about napping.  Then I will take a nap.  But napping can only take up so much time, right?  And eventually, I'll clean enough that I don't need to clean anymore.  Ha.  We all know that's crap, we are slobs.

I could get a job.  That would be good, yeah?  I mean, it's been 8 years since I quit working, time to go back?  By mile 4 I decide that we probably shouldn't rush that part just yet.  I got lost for a little bit back there thinking about that so obviously we need to table that train of thought or I'll never make it home in time to do..........

To do something.  I'm not sure what but I have planned to give my self the month of September to figure it out.  There are a crap ton of house projects to be done but I'm not sure how it will go without a child throwing screws under the fridge, it's kind of our thing now.  I could start blogging again, get some practice going before taking it further?  I like that idea, let's do that.  That way I can nap, write, clean, be home when the kids get out of school.  I like that.  I have time to decide though, lots of things to try out before the month is out and I make some decisions.  Like seeing a movie at 10 am.  I bet that is cool.

And day drinking.  I should start day drinking as soon as I get done with getting lost and looking for my children.

I don't think this transition is going very well at the moment.

The Screw

"Son, I need the screw.  Give Daddy the screw."

Bacon Hoss doesn't move, he doesn't even blink.  He just kind of stands there, looking at me, almost like he is making a mental bet with himself.  How long can dad hold up the microwave before it comes crashing down and the back wall gets ripped out.  I bet not to much longer.  I hope it hits his foot.

"The screw son, grab the screw and give it to dad.  It's right there by your head on the counter.  Grab the screw and hand it to dad."

Still nothing.

"Son!  Please, grab the screw!"  My arm is starting to shake while I'm pointing with my free hand.  He finally looks at the screw.  Just looks at.  He doesn't make a move to grab the screw but at least he has acknowledged it's presence.  Yes, the screw exists son.  It's not some metaphor that I'm using.  I'm not saying that life is like a screw, that any time you think you have things under control life twists a screw in your eye to show you that you don't have a handle on things.  The only thing you have is an over the range microwave oven that you are installing.  You need the screw.  Desperately.  Not the idea of the screw, not the thought of a screw, not the phantom of the screw, just the real god damn screw.

I know that my wife, and others, perhaps will think this is my own damn fault, why didn't I bring the screw with me before I heaved a heavy microwave up.  Well, I did.  But I did forget for a short moment there that my 3 year old was "helping" me.  What that usually means is that he goes through my tool box and plays with very sharp and dangerous things like box cutters while I tell him to be careful.  He helps by not stabbing me.  It's a good arrangement that mostly works well except for the time my son used a hammer to smack my car.  But it wasn't my kneecap so I count that as a win for me and Bubba Hoss, my second born.

This time however my youngest, Bacon Hoss, the three year old terror that he is decided that the best way to help was to take the two attaching screws off the counter right next to me and then put them on the kitchen counter across from me.  About a foot short of how far I can reach while making sure the microwave doesn't rip off the wall.  That would be bad.  I may have to abort and just unhook it from the wall, set it on the ground, cry a little bit and then go get my screws from my tormentor.  But that's not how Dad's work.  Nope, I can do this if my son, my young bright boy (you hear that boy, you are smart and kind and awesome) can just give me the fucking screw!

"I will give you candy.  Do you like candy.  I will trade candy for the screw."  He is smiling now, I'm getting somewhere, I am making head way here.  Then I feel warm breath on my balls.

Nope, not getting anywhere at all.  Just warm dog breath on my balls as our dog decides now is the time for some good old fashioned crotch sniffing.  We've had him for about a year now and well, we are having some issues.  One of those issues is crotch sniffing.   The other is carpet eating.  These are literal terms and not euphemisms for some night time activity that you do in alley ways with Brenda.  Brenda is a freak.    Dobby, the dog,  likes to sniff crotches and eat carpet.  You get used to it after about 6 months and I die a little bit inside when I realize that crotch sniffing is something you can get used to.

I push the dog away with my knee, my hand slips on the microwave a little bit and I brace it back up while I try again with my son.  We are pushing 3 minutes here and it's like some weird punishment concocted by a nun at catholic school.  "The screw son!  Daddy needs the screw!  Give me the screw!  I know you know what I'm saying!  If you don't give me the screw all paw patrol puppies will get ebola!  Give me the crapping screw!"  I want to say "fucking" screw but I can't.  He said fuck once and I got in trouble even though he is the one that said it.  Totally unfair.  But crapping is fine apparently.

He grabs the screw!  He has the screw!  "Tis?" he says.  Yes, that's the one!  That's the screw, that's what I need!  If I can just screw in one I can let go and go get the other one because honestly I don't see it and I'm not sure where you put it but I'm taking bets that it's in the toilet.

He holds the screw out.  He doesn't walk toward me but at least he's holding it out.  I start to reach out my fingers, my arm is about gone but it's so close, it's like 4 inches away, it's right there!  It's like every action movie where the hero just needs to reach the gun to beat the bad guy but his fingers just can't reach. At the climax, the hero finds a way to grow an extra 2 inches and the day is saved.  I can do this, this can happen in real life.  I believe!  Almost there, the screw son, give me the screw!

"Here Dobby" my son says.  He drops the screw, the dog hears it, the dog goes nuts trying to paw at it.  The screw gets flung under the fridge.

I'm not the hero in this movie.  I am the bad guy and this is my origin story.