He's a Dick

I love my youngest son, very much. 

That's what you have to write so there is no confusion when you plan on writing a small little story about how he is also a dick. 

How can he be a complete peckerhead at 1 year old?  Easy, apparently. 

Again, I love Bacon Hoss very, very much. 

He apparently loves computer cords, especially the ones that are plugged in.  He loves them so very much.  He loves them so much that he wants to chew on them.  Then he wants to pull them out of the wall.  Then he wants to love the wall socket.  You wouldn't think that this little person could fit behind a couch that even the cat can't but you would be wrong. 

As much as he loves the computer cords, he hates the actual computer.  He can't stand that such a thing exists.  He hates email, he hates banking websites, he hates this very blog.  If I ever try to get on the computer while he is awake, anywhere in the house, he immediately makes a beeline for me.  If the computer is in my lap, he grabs whatever toy is available and attempts to break the key board.  The little man has quite a swing.  If the computer is on the counter, away from his fists of fury, he runs and grabs my pants legs and screams.  He wants to know why I am not plugging the computer in to where he can chew on it.  He doesn't think I am very accommodating. 

Sure, if you see him out and about, he's all smiles.  He's cute, he'll melt you with his little blue eyes and blond hair.  He may laugh a little bit at you.  He seems like he is so well behaved.  You'll see him walking in the store and not pulling on the shelves.  You will not see him scream and throw a fit.  You will not see him attempt to headbutt his father while he sits on my lap. 

But at home, he's a dick.  Away from public view he commonly tries to break my nose to the point where I wonder if I am in an abusive relationship.  He laughs as his head screams forward like a little maniacal Aryan.  Stupid blond hair.  He's drawn blood more than once.  There's never any warning just a blond flash of hair and wham, you're bleeding.   

If it's not my nose he's trying to break or a computer cord he wants to chew on, it's either the toilet or the stairs.  I have many other father friends with kids my son's age.  None try to climb stairs.  Dad says no, they look and then walk away.  My son, on the other hand, is pulling a little baby screw driver from his diaper and trying to pry lose the screws that hold our baby gate in place.  Yup, I've had to screw it right into the rails because he pulls himself up on it and screams like he's in a little baby Attica.  Unfortunately, the world does not come with baby gates in front of stairs.  If we are out and about, and no one is watching but me, he makes for the stairs.  Any stairs.  I'll stop him, he'll throw a fit unless someone is watching.  How does he know how to do this?  How can he play public opinion like a seasoned politician?  I have no idea and frankly, I'm kind of impressed. 

I'm less impressed when he tries to get into the toilet.  I wonder if he has some sort of death wish?  He loves toilets, he loves throwing things in toilets, he loves to put his hands in the toilet, he loves to watch me on the toilet.  It's creeping me out.  If the door is shut when I'm in the bathroom he throws a fit like you've never heard.  It's louder than he's ever screamed for anyone else but me.  He saves his good fits when we are just alone.  Half my day is spent peeing while standing on one leg and fending him off with the other.  I've tried to sneak around but he knows, good god somehow he knows.  And he knows that our downstairs bathroom door doesn't latch that well so if just a little bit of pressure is applied, the door pops open, stupid house.  He ninja strikes me so much that now I just naturally pee with one leg hanging in the air waiting to fight off the inevitable attack that I know is coming from someone that is about a foot tall.   

I try to remember if I've seen this kind of dickishness in my other children and I'm not sure.  Have I just forgotten it all?  Little Hoss could be tough, she would cry unless I was constantly moving around.  And she loves to break stuff, even as a baby.  Bacon does that too.  Bubba Hoss though was a pleasure, we would snuggle all day and all he wanted to do was play with Dad.  Bacon wants to play with dad, for blood. 

Which brings me to my last reason why my youngest is kind of a dick.  He woke up from his nap a bit early.  I was knee deep in dishes, ya know, so the family wouldn't live in filth and all that.  So I didn't immediately didn't run upstairs to get him from his crib.  5 minutes go by and I head up to get him.  He didn't sleep much, only an hour or so.  I open the door and I am greeted with my little blond boy.  My little blond boy with tons of blood running out of his mouth. 

Of course, I freak out.  He's screaming loud, very loud.  He's crying.  What the hell happened?  Why is he bleeding in his crib.  I rush to his side to pick him up.  He stops crying but the blood and spit are now mixed together and dripping on me. I don't much care, I'm worried like hell. 

He trys to headbutt me.  Again.  Then it clicks with what happened.  I open his mouth and check all his teeth, remembering which one's he has and which ones he doesn't.  I'm looking to see if he's knocked out a tooth.  He threw a fit in his crib.  When he throws fits he headbutts.  He's tall enough now that the edge of the crib is right at the level of his mouth.  He headbutted the crib edge with his mouth and I'm worried he's lost a tooth.  He's got them all, I think.  And then I find where the blood is coming from.  He cut the inside of his upper lip.  That had to hurt. 

This is his punishment for me.  Since I didn't come running immediately, he is trying to give me a heart attack.  I was pretty close.  I don't like to see my kids bleed.  I can handle blood but I have a tougher time handling when my kids are in pain. 

We sit on the couch, we turn on a little music which he loves.  He's quiet now and is lightly bouncing his head on my chest.  It's ok.  I would rather him headbutt me then something else, like the oven, while it's on, disconnecting it from the gas and then lighting a match.  He would do it.  I can take the headbutting, I can heal and isn't that what fathers are supposed to do?  Aren't we supposed to take the pain so our little ones don't have to?  He's my son and I love him. 

But I don't love going to the toilet anymore.  I'm just going to start using his diapers. 

The Wall

They don't want to listen to me.  They want to run and in general cause the type of destruction usually reserved for sci-fi movies involving large monsters and robots.  The older two are inching toward the next exhibit but I am refusing to allow them to leave by using my "THIS IS IMPORTANT" stare.  It held more power when they were younger.  At 8 and 6, I feel like perhaps they have become immune to this.  The baby doesn't want to listen to me either but that's no surprise, he never listens.  He wants to see if he can cause more damage than his older siblings.  There is a priceless object just within reach and if he can just get out of my hands, he can cause the family to go bankrupt before he reaches the age of 2, quite the accomplishment.

But I'm not letting any of them go until I've said my piece.  As a Dad, we have to do certain things.  We have to be strong, we have to offer that sense of safety and security that they won't have as adults.  We have to provide discipline and rules and the flexibility for them to challenge them as they get older.  And sometimes by God we have to give lectures about important shit because one day they will appreciate this and if they don't then I've screwed up. 

To them, this is just a wall with a few grafitti marks on it.  One has a spray painted shark, the other has some weird looking words that they don't understand.  If I wouldn't ahve made them stop in their blinding race down the exhibit hall, they wouldn't even have noticed it.  Maybe that's a good thing, to not notice oppression.  Maybe it's bad because how will they know it?

To me and many others, these two sections of wall are symbols of a very scary time.  It's the symbol of a divided city, surely, but much more.  The pieces of the Berlin Wall that I am staring at are symbols of a cold war that is hopefully gone forever.  They are the symbol of nuclear destruction, of a red army that none of us really knew how big it was.  It's the symbol of two superpowers playing other nations like pawns as we squared off on each other for pretty much world domination. 

My kids don't care.  To the them, the spray painted shark is not good, not good at all.  They have declared that it is something that they could do easily, Jackson Pollock was a pussy.  Little Hoss wants some spray paint so she can show the artist what a really awesome shark looks like.  Bubba Hoss is just turning in circles, he's not even listening.

This is when I lose my shit.  I like to think that I don't often lose it but I would know that's probably a lie. 

I grab some necks and knell down beside them.  We look at the wall.  I try to compress the history of the last 50 years that the wall represents into under a minute.  Their attention spans are that of gophers.  If I put some ice cream on the wall, perhaps they would pay attention.  I can feel my son squirming.  "This is important!" I tell them.

I tell them about the red scare, of the weapons pointed at our very country.  I tell them of geopolitics and of unwitting nations used as chess pieces.  I tell them of a culture of fear and from that fear, greed that came with it.  I get tripped up on myself.  I'm not really sure how to convey the cold war in such small terms, in a way that they will understand. 

The baby is now trying to pull down my pants.  He's got a thing right now for my pants, I have no idea why.  Maybe they offend his tiny sensibilities in some way.  Maybe he thinks denim isn't the right fashion choice for a man of my stature.  I'm not sure really.  He's just yanking really hard on my waist as I am kneeling talking to the other two. 

Then he drops a cheerio down my butt crack.  It gets lodged in there. 

I think it's about time for my lecture to come to an end.  I tell them to turn around more time and look at the pieces of the Berlin Wall that are displayed.  I pick up Bacon and point him at the wall too.  He'll have no memory of this but at least I will.  I tell my kids that they won't know why until much later in life but what they are seeing is actually very important. 

No, it doesn't move.  No, It's never been in space.  Yes, it's just a wall.  An ordinary wall and that right now, that's pretty much the point.  It's just an ordinary wall. 

Duck It

On a whim, and by this I mean that I didn't think it all the way through, I decided to take the kids on a 4 hour road trip.  By myself.   All three of them.  Bacon is only a year old. 

I feel that sometimes I overestemate my abilities as a parent. 

When my end comes, I'm pretty sure that the words "over confident" will be mentioned in some accident report somewhere. 

But we went mostly on the urging of Hossmom.  She talked me into it.  Although in hindsight, I think that I was manipulated into giving her a free night of wine drinking and watching sappy movies.  I suppose there is only so much Spy Kids a person can take and she gladly encouraged me to take the kids to the space museum in the middle of no where Kansas.

I came to this relization as I was sitting on the floor of the hotel bathroom, the cold hard floor.  It was the only moment I could get a thought to myself, a little time away from the constant questions and the 1 year old baby/toddler that has decided that sleep sucks, hotels suck, dad sucks, let's scream when I put you down and scream even louder when I pick you up. 

The trip down was great.  With a whole hour to plan this trip we were on the road right at Bacon's nap time.  He slept almost the entire way.  I through red box movies at Little Hoss and Bubba Hoss.  I listened to old 60 minute shows on my phone.  The trip down was freaking awesome.  I am super dad, I need no planning. 

But I do need diapers.  Had to make a stop for those.  Rookie mistake but we power on. 

We get to the hotel.  It looks nice on the outside, it looks awesome in fact.  I got a deal on it, I prepaid.  I can adventure like no one's business.  In my wife's words, in convincing me to go when I brought up the idea several hours ago, "It's what you do Hoss.  Take them.  Go."  She's wiley and played right into my ego there. 

The reason I picked this particular hotel was because of the awesome pool.  It was huge, it was indoors, it had a space theme.  On line it looked perfect.  Any seasoned Dad adventurer knows that you always pick a hotel that has a pool and I picked the one with the freaking awesome pool.  Majesticically awesome is how I would describe myself. 

Then we went in and discovered that the pool was closed for two more months but we were free to look at how awesome it would have been from the locked glass doors that my children are currently drooling on.  The check in lady, no fault of hers I'm sure, says that she is sorry that the pool is closed and she agrees that I should have been told this when I made the reservation and paid.  I ask her for suggestions for kid activities that I can do after 5pm, the current time.  She has none.  She should get out more. 

We get our room and I ask for a luggage cart.  They don't have one.  Well, they have one but they can't find it.  They have maintence men looking for it though so I'm sure they will find it soon.  I'm not quite sure how I'm going to move all the baby gear plus our own luggage in without it, but it's ok.  Super dad. 

We go to our room while they look for a cart.  The key card doesn't work.  We try it again.  And again.  And again.  On the tenth time and about when I'm going to give up, it finally works.  This does not bode well.  The room is nice enough but it does have a distinctive dead stripper smell.  But hey, you get what you already paid for.  3 seconds in the room though and I know that this isn't going to work. I'm not spending the night with three car tired kids in a room watching bad cable for the next 5 hours. 

I google nearby hotels.  I call.  The first one that has a room and a pool that is open gets our vote.  I tell them we'll be there in ten minutes.  The front desk at our current hotel is understanding when I tell them that we can't stay.  I explain that I promised my kids a pool and that if I had known, I wouldn't have made the reservation.  She understands and checks me out.  She promises that my money will be refunded on my card.  In a week or two.  Fuck it, good enough.  On our way out, the luggage cart magically appears because of course it does. 

We get to our other hotel and they indeed have a pool.  It's quite small, about the size of a good living room.  And the water appears a little yellowish.  No problem, I can work with yellow water.  And they have a working luggage cart.  I put all three kids on the luggage cart and our baby gear.  I'm just happy we are checked in with a pool.  I had to make two trips, 3 kids take up a lot of luggage space but that's ok, they thought it was part of the adventure not Dad trying to find a way to cope. 

Dinner is next.  I pick a buffet thinking it will have something for everyone.  It does but again, my lack of planning and reasoning is where I mess up.  Have you ever tried plating food from a buffet with one hand?  Let me tell you, it's not simple.  You get burned alot as you try to magically flip a piece of pizza on a poorly balanced plate that you have put on a non-exsistant counter.  I couldn't put Bacon down, he would start screaming.  I don't want to cause a scene.  But what I do want to do is put on a show.  So with the plate wedged against my fat roll and metal bar holding up the sneeze guard, I plate what ever is infront of me.   Bacon and I are having some sort of chicken, some pasta thingy and I was able to grab the last two slices of pizza.  Suck it world. 

Bubba Hoss is doing well and is taking very slow steps with his food that his sister helped him get.  He has a knack for dropping everything so he doesn't want to do it here, he's a good boy.  It takes him 15 minutes to get to our table.  I go back to get drinks and realize that I have forgotten a sippy cup.  It's time to teach Bacon how to drink out of a straw.  He's 1, can't stay a baby forever. 

Dinner is finally done and I leave a genrous tip for whoever as I'm sure they will survey the amount of food on the floor and begin crying.  Look, Bacon likes to chunk food when he's tired and right now, he's a bit tired.  5 bucks says I'm sorry, 10 says I'm really sorry and 15 bucks says please don't look at me when I quickly leave. 

Back at the hotel, swimming goes well.   No one gets hurt, no one pukes or craps in the pool and Dad is everyone's favorite pool toy.  I think we have rebounded well to our early misfortune.  Super dad. 

And then at bed time, it all goes to shit.  Little and Bubba are in their PJ's.  They are playing and it's getting late now, around 10.  Bacon however decides that he doesn't want to sleep.  He doesn't want to play either.  Nor does he want to lay on me, or the bed or in his pack and play that I brought.  What he wants to do is to break my will.  He's doing a pretty good job of it.  For over an hour I fight this. 

I know that he is tired, that he is in fact overtired and that is why he is being such a butthole.  We hash it out with me saying "duck it" (that's parent code for Fuck it.)  I put him in his pack and play and head to the bathroom to sit on the floor and finally cal Hossmom and congratualte her on a well played manipulation. 

Eventually everyone does go to sleep.  I come out of the bathroom and greatfully head towards the bed.  In an hour, Bacon wakes up. He screams.  I pick him up.  I soothe him.  I put him back down.  This continues every hour until 4:30 and again I say duck it. 

I wheel his pack and play into the bathroom and shut the door.  I figure that the acustics in there will at least entertain him for a while.  He immediatly falls asleep knowing that he has triumphed over me.  I am not super dad, or majestic dad.  I am over confident dad and he pays a price. 

That price of course is paying for one hotel room that I don't use and for 3 all day passes to the space museum because it was the best deal.  After I buy the tickets they inform me that the two special shows we want to see begin at 2 and 4 pm only.  It's currently 9am.  We need to leave by 1. 

Over confident Dad, I like that guy, he gets shit done. 

Duck it, let's have fun while we are here. 

Beard VS. No Beard

My beard.  It is gone.  It has been cut off.  My bushy display of peacock maniless has been shorn, it's feathers gathering at the bottom of my sink.   A full beard that looked like it should be in a window of Macy's.  4 and 1/2 months of growth detailing the winter season, telling the story of the darkness and cold in which we all lived.  I shaved it off.  I thought it was time. 

Hossmom looked at me after I have finished shaving.  She had a disappointed look, a look that tells me something is wrong but she is not going to tell me what it is.  She doesn't want to tell me, she wants me to figure it out.  I want Denise Richards from the movie Wild Things.  She looks into the sink and then looks back up at me. 

Dear God what have I done?

With a beard:  Women mistook me for the "bad boy".  The rebel that surely has some sort of motorcycle around the corner.  It's not street legal of course because fuck you that's why.  Yeah, I'm a bad ass. 

Without a beard:  Hi!  I'm Mr. Suburban Dad!  I like to wear brown things and eat green things.  I drive a sensible minivan and I would like fries with that. 

With a beard:  Black is the color of my soul and my t-shirts.  The blackness hides my pain, my deep scars.  I'm complicated, I struggle with feelings in a world not designed to handle them.  Feel my muscles.

Without a beard:  Black is icky and so depressing.  I like sunshine yellow and rule following!

With a beard:  No, you can't come into the bouncy house.  The PTA lady said you have a wrist band, you have no wrist band.  But you do have a problem and that problem is the bearded man in a black t-shirt guarding the bouncy house doors.  How you want to handle this problem?  Feel my muscles. 

Without a beard:  Hey kid, come back here!  You have no wrist band, you can't go in!  Don't ignore me kid!  I'm going to tell your mom!  Kid!  Kid!  Screw it, where's my words with friends so I can spell the word muscles. 

With a beard:  I'm going to sit on this park bench watching my children play.  What am I thinking?  Deep thoughts, thoughts that ordinary individuals can't handle, they are to deep. The Depth of these  thoughts are deep.  You know that they are deep thoughts because I am stroking my beard. 

Without a beard:  I'm going to sit on this park bench watching my children play.  What am I thinking?  About my next kidney stone.  Also, I have to poop. 

With a beard:  Hey man, love your beard!  Looks good brah!  Cool t-shirt with the beard, buddy.  Here, have some money and some honeys. 

Without a beard:  You have a baby face, lose some weight.  No, you can't have any money. 

With a beard:  I didn't even know that you are bald, I was to distracted by the awesome face hair.  Who needs head hair, you obviously don't.  Can I touch it?  Can I clip off a bit, put it in a scrap book and show it to my grandchildren one day? 

Without a beard:  Fuck all you're bald man, look into some Rogaine and for god sakes don't polish that thing, we are going blind over here. 

With a beard:  I will shovel the driveway in -10 degree weather.  It will not effect me, I am immune to the wind.  My beard freezes showing my determination to my family, to my minions.  I squint in the blowing snow.  Bring it mother nature, I own you. 

Without a beard:  AHHAHAHAHHAHAHHHHAHAHAAAAAAA, screw this it's cold.  Good luck getting out of the house honey.  Make me a sandwhich.  Honey?  Sweetpea? 

With a beard:  There is always something to stroke. 

Without a beard:  There is nothing to stroke, NOTHING.  Nothing gets stroked.  Not even a little bit.  Honey?  Sweetpea? 

I know who I am.  I'm Mr. Suburban dad.  I am the rule follower, I do not speed.  I coach kids teams, I help when the PTA lady asks me.  I drive a minivan and make peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches.  I sell girl scout cookies and plan safe family vacations.   I like to wear brown pants and eat green things.  But sometimes I get to be the rebel but only when it's cold, like his heart. 

That and the beard is freaking hot in the summer. 

Care Bears

Tonight is the night.  Yup, I'm going to get some action tonight.  I am going to go upstairs and employ my greatest moves, the move that have been honed through 20 years of practice with the same woman.  I'm going to creep up there. I'm going to nudge her on the shoulder and whisper "You awake?"  60% of the time, it works every time.

I meant to go up sooner but I was enjoying my free time and watching an X-Files marathon.  Scully does it for me, don't know why, but she does.  I'll admit that I often stay up later than I probably should.  But that's ok, sometimes I just need to be alone.  And sometimes, like tonight, I don't need to be.  Wink wink.

I take off my boots when the first kid comes down stairs.  Ok, cool.  I got this, my mojo is still good and I've still got my moves.  Bubba Hoss wants a drink of water.  Fine, I get him a drink of water.  11 pm and the kid has a dying thirst.  So does his father.  I get his drink of water.  But apparently he wants a little chit chat with his beverage.  My wife says that I could talk to anyone at anytime and about anything.  I chit chat.  It would appear that my second-born takes after his old  man.  He wants to remind me about the promise I made to play Skylanders tomorrow.  I tell him that I remember.  He then feels the need to tell me the Skylanders story again.  I nod and say yes as I usher him upstairs.  He wants to be tucked in again, I do that to.  When I get to the door he stops me and asks another question.  He asks me what are ghosts.  Dammit, this is going to take a bit longer conversation than my libido planned.  Can't let the kid go to bed thinking about ghosts, though.  I tell him that there are no such things as ghosts because the Power Rangers got them all.  Boom. No more ghosts.  Let's think about Care Bears instead, little guy.  I tuck him in and make it to the door.  I'm about to take off my shirt, it's almost game time.

I hear my daughter crying in her room.  Yup, have to check this out.

She says that she just had a nightmare about the books and series Goosebumps.  She's been reading and watching that for a while.  She likes the scary nature of it.  It's like X-Files for kids.  I've let her and have read and watched with her, too.  It was a bit father/daughter time.  She likes to scare herself a bit sometimes.  She can normally be ok.  Either that or I'm raising some sadistic killer.  If that's the case, then I'll introduce her to the series Dexter.  Not now though, she's only 8.  I'll give it a couple of years.

It's backfiring me now though.  She had a nightmare and needs her dad.  This always gets me, probably gets all of us.  "Needs her Daddy."  When your little girl says that, yup, we all melt and not even a comet of death would make me turn away.  Your god damn right Daddy can stop all the bad things in the world.  It's what we all say because sometimes we even believe it ourselves and we need them to believe that more than anything.

She says she can't sleep in her room.  She asks if she can go to our room.  Nope, nope nope.  Daddy has plans but I do take her to the couch down stairs.  I put on Care Bears on the TV.  If it's good enough to handle ghosts, Care Bears can handle Goosebumps.  I snuggle with my daughter as she calms down.  She isn't watching the show but she knows that it's on.  The little voices and the nice music soothe her and thus soothes me.  It takes about 30 minutes for her to go back down again.  I try to get up to carry her back upstairs but it's no good.  She somehow wakes up when I move and her claws somehow grab chest hair through a my still-on T-shirt.  It was supposed to be on the floor an hour ago along with the rest of my clothes.  I sit back down and continue to snuggle her.  Another 30 minutes goes by and a second episode of Care Bears finishes.  I pick her up and take her upstairs.

I take a misstep on one of Bacon Hoss's toys and almost stumble.  I almost lose it but regain my balance.  In the process I twerk my back a bit.  A sharp pain, lower right side.  Ouch, I was going to need that muscle tonight.  I'll pop some aspirin and work through it in a couple of minutes.  I realize that I'm much older now and that I should really stretch before any strenuous exercise.  Old man sex stretches, it's very hot.

I put her in bed and start to head to my bedroom.  No stopping me now.  I might even brush my teeth before coming to bed and making some magic.  I hear the baby crying.  God. Dammit.

He does this from time to time, wakes up randomly in the middle of the night.  The best thing to do is to just go ahead and snuggle him down for 20 minutes.  I usually sleep in the rocking chair while I do it.  But I don't want to do it tonight.  Well, I want to do it but the "it" is something else entirely.  I know for me to have any success tonight that the baby cannot be screaming in the background.  Hossmom has this whole "good mother" thing going on and apparently 'screaming baby' is not considered foreplay.

I head into his room and he's in full-on meltdown mode.  He's banging his head on the side of the crib, hard.  I have no earthly idea why he does it.  One day I'm going to let him continue to do it and give himself a concussion.  Teach the boy a lesson.  Not tonight though, I don't have time for an emergency room visit. That would surely kill my mojo because hospitals don't do it for me.

I grab his blankie and take him to the rocking chair.  I pull out my phone and play his bedtime music, a mix of Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.  I sing to him while I do it.  He farts on me.  If he crapped his pants, I'm going to let him sit in it.  I don't want to be stinky before I go to my bedroom.  He'll just have to take this for his old man, take one for the team.

It does take me about another 20 minutes.  It's a little bit past 1AM now. I have wasted too much time, I'm actually tired myself now and my back aches a bit.  My shoulder has gone numb from where I was holding Bacon.  Ok, I admit to myself that this might not be the adventurous sexy times I had planned.  This will be more of a 'marriage maintenance' time. Enjoyable and needed but perhaps combined with the smell of Icy Hot.

I head into the bedroom and yawn.  I can still do this, I've still got this in me.  I've dealt with kids for about the last 2 hours, I've earned a little treat.  As I arrange the pillows my daughter opens the door.  She doesn't say anything and actually scares me a bit.  The silhouette of a quiet child framed in a door is the stuff of horror movies.  If she asks me if I want to play a game, I'm going to freak.

She runs over to her mom's side and vaults over, landing right in between us.  She snuggles in and in a period of less than 3 seconds is under the covers and snoring.  No more nightmares.

Welp, that does it for me.  I'm done, the magic whisper will in no way work now.  I have been officially blocked from martial relations by my own children.  I lay my head down on my pillow and think that I will probably write about this tomorrow.

Yup, I'll write about it so that it is forever a part of the Hossman story.  And I know full well that my children will one day read my stories, the story of our family and their childhood.  They'll read them when they are in their 20's probably, maybe show them to their significant other.

And they will come to this one, a story about their dad trying to get laid, a story called Care Bears.  What is more safe and comforting than Care Bears?  They will scream, they will be grossed out, they will close their eyes and just try to get that visual out of their head.  But it won't go out of their head because they had to read this, my wonderful little bastards.   The visual will be playing right along to the theme music of caring and sharing.  Care bears will be ruined for them.  Forever. 

And they will be traumatized, a scar will form in their psyche.

My vengeance will be complete. 

Just 15 Minutes

I am hiding from my children.  It's not a game of hide and seek.  It's not in an effort to jump out and scare them.  Nope, I'm just hiding from my children.  I am not ashamed of this.  I find it necessary.

This is not a post bashing children.  This is also not a post claiming that being a stay at home dad is the hardest job in the world.  It's not.  Most times, it's down right awesome.  It's fun, it's rewarding.  I am my own boss.  I am the master of the house.  I am the Captain to my own group of mangHoms.  See what I did there?  I wrote Klingon.  I don't do it often, but it comes out of me at times.  I'm bilingual in a made up alien language.  I might write the rest of this blog in Elvish.  I could do it.  I'm not a proud man.

That is not to say that the being a stay at home dad does not have it's challenges.  I usually don't speak of it so much because the good far out weighs the bad.  The biggest one is that you are always "on".  You are always "at work."  Imagine that for a minute, you working stiffs, or what I call "weekenders."  I call you that because you fuck up my weekend grocery store runs.  I never wait in line until the weekend comes and you people flock to the store with your bad manners and poor parking.  You don't even know the name of your check out lady do you?  Mine is named Danielle and she has a coworker named Linda.  They are very nice.  We chat.  Weekenders don't chat unless it's in the middle of the aisle and you have forgotten that everyone around you still needs to get by but no, you must make a Les Mis style barricade.  If you bust into song I'm going to punch you.  I kind of hate you people.

But imagine with me if you will, if you had no lunch break.  That you had to consistently give orders, take orders, make conversation about things that are not intellectually stimulating.  Imagine that day in and day out.  Ok, a lot of you probably do that.  Now imagine doing that while one of your dining companions just took a dump in his pants and the smell won't go away.

Imagine your work commute.  Stressful?  Hateful?  Tiresome, annoying?  Have I hit all the right words?  What you fail to realize is that in that period of time, in your anger, you have freedom.  You are listening to your music, your news radio.  You are checking out the sports channel.  You are mentally preparing your day.  Imagine doing that while someone is headbutting you in the nuts.  Say all you are trying to do is to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while you mentally schedule your day.  Bam, headbutt to the balls.  You react but when you do, you smack your head on the counter.  As you collect yourself, someone yells "stop hitting me!"  You don't care, you just tell them to find their shoes and you know for a fact that they are not in the shoe basket because that would be too easy.

There is no alone time, there is no time to collect yourself.  You have to wake up that way and have to stay that way all day.

Sure, you can take a break.  But in my world taking a break means I sit on the floor while a one-year-old scales me like Mount Everest and only when he summits  do you realize that he has crapped his pants again.  You know this because he is now sitting on your head chirping like a monkey that has found a termite colony that is in your ear.

Like I said, this isn't the toughest job.  I don't make decisions that will cost millions and I don't fire people and send them home to sad families.  I no longer confront perpetrators and it is nice that no one has chased me with a crow bar in 6 years.  But it is constant.

From 6 in the morning to about 8:30 at night (sometimes longer, sometimes earlier), I am on.  It's a bit like Chinese water torture.  The first 1000 drips are fine, no big deal, a day at the beach.  But the 1001 you start to think, hey, this is kind of tough.  This is kind of constant.  This is always.

Now add to that that you control the future of three very little people and the things that you do over the next 18 years will determine their quality of life.  They end up in therapy?  Your fault.  They end up in in a bell tower with a high powered rifle?  Your fault.  I find this true with all parenting, this constant sometimes over whelming responsibility of the future, not just at home parents.  The difference is that I rarely get a chance to escape it. Some days I would kill for an hour long commute.  I would love to be able to fire someone.  That sounds horrible but think of it this way.  When you fire someone, it's over, your responsibility to that person is over, done.  It's thoughts like these, that I have in my late 30's that make me want to call my parents and thank them profusely.  I get it, it just took me 30 years to get there.

I have done the working dad thing in the past.  I have gone to work and did daycare.  I have worked at home, late nights, etc.  I must admit that I prefer the at home life much, much more.  The perks are unimaginable.  Yes, I go to the pool a lot, I take road trips with me and just the kids on a Tuesday.  I see the wacky and stupid.  I'm going to visit Monkey Island just because we can.  And I can see my children grow up, first hand.  I get to share in every single victory and fall in every single failure.  Those experiences and feelings are amazing and unable to replicate.  I realize that this is a gift that has been given to me and one that I am very sure that I will never take for granted.

But sometimes, you just need to hide, you just need to be by yourself and live for yourself, even if it's only for a short time in the evening when everyone has gone to bed.  You need to be able to watch something stupid without anyone telling you about the gigantic turd they just laid and dear god come see this I don't think it's going to flush DAD DAD DAD DAD.  And as much as I appreciate the ability to lay a giant poop sometimes Dad would just like a whiskey and some quiet. 

On those days, and they are not often, I hide from my children.  I go into my room and I lock the door.  This does not reflect poorly on them, my family is pretty god damn awesome.  But I just need a few minutes where I don't have to stitch a torn slipper or wonder about what we are going to have for breakfast.  I just need to sit.

Then I realize that my daughter has a spelling test tomorrow and it's a bit tougher than the ones she has had before.  We also have a birthday party at an indoor pool, I have to get swim trunks ready.  I also have to go shopping for a gift.  I think Bacon Hoss is teething and he's been waking up nights again, I need to have a back up pacifier ready.  Two kids start soccer next week, need to get our gear ready and perhaps get some drills ready as well.

Breaks over.  And gladly do I step back into their lives because without them I would be forced to go to work and make million dollar decisions and fire people.  That would suck.

The Shoe Basket

You can find his shoes on top of the couch.  You can find his shoes at the bottom of the couch.  Sometimes you can even find his shoes in the actual couch cushions.  How they end up there is freaking beyond me but I swear, I have found my son's shoes stuffed between the cushions of the couch.

Sometimes I can find them in the toy box which makes sense as they are shoes and are magical things that magically transport themselves to odd places.  They have transported themselves to the back of the van, inside the stroller, stuffed under the baby bag.  No one is sure how they got there.  They have transported themselves to my wife's closet, stuffed inside his memory box--where we keep some of his school work to embarrass him at his prom.  Look prom date, look how my son meant to write "pens" and instead wrote "penis"!  Isn't that great.  I only show you this because he made me look for his shoes so much when he was 6.

The one place though you will never find them though is in the actual shoe basket.  No, that is like the evil vortex for my children.  They don't even know it, but when they walk in from school and take the long way around the house to the living room because going the short way would require them to actually walk right by the shoe basket.  It's a subconscious thing.  I think they secretly believe if they actually put their shoes in the shoe basket then Santa would be found stuck in the chimney the next year and their toys would be ruined.  They don't care so much about Santa but they love their toys.  I'm a great parent.

So it's no surprise that this morning, with minutes left before the bus arrives, that we can't find my son's shoes.  They are not in the shoe basket, only the lost souls of the shoeless are in there (pun!).  I worked all night on that one.

No, his shoes are not in the shoe basket.  Well, one of them isn't at least.  I have the other one and I gave it to him.  Then I asked him to find the other one so he can go to school, graduate college, get his PHD in shoe basket technology and then invent a shoe basket that my family would actually put shoes in.

I ask him the question, where did you last have your shoe and why is only one shoe in the basket?  Watching his little mind turn is a delight though.  I'm not sure what he is going to say is what actually happened or some elaborate make believe story that will one day be a trilogy.  He's not lying, not intentionally at least, but he is just relating what pops in his head.  Sometimes that means that I get a true accounting for what I asked and sometimes that means I get a epic saga about how his shoe was abducted by aliens and sent to planet forgetful.

He tells me that he left his shoe in the baby's room the night before.  I don't ask him how or why, it would be pointless.  It's not hard to imagine my boy walking around for a good hour with only 1 shoe on and not realizing it or not caring.  He would look down at his one shoe and think to himself, Hmmm, how about that.  I only have one shoe on.  Let's go play.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I'm not imagining this at all.  I would bet everything that I own that this is exactly what happened.

I tell him to go upstairs to get his shoe and put it on.  Then I turned around to stop the baby from eating dog food.  Seriously, why dog food?  Every god damn day.

My son returns and proudly points to his foot and the shoe that is on it.  See you old bastard, my shoe is on the foot.  I tell him two things.  First, I tell him that his shoe is on the wrong foot.  Second, I ask him where the other shoe is, the one I just had, and why it is not on his foot.  Then he starts thinking and then I know that I am in trouble.

He doesn't know why, he doesn't know where his other shoe is, the other one that we just had.  The bus should be here in seconds, not minutes.  I start my search.  I begin checking all the places that I always check.  I check the places that someone without kids would never check because they would never think of it.  Experience would not have taught them to look in the dog food container because who would put a shoe in there?  My kids would, that's who.

The shoe is not in the dog food container.  But I did find my daughters glove, our spare set of car keys and a spoon.  Again, I don't question why I just acknowledge that they are there.  I check under the table, a sucking blackhole that brings everything within 15 feet into its center.  No shoe but a bottle and one sock. I ask my son if he has both his socks on.  Nope, he has one sock on.  I throw him the other one.

I check behind the curtains.  I find a spider.  I step on it while knowing that I'm just working out my own frustrations.  Sorry little guy.  I check the basement stairs because for some reason my 1 year old son likes throwing crap down the cat door that leads to the basement.  I find several pacifiers, a diaper (unused thank god), a sky lander (TreeRex rules) and a lot of dog hair.  If currency was dog hair, I would be freaking loaded.

I check toy boxes, I check backpacks, I check my daughters own feet to makes sure she hasn't put it on.  The bus is coming, I know that it's probably already on my street.  We have never missed the bus, not in three years.  It's one of my main accomplishments as a stay at home dad.  I know, sad, but everyone has to have something.  I check everywhere, no freaking shoe.

Then an idea forms in my head.  I saw my son head upstairs, then I turned around.  When I saw him come downstairs, he had one shoe on.  He didn't have both shoes on, just the one.  I know what has happened, I can see it in my mind's eye.

I told my son to head upstairs and get his other shoe from the baby's room.  I told him to put it on.  What I did not say was head upstairs, find your other shoe, put them both on.  I told him to only put one shoe on.

I know where the other shoe is.

I head up to the baby's room.  I look under the crib because why would a shoe be under there?  Always look first where you shouldn't look first, that is the best parenting advice I could ever give.

Under the crib, there it is, the other shoe.  My son went upstairs with the shoe that I have him.  He went to the baby's room.  He put that shoe on.  Then he came back downstairs.  I could explain the logic of his thought process but that would take another 40 pages and some bright shiny lights.  But I do know my son and for that, I am proud.

I run downstairs and send my daughter out to the driveway to stall the bus driver should we actually come.  I throw my son on the couch and put his other sock on (he was still just twirling it) and put his shoe on.  I throw his jacket at him, his backpack, a quick kiss on the head and push him out the door as soon as I hear the bus rumble up to our house.  Victory is mine, I am still the bus champion.

The kids are off and it's just me and Bacon.  I'm tired, Bacon is still getting me up at 5:30 or so.  But I'm good.  I've got no where to be today and the Olympics are on.  In fact, the big Canada vs USA hockey game starts in three hours.  I've been looking forward to this all week.  I'm going to go to the store, get some game watching essentials and Bacon and I are going to practice high fives (we are so close!).

I turn on the TV.  It's on some kids show, something that I don't know the name of but I could easily sing the theme song to.  I go to grab the remote to change the channel and set up the DVR timer.  The remote is not where it's supposed to be.  It never is.  Just like the shoes.

For the next 20 minutes I try to do it manually on the box but I'm not sure it's going well.  I think I'm recording a Spanish soap opera.  I begin truly looking for the remote, starting with the baby's room.  The kids were the last ones to have it,  I think my odds are good.

The remote isn't there.

I do spend the next 2 and 1/2 hours looking for it.  I do find it.

It was in the bottom of the shoe basket.

I take out my whiskey and wonder if it's to early in the day to start drinking.