Ava has recently learned how to open and close doors. She’s even catching onto the locking system.
Every time I hear a door slam shut, I have to chase it down like Chris Hansen’s camera crew moving in on a pedophile. I’ve told Ava that I don’t want any closed doors in our house, I want to know exactly what’s going on at every minute. This will hopefully carry on through the teenage years, so I don’t have to kick the door in on a study date wielding a Louisville Slugger.
Last week, I heard one slam. I was trying to iron one of my wife’s linen crochet sweater things that was supposed to be ‘dried flat’ and not ‘slung over a railing’. I figured I had a few seconds to finish up and this was the result.
Bondage Elmo, courtesy of our dog’s collar and Ava’s creativity.
And I must’ve been too slow on this occasion, caught in the bathroom mid-wipe. Taking the luxury of properly cleaning my ass led to this.
Ava poised to blow up her Rody, old-school cartoon style. The TNT plunger was primed and ready. She didn’t want to ruin her outfit, so I had to finish the dirty work.
No matter how old she is, I’ll never be comfortable with what goes on behind closed doors.
Read More Post a comment (2)It’s hard to be perfect at work. Everyone has a goof here or there. On occasion, I used to send emails without an attachment or forget to dial 9 to get out of the building while faxing, but things are different as a stay-at-home parent. Making an error can have amplified consequences.
Yesterday morning I was in the zone. Ava was in her Fisher-Price Space Saver high chair and Charlie was in the bouncer. I finished making myself an egg sandwich and already had the dishwasher unloaded. I was sipping coffee and shuffling along to the Fresh Beat Band as Ava finished eating, then moved us all to the living room for a few minutes of digestion in front of the tube.
As I lay on the sofa, with Charlie hoisted above me playing Superman, I noticed a smell. Little Clark Kent pointed into the distance (kitchen) and I turned to acknowledge a monster wave of smoke filling the room.
Yeah, wouldn’t we ALL like to ‘go out for a bit’. I’ll donate an organ to sit on a folding chair in the garage, absorbing dark silence for a few minutes.
Ava walked into the living room the other day while I was feeding Charlie. She had a pair of Uggs on the wrong feet, pants hiked up to conceal her diaper, slid on shades and pulled her sucker out to tell me that she was, ‘going out for a bit’.
AVA: ‘DADA. DADA. DADA.’
ME: ‘YES, Ava, what is it?’
AVA: ‘Charlie got sick in your hair.’
Really? Is that what I needed right now?
Run and get some paper towels for Daddy. And a t-shirt for chrissakes, I’m on the internet.
Forget journaling, sex, planting a garden, aromatherapy or yoga, I found my outlet.
When Jen had Ava, someone gave us the ‘Gripper’ as a gift. Normally, I’d assume it was for folks on assisted living, to grab cans of soup from their Rascal or pick up the phone without getting off the recliner.
Not true.
MULTIPLE USES.
I found joy in this specific moment, pinching this baby doll’s head, hoisting it to an altitude where it annoyed my daughter. It released all of my stress. I stopped shaking and felt like I was floating above the crowd. It was like Scotty beamed me to a white sand beach somewhere where Verizon ‘COULDN’T HEAR ME NOW’, where I sprawled in a hammock, reading one of the 3 dozen books I haven’t started. It was being a kid and hitting my first home run, seeing my first naked booby calendar in my uncle’s auto garage or sipping one of my dad’s Heinekens while he wasn’t looking. It was just one of those great feelings.
I was reborn.
I guess it’s the little things, right?
Read More Post a comment (4)I don’t know where to go with this one.
It’s been hanging out in my picture folder forever. I’ve been too scared to post it.
Ava was playing in the other room, I heard some commotion and walked into this.
It crosses so many lines, I’m afraid that the Chris Hansen might show up at my door with a gaggle of camera dudes
Read More Post a comment (3)HOOTERS. GAZONGAS. MELONS.
JUGS. YABBOS. TATAS. SWEATER PUPPETS. TORPEDOS. DRUNKEN CYCLOPS.
What am I talking about?
Read More Post a comment (17)It’s the end of the year and my wife is kicking into high gear, squeezing in all of our doctor appointments before the end of the year. Says I pick at my skin and never wear sunscreen so I have some questionable freckles on my back. She calls it ‘something we have to do’ as responsible adults. I call it a ‘shitty nightmare’.
Today was the dermatologist. We went together before she went to work, so one of us could watch the kids while the other one got a body scan. What’s a body scan? That’s when they say ‘strip down to your underwear, and put this paper dress on. The doctor will be in whenever she decides you’re at the absolute breaking point of wrestling with your kids, while wearing a gown, under artificial light’.
Careful readers noticed the word ‘she’. Yep, you got it. My wife booked the FEMALE DOCTOR.
Every. Dudes. Nightmare.
By the time she finished with her scan, Ava and Charlie had struggled enough to tear my evening dress in three places. I turned the kids over to Jen and assessed the damage.
There was no point in privacy or protecting my innocence. I stood up and ripped it off in frustration. Ava was throwing a screaming fit as our female doctor came back into the room with a female receptionist, so that Ava might go with her to the waiting room for a lollipop. But she didn’t want to go. So it was a giant stand-off.
So there we were. My wife, the screaming kids, a lady doctor and cute receptionist.
And there I was. 35 years old, a slight holiday belly, wearing black underwear and white tube socks with a wristwatch.
That’s how my morning started. What about you guys?
Read More Post a comment (3)Interesting. Maybe that’s because it’s not a skirt. It’s a plastic shopping cart.
Am I not allowed to leave the room for two seconds to take a whiz without a national crisis forming?
I hope the guys at Little Tikes are having a good laugh this morning as I smear Crisco on my daughter’s hips so that she might live a normal life. However, maybe this could come in handy when she starts dating…
The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey is an American multi-mission, military, tiltrotor aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing, and short takeoff and landing capability. It is designed to combine the functionality of a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of a turboprop aircraft.
In this photo, it drops a hummer onto the battlefield, to help our soldiers on the front line.
The Kulp-Kroucher Defecation Bomb is an American civilian daughter, tiltrotor toddler with both vertical takeoff and landing, and short takeoff and landing capacity. She was designed to combine the functionality of a construction worker needing to take a spontaneous dump on the job site with the short-range, low-speed bomb-dropping performance of a diaper-wearing 2-year old.
In this photo, instead of taking out an enemy bunker or dropping aid to the villagers, she lays a bomb down on the inside of a #4 Huggies while reading ‘Elmo takes a bath’ in the middle of my parking structure.
My daughter, the Osprey.
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