The Daddy Files

A few weeks ago we were able to meet up with some friends we haven’t seen in a while. My buddy Lozo from college, his wife and their daughter Madison. Maddy is 13 days younger than Will, so whenever we have a chance to get together and let our kids play, we do it.

But make no mistake, it’s not all just friendly shenanigans.

Parents of kids the same age are always watching, judging and using their kids as measuring sticks. Mine is walking, mine is talking, mine does calculus while simultaneously performing an Olympic gymnastics routine on the uneven bars. It’s not malicious or anything, but it’s natural for parents to show off their kids a little.

First of all, Will is a gigundo baby. He’s huge for his age. I haven’t measured his height lately but last time he was off the charts. And now he weighs nearly 35 lbs. Meanwhile Maddy is the cutest little peanut you’ve ever seen. I can scoop her up with one hand, as opposed to the crane that’s required to get my son off the ground.

The two of them were both very cute and equally adept at naming colors, foods, animals, numbers, etc. And while Maddy is a much better dancer than Will and nearly brought the house down when she curtsied, Will has her beat in the independence department because she still doesn’t sleep in her own bed.

They were neck and neck as the night wore on, when finally it came down to throwing a baseball. I smiled to myself because I’ve been working with Will on throwing and hitting, and he’s pretty good. He can toss a baseball and football a damn good ways. So I put the ball in his hand, stepped back a few feet and told him to toss it to me. He did, and while it wasn’t his best throw it reached me and I sat back and waited for everyone to be duly impressed.

Then Lozo grabbed the ball, gave it to Maddy, and my whole world fell apart.

Maddy, this pint-sized Lilliputian of a toddler, grabbed that ball and proceeded to wing that shit across the room to her father. I mean, shit…she hucked it. On a line. Like fucking Vladimir Guerrero trying to throw a runner out at the plate. I was speechless. Thinking it must’ve been a fluke, I had her try it again. Same result. Lozo (who is a New York Yankees fan I might add) was beaming and I was praying for death. But my agony was far from finished. Then he tossed the ball back at her, and she caught it. Plucked it right out of thin air.

Fuck. Throwing and catching.

I tried to get Will to throw the ball again but he had already lost interest. I pulled him away from the book he was trying to read and forced the ball in his hand.

“C’mon buddy, let’s play catch. Now REALLY try to throw this one OK?” I pleaded with him. But Will no longer cared and he half-heartedly threw the ball again…but this time it went backward.

Lozo was in his glory. My son had been bested athletically not only by his offspring, but his female offspring. Will got beat by a girl. At sports. A Yankee fan girl beat my Red Sox loving boy at baseball. There is no greater shame, and no more profound sorrow.

“She’s got some arm, huh?” Lozo said to me with a smirk, obviously gloating.

As you may have gathered by this point, dear readers, I am many things. But a gracious loser is not one of them.

“My son is going to grow up and nail your daughter.”

You see, Will’s arm will get stronger and he’ll eventually overtake Maddy in that department, and I won’t have to worry about it. But Lozo has a little girl and I have a boy. I have to worry about one penis, but Lozo? Lozo has to worry about ALL penises for all time.

Gotta hit him where it hurts!

I love my son and I love being a parent. I want to make that very clear. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But let’s face it parents, there are certain things about life before kids that we all miss from time to time.

For me, it’s the road trip.

There are fewer things on this Earth more awesome and rewarding than when a road trip with your buddies spontaneously materializes out of thin air. It’s a rare and wonderful thing, and it takes specific circumstances such as being young, stupid, possibly unemployed and having no serious commitments whatsoever. And usually it happens a little something like this:

Four guys are sitting around on a Friday afternoon, not doing anything of consequence, just shooting the shit. One of them says something like “Dude, remember when we took that trip to Buffalo last year and we went over the border to Canada to that crazy strip club? That was awesome.”

The next 10 minutes consists of each guy recounting a different crazy story from said trip, like “Remember Smitty was passed out on the bar?” and “We got that stripper for Aaron who had an Adam’s apple” and “It was so cool when Bear mooned the toll booth worker at the US/Canada border.” Laughs are had, the nostalgia flows freely and everyone soaks in the good times.

And then it happens.

“You know, the Patriots are playing in Buffalo this weekend,” says one guy.

“Oh that’s right, I bet they’re not sold out either. We could probably get tickets,” says another.

“Hmmmm, I have Monday off from work,” says the third.

“I have a buddy who lives 5 miles from the stadium, I bet we could crash with him,” the fourth guy chimes in.

Then all four guys look at each other, excitement building quickly. Each one of them nods, smiles and races off to pack a bag. No confirmed place to stay, no tickets in hand, no regard for finances or personal work responsibility. The only thing on their minds is the next 72 hours of fun and debauchery.

But the thing I miss most about those days is the spontaneity. I’m a very in the moment, off the cuff person. Random road trips were my specialty. I loved having a crazy idea, gathering up some equally crazy friends and just taking off. There’s nothing like the freedom you feel during the first few moments in the car after starting a random road trip. The windows are down, the music is blaring, your friends are all screaming “THIS IS SO AWESOME!!” and “I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE DOING THIS!” You are kings of the road and the universe. Rebels. Adventurers.

That just doesn’t happen now. First of all we don’t have the money to go to the grocery store most days, nevermind a road trip some place fun. But even if we did have the funds, spontaneity and children do not mix. Gone are the days of packing a bag and taking off. Now you need to pack his bag with shirts, pants, diapers, creams, snacks, sippy cups, toys, pack & play, and everything else he’ll need. And you can’t leave right away. You need to time it so you get in the car when he’s supposed to go down for his nap. Otherwise he’ll scream like crazy and make your life hell. And then there’s the dog. You can’t take her with you and you need to line up a dog sitter that won’t be too expensive. Then there’s work, and I really just can’t afford to take the time off because I already burned a bunch of vacation days when the kid was sick last month. Not to mention the wife has work and grad school classes and wouldn’t be able to take care of everything if I randomly took a couple days off.

You get the picture. Being a parent is the most wonderful thing in the world. But make no mistake, it does come at a price. It’s a small price to pay, for sure, but sometimes I miss things like the random road trip.

Because any trips we take from here on out will not be random. In fact, quite the opposite. Everything has to be planned out to the nth degree. Hell, I plan on going to Buffalo for the next year’s Bills-Patriots game and I started preparing a year in advance. I’m the guy who never even used to think about tomorrow, and now I’m booking things 365 days in advance.

Maybe when Will’s a little older we can start up a tradition of random road trips, but until then the word “random” is simply not in my lexicon.

Chris over at Dad of Divas has an ongoing series he puts out where he asks a new dad a bunch of questions in order to raise awareness of all the great dad blogs out there. For whatever godforsaken reason, this week it’s my turn.

Go check it out and feel free to tell me what a tool I am. But definitely give Chris some more traffic. He’s doing a great service for schlubs like me.

My wife is a classic Type A personality and even though it’s not diagnosed, I’m pretty sure she’s somewhat OCD. A place for everything and everything in it’s place is her motto. When she watched TV before my parents passed down their old surround sound to us, the volume had to be on an even number or she couldn’t watch.

Oh how I made fun of her and her wacko ways.

MJ gets up first in the morning because she has a longer commute to her job. She’s walking out the door either before, or just as, Will is getting up for the day and she’s not home until well after Will and I have eaten the dinner I cooked for us all. Needless to say, the daily opening and closing ceremonies of parenthood are largely left up to me.

But yesterday I had to work the early shift and be into work by 6:30 a.m. That meant I was up and out of the house first. At first I have to admit, I welcomed the change. It was kind of nice just being able to get up and go without having to worry about feeding the dog, giving the dog her pills, changing diapers, showering, getting Will dressed, putting his diaper bag together, making lunch, getting myself and Will dressed, driving to daycare and then heading to work.

It wasn’t until I picked Will up and brought him home after work yesterday that I realized my wife isn’t the only one with OCD tendencies.

Simply put, I was horrified when I came home with Will yesterday evening. First of all, MJ didn’t put the outside light on so it was a little dark coming up the walk. She also forgot to leave an inside light on for the dog, as well as the sound on the TV to keep her company. There was a bag of trash strewn about the kitchen, because she forgot to move anything edible out of the reach of the dog. The dog subsequently peed all over the trash, just for good measure.

She also left the blinds open which is important because if that happens the dog is able to look out at the world and bark at any squirrels, people, animals she sees. We live in a condo and barking equals complaints. She also forgot to close off the bedroom door so the dog got in there too and ate a whole box of tissues.

When I went to feed the dog I found she left the cover off the dog food. And, instead of bringing the dog’s food bowl to pantry, scooping some food and setting the bowl down in the kitchen, she brought the scooper to the bowl. And then left the scooper in the kitchen.

And because she didn’t change the kitty litter, the cats pissed all over the blankets on the couch.

Look, I know how stupid some of this sounds and I’m complaining about insignificant things. I already know this. The point is, my whole universe was thrown out of whack. I never realized until yesterday how set in my own little routine I’ve become. And when everything was different, even for one day, I was totally thrown for a loop. Lost. Anchor broken, drifting aimlessly in a sea of confusion in a tempest of uncertainty.

Good thing I’m not dramatic.

When MJ got home from work I started telling her about all the things she “did wrong.” And she listened to me rattle off my complaints with equal parts amusement and incredulity. And then she smiled.

“Remember when you used to make fun of me for being OCD?” she asked. “Good thing you’re not like that, huh?”

But I’m not OCD. I’m organized. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

CHECK OUT FATHERHOOD FRIDAY AT DAD-BLOGS. OR I WILL KILL 10 KITTENS.

“Will! Do NOT climb on those chairs!!”

It was the third time I had barked the order at him. We have two chairs at our breakfast bar in the kitchen. One is the regular height of a normal everyday chair, and the other one resembles a bar stool, but with a back on it. A few months ago Will figured out he could climb up on the short one, stand up and make his way onto the coveted bar stool. From there he’s precariously perched on top of the swiveling chair and refuses to sit down, setting up the obvious potential for disaster.

For a while we thought we could simply put the chairs up on top of the breakfast bar, but we found out the hard way he can climb up on the baseboard heater and yank them right off. So we had a choice: Death from a fall from the chair or death resulting from a chair falling on top of him.

It’s good to have options.

We decided to leave the chairs on the ground, and ever since we’ve spent our days nagging Will not to climb/stand on/jump from the chair.

Fast forward to the start of this post and the third time I yelled at him. He grudgingly climbed down from the chair and I went back to doing the dishes before MJ got home. But no more than 30 seconds later I hear a grunt and then some movement, followed by the “THHHWACK!” of a chair hitting the wood floor.

I felt the blood rush to my head in anger. I didn’t have a mirror in front of me but I can only imagine my face was contorted into the kind of grimace with which all angry parents (and the offspring of angry parents) are very familiar.

I peered over the breakfast bar and was prepared to yell and scream at the obstinate little bastard for not listening to me, but then I saw his face. I didn’t have my camera with me, but it resembled this:

He knew he did something wrong. He knew that I knew he did something wrong. And the look on his face was so startling to me because it reminded me of the face I made every single time I got in trouble as a kid. It’s a mixture of fear, apology and feigned innocence.

I know it well. It’s like that one time MJ came home from work early and caught me at the computer during, ummm, let’s call it “private time.”

I knew I should be mad at Will. I knew I should be lecturing him and giving him a timeout and telling him not to climb because it’s dangerous. I knew I should’ve been doing those dad things. But as I fought to hold onto all that anger and force it into a parenting lesson Will would not soon forget, I suddenly felt a very different emotion.

Amusement.

My frown began to crack at the corners of my mouth and then my lips began to twitch. Will sensed it immediately. And just like every other kid on the planet who realizes he somehow has gotten out of trouble, Will smiled at me. And then giggled. Soon I was laughing too. And just like that any chance of disciplining him went right out the window.

Oh well, so it goes. He’ll learn it eventually after the fifth or sixth time he falls onto the wood floor.