Will has been extra infuriating lately. But worse than that, his onslaught of awful behavior has coincided with the complete departure of my patience. Any parent will tell you that’s not a good combination. In fact, I sit here today — my day off — just minutes removed from an episode that has me seriously considering running away.

I woke Will up to get him dressed for daycare, but he was having none of it. He threw a particularly nasty hissy fit. I tried to distract him, redirect him and deflect the negative behavior to something positive. All the Parenting 101 bullshit. Just made it worse. So then I just decided to grit my teeth and get through it. Besides, he’d be gone soon and I could finally sleep in for a little while.

That’s when he kicked me in the face.

Make no mistake, it wasn’t an accident. He had been kicking before and we have a firm no hitting/kicking rule. But as I reached down to try and get his undies on, he looked me square in the eye and screamed “NO DADA!” and then caught me with his heel.

In our house, after you’ve been repeatedly warned, that earns you a bare ass spanking, which he received.

Then he asked to get dressed on our bed. Thinking a compromise would make things easier, I granted him the wish. But he continued to be difficult and not let me get him dressed, all the while screaming and shrieking like a mental patient. I left him on the bed for a minute to go into his room to get his Buzz Lightyear underwear, thinking maybe he’d be more willing to get dressed if it was his favorite character. But when I came back in the room, I lost my mind.

Will was standing on the bed naked. And when I looked down at our pillows, I realized he had pissed all over them. I’m not kidding. He actually stood up, took aim and pissed all over our pillows and our bed. And, it being his morning evacuation, he peed a ton.

I can’t describe the level or intensity of rage that filled my body at that precise moment. But it was nothing compared to what happened next, as he proceeded to punch me square in the nose when I got close to him and asked him why he did it.

In the span of 3 minutes he had purposefully hit me twice in the face, and urinated on the place we put our heads down to sleep. And right then, I hated him. Loathed him. Wanted nothing to do with him. Longed to run far away to a place I wasn’t his father and didn’t have to put up with his shit.

And here’s the kicker.

It’s not like I can just put everything in the wash. Our washing machine died on Sunday. And it’s not as if I can run out and buy a washing machine, because we have no money. In fact, we have less than no money. We’re at a point now where we’d love to declare bankruptcy. The only problem is we can’t afford it. Do you not just love the irony there? Seriously. I don’t have the money to be bankrupt! Because of course it makes sense that financially destitute people need to come up with a few thousand dollars just to tell everyone else they can’t pay their bills. That sounds like sound reasoning to me. How about you???

I mean, I thought I had the money. I have thousands in my 401k. But fuck me for not reading the fine print. Because I already have a loan out against my retirement funds and I just assumed I could take out another one in case of an emergency. Since, you know, it’s my fucking money. But that’d make too much sense. Instead, they tell me I can only have one personal loan out at a time. But I can do a hardship loan, they say. Great. I definitely fit the bill with that, right? Wrong. I can only take out money for a hardship if I’m in the eviction/foreclosure process, if I’m trying to pay for college tuition or if someone dies and I need money for a funeral. Nevermind the fact that foreclosure will be imminent down the road if some of these bills don’t get paid, the rule is if I’m not in the foreclosure process now I’m shit out of luck. And once again, the system shits on anyone who looks down the road and tries to proactively stave off trouble.

I work as much overtime as I can. MJ works her ass off too. Yet here I sit in a condo that owns me. Surrounded by bills I can’t pay. Taunted by the allure of a way out that I can’t afford, even though my own money is sitting just out of reach in an account I can’t access. My kid is punching me in the face. My sheets and pillows are drenched in piss, reeking on the floor because my washing machine is broken and I can’t afford a new one.

And now I realize that losing Alexandra was a blessing in disguise. I can’t even provide for the kid I have now. Hell, I haven’t even been able to spend enough time with my dog lately. Bringing a baby into this unholy hell that is our life may have been considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Do I sound a little dark today? A little unbalanced? Do I have that teetering on the edge of a chaotic abyss thing going for me? Sure. I’ll buy that.

I’m not the man, husband or father I should be. I can’t provide for my family. I’ve borrowed god only knows how much from the generous people in my life, and absolutely refuse to ask for more. The gastrointestinal pain that sent me to the ER last year is back in force, which coincidentally is the last time I was this stressed out and leads me to believe I probably have some sort of ulcer. I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been because since I can’t smoke or drink my problems away, I’ve decided to eat them. And I’m not nearly over the loss of my unborn daughter, but absolutely refuse to see or talk to anyone in the professional realm about that because admitting that I see a counselor absolutely would push me over the edge.

This post has been a long time coming. I’ve written it and deleted several times over the past month or so, opting instead for some funny anecdote about daily life. It’s the first time in my blogging career that I haven’t been honest with you for fear of how it makes me look. But as I’m sitting in my house that I’m upside down on, reeking of piss from sheets I can’t wash due to a broken washer I can’t afford to replace, I don’t really see any reason to continue putting on heirs.

And if you leave a comment, don’t tell me where I can find a cheap washer or any of that crap. No offense, but I’m excellent at ferreting out deals on the Internet. I don’t need help there. And don’t tell me you’re thinking of us or say “if there’s anything you need…” Don’t get me wrong, it’s sweet and I appreciate it but I’m not writing this to garner pity. If you want to comment, tell me you’ve been there before and come through it. Or tell me if you didn’t, and life chewed you up and spit you out. Either way just be real. Be honest.

Because right now honesty is about the only thing I do still have.

There are conflicting opinions as to what this day should be about. On one hand it’s a celebration. Barbecues, cookouts, parades, the unofficial start to summer…Memorial Day is festive, no doubt about it. But on the other hand, some people think there should be no smiles on Memorial Day. After all, this is a day to honor our veterans, both living and dead. So naturally some people view it as a somber day of reflection to think back on the incredible sacrifices our soldiers made, and are still making.

But as for me? I’m sponging off veterans and eating their food.

I’m staying with Victor and Alicia Banks in North Carolina. Alicia is MJ’s oldest friend, and they instantly became two of my favorite people the moment I met them. They have a son, my godson Victor III, who is 10 months older than Will. Although Alicia grew up near my hometown, Victor is from North Carolina and they live in Fayetteville near Fort Bragg.

They both have tours of duty in Iraq, and Victor was also in Kuwait, Turkey and Kosovo. I don’t ask them too many questions about what they did and saw while deployed. Partly because I don’t want to upset them but also because it would keep me up at night. All I know is they’ve lost people dear to them in combat, and that is something I can’t even begin to fathom. They’ve also given up large chunks of their lives for jackasses like me, which is a sacrifice the likes of which I’m not even sure I’m capable.

Obviously, they survived their stints at war. And my godson is the result. For that, I am eternally thankful because I worried about their safety every single day they were gone. Now don’t get me wrong, I love all the parades, ceremonies, flyovers, etc. I think that stuff is important and I think it’s great. Anything that raises awareness of the job our soldiers are doing is a good thing.

But today, while watching Will and Vic battle like wolverines over toys play together, I realized there might be no better way to celebrate Memorial Day. Because there are far too many stories of the men and women who didn’t make it back, leaving their kids minus a parent. I tried to keep that in mind today, and remember how lucky I am.

So I celebrated today. I celebrated our kids being able to play together in a free society. And while I kept all the fallen veterans of war in my mind and heart, I put the gifts they gave us to good use. And damned if there isn’t a picture that expresses that better than this:

Hope you all celebrated Memorial Day in a similar fashion.

Today is my mom’s birthday, which gets overshadowed by Mother’s Day every single year. Then when I got married and became a father, her special days were obscured even more by the fact that Mother’s Day became mostly about MJ (and rightfully so). And unfortunately, since I’m pretty broke these days, I don’t have a real gift for her. Which is pretty awful since she gives us EVERYTHING and has since we were kids.

So I’m baking her a cake, which is miraculous because the idea of me baking anything scares most people to death. And maybe there’s something to that because I cooked the cake with olive oil instead of vegetable oil. I thought they were interchangeable. What can I say? I’m no Emeril or PJ at RMDM.

But even though she’d be happy with just seeing her kids, I felt I needed to do a little more. So mom, this blog post is just for you. Happy Birthday and enjoy the list of Things My Mom Taught Me:

“There’s no such thing as being too involved.”

My mom was at every single thing I ever did as a child. I’m not exaggerating either. There isn’t one practice, game, performance or event I can recall that didn’t include my mom. Sure she baked cupcakes, made cookies and did all the usual mom stuff, but she also took it a step further. She drove the bus to my away games in high school. She directed my senior class play, and in a stunning act of nepotism cast me as the lead. She volunteered to chaperone every dance and field trip we had. She found creative ways to help a stressed out, nervous wreck of a kid with math homework. An employer would look at her resume and deduce she took 20 years off, but nothing could be further from the truth. No one has ever worked harder at being a dedicated parent. I got pretty pissy as a teenager because she was around all the time, but now as a parent I see how much good it did me.

“You can never be too corny.”

My mom is cool, but she’s uncool if you know what I mean. As in she’s so gullible and naive and cute that she actually comes around full circle back to cool. And she never hesitated to shower us with love. Not even in front of our friends. She demanded hugs and kisses and refused to let us off the hook when we were teenagers, and giving your mom hugs and kisses was the dorkiest thing a teenage mind could fathom. And even though sometimes she’d get mad because I’d give her all the trouble she could handle, I knew nothing I did would ever cost me her love. And looking back, there’s just no substitute for that kind of reassurance in life. It’s corny, but true.

“Always be on time.”

My mother taught me to always be on time and to value other people’s time. Granted, she accomplished this in a fairly unorthodox manner, because she is and continues to be the most tardy person on the face of the Earth. We were late to everything growing up. My poor brother was late to school 63 times in one term! It might have something to do with the fact that my mom’s cell phone, her watch, her alarm clocks and the clock in the car are all fixed to different times. I’ve never quite figured out the system she’s supposedly using, but I know it doesn’t work. I guess the idea is to set the clock ahead say 10 minutes so you hurry because you think you’re running late. Only when you point this out to my mom she says “It’s OK, that clock is 10 minutes fast.” And then we end up running late. So even though she did it via a circuitous path, my mom is the reason I’m on time or early to every single thing in my life.

“Sacrifice is important.”

I can’t think of too many other people who sacrificed as much as my mom. And it’s not just the big things like being a stay at home parent despite having all the skills in the world to be successful in the workforce. It’s the little things that came with being outnumbered 3 to 1 in the gender department. Take the TV for example. My mom didn’t get to watch anything she wanted. Figure skating, Lifetime, and her favorite movie, The Cutting Edge. We overruled her at every turn in favor of sports and R-rated movies. And when we went on vacation for a week, we’d always get our way for six days, and mom would get one. We liked amusement parks and baseball stadiums. Batting cages, bumper cars, go-carts and everything else boys are into. And we’d go crazy all day long while my mom literally sat there, holding our stuff and watching us. Then, when her one day came, she’d always want to do something like drive through Amish country. And instead of being grateful for our six days and respectful of mom, we’d make sarcastic and snide comments while complaining the entire time. Looking back I’m surprised she didn’t smack us, but I also feel bad we acted like spoiled brats.

So there it is, just a few of many reasons my mom is the shit. I can’t possibly thank her for all she’s done over the years, and all she continues to do now as the World’s Best Grandma. All I can tell her is I appreciate it. Now more than ever. And despite all the teasing and poking fun, I love her and literally have no idea what I’d do without her.

Happy birthday mom.

MJ and I always planned on having two kids.  Ideally they’d be about three years apart because we never wanted to know the sheer joy and ease of having one potty-trained  kid, only to have to go back to diapers with a newborn.  Better to have six-plus years of diapers all in a row.  So Will just turned 2 this month. If you’re bad at math, that means I have T-minus 3 months and counting to put the proverbial bun in the oven.

In a perfect world I’d do just that. MJ would be pregnant tomorrow.  Then, in a few months, we’d sell our condo and move into a cute little single-family Cape with a fenced in yard for Haley. New baby would come home to an impeccably decorated nursery and all the white picket fenced goodness the American Dream has to offer.

But those aren’t the cards we’ve been dealt.

Simply put, we’re in rough shape. Very rough. To the point where some extremely large changes are probably coming. We don’t have the money to pay all of our current bills, so needless to say the added financial burden of another child seems more than slightly incomprehensible. So for the past few months we’ve been crunching numbers and having some really serious discussions about what we should do.

Last week I was dropping Will off at daycare and our provider was holding a 5-month-old baby named Maggie. Her phone rang and as she scrambled to answer it, and she asked me if I’d hold Maggie for her so she could take the call.

And that’s when everything became very, very clear.

As I held that beautiful little girl close to me, all the nostalgia came rushing back. Those huge blue eyes and the goofy, happy, one-toothed grin. I stared at her in amazement, tracing her fleshy miniature fingers and remembering the joy I felt when I did the same thing with Will. Speaking of Will, he loves babies. LOVES them. He’s so gentle and caring with little kids, and each time I ask him whether he wants a brother or a sister, he happily chirps “sister!” The kid was destined to be a big brother.

Then I thought of my own brother. Sure we couldn’t breathe the same air growing up, but eventually Nate became one of my best friends. And even though we fought all the time, we were also constant playmates and built in friends. We were each other’s measuring sticks for sports, school and everything else. And now I don’t know what I’d do without him. And there mere thought of Will growing up without someone to pal around with (or protect if it’s a girl), is too tragic to consider.

Look, if the question is can we afford to have another baby then the answer is no. We cannot. But you know what? We can’t afford not to either. Because more than anything, we both feel the most important thing is our family. And while Will is spectacular, our little unit is not yet complete. And we’ll do anything in our power to make sure that it is.

How will that work financially? I have no clue. Not a single fucking one. But I know it’ll work out because it has to. Because it’s what we’re going to do.

And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but after having that magical moment with Maggie, I guess a girl wouldn’t be so bad.

WHEN YOU’RE DONE HERE, CHECK OUT FATHERHOOD FRIDAY OVER AT DAD-BLOGS WHERE THE DADS ARE PROBABLY MUCH LESS OF A PUSSY THAN I AM TODAY!

Shelby is a tennis player on her high school team, and since I had the day off yesterday I figured I would surprise her by showing up with Will to her tennis match.

Unfortunately, Will was a little TOO excited to see her. As soon as he saw her he tried to rush the court. When I told him no, he then went to the fence and tried to climb it. The entire time he’s shrieking “SHELLLLLY!” at the top of his lungs, which was quickly becoming distracting to the players trying to serve and play out their match. So my mom, who came with us, took him for a car ride so I could watch Shelby play for a while.

But I quickly realized that a 30-year-old standing alone watching a girls varsity high school tennis team is bound to raise a few eyebrows.

In short, I quickly began feeling like quite the pedophile. Especially since, as I told Shelby after the match, I really wish the tennis uniform companies would make more conservative outfits. Because as well as her team played and as proud as I was of Shelby, the old-fashioned protective parent side of me was in full force when I had to listen to random high school students walk by and check out my cousin. This isn’t an exact replica, but this picture shows why I’d be concerned:

So yeah, I was midly uncomfortable and I think I was getting the stink-eye from some of the other folks there.

But what really got me was toward the end of the match, when a guy came up to me and we began chatting. We talked a little bit about how the temperatures were dropping so quickly, and also about the match. But then, he asked me a question I still haven’t gotten over yet.

“So,” the man said. “Are you the parent of one of the girls on the team?”

What the fuck?? I did a double take to see if he was joking, but he clearly was not. Usually I’d have a pretty good comeback for such a crazy question, but this one caught me completely off guard. I quickly explained I was Shelby’s cousin, at which point the man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

But there are two scenarios here that would’ve prompted the guy to ask such a question, and neither of them are very flattering:

1) The guy thought I looked old enough to have a child between the ages of 14-18.

2) He really did think I was a pervert and was checking me out

If it’s one, then I’m going to be really depressed. I’m 30 years old. That means I would’ve had to have had a child when I was between 12-16 to possibly have a girl old enough to play on the team. I know it’s not impossible, but it’s severely unlikely. Or, he just thinks I look 10 years older than I really am, which makes me want to light myself on fire. MJ, of course, was tickled beyond belief by this guy’s comment when I told her. Even though she’s an old lady who’s a full two years older than me, she relishes the discomfort I feel when she makes me realize it’s not totally incomprehensible that I’m old enough to be mistaken for the father of a teenager.

But if he was just doing some reconnaisance because he thought I was a pedophile, then I really wish I had toyed with him. If I had just been a little quicker, the conversation could’ve gone something like this:

GUY: “So, are you a parent of one of the players?”

ME: “Nope, I’m just Facebook and MySpace friends with some of them.”

All that aside, I did have an ulterior motive to see Shelby play. You see, she’s also got MJ’s swagger and she thinks she can actually beat me at tennis. Even though I told her I played high school varsity tennis myself a mere 13 years ago, she’s still got this delusional idea she can best me at an athletic undertaking. So I went yesterday to support her, but also to scout her. She’s better than I thought she’d be, but I think I can still take her. Besides, I don’t lose to girls.

Actually I think I may be screwed, but I’m going to play her anyway. Depending on the outcome of that game, stay tuned for a future blog entry.