Thursday, March 31, 2011

Hi, Normal. Remember Me?

Parenthood should come with a warning label: Last chance to turn back. Life is about to change. Forever.
Yes, being a dad is pretty awesome…at times…when you’re not feeling useless because you can’t help your kid with her math homework, despite having the answers to odd numbered questions in the back of the book.
And whose bright idea was that? Why can’t the answers for both the odd and even numbered questions be in the back? I mean, aren’t we teaching our children to be quitters if they’re only able to do half of their math homework?
But I digress – which I find myself doing a lot of, as I’m sure many of you who regularly read this already know.
Fatherdom hasn’t come with any hard or fast rules.
Some days I’m totally absorbed in the kids, but there are often days that I’m totally absorbed in me. I guess the hardest part of teaching your kids about growing up is admitting that you haven’t really figured out how to do it yourself.
One particular aspect of raising children I really haven’t gotten down is potty-training. Kacie’s been good and potty-trained for some time now, so I can’t exactly remember how difficult or not it was with her, but Brady is definitely not Sunday morning. He’s been anything but easy.
The kid’s four. And-a-half. He’s great during the day, but somewhere in the early morning hours it’s like the animals on his pajama bottoms have to load up two-by-two and head for higher ground.
The worst part is the pooping. Take the other night for instance.
Traci and I are watching a movie. Fittingly Life as We Know It.
She comments that Brady has been in the bathroom longer than necessary for normal bathroom activities, and since he doesn’t yet have a magazine subscription she believes something’s up.
I leave the comfortability of my chair in front of the television to investigate.
Wasting no time with subtlety, I barge into the bathroom.
I expect to see him playing in the sink, making “donuts” with wads of toilet paper. I think maybe he’s fixing his hair, trying his best to be as good looking as Daddy. Perhaps he’s playing in Kacie’s makeup.
None of those things is happening. I wish any one of those three things would have been happening. He’s standing in front of the toilet, Spiderman underwear around his ankles, trying to wipe himself. Less than an inch from his right foot is a ball of poo.
“Brady, stop!” I yell, barking out orders like Major Dad.
“Go,” is all Brady can say. He’s embarrassed and won’t make eye contact. I don’t blame him.
“It’s okay, son. Just stop and let me finish – you’re about to step in poop.” It’s bad enough wiping someone else’s behind, but cleaning poop from their foot? Pass.
“No, you’re stepping in poop,” he says, not breaking focus from cleaning himself.
He gets smart-alleck like this sometimes. Who’s to say where my son gets it from, but I know enough to confidently say that I am not stepping in poop. I’ve checked, and the rogue turd is a good six inches from me.
Brady loses his balance and is forced to shift to the right. Again he nearly misses stepping in doo. Again I warn him to be still so I can help.
“NO,” he insists, “you’re stepping in poop.”
“Brady, I am not stepping in poop.”
“Yes you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
Yes you are.” The argumentative thing I’m certain he gets from his mom.
“I’m not standing in –”
He points to the ground, beneath my left foot.
“- poop. I’m standing in poop?”
“Told ya,” he says in a sing-song kind of way.
Footsteps – a stampede of footsteps to be more precise – pound the floor of our tiny apartment like the sound of thundering hooves beating down the deserted plains. I feel like I’m on the set of Dances with Wolves. Tatonka! Tatonka!
I look away. Quickly. I want to throw up.
The girls loiter in the hallway, neither of them of any use because neither of them wants any part of being me at the moment. Instead they watch, like rubbernecking vampires waiting for a formal invitation to come inside.
“Get it off. Get it off! Get it off!!” There. Invitation sent. Get in here and help. Please?
I stick my foot in the toilet, hoping the turd will lose interest and just fall off. Nothing. I will it to drop off. Still nothing. Fail.
Doing a sorry imitation of a peg-legged hip-hop routine, I dance around on my right foot, shaking the left one desperately in the toilet bowl, hoping to dislodge the parasite. Like a random chewed up piece of bubble gum that searched out an entire parking lot of possibilities until finding your favorite pair of tennis shoes, it’s stuck and has no intentions coming off.
“I’m serious,” I say, grabbing hold of the sink for some kind of support seeing as how I’m getting very little elsewhere. The twelve-by-seven room closes in on me. I really want to throw up.
More laughter. It’s really not that funny. But seriously, you should come join the party and help your daddy.
Kacie backs up, distancing herself from the hilarity of a poop patty being stuck to her father’s bare foot. Just when I need her most, she pulls a Switzerland in the Sovereign Nation of Dad’s coup d’état against her brother’s poo. I’ll remember that the next time she wants to do anything that sounds remotely fun.
Traci finally musters the courage to enter, turning her head in such a manner to avoid direct eye contact with my foot’s new friend and the stench which is sure to cause a gag reflex or two of her own.
She grabs for the flushable wipes from the top of the toilet tank, but instead of cleaning my foot, cleans the skidmarks from the side of the toilet.
“Hey. My foot? You know, the one with the poop putting inappropriate moves on it? How about we give my foot a Line Hopper Pass so it’s next. Okay?” No, honey, I don’t mind taking a back seat to the toilet. Thanks.
Afraid of being asked to participate in the eviction process underway in her bathroom, Kacie pins herself against the hallway wall, almost as if she pushes hard enough the wall will spin around like in Scooby-Doo and she’ll magically appear in the other room. Perhaps she’s on to something. Maybe if I flush the toilet I’ll be sucked in and transported back to five minutes ago when life was normal.
But that’s just it. Parenthood is anything but normal. It’s hard. Crazy. Frustrating. Sometimes a little icky. There are moments that absolutely break your heart and others that make you wish for a time machine so you can do them again and again and again. And just when you think you’ve seen everything, parenthood throws yet another curveball that you hope to somehow get a piece of just to keep the at-bat alive.
Hello. My name is Brad Daddy, and I’ve long since forgotten what normal feels like.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Diary of a Mad Flabby Man

Sunday, 7:28AM – Trial Run
After approximately twenty minutes of preparation, I’m finally ready for my first go at riding a bicycle to work.  A one-way trial run.
I step outside, into the brisk morning air. Just minutes before I had been assured by the local news that I would enjoy a comfortable sixty-four degree start to my day. The sting of the wind’s chill against my bare arms reminds me that I am too much of a wimp to brave such Siberianesque temperatures.
I go back inside.

Sunday, 7:36AM – Trial Run 2.0
After approximately twenty-eight minutes of preparation, I am finally, finally ready for my first go at riding a bicycle to work. A one-way trial run.
I step outside into the brisk morning air. Just minutes before I had been assured by the local news that I would enjoy a comfortable sixty-four degree start to my day. Immune to the wind’s chilling advances, I feel confident the tired long-sleeved t-shirt Traci had been wanting me to get rid of for years would provide adequate protection against such Siberianesque temperatures.
Before climbing aboard the bike borrowed from my father-in-law, I fight with the helmet’s straps as they stubbornly require a certain degree of fiddle-farting with. It seems the previous user preferred to wear the helmet in Strangulation Mode.
Three minutes later I’m riding a real bicycle for the first time in over a decade.

Sunday, 7:43AM
My thighs begin to burn as I slow down to turn left onto what will be my longest single stretch of road between home and work.
The encouraging words of Co-worker #1 echo through my mind as I push through the pain. “Yeah, riding a recumbent bike is not like riding a real bike. You should probably try riding a real bike first.”
The more I pedal to forget, the more I remember parts of various conversations or input from other concerned co-workers regarding how good or bad of an idea riding a bicycle thirteen miles to work really is.
Co-worker #2: Isn’t thirteen miles a little too far?
Co-worker #3: Your butt’s gonna be sore.
Co-worker #2: Aren’t you too out of shape to do something like that?
Co-worker #4: Won’t you smell?
Co-worker #1: You should probably get a tube repair kit.
Co-worker #3: What if it rains?
Co-worker #2: That’s where we come into play, Co-worker #3.
Co-worker #3: Really though. What if it starts raining on you at like mile three?
Co-worker #1: You should probably get a poncho too.
Co-worker #2: Can I have your cubicle if you die?
Co-worker #3 (disapprovingly): Co-worker #2…
Co-worker #4: Are you sure you won’t smell?
Even the woman who brought me into the world finds humor in all of this. She’d sent an email that read “Ouch. The family is being cruel. If you’re gonna do it, may as well do it in style.” Attached was a picture of a four-wheeled bicycle - which I guess makes it a quadricycle - with a roof. Seriously, Mom...e tu? Brutal.
I’ve basically started telling anyone I come into contact with that they have the right to remain silent and that everything they say can and most likely will be used against them in a court of blog.
Unsure if I’ll be able to start after stopping, my mind barks out orders for my legs to keep pedaling, knowing that if they don’t mind at this moment, it won’t matter what my mind tells them in the future. My legs obey. Reluctantly.
I shoot left through the red light and survey my surroundings for any signs of 5-0. Nothing. Good. I don’t have the energy to take the initiative in starting a three-hour chase through the neighborhoods of Frisco.

Sunday, 7:47AM
My thighs are killing me. They’re disco infernos. Nothing more than unwilling participants in my efforts to make whatever statement it is I’m trying to make.
It’s much lighter outside now than it will be when I do this for real, considering I’ll be leaving for work around 5AM on biking days. I’m still not too keen on that idea. At least the cover of darkness will have my back should I need to stop and take a leak somewhere along the way.
A Chevy Tahoe blows by me, serving notice that the road is not mine. Not even a little bit. Rush hour should be interesting.
The sixty-four ounce bladder tucked inside the single strap miniature backpack serves as my only source of hydration during this trek. I worry if it’s enough water, especially since the mouthpiece draped over my right shoulder is leaking profusely, seeping through the green outer layer of my long-sleeved t-shirt.
I run through a mental checklist of items I’ll need to purchase if this idea turns into reality: Reflective vest. Repair kit with pump. Helmet – sans strangulation feature. Cargo rack. A real hydration kit, preferably one that doesn’t leak.
Traci had once asked if instead of a buying a cargo rack if I would be willing to put a basket on the front since we already had one that Kacie was no longer using. She’d said it was just sitting in our storage shed, taking up space. I asked if she was trying to make me look like Pee-wee Herman.
In can see my final destination in the near distance. Without being instructed to, my legs pedal harder. Faster. The pain no longer distracts them. I hope it’s not a mirage.
I take one long, last drag of water from the rubber mouthpiece nestled against my chest. The water no longer tastes cold and refreshing as it had when I’d first sipped at the start of the morning. Instead it reminds of how most everything in my life starts out with the best intentions but rarely finishes with anything other than a lackluster bang. The water tastes dry and does nothing to quench my thirst.
One last left and this part of my day will be over.

Sunday, 7:52AM
I fight to get the bike back into the already crowded storage shed. So much crap in here – crap we’ll probably never use again but can’t ever seem to let go of – like the basket Kacie no longer uses on her own bike. This storage shed really isn’t so different from my mind.
Sixteen minutes after my second attempt at a first trial run began, I say goodbye to the bicycle that’s caused me so much pain in such a short amount of time. I turn the key in the doorknob, locking the bicycle in the dungeon where it will stay until I am finally ready to release it again.
Before climbing the three flights of stairs to our apartment, I walk across the parking lot to the Mustang. I really need to wash her, but not today. It’ll take every bit of energy I have left just to wash my own body.
I run my hand along her metal curves, tracing each number of the faded 289 chrome emblem on the front left fender with my middle finger. What would she say if she could talk? Would she too regret certain roads she’d traveled down?
A muted chuckle, only audible to myself and the Mustang, escapes from within me. I pat the car on its hood, much like I've done countless times before with the kids when they've done something good.
It’s funny how I’m going to spend so much time over the next three years reviving this car for Kacie in the hopes that the process will somehow bring us closer together, when it’s the very thing that will one day drive us farther apart.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Kids, Let's Leave the Shtick to the Professional. Okay?

My family is at it again.
Ever since going public with the man boobs debacle my home life has been anything but the unnormalness that it usually is. There is no escaping their not so subtle reminders that I need to lose some weight.
Perhaps it’s that I’ve started taking everything my family says out of context. Traci likes to remind me that my version of the story isn't always exactly how events unfold. Yes, it’s possible my perception of how things really happen might be a bit askew. Not much. But maybe a little.
Take the other day for instance.
In an effort to wean myself off sweets during the week, Traci had came up with the plan that a few Peanut M&M’s after dinner might be a sufficient way to squelch the desire for sugar. In theory it was a good idea.
Anyway, we’d just finished dinner and I was on my second handful of protein fortified candy while watching the last bit of evening news before “Wheel of Fortune.”
“Daddy,” Brady said, climbing onto the arm of the denim chair I’d nestled myself into, “you can’t eat those. You’re fat, remember? Better eat some fruit. It’s more helfy.”
I explained to him why it was okay to eat a few M&M’s.
“No more candy. You need to make better choices.”
My first mistake was trying to rationalize with the four-year-old about the nutritional value of a peanut covered in chocolate when he’d clearly heard Mommy harp on his big sister about her after school snack choices one too many times.
Knowing Kacie like I do, I glanced at her as she watched from the kitchen, perhaps feeling her perch on the stool behind the island was a safe enough distance to provide some sort of smart-aleck conjecture.
I stared her down, making sure our eyes held the other’s gaze long enough to convey telepathically that she had better not pipe in. She smiled, acknowledging her acceptance of the terms set before her. We were bound by a silent pact.
“Maybe you should give Daddy a vitamin, Brady,” she said. “That’s healthy.”
Having felt her idea was a solid one, Brady hopped off the chair and made his way to the kitchen, where he labored to drag the unoccupied barstool across the faux hardwood floor to the set of cabinets where the bottle of sour Toy Story chewy children’s vitamins were kept.
After climbing the impromptu trellis, maneuvering the landmine of dirty dishes on the counter, and climbing back down, Brady stood in front of me, gummy vitamin bottle in hand, waiting for me to complete my part in the mission as the child-proof cap impeded any further progress on his part.
“I want some too,” Kacie said.
I twisted the cap off with extreme ease, making sure he noticed my bulging bicep as it played its part in conquering the villainous bottle.
“Okay, Kacie. You get one like me. Daddy gets two,” he said, making no mention of having the strongest father in the world.
“Why does he get two?” she asked.
Something in her voice struck me as odd. I let it slide. The sour goodness of Buzz Lightyear and whatever other character Brady had handed me were begging to be devoured. M&M’s were a nice treat in their own right, but the chewy children’s vitamins were the real prize in our house.
“Because he’s fat and needs more vitamins to be helfy.”
Say what? How could my only son betray me like that? And when did I start raising a family full of traitors?
Kacie giggled. What looked like guilt behind her blue eyes made me question if the two of them had previously rehearsed the details of their little ruse. Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, my baby had girl turned into Geppetto and learned how to control her little brother. Brilliantly, I might add.
I made reference to kicking a dog while he’s down.
“You said we couldn’t have a dog until we got a house,” Kacie said, breathing more life into an already inextinguishable fire.
“And a baby,” Brady chimed in. “We get a baby when we get a house. Right, Daddy?”
“Not necessarily.”
“That’s what you said!” he cried, his voice changing from an ornery tone to pleading one. It was as if he’d just been told his destiny to be a middle child was no longer fated and that he’d have to suffer the miserable journey of loneliness while being the youngest.
I wasn’t about to explain to him that what I’d actually said however many months prior was that we couldn’t have a baby until we got a house, not that we can’t. Instead I let him sulk off to his bedroom and pout until he felt like he no longer needed to hide from the horrible father that didn’t love him enough to provide him with a baby brother or sister.
It could be said that I’m the one to blame for their dissention. I guess it’s inevitable that by being a wise guy dad my kids will grow up to be wisenheimers in their own right even though I’ve explicitly told them on numerous occasions that I’m in charge of comedy hour in our family. Throw in the X-Factor of telling the world via a media with which your 12-year-old daughter and her friends have total access to that your wife thinks you have man boobs and you may as well admit defeat before getting out of bed.
I love my life.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

You Dirty Birds


What is it with these flippin’ birds? Why are they so angry?
Our kids have been playing the demo version of Angry Birds for weeks now. I have friends that have been playing it for much longer and have insisted that I should give it a try because it’s fun and addicting. Apparently I need another diversion in my life because I have too much time on my hands.
But I finally gave in.
My Angry Birds obsession began on Saturday as Traci and I sat through what was supposed to be a ninety-minute timeshare spiel about how each of us deserved to take a vacation at least once a year, and that for just under four grand down and just over eighty bucks a month we could do exactly that.  
We had no intentions of or even money to buy a timeshare but wanted the free Dallas Stars tickets and three-day, two-night stay at Great Wolf Lodge, so our Saturday afternoon was simply a cost of doing business. Turns out it was so much more.
While waiting for our sales representative to rescue us from the filled to capacity lobby, Brady and I sat together in one of the overstuffed leather chairs so that he could show me the finer points on how to play.
Talk about a mistake. I’ve barely been able to put the game down in the twenty-four hours since being released from timeshare prison.
This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if I didn’t have two tests to study for. But if I’m being honest about the whole ordeal, I have to blame my children. They were in serious danger of getting into trouble with the Bedroom Inspection Nazi this morning for not picking their crap up, so I bribed them with the full version if they could just manage to cooperate and make magic happen and keep the ruckus to a minimum while they did it.
What seemed like a brilliant idea at the time has proven to be a potential source of blame should I fail out of college at thirty-five, because every time I start making some semblance of progress with my studies, one of them calls to me from the living room in dire need of my help in moving on to the next level.
Because I am a loving father and want my children to succeed at everything they attempt in life, I oblige. I mean, one level of Angry Birds won’t throw me too far off track, and I’ll have the satisfaction of being a hero and the eternal gratitude and love that they will look back at on their wedding days when they officially begin their own families.
Twenty minutes later I return to my studies, armed with my own satisfaction that after beating an additional seven new levels I have shown those pigs who really is boss and in the process have indeed obtained true hero status in my son’s eyes, who has given up on ever getting to play Angry Birds again and has moved to the couch with his Leapster.
Again I manage to settle into a good study groove, and again I hear the call of the wild from just beyond the closed door.
“Daddy, I can’t kill those pigs. Will you help me?”
Private Daddy reporting for active slingshot duty, sir!
“I’ll do it, Brady,” Kacie calls from the kitchen. Bird-blocked by my own daughter. Like a cobra she’d been biding her time, waiting to strike. I’m going to have to remember to make up some cockamamie reason to ground her.
“Kacie,” her mother shouts says almost instantly, “you need to be done with Big Birds and finish your homework.”
Yes. Bedroom Inspection Nazi to the rescue. I am going to have to remember to bring her flowers tomorr--
--Wait. Did she really just say what I think she did? No way. Traci has to know that it’s Angry Birds and not that yellow dude from PBS. She can’t possibly be that out of touch with reality, can she?
Who cares. Luckily for Kacie she has at least one cool parent. Even luckier for me, I’ve just been unbird-blocked. Sweet.
Like a ninja I begin to silently open the bedroom door and prepare to launch into a tuck and roll, snag the iPad off the couch in one effortless scoop, and lay my claim to Angry Birds once again.
“You need to be done too,” Traci says before I can even get the door half-way open. “Have you finished your homework?”
Dirty birds. All of ‘em. Brady for getting me hooked. Kacie for trying to steal my hero status. Traci for throwing down the gauntlet. Those flippin’ birds for being so angry and taunting me like that. Don’t they know who I think I am?
I let my silence do the talking as I shut the door and slink back to my cave with a major case of blue-bird. This one’s gonna smart.
But eventually they have to go to bed. When they do, those Angry Birds are all mine.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Um, My Eyes Are Up Here

I’ve been giving a lot of serious thought lately to riding a bicycle to work. I live thirteen miles away.
Co-workers ask if it’s the sudden spike in gas prices that’s caused my most recent hairbrain idea. I can’t deny that the pain at the pump doesn’t play a part, but the biggest reason behind my current motivation is the series of events that have come up recently that play a bigger role in defining who I am. Lemony Snicket might even call them unfortunate.
About six weeks ago, Traci and I were in the car driving from Point A to Point B when she asked “Are you getting man boobs?”
Natural instinct told me to pull the car over and tell her she was walking the rest of the way to Point B, which according to proposed Bike Route #1 would be a little over six miles. I mean man boobs? Really? How is that even remotely close to an appropriate question to ask your husband?
“I do not have man boobs,” I replied, which was true. Sure, my pects probably weren’t really pects capable of jolting to life on command and performing a series of dance moves underneath my t-shirt , but I was certainly in no danger of having to ask Kacie for advice on buying a bra for the first time either.
We rode in silence the rest of the way to Point B, where I pouted on the couch and watched television for the remainder of the night.
A few weeks later Traci called me at work and asked if I had a minute. All of her phone calls to me at the office begin that way. One day I’m going to respond with “For you? No. Goodbye.” and see what she says. Any bets as to how that will finish playing out when I get home? At least it’s not as bad as asking someone if they’re getting man boobs.
So anyway, she called me at work, and after we'd concluded that I did indeed have a minute, she proceeded to inform me that Brady had just informed her that when he grows up he wants to be just like daddy…fat.
“Did you wash his mouth out with soap?” I asked.
Her laughter implied that she hadn’t. In fact, she was laughing so hard she could barely continue the conversation. I hung up on her.
There is a multitude of ways that I’d be a proud father if my children took after me. Fat is not one of them.
Then, just the other day, a friend said to me “Brad, you have serious cookie issues. Cookie intervention may be put into play…” My thoughts? Friends let friends eat cookies, Susan. I’m just saying.
For fear of sounding like a chick, I want to look good in a bathing suit this summer.  The BP oil spill wasn’t the only thing that tainted the Florida beaches last year. This go-around, when I put on my swim trunks, I want find solace in knowing that my board shorts are not bored shorts and that they actually enjoy hanging from my body rather than clinging to it for dear life.
The only thing holding me back in my quest to ride a bicycle to work, besides the cold mornings and not actually having a bicycle is that I am trying to iron out the details of the route I will take both to and fro. Thirteen miles translates into just over an hour of intense exercise. Obviously I want the quickest route with the least amount of random incline, but I also need to find the safest path. Dallas drivers are crap, and I’d really like to not wake up dead one day because I was hit by a car. That would just piss me off.
Traci thinks I won’t do it. She says the distance is just too much. Perhaps after nearly fifteen years of marriage she understands my propensity to come up with what seems like a good idea at the time only to never follow through.
For me though, I guess it’s as good a time as any to find a jumping off point in my life where I can try and retake control.  What other choice do I have? I’m certainly not okay with walking into Victoria’s Secret on my 40th birthday for their Buy One Get One sale only to have my wife respond to the sales associate by saying “Oh, it’s not for me. We’re shopping for my husband.”