They try to put jewelry on the cat.
And get this: Cats don’t like to wear jewelry. Cartoonish antics ensue. I wish I could think of an appropriate metaphor that would describe the struggle between Murray the cat and my two kids as they try to dress him up with a necklace and bracelet, but the only thing I can come up with is it’s like watching a preschooler try to put jewelry on a cat.
Let’s be honest: I’m not sure which side of the your master list I fall on this year–naughty or nice? I’ve certainly had my share of indiscretions in 2012. The “great beer pong misadventure” probably tops the list (my apologies to the city of Atlanta for the trail of vomit and clothing I left on your sidewalks). But overall, I think I’m al alright guy. Case in point, I’m about to come clean to you. I’ve been lying to you for over 30 years now, sending you half-truth Christmas lists every December because I was too ashamed to be honest. Here’s an example: Remember when I was 12? I didn’t really want season tickets to the Braves. What I really wanted for Christmas was to see Tiffany Altman naked. But how do you write that in a Christmas letter? That your mom sends?
But I’m mailing my own letters now, and the letters of my children, so I figure it’s time to come clean and get straight to the point. Forget the Smart Wool socks I’ve previously asked for. Ditto World Peace—we’d just fuck it up anyway. Here’s my real Christmas List.
12 Things I Really Want For Christmas
1) I want my kids to eat all of their dinner, just once. Every chicken finger, every macaroni noodle, every sliced grape and green bean. And then, maybe after they clean their plate, they could look at me and say, “Hey Dad, thanks for cooking a delicious yet nutritious meal. We appreciate you.”
2) The next time I go away on a work trip, I want my wife to stop me as I get into the taxi and give me a naughty video that I “shouldn’t watch on the plane.” You know, like in that Samsung phone commercial. What a great wife that lady is! For any female readers out there, your husband wants you to make one of these videos too. Trust me.
3) Six hours of complete silence
4) A butler.
5) A golf cart.
6) I want couples with one kid to stop complaining about how difficult parenthood is, or how tired they are. Really? It’s tough to get one kid to sleep? To bathe one kid? To take one kid to the grocery store? People with mono-babies can suck it. You’re not allowed to talk to me until number two comes around. I don’t go around telling people with quadruplets how difficult raising twins is, now do I?
7) A babysitter that also mows the lawn.
8) A recording contract for Toots and the McGoots.
9) Let’s talk more about this video I want my wife to make me.
10) Two kids that wake up at 6am, look around and say, “let’s go back to bed until 8.” Or maybe one of them says, “I’m not that tired. I think I’ll just get up and vacuum and organize the playroom.”
11) Bombproof immune systems for the kids…or an antibiotic drip. Whichever is more practical for the elves.
12) A built-in vacuum system for the mini-van that sucks up goldfish the second the kids drop them.
When you have kids, people tell you a lot of things. Everyone tells you that you’re not going to sleep for at least a year. They tell you that kids are expensive, start saving for braces. They tell you that kids are finicky eaters. They tell you that tuition will cost $100,000 a year by the time your kid will be going to State. They tell you that you can kiss your hobbies goodbye. No more model trains or triathlons or furry porn…whatever you’re into, you won’t have time for it anymore. When you have kids, people tell you all kinds of things about how to get a baby to sleep, or how to transition from training wheels to a big boy bike.
But when you have kids, nobody bothers to tell you that one day, for no reason whatsoever, your kids will decide that they don’t want to look at doors anymore and will cover their eyes when approaching a door of any kind. The front door, the car door, the bathroom door at the mall… It will happen when you’re late for ballet. Or trying to get to church, or the bank before it closes. Maybe it’ll be a Tuesday or a Saturday, I don’t know, but it will happen and it will completely shut you down for 24 hours.
It’s tough enough to get my kids out the door on a good day, throw in “door-a-phobia” and suddenly, I’m operating way above my pay grade. My kids have a 70 percent success rate of walking through a door without suffering head trauma when they’re using all five senses. Take away sight and the success rate drops drastically. I can’t wait to try to explain this to DSS.
And forget trying to reason with your child. They’re three. There’s no reasoning with a three year old. You can bribe, but you can’t reason. And forget trying to ask your child why they suddenly can’t stand to look at a door anymore, because they’ll give an answer that goes something like this: “well, if I don’t want to look at doors anymore, then I don’t want to look at doors anymore.”
When you have kids, nobody tells you that those kids will do strange things, like try to lick you, or only eat orange food, or refuse to flush the toilet because they can’t bare to say goodbye to their poop, or suddenly decide that they don’t want to look at doors anymore.
When you have kids, nobody tells you that those kids will be weird.
Like most three year olds, my kids have become rather bossy. They’re getting older, more independent, and more worldly. They’ve seen a thing or two. They know what’s up. They’re pushing four for Christ’s sake, and they know how spaghetti and meatballs should be made! They know how their jacket should be zipped, and they’ve got no problem with telling me I’m not doing it properly.
It would be less annoying of they weren’t usually right.
The other night, I reached into the fridge for my third beer of the evening. My daughter cocked her head and, somehow channeling both my mother and my wife, said, “you’re having another beer, daddy?”
It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation.
Last week, we were headed to the park to meet some friends for soccer. It was one of those rare, warm winter days and everyone in the neighborhood was hell bent on making the most of it. We live less than a mile from the park, on low-traffic roads, so I loaded the kids into the bike trailer. It was a quick trip, so I didn’t think it was necessary for the kids to wear their helmets, but my son refused to leave the yard until I dug his helmet out of the back of the car. “Safety first, daddy.”
Addie has taken her bossiness to a whole new level, appointing herself to the role of my anger management coach. Like all stay at home dads, I’m prone to fits of rage. Someone, please tell me how you keep from seeing red when it takes an hour and fifty seven minutes to get a pair of shoes on a child? By the time I get that second shoe on, the kid has already taken the first shoe off and hidden the sock somewhere in the basement. Even Buddha would lose his shit, right?
Whenever I go into one of my tirades and threaten to melt every single toy the kids own in the chiminea my daughter looks me directly in the eye and says, “daddy, don’t be so angry. When you’re angry, you act like Captain Hook. I don’t like Captain Hook.”
Her logic is completely disarming. Not to mention those cute pigtails.
The whole situation has left me wondering who’s parenting who in my house.
I always thought that if my life was an ‘80s family sitcom, I’d be the unrefined but wise Tony Danza character: Unconventional, but good hearted and with a natural instinct for right and wrong. Tony Danza is the voice of reason in a topsy-turvy world. But it turns out, my kids are Tony Danza, which makes me what, Alyssa Milano? I’m certainly not the ambitious, work-focused mother. Wait, am I the oversexed grandma?
If my kids ever figure out how to turn on the TV by themselves, I’ll be completely out of a job.
Because the soccer moms here have nose rings and “666” tattooed in their cleavage.
Sorry, I couldn’t get a photo without looking like a complete perv. That’s the trouble with boob tattoos: so alluring, but so hard to document.
They talk to their food.
Daughter: “Hey salad, get in my belly!”
Also, they make you question the standard serving sizes of condiments. Is one ounce of ketchup enough to make those mashed potatoes palatable?
The best thing about taking your 3.5-year-old boy on a swanky studio stroll? When you’re in a crowded studio and you ask him if he needs to go potty, he says, “hang on. Let me ask my penis.” Then he looks down at his pants and says, “Penis. Do you have to go pee pee?”
Everyone knows that men make all of their decisions with their penis, but I think my son may be taking that concept a bit literally. Or maybe this is the start of a beautiful relationship between a boy and his imaginary friend. Either way, I see therapy bills in our future.
Last Friday, we decided to take the kids to vote in this little thing called the Presidential Election. Typically, I like to vote on Election Day—hamming it up with the volunteers and seeing all the old people dressed to the nines to practice their constitutional right makes me fall in love with Democracy all over again. But standing in an hour-long line with two bored preschoolers is enough to make anyone hate democracy, so we decided to vote early. The line was short and the kids were really excited to witness democracy in action. I was actually surprised at how enthusiastic they were when I told them we were going to vote. They jumped up and down and clapped. It took me a good 15 minutes to realize they thought I was saying we were going to go “boat,” not “vote.” Their enthusiasm waned when we got to the polling center and there was no water or boats.
But we pressed on, determined to teach our kids why America is the greatest country in the world (because after a year of attack ads, scandals, predictions, and crazy punditry from Fox News, we get to release all of our pent up energy by filling out a tiny bubble on a scantron, casting our vote for the person we think should spend the next four years steering our great nation into what will likely be an End Of Days scenario, if the aforementioned crazy Fox pundits are correct. Oh, and by the way kids, your vote doesn’t really matter unless you live in Ohio). But I digress. Back to democracy.
I spent some time trying to explain to the kids how everyone in the country gets to cast their vote for elected officials. “Sort of like when I ask you what TV show you want to watch,” I explained. The metaphor fell flat because typically, I discount their votes for Barbie and just put on Phineas and Ferb because Phineas and Ferb is awesome and Barbie is not awesome.
The kids may not have a firm grasp of the democratic process, or understand what the President of the United States does, but they know how to doodle on pieces of paper. And that’s exactly what they did. They each took a ballot and drew shapes, scribbled their name, created elaborate treasure maps with volcanoes and crocodiles and mountains. My daughter spent a lot of time circling the face of Mitt Romney, which, I have to admit, made me a little nervous. It would be a hilarious cosmic joke if my wife and I turned out two little Alex P. Keatons.
In the end, wisdom prevailed. When I asked my son who he’s voting for, he said, “Cooper,” and wrote his big “C” on the ballot before turning it in. (Who among us hasn’t resisted the urge to write in your own name on that presidential ballot?). For a moment, I was in a daze, imagining a world where my 3.5-year old son Cooper was President. Imagine if you will, an America that follows the whims of an easily distracted preschooler (Insert George W. Bush joke here).
As for my daughter, when I asked her who she wants to be President of the United States, she told me straight up: Christmas Lights.
A house divided. But at least they voted.
I need to start carrying a purse. My kids are old enough now that we’re beyond the “daddy bag” phase in our lives (thankfully, I no longer need to carry six diapers, a packet of wipes, pacifiers, and a menagerie of plush toys with us everywhere) but I still find myself toting around random shit, like half-eaten Cliff bars and Tinkerbell figurines that my kids simply can’t leave the house without. Cargo pockets just don’t cut it.
Do they make manly purses? Something in a Desert Storm camo, perhaps? Maybe with those tacky silver silhouettes of naked ladies you see on mud flaps.
A fanny pack would actually be great, but I’m not European enough to pull off a fanny pack.
I suppose I could go with a messenger bag, but if I’m not on a bike zipping through traffic with legal documents strapped to my back, can I really call it a messenger bag? Wouldn’t it just be an oversized purse with reflective tape?
Kanye West carries a purse, why can’t I? (Please don’t answer that.)
Why do kids have to come with so many accessories in the first place? I don’t feel comfortable leaving the house without an emergency juice box, a six-pack of string cheese, and an extra pair of socks. Why is that?
Don’t answer that either. I already know the answer: Because every once in a while, preschool kids pee themselves. Or throw a tantrum because there’s no string cheese in the car. Or suddenly look down at their feet and realize they’re not wearing Princess Tiana socks and they just CAN’T FACE THE WORLD WITHOUT THEIR PRINCESS TIANA SOCKS!
Yesterday, I was determined to take the kids on a couple of errands without stuffing my pockets with an arsenal of snacks and emergency wardrobe options. I got halfway to the door before turning back for two water bottles, a pack of crackers, some beef jerky, a toy train and a small Avengers notebook/crayon set.
We were only leaving the house for an hour, but I felt the need to pack an Apocalypse Survivor Starter Kit.
It sounds ridiculous that I can’t venture out into public without an arsenal of snacks and diversionary tactics, but it’s not ridiculous. It’s better parenting through paranoia. This is what goes through my head when I’m prepping a trip into the Great Unknown (AKA Target) with the kids:
What if we’re sitting in traffic and the kids demand to doodle? Better pack some crayons and paper.
What if we’re standing in line and their blood sugar crashes? Better pack some gummy bears.
What if there’s a potty emergency but only one toilet in the store being occupied by a childless guy who doesn’t understand the urgency of the phrase, “daddy, I think I need to go potty now.” Better pack an extra change of clothes.
What if the pediatrician has missed an iron deficiency in one of my children and they become anemic and begin craving dirt (it’s a real symptom, look it up)? Better pack the beef jerky.
My paranoia knows no limits, so I need a purse. A big purse, with multiple pockets and zippers, just like my mom used to carry. She carried the biggest purse you could imagine, full of half-used tissues and tic-tacs.
Shit. Put a Diet Tab in one hand and a romance novel in the other, and I’d be the spitting image of my mother. Except for my beard. My mom never had a beard.
But I digress.
Let’s talk more about man-appropriate handbags. I think there’s a market out there waiting to be tapped. Here’s what I’m thinking for the perfect Man-Purse (Tagline: The bag so manly, it will make single dudes wish they had kids just so they could carry it.)
Color: Hunter-vest orange.
Size: Big-ass
Key Features: 1) An insulated cooler pocket, big enough to hold a 16-ounce canned beer of your choice (PBR or Budweiser, it’s up to you). 2) A 16-inch flat screen panel with built in satellite and miniature X-Box (why hasn’t someone built a backpack with a TV and game system in it already?) 3) An insulated warmer pocket, for warm BLT’s (because cold sandwiches are for animals). 4) Built in football (because at any moment, your son is going to look up at you and say, “dad, can you show me how to throw a spiral?” and you need to be prepared. Even if you’re in a library). 5) Stain resistant, particularly when it comes to feces, blood, and apple juice (the Holy Trinity of Pre-school stains). 6) Is there anyway you could get a little shopvac in there too? To suck up all the goldfish my kids leave in teh mini-van? Because that would be sweet.
That’s where I’m at right now with the Man Purse. Feel free to add your own key features to the ideal man bag. Perhaps together, we could build a prototype and get this thing into stores before Christmas.
This is blatant bragging on my part. The kids are 3.5 and totally skipped the training wheels phase. Awesome enough on its own, but then my boy discovered the pump track at the local park. The rest is history.
Daddy Drinks 