The six scariest words you’ll hear from your three-year-old: Look daddy, I have glitter glue.
The six scariest words you’ll hear from a heavily bearded man who drinks too much and spends most of his time with two three-year-olds: I’m blogging for a women’s magazine.
What could possibly go wrong? Check it out.
Read Breathe, people. Read Breathe.
Parents lie to their children. That’s a fact of life. Some do it better than others, but we all do it. Could you imagine a world where parents were honest with their kids?
“Actually, Timmy, there’s a really, really good chance that you won’t be an astronaut. Considering your complete inability to understand long division, you’re probably going to sell cars when you grow up. Now let’s talk about Santa Claus.”
So we lie. Mostly about the little things. My parents were great at it. The most famous lie my parents ever told their kids happened during a move from Georgia to Texas. My parents told their kids that it was against the law to transport a dog across state lines.
Brilliant. The dog was a pain in the ass, they didn’t want to take him along. I understand this now, and it serves as inspiration for my own suite of lies that I rely on to get through the day.
The key to a good lie, is to lay the blame on a third party. For instance, let’s say you want your kid to wear a jacket. Tell him it’s an order from his pediatrician. “Dr. Love (our pediatrician) says you have to wear a jacket when it’s below 50 degrees. I’m sorry, son, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
We lay a lot of shit on Dr. Love. “Dr. Love says I’m not allowed to carry you on walks anymore. You have to walk on your own. I know, I think it sucks too. We should talk to Dr. Love about it the next time we see him.”
“Dr. Love says you’re big enough now to open the fridge and get daddy a beer…”
You see where I’m going with this. So, here are five lies I’m okay with telling my children.
1. Elmo is sad because you didn’t take a nap. (Simple, effective…no kid wants to disappoint Elmo. You can use that love to your advantage.)
2. Princesses always pick up their toys after they’re done playing. (I’ve never met a princess, but something tells me they don’t spend a lot of time cleaning up after themselves.)
3. Every time you flick the lights on and off, a fairy dies. (Harsh? Sure. But do my kids constantly flick the lights on and off, anymore? No.)
4. We have to leave this park right now, because there are killer bees. (This one works, but it comes with consequences. My kids are really scared of bees now.)
5. Mommy and daddy have a work meeting, that’s why we have to get a babysitter. (There is no work meeting. Mommy and daddy just need three hours of peace and quiet and a meal that doesn’t include french fries. Okay, even that was a lie. We’re totally ordering the french fries.)
So, parents, what are the best lies you tell your children? Or, what lies did your parents tell you as a kid?
This is what my son asked to put on the grocery list this week: Pez, batteries, and chocolate donuts. I asked if that’s all we needed from the store for the entire week—maybe we should add some milk, or some veggies—but he stuck to his guns. Pez, batteries, and chocolate donuts. Childhood obesity aside, you’ve gotta respect the kid’s whimsical outlook on life.
It reminds me of a story my mom likes to tell about how I tried to run away as a little kid. She told me I couldn’t run away because I didn’t know how to cook or tie my shoes. I said I’d eat cookies and wear loafers.
Cute, until you realize I was 12 and still couldn’t tie my shoes.
Anyway, there was a time, not too long ago, when I would’ve taken my son’s challenge and stocked the grocery cart with nothing but ding dongs and Duracells. Carpe diem, mother fuckers.
But I don’t carpe diem so much anymore. I’d like to say it’s because I’ve matured, but mostly it’s because I have to get up in the morning and spend a solid 12 hours catering to every whim of my two children. At about 6am, my kids will start asking me, “what are we going to do today, daddy?” I can hold them off with cartoons for a while, but by 7am, if I don’t have a firm plan for the day that includes a craft project and the slim possibility of them being able to pet a live lion, it’ll get “Lord of the Flies” up in here real quick.
I can remember the last time I seized the day. Actually, I can’t remember the actual seizing of the day, but I remember the day after, when I spent a significant amount of time throwing up loudly in the bathroom while my daughter cried outside the door, and repeatedly asked her brother, “what’s wrong with daddy?”
Yeah, that’ll fix any inclinations to carpe the fucking diem.
And let’s say I did some carpe diem-ing with my children, threw caution to the wind and fed the family chocolate donuts for breakfast, lunch, and snack. Do you know what happens when my kids skip their nap? The cat will get shaved.
These days, I have a new motto: Seize the tomorrow. Carpe, uh, tomorrow (sorry, the only Latin I know comes from Dead Poets Society). It takes copious amounts of planning, saving, resting, and monitoring of blood pressure levels to truly seize the tomorrow. Most of the time, I fall completely short, and only manage to seize the couch.
Ok, I know this is a negative topic and the world has enough negativity in it (See Fox News and MSNBC). But I’m stuck on a grounded airplane in 100-degree heat, so I feel like being negative right now. Tomorrow I’ll be in a better mood and I probably won’t hate any of these people. Except number 4. I’ll always hate number 4. So, here you go. People I hate right now.
1) People who read books in public. Fuck you and your free time. What, you have nothing better to do on a Tuesday at 2pm than sit in a coffee shop and read the Steve Jobs biography? Get a job.
2) People who close their eyes when they hug someone and hold on for longer than three seconds. A hug should be like taking a charge in basketball—contact should be brief and largely imagined. Better yet, why not just wave goodbye?
3) People who say, “I’m super picky about my falafel.”
4) Anyone wearing a scarf.
5) Parents who go to parenting workshops about conscious parenting. Stop trying so hard. I’m not even entirely sure what conscious parenting is, but I think it means being sober through the majority of your kid’s childhood, so count me out.
6) People who walk around the airport wearing their neck pillows. Is it really too heavy to carry in your hand?
7) Speaking of pillows, my wife hates people who insist on bringing their pillow from home when they travel. I totally agree with her, and I’ve never loved her more than when she’s bashing a complete stranger based on an insignificant detail like this.
8) People who upload Facebook photos of the vegetables they grew in their garden. Bravo, you planted a seed and watered it. I’m supposed to hit the “like” button for this? My toddlers can do this. And I’m not just bitter because everything I stick in the ground literally turns to dust. I’m not. I swear.
Please chime in. Tell me who you hate right now. And don’t say self-absorbed bloggers, because that’s too easy.
I understand that putting an above ground pool in your front yard is a bit white trash, but what’s the ruling on a kiddie pool in your living room? My instincts tell me that this also lands squarely on the white trash side of the line, but my kids are trying to convince me that it’s a good idea…and I’m starting to believe them. Is it possible that putting an inflatable kiddie pull in your living room is so far on the “white trash” side that it actually comes back around to the “awesome” side? Like dune buggies, Budweiser tall boys, and Dukes of Hazard reruns?
Think about this. If we keep the pool in our living room, I can sit in it, while drinking a Budweiser tall boy and watching Dukes of Hazard reruns. Nobody in their right mind would say that’s anything but awesome. I’m open to incorporating a dune buggy ride in there too, as long as it doesn’t ruin the rug.
The kids are working on a super-secret father’s day present in day care today. The teacher won’t tell me what it is and the kids aren’t talking either. We live in one of those alternative towns that’s always on the “Best Places to Live” lists, so I assume the present is something completely worthless, like a Tibetan prayer flag made from recycled restaurant napkins. Fucking hippies. Not that I ever gave my own dad anything worthwhile on Father’s Day. I leaned heavily on the standards (ties and grilling paraphernalia), because, like most kids, all I ever saw my dad do was go to work or operate the grill. He’s retired now and those are still his two favorite things to do.
I think it’s safe to assume the kids won’t be making me an ashtray. I wonder who was the last kid in America to make his dad a Father’s Day ashtray in school? Is there a name for that generational cutoff—the kids who were raised in an era where all dads smoked? The Second-Hand Generation?
Whatever the kids make me, I’m sure I’ll cherish it forever…or at least until they go to bed and I can safely throw it away without causing a tantrum. My wife keeps asking me what I want for Father’s Day, and I keep telling her that the kids have already given me the greatest gift ever. In reality, I want what all dads want: pornography and booze. But some stupid federal laws keep my kids from buying either of those things, so I’ll just smile and take the tie or grilling utensils, just like my dad did.
Besides, we all know Father’s Day isn’t really about fathers. It’s about mothers having a designated day to be nice to their husbands in order to assuage their guilt about incessantly nagging those husbands the other 364 days out of the year. A friend of mine suggested we take a guy’s trip over Father’s Day weekend. On paper, it looks like a good idea—if there’s one day out of the year a dad should get to do what he wants (drink beer on the beach and look at college chicks in bikinis), it’s Father’s Day. But I quickly declined and advised the other dads in the group to do the same. The delicate balance of our marriages would be disrupted if we deny our ladies that singular opportunity to repent for their year of sins.
As for Mother’s Day, that’s obviously a sham too, because as we all know, everyday is Mother’s Day. The entire institution of marriage depends on the husband doing exactly what the wife wants day in, day out. She chooses the restaurant, the movie, the weekend activities, the vacation, the car…Any dude who disagrees is either naïve or divorced. You may think you’re the master of your own universe, but peek behind the curtain and you’ll see your wife is really pulling all the strings.
Do I sound bitter? I’m not. Like all happily married men, I consider myself lucky to be in this situation. There are two good reasons why we’re happily subservient: 1) Our wives are pretty. They’ve agreed to hang out with us and let us see them naked for the rest of our lives. Awesome. 2) Our wives are smarter than we are. You can disagree with this all you want, but the fact is, if men truly called the shots in their family, the household would resort to something like Thunderdome. Nobody wants that. Long live Mother’s Day.
Does anyone know where I can get a used starter pistol? The kids have begun riding their balance bikes in earnest, and they’ve already discovered the joy of racing each other down the hill next to our house. I think a starter pistol will make each race a bit more official. I’m working on a yellow jersey in a size 4T too.
As for that racing hill, there’s nothing to worry about: it’s just a ridiculously steep hill with a blind curve on either end and heavy traffic during daylight hours. At night, it’s a popular hangout for prostitutes, so broken glass and used condoms fill the gutters (no kidding). Oh, and it’s surrounded by poison ivy.
Standard Chinese Downhill Rules apply: cheating is encouraged and the kids can use any means necessary to knock each other off their bikes. These are their rules, not mine. My daughter’s favorite thing to do is let her brother get ahead of her, then speed up and sideswipe him. To be honest, I’m hoping the starter pistol will give me a bit more authority when I try to enforce basic rules like, no running over someone after they’ve fallen off their bike. You know what they say in those inner city movies: “no gun, no respect.” That certainly applies in my household too. It seems the older the kids get, the less control I have over any given situation. I can strongly suggest they eat their vegetables and not throw beer bottles at each other, but ultimately, it’s up to them what they throw at each other. The best I can do is surround them with soft items like plush toys and marshmallows and hope they make good decisions. Sadly, they always manage to arm themselves with something sharp that will likely result in a tetanus shot. The sharper the weapon, the funnier the situation is to them.
Oh, to be three and parented by a man with no sense of authority. Lucky little bastards.
My sister-in-law was married recently, with my wife’s entire family descending onto a set of cabins deep in the woods of Western North Carolina. I’ve known The Bride since she was about 10, so it was a little surreal to see her get married. Not that I got to see much of it. I was busy chasing the kids around the field all weekend, always trying to corral them toward the kegs so I could top off my beer. But the ceremony was beautiful, my sister-in-law is married to a great guy, and I got to dance with my wife, which pretty much never happens. The weekend was also full of wonderful father-son moments for me and my boy. Sure, I was charged with taking care of both kids all weekend, but my daughter quickly found herself at the center of a gaggle of “big girls.” The pack of seven-year-olds spent the entire weekend taking turns braiding my daughter’s hair. So that freed me up to spend some quality time with the boy. Here are three tear-jerking father-son moments from the weekend. Cue “Cats in the Cradle.”
Cooper had his first beer.
Not really. He had sweet tea for the first time. But I told him it was a beer, and he went around the rest of the weekend pulling on the coattails of random family members, asking, “will you get me another beer?” Classic.
I figured out what toddlers are good for: cutting through long bathroom lines.
Nobody wants to see a three-year-old in a seer sucker suit pee himself. Did I imply to a line full of older ladies that my boy had to go sooner rather than later? Did I take advantage of their kindness and rush my kid into the bathroom ahead of them only to use the potty myself? Maybe. I think it’s important not to judge others too harshly.
Cooper hit on two older girls at once.
Specifically, he walked right up to two sisters (seven years old and five years old) and said, “you girls wanna get in the hot tub with me?” That alone is impressive for a three year old, but consider this: he wasn’t wearing any pants at the time. All of a sudden, “you girls wanna get in the hot tub with me?” has a bit more swagger when you’re completely naked. That’s my boy.
I was doing some light math recently (always dangerous when I start tinkering with subtraction) and I realized that I’m closing in on my 20th high school reunion. It’s a mere two years away. I had to double check my math because, well, because I’m so damned young, it simply can’t be right. But…carry the one…pie…yep. My twenty is just two years away. Which means I can’t be as young as I think I am. I must be well into my 30s.
Bummer.
Now, an argument could me made that high school reunions aren’t relevant anymore. What, with Facebook and self-indulgent blogs (I’m talking about your blog, not mine. My blog is art), you could say some of us have never actually left high school. Not only do I know what that weird kid who sat in the back of my Spanish class is doing for a living these days (his Linkedin profile says accountant, but really he’s a cashier at Golden Corral), I know what he had for breakfast this morning, and that he’s “psyched to see how this season of Secret Circle turns out.”
And yet, I feel the gravitational pull of the high school reunion. I skipped the 10 year, got stupid drunk at the five year and rode a mechanical bull so I may as well have skipped it, but the 20 year has a certain amount of weight to it. Twenty years is a significant amount of time–plenty of time for my classmates to have grown into interesting human beings.
Which means I have exactly two years to grow into an interesting human being myself. I have a lot of work to do.
There are about eight foreign countries I need to travel to before the reunion. I’m not sure about the specific countries, but I feel like eight is a good, “well traveled,” number to shoot for. What country is hot right now with the ex-patriot crowd? Pakistan? Something with a “stan”? I’ll start with Pakistan, then maybe hit Canada.
I have to find my abs. I can’t remember where I left them (in a bar, probably) but I know it’s been a long time since I’ve seen them.
I have to write a novel. Better yet, I need to write a screenplay, because, frankly, I went to a Georgia public school, so none of us class of ’94 Hoyas can read too good (Go Hoyas!)
I should buy one of those hip hybrid sports cars. The one that Clooney drives. Can you fit two car seats in there?
And any self respecting man should be onto his second marriage by the 20-year reunion. That’s trophy wife territory. Luckily, my wife is trophy hot, so I’m good there. I’ll just buy her a slutty dress and refer to her as Nadia all night long.
That’s a big to-do list to knock off between now and 2014. Fortunately, my high school performance was so underwhelming in every category from sports to grades, that I’ve set the expectations very low. If I show up without a house arrest bracelet on my ankle, people will probably be pleasantly surprised.
We’re toying with the notion of buying a mini-van, a move that, according to absolutely everyone we consult, will eliminate any remaining vestige of hipness from our lives. Luckily, we’ve never been hip, so there isn’t much to lose. That’s not to say that when I was a young lad daydreaming about what my life as an adult would be like, I pictured cruising around in a white Toyota Sienna. A vintage Woody with surf boards hanging out the back is more what I had in mind for my future. I would catch killer tube by day, and sleep in the car parked at the nearest Circle K by night. To feed myself, I would bed a series of artistic, but gullible college girls, mooching off their unlimited meal cards at the university cafeteria. Dudes, raise your hand if you had a similar dream. Now, keep that hand up if you’re actually living that dream.
Yeah, me neither.
I have my beautiful wife to blame…er…thank for that. If it wasn’t for her, I’d truly be living in a van down by the river (how awesome would that be!?). And if it wasn’t for her, I’d drive my 1998 diesel Jetta until the wheels fall off, which by the looks of things, could be tomorrow.
So, the mini van enters into the equation. Even though I’m not clinging to any delusions that I am young or hip (cool, rad, boss…what do kids say these days?) I’m still not gung-ho about buying a mini van. My wife says we need the space, but I see families of nine pile in and out of 1999 Honda Civics all the time. She says we need something more reliable than our 12 year old cars, but really, with the glaring oversights in manufacturing practices these days, what does the word “reliable” mean anymore?
In order to test out the world of mini vanning (yes, it’s a verb too), we’ve rented one for a week. My wife is hoping it will convince me that a mini van will make our lives so much easier. What she doesn’t realize is that there’s only one reason a man buys a van: the potential for mobile sex. That’s the long and short of it, period, the end. If you see a guy driving a van, be it a mini or full size, you can be certain he’s on the prowl. At the very least, there’s an inflatable mattress stowed in the back and a disco ball ready to descend from the ceiling given the right opportunity. That’s not a sunroof on the ceiling, that’s a mirror, baby!
But I digress.
I will admit there’s more room in the mini. It has more square footage than our house, which could come in handy. Since my daughter has developed a serious dress fetish, we’ve quickly run out of closet space. I could easily use the spacious trunk as my closet. Would it be weird if I wandered out there every morning wearing a robe and drinking coffee to get dressed? What if I wasn’t wearing the robe?
Just driving the MV around town for a day, I’ve noticed one undeniable truth: Blasting Jay Z from a mini van makes you look like a jackass. Cranking George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex,” on the other hand, is perfectly appropriate.
With all this talk about mini vans, I think we’ve overlooked the obvious solution to our problem. We need a solid family car–what about a golf cart. Before you scoff, I’d like to point out three things.
Imagine you’re in stand still traffic and all you have to do is drive up slowly to the car in front of you and ask, “mind if I play through?”
It doesn’t get much more practical than that.
Daddy Drinks 