Two Moments

When I told TheWife that in honor of Thanksgiving Independence Day Arbor Day Evacuation Day Take Your Hamster to School Day Father's Day we'd been asked to have our babymamas write testimonials to the awesome awesomeness of our dad fu, her first response was "You realize that you're in violation of the restraining order." Which, obviously, is just silly. What the American judicial system doesn't know won't hurt it. Nevertheless, following a week of pathetic begging on my part... she acquiesced. (Which, come to think of it, is not entirely dissimilar from how she ended up a babymama in the first place.)

With that in mind, I give you - for the very first time in blogland - TheWife.

1. "We're so screwed"
There we were, halfway through our second pregnancy. Cocky and feeling like everything was falling into place. After all, we had been through the baby thing already. We had graduated from baby novices to experts. Nothing could faze us. Our plan (okay, my plan) was falling into place. Two years between kids. Uncomplicated pregnancy so far. Weight gain in check. We were humming along.  

[Screech - sound of car crashing]

Until… we were told (very unceremoniously - that’s a topic for another blog) that we were actually having TWO babies. TWO GIRLS.  

Long pause. Silence. Minds racing. Nervous laughter.  

TwoBusy, clutching the table for support, barely able to form words, finally sums it up in a way that only he can, “We’re SO screwed.”  

2. Christmas
Okay, I'll admit it: TwoBusy is the Cadillac Escalade of Christmas parents, and I’m the Kia Rio. His holiday spirit sparks in early October. Online shopping and Amazon wish lists fan the flames so that by Thanksgiving, the holiday season is already in full glow.  While I fight it (the mess, the noise, noise, noise! call me Grinch) December barely arrives before TwoBusy has put up the Christmas tree. And what started as a single Christmas deer on our front lawn has become a whole herd.

Christmas Eve two years ago we were in a wrapping frenzy, and realized that the Fisher-Price kitchen we’d purchased needed assembly. Major assembly. With hundreds of tiny, cheap plastic parts. And crappy, incoherent directions. By midnight, Christmas Dad had been replaced by Angry Dad. After the about the 50th repetition of “I hate **!$%!! Christmas!!”, I feared that his holiday sprit had been dampened forever.  

A few hours later, the kids were up at dawn, recklessly ripping off wrapping paper. Our son spotted the last gift hidden in a corner, covered with a blanket.  He pulled it off and exclaimed, “LOOK, it’s our very own kitchen!” All three kids dropped everything and flocked to the new toy. This was the best gift they could imagine.  

After hours of getting drunk on pretend beer and make believe pizza cooked by three tiny chefs, I looked at TwoBusy.  The whole season had culminated in this moment of pure bliss, silliness and fun. And with some mirth and fatigue he said, ‘How can I top this next year?” Christmas Dad was back.