DadCentric

The World's Most Interesting Five Year Old

Here are some gems from my five year old son, all uttered over the course of the past few weeks. He is like the Buddha, or perhaps a pint-sized version of that guy in the Dos Equis ads.

"If you drink too much caffeine, you'll turn into a moth."

"I want to travel to Italy. And Ohio."

"My favorite kind of guitar is the air guitar."

"A woodpecker can't peck stale bread."

"Once you're done being a baby, you're old."

"Most people like the white string cheese. I like the orange string cheese."

"If you don't have a penis, then you have a vagina."

"When you breathe in air, you also breathe in farts."

"Superman wears his underwear on the outside...because he's Superman."

"People eat people food, but dogs eat dog food AND people food."

Barbie Goes Terminator

Now this is a Barbie I think we can all get excited about.

Created by Mario Caicedo Langer
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mariocaicedolanger

Back in Black, Back In the Saddle and, well, Back to Life

Over the past couple of months my creativity had all but disappeared. After losing my job—a fact my wife and I kept very close to the vest—my desire to write felt more like a chore than anything enjoyable. I slogged through posts, sometimes taking days to finish them, if I finished them at all. I can’t tell you how many times I would call up something I wrote only to read it and ask, “Who the hell wrote this? This isn’t me.” Delete.

I held out hope that since I was home with the kids, they would provide fodder for posts—kids say (and do) the darndest things, or so I’m told. And they do, but with job hunting and an inability to get them out into some fresh air, what with rain of Biblical proportions in the Northeast, I had to contend with their bickering (as young boys and toddler girls often do) and the unending string of Noggin theme songs slowly eating at my brain. Braaaains, Wubzy groans. Braaaaains, echoes Kai-Lan. All of them in service to their masters, Dora and Diego. The zombies di tutti zombies.

spreading the evening sky with crows

I cannot help but think that it is all a terrible mistake.

My children trust me. They trust me with all of the love and strength and confidence and joy and facile, "you're so silly" cynicism that their little hearts are capable of generating.

They trust me to have their best interests in mind. Always. To be able to look beyond the petty concerns of whatever occupies my day - stresses of work, my wife's work, family, extended family, daily logistics, long-term planning, existential ennui, emotional swings, exhaustion, the slow, inevitable decay of my carcass, the rapid and senseless descents into rage and confusion, the omnipresent fear of just not being good enough - and focus on them: to apply the whole of my attention and compassion upon the three of them with the infinitely quick and gentle touch of a hummingbird's wings in flight. Each feather-soft moment of contact an expression of love.

Our Side of the Mountain

My boys like the complaining.  Car rides are too long.  Walking hurts legs.  This Chateau LeBlanc is supposed to be served slightly chilled, not room temperature.  They never want to go anywhere.  Once they are there they never want to leave.  They never want mustard on their burger unless you make it without it.  They want interest on any money I may borrow. You know, all the standards. It's kind of pathetic.

So it was against all things better judgment and common sense that we took them on a hike.  Their first hike.  A long hike.  A hike filled with switchback trails and steep paths.  A hike that many adults have complained about.  Actually, it was kind of an accident.

Do you know what the boys said?

Rocky Mountain Highs, Cheap and Otherwise

The experienced trekker believes in bad omens: mine were car-related. The Xterra needed a new catalytic convertor; oh, and the exhaust manifold has a leak, which means that the cabin might flood with carbon monoxide, which would cause us all to pass out, which might lead to the SUV soaring majestically off of a mountain road and into the thin Colorado air, which would be bad. The Audi might need a new water pump: the service manager said that his guy found some "dry residue" on the engine cover which might be indicative of a coolant leak, which might lead to the trusty A4 sputtering and dying in the Utah badlands, which might lead to my and the fam experiencing something like this. Somehow I knew that my decision to drive the family to the Rockies would come with a price. 

Split, Maybe Spared

With one frame left, all that stood between me and one truly amazing score were six pins and a crying 7-year-old.

Not a memory I was aiming for when I decided to take advantage of our local bowling alley offering kids two free games every day this summer. (Note: This deal is irrefutable proof that the industry's profits come from the use of industrial-grade "cheese" sauce to cover all "food" from the snack bar and the rental of semi-disinfected clown shoes.)

The Butt Goes In The Back

We passed a threshold tonight.

Tonight, as is the biweekly custom in Castle TwoBusy, we bathed the offspring. They are grubby little creatures, and over the course of several days of digging in the dirt, slathering on sunscreen and feasting on freshly-slaughtered baby seals (family business), they begin to accrue a second skin perhaps even more thick and durable than their own natural epidermis. In keeping with one of the tenets of our social contract with America, we occasionally plunge them into hot, bubbly water to scrape away the debris and reveal, following excruciatingly careful paleontologic cleansing, the bright, shining and wondrous cherubim beneath.

Mistakes Are For The Imperfect

I almost made a huge blunder last night. Get this: I almost put the baby in the bathtub with his diaper still on. Can you believe that? Thankfully, I caught myself, and avoided making my first ever parenting mistake. As it stands, my fatherly record is still perfect.

I’ve come close to fucking up before. Like that time I was changing one of the boys’ diapers. I had him laying down on the changing table. I turned my back for a second and he rolled over, and would have rolled right off and landed on the floor had I not caught him in time. Yeah that would’ve sucked.

Roll Over, Hannah Montana! Tell Demi Levato the News!

Disney Channel, today is the day I officially apologize.

In the past, I have slagged you publicly and privately for your endless parade of crappy 'tween comedies that recycle the same stale material (your recent Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana proves how interchangeably the characters and plots are) and how these Devil Mouse Joints mesmerize and brainwash my young 'uns. But today, I give you mighty props, oh, purveyors of all things wholesome, pure and appealing to every demographic my children are in at any given moment.

Today, in the aisles of Target, my 9-year-old girl said she wanted to spend her slightly earned allowance, which had been supplemented by generous cash bonuses from assorted relatives over recent weeks, on two Hannah Montana CDs.

"Sure you want to spend all that money now?" I asked. "Won't that clean you out?"

"Yes," she said. "I just won't buy anything in at the American Girl store when I go to Chicago in October."

Saints be praised!

But it gets better than just this tit-for-tat swap of companies fighting to capture my (sorry, my wife's) almighty dollar through the eyes and whines of my child.

A few minutes later, in a aisle a little further down, she spots a line of boxed up acoustic guitars.

"Are you're still going to let me take lessons this fall?" she asked.

"Definitely. Most definitely," I said knowing that in a hour, when we get home, she'll be standing in front of a full-length mirror, CD blaring, strumming an imaginary Stratocaster.

"Cool."

Gotta start somewhere. I'm sure even Chrissie Hynde dug a few Frankie Avalon tunes when she was that age.

Pretenders - Popstar