Buzz kill

An e-mail from Pat sent Sept. 5, 2008:

There are several sounds in this house that will send a chill through me. The crash of whatever Conner is playing with. The sound of Maggie whining or crying about something Conner or Abbey has done. In the interest of equality, Abbey telling us that we "just don’t understand."

There is also the sound of the water dripping in the bathroom sink. Yes, I will fix that at some point. The dogs barking at nothing at all. The sound of the fridge or the front door opening and then the lack of sound because they didn’t shut it. The sound of the flies that came in because of the door being left open. The sound of SpongeBob Squarepants and Scooby-Doo.

All of these sounds are bad and drive me insane, but there is only one that will take the wind right out of my sails. It is the sound of the buzzer on the dryer telling me there is ANOTHER damn load of clothes that needs to folded.

I need a big dog

When a father has a pre-teen daughter, there is a point when a very large dog becomes a valid purchase. When I say large, I mean a dog the size of Hagrid's dog, Fang. A dog that is so big that feeding it will require a second job.

I have come to this day because of several things. The bras and panties in the laundry that are not my wife's. For all that is holy, can clothing manufacturers not make pre-teen panties with a little more coverage? The low-rider jeans that are entirely too tight. But the thing that drives me the most insane is the wandering eyes of the boys. Nothing to date has made me more likely to whack the boy du jour in the head than the wandering eyes. It was bad enough when the chest started showing up. I realize that this can't be stopped and she going to become a woman whether I like it or not. Since it is poor taste to harm the boys of the present and future, I think that a dog the size of a cougar would be the best idea.

Conner's Christmas List

Batman (the person)
A monkey (a real one - not legal in this state, so not happening)
Legos
A real chainsaw (not happening)
A real train (not happening either)
A camera that works like Mom's
Eggs (because he just broke one on my pillow - don't ask, it's a story for another day)
My own remote for the TV
A cow
Steak (obviously the cow will not be a pet)
Doughnuts (everybody needs dessert, I guess)
A date with a girl in my class

Meltdown Wednesdays

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to what we call Meltdown Wednesday. The children of the house are tired and generally in crappy moods on Wednesday. Since it has been raining for the last three days, they have been in the house and not able to go outside. This has not helped. Abbey is in middle school and is up early in the morning and doing homework as soon as she gets home. Pre-teen hormones are at a simmer for a couple of days early in the week, but between the hormones, the lack of sleep, homework and studying, she boils over on Wednesday. Conner is just into everything, and by mid-week he's bored and starts annoying Abbey. Most of the time I am good with this because this pre-teen nonsense is annoying, and her suffering means I'm not ... for now.
This glorious day has many great phrases in it, as well. One of my personal favorites is "There is no food in this house." In the interest of full disclosure, Cathy goes to the grocery store every single weekend. There's food; it's just not junk food. Another one is, "Are you going to do anything about Conner annoying me?" No, I am not going to stop it. Your mother and I kept having children until we had one to make your life completely miserable. Maggie don't have the stamina to annoy you all day, so we had Conner. Mission accomplished. I have never said this out loud, but damn it I want to.
This brings us to Maggie. This kid watches all of this happen around her and just soaks it in. She is the reason we have no food. While Abbey is complaining about the lack of food, Maggie is hunting and finding it. She watches the whining, moaning and the "You don't understand what it's like to be a kid" that goes on and just sits there. Maybe she's just waiting her turn to be a pre-teen and perfecting her 'tude.
You see, the rest of the world looks at Wednesday as hump day. The day that gets them that much closer to the weekend. We couldn't care less about the weekend. We just want get to bedtime without irrational crying or injuries.

Where did you hear that?

From Maggie:

"Last one on the couch is road kill."

What happened to rotten eggs?

I got home from work late last night and found this:


All I could think was, " 'Cause that's what you're supposed to do with Play-Doh and crayons."

The game's over

I just found another stuffed animal, a chocolate Lab, in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.

We declared the Lab the winner of hide and seek.

PETA watch list

My son is on the PETA watch list. The reason, you ask? It has nothing to do with his abuse of live animals or bad intentions toward live animals. It has to do with what he does to the stuffed animals in his room. Or so I thought.

Currently he has Tigger stuffed under the chair in the living room. Several of Maggie's Webkinz are in the freezer. Ord, from "Dragon Tales," is in the dishwasher. He has taken a very large panda bear and tied its hands together sitting in the living room (this one I helped with). He took his favorite bear in the world and put it on the ceiling fan (it wasn't running). Sadly, I didn't help with this one, and I am very interested in how it got there.

After I had located all the stuffed animals in their precarious places, I figured it would be a good time to have a talk about being nice to animals. I called him and he came out from the laundry room. I sat him down and told him that this is not how we treat animals, real or not. One of those father/son talks. I asked him why he was doing that to the animals, and he responded, "We were playing hide and seek." I asked about the animals' hiding places and the panda. Conner's response: "Stuffed animals can't walk, so I helped them, and the panda was it, silly." The reason for tying panda's hands: "To make it fair. He's bigger than them."



From Cathy:
What Pat didn't know when he wrote this was that earlier in the morning, Conner was making plans to cut the panda's head off with his chain saw. He settled for giving the bear a buzz cut and then cramming his much-too-small baseball helmet on its head.

BFD

It is officially time to make a better effort at watching what I say around the boy. The girls have learned that when Dad says certain phrases or starts ranting like a sailor on leave, they probably shouldn't repeat that. I have made a great error with Conner. He was in the living room, and he had left his shoes and clothes in a pile after changing - something he no doubt learned from Abbey. I explained to him that they needed to be in the laundry room. When I say that I explained, I mean that I used a loud tone of voice. The tone that makes the neighbors feel that they need to call DSS. He looked at me without moving off the couch and said, "BFD, Dad, they are fine right there." Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Father of the Year.

Yuck

A text message from Pat:

Maggie just wet willied Abbey. I'm going to pee on myself.

One guess who taught them how to do it. Hint: It wasn't me.

The dentist sucks

In order to make a new mother happy, I have a story for ya.

A couple of days ago I took the girls to the dentist for their check-ups. There are a few things that drive me nuts about a dentist's office. The first thing is that the decor in the waiting room just looks expensive. The chairs are very comfortable, the paintings and artwork are stunning. The carpet always looks brand new. The bar where the receptionists sit has a granite countertop. You just get the feeling that this going to an expensive visit every time you walk in. The least they could do is make it look like you might get out of there for less than a grand.

The next is that they could have just a little something for the kids. I realize that they hand out toothbrushes, but they claim that they are a family dentist office. A TV wouldn't kill anyone. The auto repair shop has one and it's not a family auto repair shop. No, they have nothing, so when the Category 4 hurricane that is my son made landfall at the office (with no TV), it was not a good thing. The upside is that they will get you in and out in a hurry.

The girls were the only ones getting teeth cleanings and X-rays done, so they took them at the same time. These are not dumb people. Conner had crawled under a chair and reappeared in between some high school girl's legs, popped his head up and just said "Hello." After that incident, it was all about getting the storm to move on.

Abbey's appointment went well. No cavities, but some fragments of baby teeth hanging around. They will be pulled next week. The dentist, receptionist and her parents have told her that it will be very little pain before, during and after. When this is proven to be a load of crap, which it is, look out Winston-Salem.

Maggie's appointment sucked. This is not a term that you will hear a dentist use. They should, but they don't. Not a lot of humor in a dentist's office. Maggie has no cavities but is missing 7 adult teeth. I saw the X-ray and the damn things just aren't there. So when the baby teeth fall out, she is out of luck for a natural replacement. She will be in braces early to move some teeth forward and will have implants for the spaces that can't filled.

I talked to the dentist for several minutes about this, and I asked him to ballpark the overall cost. He was thinking 12 grand give or take. For the love of god, our car and van aren't worth that.

The last thing that you do before you leave is write the check. It's normally a big check, and to make matters worse, they insist on making another apppointment for the girls so that they can get another check-up. Someone has to pay for the Queen Anne chair and one-of-a-kind Andy Warhol.

One of our kids had better be a dentist or we have to find a dentist willing to do work at cost.

Abbey's prediction

When Abbey got up this morning, she came into our room, sat down at the computer and looked at ESPN.com.

"Yes! The Steelers won."

Why is that good, I asked?

"Because every time the Redskins lose the night before an election, the White House changes parties."

Guess we know which candidate she's pulling for.

Point Taken

An e-mail from Feb. 15, 2008.
It seems that you are trying to make a point to me. You have left your shoes in the dining room for the last few days. At first I thought that this was just that you were tired from work. Second I thought that you were just being lazy. Both very valid but not it. It finally hit me what your point is. You are trying to tell me to get my golf clubs out of the dining room, aren't you? Personally I think that they lend themselves to the decor. I keep them clean, and the bag is colorful. I was going for the golf/traditional home look. Hey, this is thought for a magazine. We could get the cover story. The reason I leave them there is that the kids leave their stuff everywhere and I am sick of fighting it, so I am joining them. Just remember that it is clean under the clutter. The more stuff we leave in the floor, the less we have to sweep the floor.
Also, it helps me because when I clean this crap off the floor, the kids are always yelling that they can't find their stuff.

Milestone not reached yet

Over the last 11 years, we have seen may milestones in our children's lives. Learning to sleep through the night, walk, talk (a little overrated), use the potty, run, get dressed on their own (very underrated), read, write and various other things. One that is very important to me is learning to swing without being pushed. There is nothing that drives me more nuts than the pushing of the swing. This boy can ride a scooter, hit a baseball, punt a football, climb a tree and jump off the countertop. Conner has not mastered swinging yet. He will, but in the meantime the girls and I have tried everything. Maggie has tried swinging next to him to visually teach him. He just sits there and stares and then calls me to push. Abbey, being the smart one, has tried to explain it to him by using scientific terms. This didn't work. Hell, I didn't even understand it, but it sounded very intelligent. I am pretty sure he is just lazy about this. Once they learn to swing, there is a whole world of things that open up for the parent. I have seen other parents at the playground talking to each other while their kids swing on their own. I'm not real sure I want to talk to them, but the option would be nice. You can mow more than 30 feet of the yard at one time. For God's sake, I could actually sit down. It wouldn't happen, but I have a goal.

Conner's trip

An e-mail from Pat from Nov. 5, 2007 (Conner had just turned 3):
Your son decided that he needed a little adventure trip today. On this trip he experienced new friends, obstacles, darkness and danger. He traveled under our bed.
The new friends that he met are the dust bunnies, and there were a whole colony. Bunnies multiply quickly even if they are dust bunnies. He found several golf balls and, a few pairs of winter gloves that belong to someone outside this house 'cause I have never seen them before.
He got to travel around all the forgotten shoes you and I have. I think I had 1 pair and you, of course, had 15. He obviously experienced darkness because I could hear his head hitting the box springs 10 or 15 times. No one said that he was going to be bright.
Finally he got to meet danger head on because somehow he got in a sitting position that only a yoga master could do and got stuck. His head was inside the box spring and he was very calmly yelling at the top of his lungs, " I AM STUCK DADDY, HELP ME NOW!"
I had to get under the bed and make sure that his head was not next to a spring or if he was already hurt. I am sure that I looked like the witch in the "Wizard of Oz."
After I got a picture of the situation underneath I lifted the bed up and he came out pretty easily. He then decreeded to all that "I not going to do that again."
In the words of the oldest child, Conner learned yet another life lesson. Time will tell if he has much of a long-term memory.