The Thin Line Between Being a Dad and Being a Guy

The Language of Love, Part II

Our nanny is a lot like Tony Montana.  She is tough as hell, has a killer accent and does not get high on her own supply.  I know this because she gets high on my supply—assuming she gets high on Raisin Bran.  When you’re approaching 40 (or past it… whatever), you have certain preferences that quickly turn into stockpiles.  I happen to have a large supply of Raisin Bran.  I like Raisin Bran (I am capitalizing it because it’s that good). My nanny likes Raisin Bran too.  And she’s eating it… rapidly.  Behind my back.  It’s like an octogenarian nightmare, but obviously for me it’s only half as scary.

I digress…

Now I’m not sure if out nanny has ever killed her best friend for sleeping with her sister, but she sounds exactly like Tony Montana:

Nanny: “I cannot find The Beast’s chew.”

Me: He took my chew?

Nanny: What?            

Me: What?

This is a typical morning.

Per part one of this post, her kick-ass accent is filtering its way to the Princes and the Diva. For them, there is no silent T in ballet… it’s ball-ET.  Their friend is Wheel, not Will. And they have started referring to their toys as “llello”.  

She is teaching The Beast Spanish, which is great. Except my some of my first son’s words are in Spanish and I have NF idea what he’s talking about.  But now I get to learn Spanish. Which is nice.  Who knows what that kid is going to sound like, but I’d rather have him sound like Tony Montana over one of the Wiggles.

A little Spanish accent is a small price to pay for a great nanny. I mentioned earlier that The Diva still sounds like a nanny that we had over a year ago…. before she could talk.  You gotta think if they can remember how something sounds after so long, they will probably remember what they heard.  Just because they don’t talk, doesn’t mean they aren’t listening and what we say now is what we’ll hear later.  I guess it’s time to curb the F-Bombs.  Maybe we should dispense with Pinkalicious and start reading Homer and Hemmingway… or maybe something in Mandarin.  And I guess it’s probably not a good idea to let them watch so much Scarface.

Briefly Exploring the Boundaries

The Diva has just turned 3.

Me: If you swallow that toothpaste again, then I’ll give you a time out.
The Diva: Then I’ll spit on you.
Me: Then I’ll give you another time out.
The Diva: ok...

The Language of Love, Part I

Our first nanny was from an island in the Caribbean.  She absolutely loved our kids and was extremely good at her job.  We were sorry to leave her (we moved).  But she had one glaring flaw that we really didn’t appreciate until several months later.  Even though English is her native language, she absolutely butchered it. She got the tense wrong: “She go to the store.”  She got the case wrong: “I gave it to she.” And every now and then, she’d just omit a word or two: “Angelina Jolie she my girl!” Now I ‘m certainly not judging… and I’m sure this is a combination of a lot of things.  Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s wrong; maybe they aren’t even mistakes, just a local dialect.  Actually… no.  It was shitty grammar… plain and simple. But at the time it was actually kind of charming and frankly, pretty damn entertaining.

Until the kids learned to talk.  And now The Diva sounds just like her. It’s like a trip down memory lane.  Fortunately, we really liked our nanny.  Unfortunately, her grammar really sucks.  The crazy thing is, she started talking a few months after we moved. It’s a little too coincidental, which means she had been harboring poor grammar for several months, waiting for the skills to unveil it. It’s pretty wild that the things we say now come back out of those little mouths so many months down the road.  It makes me wonder if 16 months is too young for The Beast to be listening to so much DMX.

So not only has Sarah started sounding like a St. Vincent tour guide, it seemed to have sparked something in our oldest daughter and now she’s hopped on the Island Express. It’s like a Reggae festival around our house (minus the weed), which obviously solidifies our house’s position as the coolest house on the block.

It is a sad fact that if you have a full time nanny, they spend more time with your kids than you do (at least when the kids are awake).  It makes sense that they have such an impact on the kids… not just the way that talk, but their mannerisms, interests, beliefs and even their morality.  This is particularly interesting at the moment because our current nanny sounds exactly like Tony Montana.  Stay tuned...

Camp Baby Pigs

My family spent this past week at our annual camping trip in the Sierra Nevadas, which is essentially an excuse to sit in the woods among a variety of rodents and drink some beer without anybody casting a glance askew.

We have done this at Family Camp for the past six years, and it has been an interesting transformation, to say the least. We've been bringing Thing 1 and Thing 2 since they were babies, and to see them grow and evolve has been both refreshing and somewhat challenging.

But before I broach that topic, let me tell you the highlight of the week: My wife and I come back to our tent one afternoon to change for the pool, and as I'm pulling the towels off the line I hear my wife scream, "Stallion, there's something moving in my suitcase and there are baby pigs in there. Please get them out."

"Baby pigs? What are you talking about?"

With a whimper: "Baby pigs. Please go look."

So I pull the suitcase out of the tent, turn it over, shake it upside down and sure enough a mouse falls out and goes scampering away.

"Baby pigs?" I said.

"Don't you see those two pink things on the ground?"

Actually, she was right. There were two pink bodies about an inch long laying on the ground. And I have to admit, they did look like baby pigs -- though much smaller. Turns out, the mouse had chewed a hole in the suitcase, climbed inside, ate through four of my wife's shirts to make a nest and birthed two baby mice in there. More than a little bit disgusting. So I gathered the baby pigs in a cup and threw them in the woods, only to be asked by my wife if I was sure an army of angry mice weren't going to attack us in the middle of the night looking for their offspring.

(I must say, ever since seeing Ratatouille, I have second thoughts about being mean to rodents of all kinds. But in my wife's suitcase? C'mon, even my patience has some limits.)

Anyway, that was just one snippet of the week. But the bigger issue is this: Thing 1, now 6, can go off on his own comfortably and play with his group of friends and essentially never see us the entire week.

There are two trains of thought on this. The first is that it gives him a sense of independence and confidence that he can't really get in any other situation. The camp is enclosed for the most part, other parents look out for kids and while there are dangers they are not the same as in the real world.

On the other hand, this is a Family Camp, the point of which is to spend time together as a family.

Ultimately, I compromised. Because I truly believe that one of our primary duties as parents is to instill in our children a sense of independence, the ability to go out in the world and function on our own. I hate parents that preach that, but as soon as their child tries to do that the parent calls them home because they are uncomfortable with the notion of no longer being in control. 

However, I do want to spend some quality time with my family at Family Camp. And so while I allowed Thing 1 to roam on his own for most of the day, I did set up activities for us together, and I forced him to sit at the dinner table with us rather than with his friends. In that fashion, he could tell us about his day even though we weren't there to see it all.

In the end, I think it was a great way to go. He blossomed what seemed like years. He built confidence. He met people. He learned to do things he otherwise would not be able to do, like:

1) Doing a flip off the diving board.

2) Play dodgeball with kids three years older than him.

3) Win at shuffleboard.

4) Make a pot by himself.

5) Make lanyards.

6) Go paddleboating.

7) Execute a tie-dye t-shirt.

8) Communicate on his own with adults.

Now if he could only learn to remove baby pigs from his mother's suitcase, we'd be golden. 

What do I do if my sons are gay (with each other)?

So I put Thing 1 and Thing 2 in the bathtub the other night, and I leave them in there to play around and wash up while I go to make dinner. 

After about five minutes, I hear this hysterical, maniacal, Jack Nicholson-like, out-of-control laughter and I immediately think to myself: I could sit here in the quietude of making Mac N Cheese for the 1,285 consecutive night, or I can do what a responsible parent should do and go check on my kids.

So I put down the spoon with which I'm stirring the Mac N Cheese in complete and utter peace and saunter back to the bathroom, where I know World War III is about to unfold, minus the nuclear weapons.

Little did I know what I was about to stumble into: Porn.

OK, not porn so much in the sense of the word, but what I witnessed could qualify: Thing 2 was standing up with his rump thrust out behind him, and Thing 1 had his nose stuffed into his crack and was sort of blowing air into his ass.

Now, my first reaction was to vomit.

But after swallowing my regurgitation and attempting to digest, as it were, what I just saw, my next reaction was to explode into a fit of rage. That is until you attempt to verbalize what you just saw: "What the hell are you doing sticking your face into your brother's ...." 

And before you say "ass" you realize that this is so outside the realm of what I'm used to that I really can't even process what I just saw.

I mean, Are my sons gay? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) But seriously, what if one of your two sons were gay? I'd like to think I could handle it. Love him for what and who he is rather than judging a book by its silk cover. I'd like to think I was open-minded and accepting and the whole thing.

But doesn't that completely change if both your sons are gay? I mean, if 10 percent of the population is gay what are the odds that two of your sons are both gay? The permutations are astronomical. I'd have to get on Oprah or something. 

Beyond that, what if both sons were gay together? 

That's crossing every line of decorum known to man, isn't it? Isn't that both incest and bestiality at the same time? 

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. Maybe two kids playing together in the bath tub is completely normal. But isn't that probably what John Wilkes Booth's mom said the day before he shot Lincoln? "Oh, he's a good boy exploring his boundaries. He'll be OK."

Guess what: He was NOT OK. He killed the president. You should have seen the signs early on.

That's the hard part about being a Dad; what is real and what is a phase? What should you dissuade your children from and what should you ignore on the basis that this too shall pass? If you let too much pass, are you a negligent parent? I don't know.

What I do know is that I don't want Thing 1's nose up Thing 2's ass, which I made abundantly clear. It's not that I don't want them to be gay. It's that I don't want them to be gay with each other. 

I think that's normal. Right? 

My Top Ten Books for Dads

Book clubs are for chicks.  Actually I've always assumed that most book clubs dismiss with the book in the first 10 minutes and instead focus on the lives of people who aren't in the room, mass consumption of chardonnay and low-carb appetizers.  I also assume that most book clubs end up with 10 hot moms topless in a hot tub, but that may just be me.

I've read one book that wasn't related to business since we've had kids. Mostly because for every kid, you lose a few hours out of each day and little things like soccer practice, personal hygiene and sleep tend to get in the way (usually).  If any of you math wizards out there want to take a crack at developing a formula that illustrates the phenomenon, please do.However, I think reading is one of the most important interests we can instill in our children. And one of the most difficult.

Newspapers have been left bloody and twitching by the side of the road in a pool of their own vomit (although it is still important to know what's going on out there). Magazines, once thick with colorful calls to action to hit consumers at their most vulnerable touch points, are now anemic rags with in-depth exposes that could not be more vapid.  Television is pretty good right now... if you are fascinated by celebrities and need to juxtapose their day-to-day problems with your own (HBO being an exception).  Don't even get me started on Hollywood (you may endure this topic within the next couple of weeks).  As the media we consume shrinks (again) from to snack-sized to bite-sized, we are staring right down the throat of an evolutionary phenomenon that will allow us to exist on the intellectual equivalent of french fries.

But there are still novels.  And even if no more novels were ever written, we'd still have more than we can read in our lifetime.  Books force you to slow down, dust off your imagination, and think,  They allow you to absorb the rich complexity of a good story that could stay with you forever. They also take you to place without pull ups, those god damned tiny snaps and whining. Try getting that from Twitter. 

Wow... I'm bitter today!  It feels good. Anyway, here is my list of books for dads.  None of these books have anything to do with being a dad per se, but they all offer interesting philosophical things to think about as you struggle to instill some sense of decency and morality into your kids' lives.

My top 10 dad books (in no specific order):

1. Death in the Afternoon  by Ernest Hemmingway
2. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
3. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
4. Bombardiers by Po Bronson
5. The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
6. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
7. Bringing Down the House by Ben Merzich
8. Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
9. Liars Poker by Michael Lewis
10. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

And I'm going to include a Bonus Book that you should already own:

11. The Odyssey by Homer

Let us know what your top ten books are, and  I'm curious to know why you think reading is important, generally.  Also, let me know if you want to start a book club... but I might bring Tres Gereraciones instead of chardonnay.

Weigh in with a comment.

Why hermaphrodites are so confused ...

As my father-in-law often likes to say, “Men and women are just, well, different.”

No shit, Sherlock. If he had given me this advice before, I probably would not have married his daughter for fear of Thing 1 and Thing 2 contracting the disease of Chronic Obviousness.

But if I wasn’t such a cynical bastard of a son-in-law, I would appreciate what I think he means: As he gets older, it astounds him in a seemingly new way that men and women can be THAT much different.

(The ironic part of all this, of course, is that my wife and I often comment that she thinks her father has become more of a chick in his old age, while her mom has become less nurturing. Which would mean, I guess, that if they still have sex, she is on top a lot. But I can’t go there.)

Where I was going with this is that my father-in-law is certainly right, as difficult as that is for me to admit: Men and women are indeed different, especially when it comes to child-rearing.

Now I understand that not every household is the same, and certainly not every relationship is the same. But in our household, my wife is a Type A control freak and I am much more laid back.

The result, therefore, often becomes this fight:

Wife: Why do I always have to be the bad guy? I don’t always want to be the bad guy.

Me: Then don’t be the bad guy.

Wife: Well somebody has to be the bad guy.

Me: Why does somebody have to be the bad guy?

Wife: Fuck you.

Then I feel like the bad guy. Which is bullshit.

The thing is, we take two different approaches to parenting. I don’t think we went into the raising of our children that way. It has just evolved based on our personalities.

We do have one understanding: We won’t undermine the other in front of the kids. Present a united front. Because if the kids sense a divide, they will exploit that for all it’s worth.

But I find that my wife yells a lot to get the kids to do what she wants them to do. Make your bed! Eat your breakfast! Get dressed! Put your pajamas away!

I think it’s because she is, as I mentioned, something of a control freak, and the fact that the kids are not doing their chores on her timeline drives her crazy. The resulting frustration comes out in ways that I think even she admits is not the most productive.

I, on the other hand, find that if I try to gently coerce the kids to do their stuff, it ultimately gets done.

Listen, I certainly am not a perfect parent, and my frustration level boils over just like anybody else’s. Gentle coercion goes only so far before you have to break bad on them.

But it’s funny, ever since I became a stay-at-home dad looking for work, I have this in my arsenal: "Believe it or not, when you are not around, we get along just fine. The kids get to school. They are fed. They are bathed. They are dressed."

Oh man, that one burns my wife up. 

Because it’s true.

The concern that I have, though – and maybe this is natural and unavoidable regardless of our personalities – is that we will be pigeonholed into expectations by our children.

I don’t want them to think of my wife as an ogre and me as the cool, laid-back guy who they can hang with. Because we as parents are ultimately a team who need to raise our kids together and in concert.

Though perhaps that is the beauty of parenting. There is the yin and the yang that makes our kids whole.

Perhaps my wise sage of a father-in-law is right more than he knows: Men and women are just, well, different. 

Pinkawhatthell?

Apparently, the first book I ever read by myself was Fox in Socks, which explains my lack of verbal communication skills. The second book I read by myself was Frog and Toad are Friends, which explains my homoerotic fascination with amphibians. Children’s books are an intriguing area.  Ever look at the back of Where the Sidewalk Ends?  That Shell Silverstein was one scary dude!  You have to wonder if The Giving Tree was based on some guy named “Tree” doling out cigarettes in the yard in between sets on the bench press. 

Anyway, incarceration jokes aside, The Giving Tree is brilliant—in both its presentation and in its elegance.  It is the simple, engaging conveyance of a strong moral message.  That is what a good children’s book is all about.

And then there is Pinkalicious. At first I thought I didn’t like it because of the association of “Bootylicious” and my two-year-old daughter (no offence, Beyonce… just put some pants on in front of my kids). And maybe our first nanny’s attempt to nickname our youngest daughter “Tessalicious” (which thankfully did not stick, much in part to my icy cold reception).   But upon further thought, it is the story itself that really pisses me off.

First, this kid blatantly disregards her parents’ demands and sneaks downstairs to steal more cupcakes.   She perches herself dangerously high on an assortment of kitchen items stacked on a chair, to reach the top of the refrigerator. I somehow doubt OSHA approved this book.  My first thought was that this encourages dishonesty, deception, and reckless behavior.  But kids will be kids.

Secondly, to remedy the effect of too many cupcakes (she turns pink… I’ll save you the $17.99), she eats a bunch of green vegetables and fruit. She  “gags down grapes”, eats “icky” relish and gross spinach.  In other words she is choking down the very things we as parents are trying to get our kids to eat.  Thanks for the headwind, Pinkalicious. Also, who hates grapes? Or relish for that matter?

But this was the kicker: In an effort to curb her desire to shove even more pink cupcakes down her gullet, her mother replied, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”  Fine. Whatever.  Maybe that works with denying kids all of the unhealthy things they crave and with halting their incessant requests.

BUT… the other day, Claire and I were playing the Wii.  After a few frames of trying to knock pins down in the adjacent lanes (has anyone ever been able to do this? Let me know if it’s possible), we decided to salvage our ranking and get serious.  On the next frame Claire knocked down 9 pins and then missed the spare.  “Oh well,” she said, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset!”

I got upset.  “What!?”  I was confused and horrified at the same time.  “No!” I said sternly.  I wanted to shout, “God damn you, Pinkalicious!” but it somehow came out as, “That is absolutely not correct!”

Now I am not one of those psycho sports dads who blurs the line between his family’s financial future and the athletic success of his children (yet…), but I think a little healthy competition is completely appropriate.  And I recognize that there is a difference between challenging authority and challenging yourself, but I am not 4.  I understand (but don’t necessarily agree with) not keeping score in first-year soccer and baseball leagues.  And I certainly appreciate the fact that we want to encourage honesty, hard work, sportsmanship, fair play and a love-of-the-game.   But the world is a crazy place.  Life is competition.  So maybe we don’t have to hunt and gather our own food anymore, but if we expect to attain a certain standard of living, then we need to earn it.  And that means, competing, being evaluated and succeeding. It’s ok to fail, but you don’t have to accept it.  Don’t take what you get.  Do get upset.  Make mistakes, extract the lessons, and discard the rest.  Learn from every opportunity.

And, oh yeah… grapes taste great.

Let’s hear some comments about this.

What do you do with a dead dog?

I get an email the other day from one of my good friends with whom I don't talk that often. (Is that an oxymoron? He's a good friend and we don't talk very much?)

In the email, my buddy was announcing the sad news that his dog had died in the back yard on the Fourth of July, an event to which his daughter promptly asked, "Can we cut off his head and keep that?" 

That leads me down a side path about an acquaintance I had when I was a bit younger. He had a cat. Loved the cat. The cat died. So he had it stuffed and mounted on a wood block in his living room. Now, first of all, I'm not a cat guy at all. They are aloof. They are not friendly. They are hot chicks in high school, basically. Give me a dog any day of the week. Suffice it to say, this acquaintance never got laid. What girl is going to come over to his pad and give it up with a dead cat looking on? (Insert inevitable pussy joke here.) 

Anyway, cutting the dog's head off and keeping it aside, it got me wondering, since my Yellow Lab is now 11 years old and on the downside of, well, everything: What do you do with a dead dog?

We used to have dogs growing up. But I have no idea what happened to them when they died. They just sort of -- disappeared. I guess that is the job of a Dad, right? Make the dead dogs disappear. 

But seriously. What do you do with a dead dog? I've never had a dog die on me as a responsible adult and as a parent. Do you bury them in the backyard? How about if your backyard is not that big? Do you throw him in a dumpster? Seems a bit coldhearted for a creature that has brought so much joy -- not to mention some pain -- to the family. Do you have a funeral and get him cremated? Do you throw him off the bridge? (Actually, I like that idea for a dead cat.)  

If anyone knows the answer, I'd appreciate a little help.

Memo to RadDad: I don't even know how to spell Dos Equis. 

The Validation of Every Single Decision Ever Made

I don’t like to brag… but I’m perfect. I didn’t realize it until recently.  One day it dawned on me: I am absolutely perfect. Every decision I have ever made was the right decision. Every thing I do is the right thing. Everything I say is the most appropriate for that particular moment.  Does my confidence intimidate you?  Do you question my (objective) sincerity?  Do you want to bitch slap me?  Whatever.  I’m like The Most Interesting Guy in the World, only more interesting.  If you doubt me, take a look at my kids.  Even better, ask them. They are the validation of every single decision I have ever made—had I done anything differently, at any point in my life, they wouldn’t be here.  And now that they are here, my supremacy is constantly and emphatically reinforced. Daily.  By them. I am a Golden God.  I am the Master of my Domain.  I am totally rad.

But absolute power is a tenuous thing.  There are forces constantly trying to steal it: obnoxious friends, children's television, first grade, the teenage years, the Wii.  If we want to maintain our reign of dominance, then we must band together… learn from each other, share with each other, teach each other. Together, we can make sure those little monsters love us forever. And, hopefully, we can keep them from going Goth.

Welcome to Dad is Rad.  If you are a megalomaniac then you are my brother.

Disclaimer: I can’t stand Dos Equis, but Stallion loves it.