“Would you like to color? How about we color? Want to color? Great. Hold on … Oh no! You can’t put a Crayon in the electrical outlet?!?” It was like I had never done it before. Like I had no idea what a toddler was. Had never had one before. Had no idea how to entertain one. My 9-year-old daughter stood mesmerized by her 1-1/2-year-old cousin. We were all babysitting so my brother and his wife could go to a wedding. We had him for maybe 2 hours, and we were exhausted afterward. Exhausted, like we had just wrestled a tornado. Like we had just herded wild horses. Like there were 17 of him. Toddlers are interesting people. How quickly I had forgotten. “Can’t we make him nap or just plant him in front of a basketball game?” I asked my wife. “What’s that medicine that makes dogs sleep on planes? Is that legal?”
Some brotherly advice on turning 40
As my younger brother prepares to turn 40, I thought I would take a moment to hand down some sage advice that I have acquired after two years in the “Enchanted Land of Four Decades:” • If you’re going to have a mid-life crisis, make it a cheap one. I’ve been fortunate because my indecisiveness means I’ve never settled on the ideal mid-life crisis for me. And I will probably draw it out until I’m 62, when it will seem silly, absurd and just too time-consuming. But if you’re going to choose one, don’t go the expensive route. You know, crashing Ferraris or anything like that. Just take up drinking milk straight from the carton or diagnosing other people’s illnesses. Much cheaper that way. • If people ask your age, don’t get upset. Just politely reply that “it’s none of their (insert curse here) business” and to get away from you because you’re about to have an un-medicated episode. That should solve it pretty quickly. • Remember that 40 is only half way to 80. And consequently, 80 is only half way to 160. And if you calculate the square root of 160, it will require going and finding your calculator. By the time you find a calculator, you will have forgotten what you were thinking about in the first place.
TEXT: U Forgot Dad’s B-Day Again:(
It was a cryptic little text message that took me a minute or two to figure out. It read: “Hi, it’s Lauren. Do you remember what day it is today?” It was from my sister in Tampa, that high schoolin’ theater nut with a penchant for dying her hair pink and thinking her brothers are running on two expired brain cells, share between us. She had impeccable grammar for a text message, and I was impressed. But did I know what day it was? What kind of question was that? “Of course I do,” I almost texted back, “it’s Saturday.” But as she’s the smart one in the bunch, it occurred to me there had to be something more. What she really meant, in high-school-kid-code, was: “Hey, doofus. Today is a very important day and you better shake that bag of rocks on your shoulder so you remember … quick!”