The family that gets sick together … well … uses a whole lot of tissue. They do stay together, but only because they get quarantined and no one wants to come near them. No worries. We don’t want to share our hacking with anyone else anyway. We’ll enjoy it all to ourselves. The bug has been going around, and it hit our house a bit over a week or so ago. It started with my wife, moved on to my kid and now I’m battling through it. (I’ve also noticed that the termites haven’t been feeling so well and even lost their appetite. It’s quite sad.) We’re mostly cured, but it’s been a humdinger. Nothing too debilitating or disastrous. More like disgusting. A lot of runny noses, sneezing and some really bad hair days. (Why does having a cold always take out its full brunt on your hair?) I’ve found that having a sick toddler can be quite, well, exciting. Everybody warns you that toddlers will get sick, but nobody ever prepares you for what it will be like — how bad it will be.

As the deafening noise rose to the decibel levels you only get with erupting volcanoes or, say, planets exploding, I looked over to see a comrade hand me a pair of construction-grade noise-protection ear muffs. They were the same kind that you see worn by guys at rifle ranges who are firing howitzers. He was already wearing a pair, and I laughed. I thought it was just a joke — or maybe he’d had one beer too many. But he said, “Seriously, might want to put these on. This could go on for a while.” So I did. And funny thing was, I could hear myself think again. It blotted out all the noise and all the insanity that had encircled me. It allowed me to ponder great questions like: Is this my future? Is this what it means to be a parent? Is it too late to trade the little one in for say a riding mower or a walk-in freezer? Have we entered a new stage? Will I be able to conjure up the strength to survive it all? Will she be like these other kids when she grows up? And how did I not see this coming? I looked at my buddy. He was smiling, and if I read the look on his face correctly, he was thinking, “Don’t worry. You’ll learn.” Some friends of ours who had just bought a new house held a shrimp boil this past weekend to celebrate their soon-to-be construction area. Call […]

All I can say is: Sorry, pop. You go through life having your parents tell you that one day you’ll understand. One day you will have kids and get it. One day you’ll know what they went through. You’ll know what you put them through, from heartache and shame down to simple little things like hopping on them and crushing life-necessary organs. Sorry, pop. Never understood why you walked funny. I finally had that first moment — that first realization of what they meant. That first grasping of the sacrifices a parent has to make. It struck me (literally!) as my daughter straddled my stomach and repeatedly slammed her full weight into my rib cage. It was like a truck dumping a load of bricks onto my mid-section over and over again. My spleen was ejected out of my body, and my snapped ribs concaved into my body, looking like the Grand Canyon. All I could think to say was, “Criminy!” I don’t even know what “criminy” means, or why I would say it. Maybe it’s that all of the good words I used to yell while in pain are now banned. “Criminy” is about all I have left. So I’m lying on the floor screaming, “criminy” as she plays jackhammer on my rib cage. And this 20-month-old thinks it’s funny. She thinks this is great fun, and more importantly, that I’m enjoying myself. Why? Because of the “unbearable-pain laugh reflex.” Ever heard of this? It comes in many forms. […]

Common sense tells you beer bottles, toddlers and teeth don’t mix. But I, my friends, lack common sense. Combine all three of those elements at the same time and you get a perfect storm — a confluence of bone, glass and enamel where the only loser is the one in my mouth. That is why a couple days ago I was looking like a snaggle-tooth, with a chipped-out front tooth with a shard dangling down that would make a vampire coo. A tooth is not going to win that battle. I had been working in the yard all day, trying to break a world record for most sweat lost from a body. It was quitting time, I had showered and was feeling parched. So when you’ve lost 13 gallons of water and your blood is little more than sand coursing through your veins, nothing gets you re-hydrated quite like beer. Sure, you might die of sunstroke and dehydration, but you go out with a smile.

What a different city New York is with a kid. What a different vacation it makes with a toddler. Not bad, just different. When you’re used to one thing, and then go back to find another, it’s well different. The New York we used to know was about all manner of things. Eating well, and in places that if you came with a kid, someone would come over, grab her, hand you a ticket and then stick her in a coat closet. I’m not joking, I think they check their kids in New York. It was about going to shows and long, lazy strolls through Central Park near dusk. It was picking up and going anywhere you wanted without looking like Sherpas heading up Mt. Everest, or shopping in places where you didn’t have to worry that a little one would dismantle thirteen dozen mannequins and ruin a dress worth more than most cars.

Nervousness and fear. I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m worried and scared, and I’ll come right out and say it: I was filled with trepidation. Toddler traveler trepidation. My wife and I have traveled by car for three hours with our 17-month-old daughter, but that’s been as far as we’ve ever dared to go. Diapers can explode, lungs can wail and temper tantrums can upset the Earth’s natural orbit. But we longed to take a trip like we used to and felt the little one was old enough to get a few miles under her wings. So we planned a week-long sojourn in New York with a visit to family in Long Island and a couple nights in Manhattan. It involved planes, trains and automobiles, not to mention subways, strollers, escalators and I think, at one point, a grocery cart. We’ve always wanted a child who travels well so we could re-commence journeying like in the past — a kid you could throw on your back and scoot off here or far over there. But you just never know if a toddler has the same ideas. You never know if a toddler is a homebody who thinks a trip to the mailbox is plenty ambitious. You also hear horror stories when you’re a new parent. Planes that have asked families with screaming or misbehaving children to disembark a flight while it’s still in the air. Babies whose shrill cries are so piercing that they poke holes in […]

It happened as I was cutting a tantalizing piece of pecan pie, its aroma so rich and strong that it just called me to swan dive off the butcher block and swim around in its gooey gobs of pecan heaven. What is it about pecan pie that is so entrancing? So powerful and wonderful? Most of the world’s problems could probably be solved over a piece of pecan pie. Who’s going to argue when you have something that delicious in front of you? Anyway, I was into the pecan pie, which had absorbed all of my attention. It was later in the evening, and my wife was in my 15-month-old’s room trying to put the little girl to sleep. All was quiet. All was very quiet. Then … BAM! The bedroom door slammed open and out charged a little critter, her finger pointing up in the air at me, giggling with a devilish grin on her face. I jumped. I almost threw the pecan pie at her. I almost leapt into the dishwasher to hide. “Ahhhh!” I screamed. “A monster!” I was scared, seriously scared. No, it’s not that my toddler is easy to mistake for a rabid midget troll. But the lights were dimmed and it had been such a quiet, peaceful night. Who would have thought I would get attacked by my toddler while cutting a piece of pie?

Oh, it’s terrible when it has gone missing. And it goes missing A LOT these days. Why? Well, it could have something to do with the remote control fairies that live in my house — grumbling, fat fairies with beer bellies and a desire to scratch all manner of regions while eating pork rinds and grumbling about baseball. It’s either them, or my 14-month-old daughter who would never hug a doll, but will cradle and cuddle the remote like it’s a kitten. That is, when she’s not gnawing on it like a ravenous dog who has gotten hold of a soup bone. There is nothing worse than a baby-slimed remote that needs to be sanitized and pressure washed on a nightly basis. I take that back: There is something worse, and that’s when the remote goes missing. At least when it’s dripping in saliva, you can use a pencil to change channels or put on gloves. But a missing remote just doesn’t work. And it will drive you batty. Good luck finding it. When I ask my wife if she knows where it is, she tells me the last place she saw it. When I tell her it’s not there anymore, she just shrugs and says matter-of-factly, “It could be anywhere.”

Books, books I read them every day How many stinkin’ children’s books Will I have to read today? OK, so I’m not bothered by all the books I’m reading my daughter. It’s fun and I agree with my wife that it’s a much healthier habit than teaching her to throw darts or saw wood in the back yard like I was trying to do last week. She’s only 1-year-old after all, and doesn’t understand the whole measuring thing. So we’ll stick with books. But it sure can be tedious, especially when you’re reading the same one over and over again 13,000 times in the span of 15 minutes. If you’ve ever overcooked broccoli, that’s my brain by the time I’m through. Mostly I read to her at night when I’m supposed to be changing her diaper and getting her ready for bed. I plop down on the floor among some of her pillows and wait for her to crawl over with a book. I know she’s ready for me to read it by how she whacks me in the head. It’s her special way of saying, “Read, fool, now!” So I start reading and she crawls off to get another one, which she will of course hit me in the head with, and the whole process starts over again. If you see me on the street and wonder what all the welts and bruises on my forehead are, it’s just a little nighttime book reading. Many times I get the […]