I made a very rookie parenting mistake. It’s the rookiest of all rookie parenting mistakes.

I make the kids lunches every morning. It’s my minimal contribution to the day. So, yesterday morning I go in the kitchen to begin this thankless process of packing a delicious, healthy meal which my kids will only eat half of.

I throw four pieces of bread down, grab the mayo, mustard, turkey, lettuce and cheese and immediately notice the counter is full. No room for me to work my sandwich magic.

What’s taking up so much room? A big package of Halloween Oreos. So, I pick it up and it’s surprisingly light. A bit astonished at this since we just bought the package yesterday, I open it to see how many are left.

One. One cookie is left.

All I want to do is throw this damn package away since it’s taking up crucial counter space needed for me to get my sandwich makin’ business on.

I grab a plastic bag, throw the cookie in it and toss it into one of the kids’ lunch pouches. Then, I throw the empty package away.

BOOM! Problem solved.

I finish making their delicious lunches, throw their lunch pouches in their book bags…my work here is done.

Fast forward to 8 hours later. I’m cranking away at work when I get a text from the wife who’s picking up the little bastards at school. And that’s when the rookie mistake slams me in the balls…..

Immediately I feel like the biggest asshole ever. My little girl is sitting in the back of a car, crying because her daddy that she loves so much decided to deny her a round, crumbly, chocolate Halloween treat in her lunch. In her brain I might as well have reached my hand into her chest and ripped her heart in two.

Not only that, my hands are now tainted with favoritism and she has proof which no doubt will be rubbed in my face for the rest of my life. The infamous "Halloween Oreo cookie my daddy loves my brother more than me" incident.

I can see myself sitting across from my strung-out daughter and a therapist during the taping of an Intervention TV episode 10 years from now learning that she uses crack to fill the void left by the uneven treatment in distributing Halloween Oreos within the family.

I couldn’t have that. I will not turn my daughter into crack addict!!

So, I did this:

Like most kids, my daughter has just a smidge of that in her…but only when she’s trying to get out of trouble. 

Me: “Macy – did you just eat a Nutty Buddy when it’s 9:30 in the morning?”

Her: “NO!!!”

Me: “You have chocolate on your face and hands. Wanna try that again?”

Her: “I DIDN’T DADDY!! You never believe me!!!” as she stomps off to her room with a Nuddy Buddy wrapper stuck to her shoe.

The boy, he can’t lie…at least not yet. He was born with what has to be the cleanest soul this planet has ever seen.

That sounds like a parent’s dream, but I walk a fine line with getting information out of him because I don’t want to turn him into a liar. 

It’s truly amazing. I could ask him about shit no one would ever know the truth about but him, and he’ll give it to me straight. It’s like he thinks I have some Jedi master all seeing eyeball up in the heavens watching his every move, so I know when he’s lying.

Me: “Grayson, did you flick a booger onto your sister’s bed while no one was around this morning?”

Him: Silence…nervousness.

Me: “Grayson?!”

Him: “Yes daddy, but she flicked a booger at me yesterday!!” 

But the best thing in the world is that he’ll even give me the truth about anything pertaining to me. No longer are the days I put on a pink dress shirt and ask the wife, “hey – does this look good on me?” Only to hear her say, “yeah, you look great, I think you look good in anything.”

No more do I deal with, “hey hun, you think I need to lose 10lbs?” Only to hear, “you could need to lose 50lbs and I’d still think you look terrific.”

Now, I have the Grayson.

I simply set him down, stand before him, brace myself for the fact that some of this truth is gonna sting like a bitch and start asking questions.

Me: “Does this pink shirt look good on me?”

Him: “It looks horrible dad. You should never put it on again.”

Me: “Do you think I need to lose 10lbs?”

Him: “No.”

Me: “25lbs?”

Him: “Yes”

Me: “Does mommy ever turn and look at my butt when I walk by her in the den?”

Him: “No”

Beautiful, huh?

But, I have to keep my guard up around that little bastard because I have no doubt the wife’s using him in the same way. He’s like a larger version of the teddy bear babysitter cam I have implanted in the wife’s dressing area. I have to make sure everything I say and do around him is wife-appropriate, which can be exhausting.

And that is the main reason I’m probably just going to teach him to lie.

Me: “Now, when mommy asks you if I started drinking at 11 this morning you tell her no and I’ll give you $25, OK?”

Him: “OK dad.”

Those non-sexy suits are named that cause you can see everyone’s weeny weenie. Unless you’re sporting a raging, impressive hard-on, like my man Rummel was whilst on the award’s stage at the Olympics.

As you can imagine, his upright manhood made quite the stir on the interweb machine thingy. So much so, that he felt the need to make a public statement in which he claimed his pecker was not an actual erection, but merely his junk got stuck in that famous up-right position when he climbed into tight man-pants.

This upset me to no end. To the point to where I felt I needed to write him about his unfortunate boner situation.

An Open Letter To Olympic Medalist Henrik Rummel:

Dear Mr. Rummel:

Congratulations on winning the bronze for our great country. To say you did us proud would be an understatement. Your team did a miraculous job stroking yourselves into the history books. We are humbled.

I’m writing you to address the situation in which you’ve found yourself since the moment you took stage to receive your coveted medal. If you will, indulge me in a quick childhood story of mine.

When I was just a wee lad – I think around the age of 8 or 9 – I was on a swim team. We were all issued red weeny bikinis to wear for practices and meets.

For some reason the older kids took to calling me “boner.” I can’t quite remember getting a boner back in those days. It could have been my little pecker just poked out the front… or maybe it was reacting to the amazing feeling of that thin 80s bathing suit material and actually did get erect.

Either way, I had no clue what a boner was. I thought maybe it was badass, like I was getting some nickname relating to a skull and crossbones or a Harley Davidson motorcycle club.

But then I started noticing the laughter that followed being called “boner.” I was being laughed at damn it. I had to get to the bottom of this boner thing immediately.

Since there was no Google back in those days I did the next best thing and went straight to my mom.

“Mom? What’s a boner?”

I remember those words coming out of my mouth like it was yesterday. And two minutes later I was horrified. I wanted to burn that weeny bikini and never wear it again. I spent the rest of the season with my hands in front of my crotch or towel around my waist.

You see, my Olympic friend….looking back at it, I realize I should have embraced my boner.

I should have reveled in the fact my little pecker could even be seen at that age. I should have started introducing myself to people as “Boner.” I should have strutted my stuff by all the teenage girls on the swim team and been all “hey baby. Yeah….it’s real. It’s all me. Wanna hold hands?”

Instead I hid it.

You have an opportunity to represent everyone out there who’s erect pecker has revealed itself to the masses through a thin veil of material. Stand up, stick your chest out and proclaim to the world, “that is my boner, and it IS sticking straight up in the air!!”

Then take that medal and hang it from your man-wand while saluting the red, white and blue of this great country of ours. You’re an Olympian! A bronze medal winning Olympian and you have every right to get the biggest boner of your life and embrace it in front of the world.

Do it for America! And know that we’ll be right there in our living rooms proud as hell and turning to our wives to ask, “mine’s bigger than that, right?”

Your Biggest Fan,

Justin

“Yes son? I’m right here by the way. Right in front of you. In fact, besides the dog, I’m the only living creature who can communicate in English with you…right now…this very moment. So, there’s really no need to begin your ten-thousandth question with my name.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes Grayson.”

“You think I can have a friend over this afternoon?”

“Probably not buddy. Your mom and I have to do a couple things.”

“Can you do them while I have a friend over?”

“No Grayson. Seriously, we’re going to need you to have some down time and just read or play on your own so we can knock out this project.”

“Are you going to begin the project now? Can I have someone over before the project?”

“No, we’re getting ready to do the project.”

“How about after? If someone comes over during I’ll be out of your way and you can work on the project.”

“Grayson. Stop talking. Stop asking questions. The answer’s no!”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your father and I explained enough that we have plans and they don’t include you having a friend over!!”

I walk away to get water. Three steps into the kitchen I hear the boy say, “Hey daddy?”

And at that very moment in time you realize the patience, control, training and strength an Olympian must feel when they’re seconds from their race. Fuck yeah I just compared parenting to being an Olympian! Are you gonna look me in the eye-balls and tell me I’m wrong!?!

My son’s questions are becoming mind-numbingly painful. To the point to where I feel like I should set aside an hour a day to take his future teacher out for drinks after the school bell rings each day.

But you know how I get by?

I dream.

I dream of a day. A sunny, yet cool day.  

And I have a handshake agreement with the world that after this next conversation with my child goes down it will be erased from his memory.

And for once I have a green light to answer the boy’s questions how I see fit.

And it goes down like this:

The Boy: “Daddy?”

Me: “Say Daddy again I can assure you I won’t close the door or turn the fans and radio on the next time your mom and I have sex!!”

The Boy: “Can I have a play date?”

Me: “You're adopted and Santa's not real.”

The Boy: “Why are you so stressed?”

Me: “Because my dear boy, your questions are like a weed eater against my shin….relentlessly slicing me until I feel like walking into traffic!!”

The Boy: “Wanna go kick the soccer ball?”

Me: “Fuck yes!”

And then we go outside, kick the ball with great music playing in the background. And that’s when I start asking the questions…

“How was camp dude?”

“Are you excited for soccer season to start?”

“You know I love you right?”

And when he becomes a teenager, roles will reverse….and he…he will be the one blogging about his dad’s incessant painfully boring questions. And he’ll be wishing them to stop.

So until then, I’ll keep perspective and keep answering to my new beloved name, “Hey Daddy?”

That’s what a little piece of yellow paper had written on it that the boy found under a book on his desk. My 9-year-old third grader had a little lady falling for his redheaded ass.

A part of me wanted to high five him, do a chest bump and let him take a swig of my beer. But the father of a daughter in me took over and immediately I began to fume.

My hypocrisy regarding my views of youth and relationships was already beginning to creep its way into real situations sooner than I’d anticipated.

Since the day we saw the sonar of our precious little wienerless fetus on the screen during the pregnancy, I knew the day would eventually come when I was standing with a shotgun in front of the daughter’s bedroom door while tossing a pack of condoms to the boy.

Since the day the wife spat our little daughter into the world I’ve been randomly polling the women in my life regarding how their father’s dealt with them as teenagers.

The responses:

“My dad wouldn’t let me date till I was 18.”

“My boyfriend snuck into my bedroom constantly at night.”

“I had my first baby when I was 17.”

I stopped asking after that last response.

Next, I quickly decided I should make a list. That’s what the old school 80s After School Specials always recommended… “when you’re in a pinch on a tough decision, turn on some Poison and make a list!” So I did.

How I Will Treat Relationships the Boy & Girl Have As Teenagers

Boy: Lend him my quality porn collection so he can learn how to handle himself in the sack.

Girl: Show her medical videos of people with horrific cases of gonorrhea and syphilis.

Boy: Provide him with condoms so he always has protection.

Girl: Sleep on the floor next to her bed with a shotgun so that she’s always protected.

Boy: Make sure I don’t cockblock him when he has a girl over to watch a movie.

Girl: Sit on the couch next to the daughter’s male friend and drink a bottle of whiskey while cleaning my chainsaw and staring at him as they watch a movie.

Boy: Explain to him he should be free, enjoy his youth and not lock himself down with a girl for years.

Girl: Drill into her head that you don’t really understand love and relationships till you’re 29 so she should just wait till then to kiss a boy or anything else ookie like that.

It was at this point the wife ripped the sheet out of my hands, balled it up, slapped me and said “get a grip you gap-toothed idiot. We’re going to treat them the same, give them both the exact same tools and opportunities. We’re going let them screw up and learn from it. We’re going to support them through the whole thing and arm them as best we can to make good choices. We can’t guard their every move.”

And she’s right. It’s the only thing to do. I don’t ever want to look back and know that I was too overbearing and sheltered them from becoming who they truly are. I want them to make mistakes, have their hearts broken and learn all the amazing and sometimes painful facets of love.

I touched the wife’s shoulder, smiled a “you’re right” smile at her, then stopped by the girl’s bedroom to make sure all the hidden cameras had fully charged batteries in them.

Running, dreading our daughters moving into the inevitable realm of dating, vacation plans….those were just some of the many topics rambling from our mouths as we killed yet another Saturday on the sidelines.

My son wanders over, throwing a soccer ball in the air and catching it over and over again, trying desperately to find a way to work into our manversation. Finally, a very brief lull in the conversation takes over and that’s when the boy says:

“So, I’ve been hit in my balls four times in my life. Twice by a soccer ball, once by a baseball and once by my sister who did it on purpose! How many times have you guys been hit in your balls?”

I can’t say I was shocked because I’m used to his random-ass comments, but I was definitely not expecting that. So I reached down, flicked him in the head and said “dude, seriously? You really want to have a conversation about balls?”

And that’s when it hit me. That actually would be a pretty damn good conversation for three dudes to have while killing time. I mean, what guy doesn’t have a great story about getting hit in the balls? TV shows make millions by showing random nut shots. 37.8% of YouTube’s total content comprises of testicles getting dealt with in surprising fashion.

I didn’t realize it then, but I did later….my son is slowly developing the requirements to earn a man-card.

Then a shudder went down my spine as I realized what a huge responsibility it is to guide a young chap through developing those requirements.

I mean, he’s well on his way and Saturday was a perfect example. 1) he struck up a random conversation with two dudes by trying to tell funny stories about their balls, 2) he took a soccer ball to the face, bent over, sucked it up without running with tears for his mommy, 3) after finding out I was making spaghetti that night he asked, “you’re gonna put a bunch of meat in it right?”

But on the flip side, that same day, he 1) did a cartwheel, 2) played with a hula hoop for a while, and 3) watched a 30-minute My Little Pony cartoon with his sister.

It’s all about balance. The key is to teach the boy to do manly shit with dudes, and un-manly man-card revoking stuff when dudes aren’t around but ladies are. That’s still considered manly because then it just means you’re trying to get laid.

It’s when you reverse those two that you start to get into some real shit. For example:

Telling another dude his shirt looks nice. NO

Asking another dude if his mommy dressed him this morning. YES

Starting a conversation with another dude by placing your hand on his shoulder and saying, “hey guy, how’s it goin’?” NO

Starting a conversation with another dude by nodding and saying “what’s up shit-brick?” YES

Sitting at a bar with a bunch of dudes, watching the game and ordering a Malibu with Diet Coke. NO

Sitting at a bar with a bunch of dudes, watching the game and ordering a Newcastle and shot of Jack Daniels. YES

Wearing coordinated outfits with your wife at parties while holding her hand all night. NO

Walking by your wife in the living room and stopping to tell her she smells good. YES

It’s tricky business earning your man-card. It’s even more difficult to keep it. I’ve got a long road ahead of me.

It was about that time our boy came down stairs to inform us of his struggles with having to give up half the pack of gum (per my request) to his beloved sister.

This would eliminate two whole pieces of gum from the boy’s life.

Two…

Pieces of gum…

Causing much sadness, regret, torture and just outright anger.

Gum.

For shit-sake…GUM!!

It’s moments like this that you want grab the precious little angel by the neck, strap him in a chair and introduce him to the vicious world of bills, jobs, commuting, groceries, dogs shitting all over your yard, babysitter fees, and taking a shower hoping for sex only to find out tonight’s “Netflix’s mega-shownight!!” only to find out hours later that your wife made that whole damn naming convention up.

There are times when the girl is breaking down because we want to comb her hair so random lice-infested birds flying by don’t claim her furry skull as a future home.

There are times when the boy can’t believe his father met him at the school bus in his 1991 shiny blue running tights and shirt picturing a huge sandwich with SILF written under it.

I remember as a kid believing my world was going to end because I had to wear a pair of “jams” my mom made that puffed out in the front like I had a “butt in front.”

I was devastated.

Probably the most common phrase ever muttered between parents is “if only I knew how miniscule my problems were as a kid.”

But we still appreciate them and understand them because we were once there.

We panicked when we walked into school with the knock-off Members Only jacket.

I freaked when kids called me names on the soccer field.

For shit sake my most favorite song for years was “The Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the fucking Frog!!

But I keep telling myself and the kids…this time…is just a blip on the radar of your life.

Years from now we’ll be drinking beers at a pub with the kids while laughing over the fact they’d fight over some dorky game called Angry Birds.

Or that the kid who bullied them in the school bathroom now pummels their Facebook page with Amway products.

The hardest part is not telling your kids to let the bullshit parts of childhood roll off their backs…it’s instilling the strength in them to believe in themselves.

I for one am guilty as hell of that.

So, I decided to make the road trip with the 9-year-old boy so we could have some dude time.

The following is a so very true conversation we had on the way there:

The Boy: “Daddy, do you think I lie?”

Me: “Absolutely not. You’re the kindest soul I know…well, except for when you’re beating the ever living hell out of your sister.”

The Boy: “Yeah. Sometimes I just can’t help myself. Especially when she walks around the house singing!! I just want to scream!”

Me: “The fact you don’t lie is one of the greatest qualities about you Grayson. Even if it gets you in trouble you always tell the truth. Don’t lose that.”

The Boy: “I do lie sometimes.”

Me: “When?”

The Boy: “Like when someone’s opening a gift I gave them and they’re asking me what’s in it. I always lie and say a car or a dog or something stupid like that.”

Me: “That’s not lying my man. That’s just being a cool guy.”

The Boy: “Do you believe in a second life?”

Me: “You mean reincarnation? Where after you die you come back as something or someone else?”

The Boy: “No, like a life in heaven?”

Me: “I think the better question is do you believe in that?”

The Boy: “I do. I think there’s a second life.”

Me: “Then that’s what matters. What you believe in is what you use to guide your own life, your own decisions and to decide whether you’re living your life the way that makes you feel good about yourself. You don’t use it go judge people. Everyone’s different and believes different things. But we’re all human beings who deserve to be loved while we’re here on this big round blue ball.”

The Boy: “What big blue ball? You lost me with that.”

Me: “Earth son. Earth. You know…what with all the water on it and what not.”

The Boy: “How did mommy’s daddy die? Mommy said it was something with his heart.”

Me: “He killed himself son. He struggled in his life and made a very bad, selfish decision. Now he’s not here to watch mommy be a mother to you. He’s not here to meet you. But we love him anyway. And…if that hadn’t happened, I never would have met your mother and you wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

The Boy: “That’s sad.”

Me: “It’s very sad. But your mom’s an incredible woman and continued living her life and is now the best mom you could ever dream of having.”

The Boy: “Yeah, she is awesome. Sometimes I call girl’s private areas a butt in front.”

Me: “What?!!!!”

The Boy: “Yeah, it looks like a butt crack in the front area.”

Me: “It’s called a vagina son. It’s not a butt crack.”

The Boy: “A va..gi…vagenia….a what?”

Me: “You have a penis that you pee from right? Well, girls have a vagina and they sort of pee from that area, kinda.”

The Boy: “Do babies come out of there too?”

Me: “Good talk Grayson. I think it’s time I introduce you to Led Zeppelin’s fourth album while we fart and burp and act like total dudes the rest of the way to the store. I love you dude.”

The Boy: “I love you too dad.”

It’s those few, short, simple words that have a tendency to come flying out of my mouth before registering in my brain. Because, if it had registered, I would have quickly thought to myself “Take away his Legos, but for shit-sake man don’t cock-block yourself by pissing away a night alone with no kids!”

But when your little bastards push your buttons all day, your anger boils over, drowning your common sense leaving you incapable of making anything even closely resembling a good decision.

You stand there red-faced with heart palpitations as you scramble for a punishment that’ll reach deep into the soul of your kid. And that’s when it happens. You sternly command some of the dumbest shit you could ever come up with.

Things like:

“No TV for a week!!”

“You’re spending the afternoon watching The Sound of Music in Spanish…in slowmotion…twice!”

“You’re making dinner tonight for everyone!!”

“You’re in your room for the entire weekend!”

And the worst part about it, you have to stay true to one of the top 10 parenting rules of all time:

“Follow through with your punishments.”

It only takes 0.008^th of a second before you realize the hell you just created for yourself.

You now have to entertain the kid who just lost TV privileges while every ten minutes hearing him say, “daddy!!! I’m booooooored.”

You now have to listen to the Sound of Music in Spanish…in slow motion…TWICE!!. You have to supervise his cluster-fuck of an effort at making dinner, or be stuck at the house for the entire weekend with nothing to do because your son was too much of an asshole to stop kicking his sister’s blanket with his shoe that has dog crap on it.

The worst is when you have to watch your loving spouse fall victim to the punishment trap.

It’s like a slow motion train wreck as she slowly mouths the angry words, “ffffiiiiiinnnneeee….nnnooo…..slleeeepppp oooovvveeerrr fooooorrrrr….yyyyyooooouuuuuu!!!”

Meanwhile you’re pointing a laser pointer at the wall near your kid’s head hoping he’ll catch a glimpse of this wonderful distraction outside his peripherals and begin rabidly chasing it while you tackle the wife preventing what clearly would have been the second biggest mistake of her life.

“What the hell are you thinking woman?!!  Just make him hug his sister and let’s call it even!”

It takes a real friend to tell you when you’re screwing up.

This is precisely why the wife and I have a game plan. We try to gang-punish.

We both walk over to the situation so when one of us screams, “that’s it! You’re painting the living room for the rest of the day!!”…the other one can chime in and say, “is what we’re going to punish you with if you do that to your sister one more time!!”

Which works most times…except when you’re both pissed beyond your limits. Then it backfires big-time.

That’s when I yell, “I’ve had it! No sleep over for you tonight!”

And the wife yells, “Or ever again!! You’re never having a sleep over ever! For the rest of your life!!

And then we all cry.

A year after the wife and I moved into our first home she invited a former roommate to visit.

A day later we’re throwing a neighborhood bash in her honor. Beers are flowing. The grill is smoking with orgasmic fumes of cooked dead animal flesh.

I’m hanging out in a chair, laughing, trying to be funny, and enjoying many a beverage.

That’s when it happened.

I look up to see the wife’s former roommate standing before me, unnaturally interested in the rambling mess spewing from my distorted lips.

Then a pause.

Then, she screams “glitter bitches!!!!” as she unleashes two handfuls of glitter all over every inch of my person.

Head to toe, in my eyes, up my nose, in my mouth, contaminating my beverage….everywhere….glitter.

It was absolutely brilliant. The fact she even waited more than 24 hours upon her arrival to pull this award-winning prank made it even that much more respectable.

Since then, I’ve had an undying hatred for glitter.

Almost three years later we moved after two ankle biters graced our presence. Upon opening a couple boxes we still found glitter.

Fast forward to the X-mas holidays of 2011….

I finish volunteering in the boy’s 3^rd-grade classroom holiday party and take a slow jaunt down to the daughter’s 1^st-grade class to see if the wife needs help wrangling the little bastards around Ole Saint Nick projects.

When I walk in the classroom my sights lock immediately on a gaggle of desks jammed together in a U-shape. Kids on one side. One lonely, helpless woman on the other.

And in-between…glitter hell.

The kids’ activity was to turn a cup upside down, cover it in glue, throw glitter on it, and BAM!!! an ornament guaranteed to hit every household trashcan the second it’s pulled from the book bag.

Everything around me blurred as I watched on the kid taking handfuls of glitter and dumping it on the kids head next to him. Another was putting handfuls in his pockets. Next to him a girl sneezed, wiped her hands across her face leaving a fantastic handlebar mustache of glitter.

Volunteers throughout were completely ignoring this one table, hurriedly making themselves look busy as glitter overtook the station like a sand storm.

It was absolute and total hell on earth.

Being the jackasses the wife and I are, we jumped in to help as best we could. And glitter has re-entered our lives yet again.

Bad things happen in threes, or so they say. The third time glitter overtakes my life, it better damn well be in the form of dollar bills, strippers, or Goldschlager.

Do they even make that shit anymore?