Oblivious In Training

You know those people who walk down the center of a grocery isle with their cart at a snale’s pace completely oblivious to the fact not a single human being can pass them?

Or that person who strolls down the middle of a parking lot causing you to slowly creep behind them while fighting the urge to floor it and enjoy the sound of them tumbling over the hood, roof, and back of your car?

Or the jackass who walks through a door a mere 4 feet in front of you and lets it swing closed without holding it for you?

Well those oblivious, brain-dead, life-suckers are what my son is turning in to.

He’s essentially a human gnat bouncing around in a wide open space utilizing his uncanny ability to land in only the most annoying spots possible.

Example 1

We were going for a bike ride the other day. The sun was out, birds were chirping, I had an amazing view of the wife’s derriere bouncing ever so slightly on her bike seat, and my son was leading the pack with his head turned around to us asking things like:

“You know that Pokemon card where the little blue guy looks all innocent and stuff? He turns into a dragon!”

“Hey dad, what happens if you fart when you’re butt’s on the seat? Will it hurt you?”

Boy: “Hey daddy, guess what?” Me: “What?” Boy: “Hahaha…you said the Nerd Word. You’re a nerd now!”

Meanwhile, bikers on the peaceful pathway are diving off to the grass, desperately grabbing their children, and giving me death looks as my son obliviously drives his death-machine down the middle of the path without looking ahead because he’s too busy trying to see my reaction as he reveals to his old man that he’s in fact a huge nerd.

Example 2

We have a dog that I didn’t want but wasn’t man-enough to say “hell no” to. Apparently dog’s poop. And apparently my son’s shoes are a magnet for said poop.

The other day I notice footprints of shit in my house. Immediately I panic, yell for the boy who’s broken the golden rule of no shoes in the house. Sure enough, there’s a massive pile of crap attached to his foot.

After explaining the golden rule….again, I then say, “please go outside and clean off your shoe.”

What does my 8-year-old boy do? He uses the back deck steps to wipe the shit off his shoe. To him, the steps were technically “outside.”

Oblivious.

So I know you’ve got good stories. Leave a comment of the most oblivious thing your little nipper does that makes you want to drop kick him/her?

The Dog Days

The Spring is such a wonderful time of year. It brings the people-folk out of their houses. The runners start training in mass for races, bikers create that cloud-like blob along early-morning road sides, and dogs with their owners begin making longer journeys around the neighborhood.

I was on a run yesterday when I passed a number of people walking their beloved furry animals. I couldn’t help but remember just over a year ago when the wifey and I made the collective decision to bring a dog into the family.

And….scene:

It was late fall, the family had just moved from Virginia to Chicago to be with me after waiting months to sell the house. We had already bought a cat and everyone was settling into a good mid-western big city routine.

I’d just finished reading the amazing book The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (yeah it’s an Oprah Book Club book but I didn’t read it because of that…you wanna fight about it?!!!). I suddenly got a hankering to bring a dog into the family thinking in my head, the kids would love growing up with a furry bastard around the house.

It was like being a teenager all over again…I wanted something that I knew was no good. I wanted to bring a dog into a three bedroom, one bathroom house, already equipped with one brand new cat, a backyard no larger than a postage stamp, long winters hovering around 0 degrees, and a wife I knew damn good and well would not walk this beast.

We went to the SPCA as a family. We met dogs. We walked dogs. We played with them on shit-covered sheets of ice. We finally found the “perfect” one! Five minutes later the SPCA worker was quickly removing him from us after he tried to eat my daughter’s face off.

Two days later we brought home a large doggie. We loved that bastard. But holy shit no one in his short life had even begun to train him. And when he stood up on his hind legs, he was the same height as my beloved wife at 5’1”.

This is the same wife who for the first time since she was 14 years old, wasn’t working a job. She was staying home with our children, in a new city, hundreds of miles from any family and friends while her husband was gone from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. during the work-week.

We named him “Odie.” Most of his short life in our home he spent chasing the cat, leaping on counters, tackling our children, trying to eat my wife, and sparking calls from the wife to me at work that sounded a lot like “I can’t handle the two kids, this winter, and this damn dog!!!”

I took him on walks. I read up on training and implemented the tips as best I could. I set up an appointment with a trainer but had to wait a month for a new class to start. But every day I came home it was the same. House trashed, the dog crated, wife frazzled and crying, and kids swinging from the ceiling.

A few days later I came home to the wife in tears again and mumbling, “I just can’t handle it!”

I asked her to put the kids to bed, I grabbed the dog, put him in the car and headed back to the SPCA. It was the worst feeling I’d had in years. I knew I was taking him back to prison after experiencing our wonderful family. A lot of other people would have made a different decision, but I knew we were not the ideal family for this dog that had lived in our house for four days.

Later we explained to the kids that I took Odie to a farm to be with tons of other dogs where they could run around and have so much fun.

We kept track of Odie on the SPCA website and a week later he was adopted and never returned. Looking back at those pictures the wife and I miss him. We wished he had found him at a better time in our lives.

But…we’re confident he’s enjoying his life on that farm with all those dogs…

Ode to the Dangly Shoelace

Despite the fact my son can do multiplications…he can’t tie his shoe.

Despite the fact he knows monsters aren’t real,

Isn’t scared of the dark,

And can rip a worm in half on a fishing trip …he can’t tie his shoe.

We went cross-country skiing this past weekend,

From the seat of my ass,

Deeply implanted in the snow,

He stood there coaching me to “use your polls to go!!,”

But he can’t tie his shoe.

He’ll steal sushi from your plate if you’re dozing for a second or two,

But he can’t tie his shoe.

He can wipe his own ass….but he can’t tie his shoe.

He’ll tell a complete stranger Happy Birthday,

Climb a tree faster than me,

Be on my front wheel on a 15-mile bike ride,

Throw himself in a pool whether he’ll swim or come in with the tide,

But he still….can’t tie his shoe.

He calls his sister his “enemy,”

Until I see him lying next to her laughing.

He’ll put tacks on the floor,

Won’t bother to hold a door,

And tell me “you’re mean!” when I punish him.

Yesterday he held his foot out with his regular pitiful look,

His knot-tying plea,

I said, “you’re seven, why don’t you tie your own shoe!”

He said,

“Cause everyone always does it for me.”

My son can tie his own shoe.

A Day With Pink Ducky

So we have a ducky. A pink ducky to be exact. He’s a cool dude, hangs out, doesn’t really cause much trouble. The little bastard used to light up from within. When we first brought him into our crazy life he was a rock-star. The kids slept with him…the daughter held him on a pedestal. Mainly because his flashing guts made them feel like the owner of the most bad-ass piece of awesomeness that ever existed.

Then his lights stopped blinking.

He spent a week shoved between the mattress and the wall of my daughter’s bed until he was saved by the ole fashioned sheet changing maneuver. Then he lived on my daughter’s dresser and was there the day fishy died. A week later, the daughter rediscovered him and he was transported to the tub. Since that time, he’s become one of two dozen toys crammed in a bathtub toy baggy, rarely played with, constantly cold, damp, wet, and ignored. Until yesterday.

During a regular shower routine, I noticed pink ducky chillin’ in his bathtub bag. Sad. Angry. Depressed. I scooped him up and said, “hey little man!!! What do you say I make today, YOUR day?”

Three high-fives and a wing-bump later, we were on our way to live life to its fullest. And so….here’s our day….

He drove us to a pancake breakfast where he quickly scoffed one plate after plate after plate of yumminess. He carbo loaded like a master.

After we got home, well fueled pink ducky said, "all right bitches...let's go for a ride!" So the whole family hopped on our bikes and headed out.

Along the way we made a stop cause ducky got wood.

Knowing this would probably be the last time pink ducky ever has a day in the real world, he thought he'd make his mark and let everyone know how he feels about the war.

Worn out, pink ducky ate a quick little snack and setteled in for some TV time and a nap. I took off and took care of some stuff around the house. An hour later I went back to check on everyone and pink ducky was gone. I looked everywhere. Then...I found him.....and was horrified.....

I decided to leave them alone....and let them get done what clearly needed to get done. Lucky ducky.

  Then we headed out for dinner with our good friends, the @momomatic family. It was there that Pink Ducky decided to get his "drink on."

And that wasn't enough.....afterwards he hit the liquor store for more....

Pink ducky didn't just get drunk....he got stupid drunk. He took his clothes off. He streaked a Chuck-E-Cheeze. He got depressed and tried to cut himself open to remove his dead flashy light thingy. He told off-color racist jokes. He even made passes at the wifey. Then...like all good stupid drunk pink duckies do....he got sick.

He puked like he'd never puked before. We all got to experience his Mexican dinner all over again. A couple hours later, we cleaned him all up, laughed about the memories, gave each other hugs, and promised we'd do it again soon. I love that little pink bastard.

After I tucked him in to his cozy warm bubble bath for night time, I cried myself to sleep and dreamt of pink ducky and me running through fields of dazies, laughing, and being free, together, and happy.....

The End

Herding Cats is Making Me Crazy

I thought I’d just give a quick run-through of this past Friday morning. A somewhat typical morning in my family’s house.

4:41 a.m. – My alarm goes off. I make the snooze bar my bitch for a little bit, by 4:55 a.m. I’m out of bed. Kick back some water, head off to the Y and have an awesome spin class.

6:45 a.m. I cruise back up to the house. It’s the wifey’s first day of work. Before I left earlier, I had re-set the alarm for 6:30 a.m. to wake her up while I was gone. I slowly look up and no lights are on.

“Shit!”

6:46 a.m. I open the back door and I hear someone stomping up the basement stairs, turn the corner…it’s my daughter. She continues, then stomps up the stairs to the second floor. She’s carrying clothes. I think to myself..well, that’s a start!

Daughter – “These mommy!! I WANT TO WEAR THESE!!!”

“Oh fuck..” I say as I drop my gym back. I walk into the kitchen to make a quick cup of coffee and WWIII in its very infancy upstairs. I think, "bye sanity..it was nice knowing you. It was such a short relationship."

7:00 a.m. Slowly I walk up the stairs..

Wifey – “Grayson, get your pants on son!!”

Son – “IIIIIII AAAAAMMMMMM!!!!”
Wifey –“Macy..no, you cannot wear that you wore it yesterday and it’s dirty, put this on now!”

Daughter – “But it’s blue!!! I’ll look like a boy!!”

I hesitate for a second before reaching the top of the stairs, only because I remembered there’s still a ton of beer in the fridge. Then I continue up… I look in my son’s room and he’s still in his little red undies tapping on his fish tank…jeans still on the floor. My daughter brushes by me to go down stairs – still wearing the pink dress she was told to take off. Wifey, checking her ass out in the mirror to see if she has panty lines.

Me – “Macy…get back in your room and change please. Grayson – are you trying to get your fish to help you put your pants on? Come on man – it’s simple…one leg at a time, button, zip – score – you’re all done!”

My daughter falls to the ground screaming and crying. Son – “I FORGOT DADDY sheeeshh..never give me a second to do ANYTHING!!”

My chest puffs out and I start stomping towards my son’s room, “son, you’d better respect me…do you hear me? Don’t talk to me like that ever again!! Now put your pants on now!!” He falls to the ground crying, but somewhere in the crying he manages a, “yes sir.”

I turn feeling as though I’d won one battle. “Macy, get those clothes on now, or I’ll put them on for you and you won’t like that!!” She stands, walks to her room and throws herself on top of the clothes she should be wearing.

7:11 a.m. - I storm in our bedroom pissed. “Fuck!” I mumble under my breath. The wifey is all: “I know, I just don’t understand why it’s got to be so damn hard. Every morning I have to…..” her voice slowly turns into Charlie Brown’s teacher as I start to pull my work clothes out to iron.

Five minutes later, my son walks in our room, STILL in his underpants, holding a picture from his room and says, “Daddy…what was the name of this fish I caught again?”

It took a second for the disbelief to fully hit before I could speak… “Grayson..is this a joke? Seriously, are you kidding me?

Son, with his arms out, eyes big, true confusion on his face, “What daddy? What do you mean?”

Me – “Seriously…are there cameras in here? Are we con Candid Camera? Is that douche gonna jump out holding balloons with my family laughing and tell me it’s all been a joke?”

Son – “DADDY!!! Just tell me what the name of this fish is!”

Me – “FIVE minutes ago I told you for the 4^th time to put your pants on and you’re still in your skibbies!!! What are you doing? Son – you have to focus!!! GO…PUT…YOUR…PANTS….ON….NOW!!!!”

Son…immediately becomes the victim, starts crying, stomps off angrily and screams, “Daddy you’re so mean, I just wanted to know the name of the fish!!!”

This went on for another 10 min. before I turned into the atom bomb, flew myself into each kid’s room, dropped myself from their precious angle-filled skies, and exploded. There was a lot of tear debris, screams could be heard for miles, the cat was in the basement trying to tunnel out of the house, but no lives were lost.

We should be able to fire our children if they don’t perform simple tasks well when asked. Then, you put an ad in the paper, interview new children, and hire the right ones. Then…life would go on blissfully with beautiful songs, rainbows, helpful – well behaved children giggling and bringing you beers….ahhh…if only.