Sometimes I Wish That I Could Stop You From Talking

Big Mama and I are going out tonight to see Elvis Costello at the New Daisy. I can't even remember the last concert I went to. Do they start at 6:00 now, so I can get home and to sleep at a decent hour?

I asked The Quartet this morning what their favorite Costello song is and they said they don't know any of the song names. They're a bunch of liars. C asked if he sings "Muhammad Ali" and I said no. He asked if he sings "The Prettiest Waitress" and I said no. That boy breaks my heart.

So they asked me to play a CD on the way to school this morning, which I did because nobody ever asks me to play Elvis Costello. I put in My Aim Is True and we rocked out, as much as you can in a 17-year-old Volvo station wagon, anyway.

I'm looking forward to a night away from the kids and their lying ways, when I'll rock out with friends on Beale Street. As much as a 37-year-old can, anyway.

JPee

I walked out in the front yard yesterday, just in front of where the van was parked, and found JP standing in the driveway, shirtless, shorts down and peeing one of the most impressive arcs I've ever seen while grinning ear to ear.

He was clearly pleased with what he'd accomplished.

I should've stopped him, lectured him on the appropriateness of outdoor urination. But it really was quite impressive.

And, truth is, I was a little jealous. Not of the arc, mind you, I could have peed over him and the van. I was envious of the opportunity, and of the naivete that the front yard might not be the best place to relieve himself.

So I let him finish, which he did in due time, and when he looked over and caught me nearby, instead of a lecture, all I gave him was a thumbs up.

Four is the New Seven

If you've ever wanted to have your thumbs and fingers ink-smudged while reading something I've written about The Quartet, then you should pick up a copy of today's The Commercial Appeal and read my debut with the column "Because I Said So."

The buzz around The Castilo this morning:

Big Mama: Go steal a neighbor's paper so we can see it! (I did not do this.)

S (upon seeing my mug in the column): Who is that?!

JP: It's good they spelled our last name right.

C (after reading): It's good.

GK: That Daddy! That Daddy!

You can see for yourself HERE.

Common Sense and Laserbeams

I don't have a high horse when it comes to the environment, I leave that to the professionals. I just don't believe that humans could ever destroy Mother Nature, she's too tough a broad to succumb to the likes of a flock of animals who count opposable thumbs as their super power. And if we could, I don't believe that plastic bags from the grocery store is how we would kill her. I would hope that we'd be more creative than that, like maybe develop a mad scientist-type laser beam hidden deep in an island fortress somewhere. All the evil humans there would wear coverall uniforms in drab gray, or something, except the evil women who would wear something shorter and more colorful. Some of the drones may need to have their opposable thumbs removed to keep them in line.

But I digress.

I recently purchased some of the re-usable grocery bags from Kroger simply because they hold more and are easier to carry. I stopped by the Kroger at Cleveland and Poplar this morning to get some goods for work and took those bags in. At checkout, I stood there watching as, first, the sacker put the blue bags into a plastic bag. I explained to him that I'd already bought them and that the groceries speeding down the belt at him should be put into those re-usable bags. Please. I always say please, it's how I was raised. I then stood and watched as he and a supervisor put the groceries into plastic bags and then put those bags into the blue re-usable bags.

I should have explained it to them, and maybe the girl checking me out. And possibly to anyone I could gather around for an audience. But I spend my days and nights attempting to instill common sense into my four children and I just don't have the energy to try to persuade adults to think before they act. If it were a matter of life and death, then of course I would have made my wishes clear, but as I've said already, I just don't think it is.

We're trying to raise The Quartet to be productive and intelligent members of society. I try to make them see that all of their actions have consequences and that they should always think and consider the outcome before they act or speak. I'm trying to get them to think hard about that laser, about what island chain we should hide it in, about whether or not I'll be high up in the chain of command and, hopefully, get to keep my thumbs. Please?

Illogical

Back in the very late 1980s, very early '90s, I went to Memphis State University for a minute. One of my favorite courses that I took was a logic class. Elementary Logic, I believe it was called. It was soothing to me, like sinking back into a comfortable chair, to see how these letters and symbols fit together to form the foundation of all the more complex decisions we make every day in this insane society. The basic theory that A=B, B=C, therefore A=C sounded like Sinatra to me at that time.

S needed money today for a field trip at school. Among the three older kids, there is a field trip about once a week, all requiring $5 or $10 or $4 or, once, $40. I'm still not sure about that one, but soon after C was seen wearing some new sneakers. Today the fee was $9, which I put on top of her homework folder last night, and then at some point she came up to me at my desk to get an envelope for Kristy to put that money safely into.

On the way to school this morning, I asked S if she'd gotten her money for the field trip, which is to the zoo, by the way. "No," she said.

"Did your mother put the money in an envelope last night?" I asked.

"Yes."

"What happened to that envelope?"

"She put it in my folder."

"Do you have the folder?"

"Yes."

"Hey, S, do you have the money for your field trip?"

Silence.

Money = Envelope
Envelope = Folder
Therefore, Money = Folder

She had failed to grasp the simplest tenet of logic. Not only failed to understand, but was actually stymied by it all when I tried to explain it to her. Maybe her tiny 5-year-old brain hasn't fully developed enough, or perhaps it was just too early in the morning for Dad's smart-ass point-making. Or, maybe, I expect too much from my kids, for them to see that A=C, when they can't even grasp that Daddy is always right, the simplest axiom in our family.

Because They Said So

For those of you who rushed out this morning and bought a The Commercial Appeal, or woke up while it was still dark out to get on your computer, glowing screen bathing your matted, bed-head hair, to read my column Because I Said So ... sorry. It got pushed back to next Thursday because they ran a giant piece on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today.

Please tune in next week, but until then, go back and read Stacey Greenberg's excellent column under the same title from last week.

The Fanatical Four

The Quartet was as excited as everyone else in the city about the University of Memphis Tigers’ shot at the national championship last night. JP even made a diorama for the night, an image of a tiger dunking a basketball inside a little box. He whooped and cheered for the Tigers until they fell behind and he became discouraged, lying on the couch and burying his face in the pillows, eventually drifting into sleep. All before halftime.

It was a scene played out across the country yesterday, though possibly without the narcolepsy, but it was especially unusual for us because we don’t have a sports-minded household. Oh, sure, there are sports moments; there was the run through the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four for our hometown boys, and just last week I took The Quartet to Uncle Toby's house to witness Liverpool FC beat down Everton FC in the Merseyside Derby. And, like most households, we follow Le Tour de France every year and the World Cup every four.

But we don't follow the week-to-week progression of the NFL or the day-to-day baseball scores and stats. This is mainly because I don't have time what with working six days a week. And Kristy loathes sports. We don’t follow NASCAR because it’s a bunch of cars driving around an oval and I fall asleep and there’s yard work to do. Yet professional sports (and I lump college sports in with this, but that's a discussion for another time) have a place in our society and in growing up American.

Are my kids growing up with the full American childhood experience? With summer days on the ball field and Sunday afternoons cheering their favorite team? My son made a diorama for a college basketball game, for the love of all that is holy. Should I correct this? Probably. They should know that in this house we’re loyal to the Cubs. They should be encouraged, I suppose, to root for the hometown Grizzlies until that team moves and I have to explain money and television revenue sharing and what professional sports is really all about. They should realize, if they don’t already, that what those young men did last night in San Antonio was more than play a basketball game that would realize big money for the two universities and help to propel some of those athletes into the big leagues. They should know that that team, and that game, brought a city together, a city that is torn apart every day by the people running it, by the lowlifes on the street and by the news media. And they need to know that, at its core, it’s just a game. None of it, from the most casual soccer match in any third world country, to the most prestigious win of Tiger Woods’s career, none of it really matters in the end.

It’s all diversion, and that if you want to paint your face blue, then go ahead. If you want to dress your kids in team colors for the weekend, then by all means do so. And if you want to make yourself a diorama, well, that’d be just fine, too.

Gobble

Downtown Elementary lost power yesterday morning so I got a call that the kids needed to be picked up, that they were closing early. Again. These kids have gotten out of school early for rain and for loss of electricity. When I was a kid we were lucky if school closed for snow.

On the walk back to my shop, C told us he had gotten his letter from his pen pal in Turkey. His class recently began a program of writing letters to strangers. "He doesn't speak English so good, but I don't blame him because he's on the other side of the world." Ahhh, the cultural tolerance. I told him, "Mmm, turkey."

Happy Morning

Anyone who is a parent remembers that moment when their child or their children came into this world. I mean that very instant when their baby sprung forth, unleashing that wonderful scream and a torrent of emotion. Many of you probably cried; I know I did.

I'm finding that it's not the same emotion when your baby wakes up earlier than expected in the mornings and springs forth from her room, all snot-encrusted, wild haired, and spewing forth anger and ear-splitting, "Mommy!s." Unlike birth, I just wish I could put her back in; I don't want to see you or hear you until you're ready to be seen and heard. And if that's nine months from now, then so be it.

Trash Collecting

S always brings her empty Zip-Loc lunch bags home from school. In camping parlance, she packs out what she packed in. We’ve never camped. I know that some people will want to believe that S is interested in recycling. That she’d like to see these plastic baggies re-used again and again, never adding to the non-biodegradable detritus clogging up Mother Nature’s arteries.

S does not care.

She puts those empty bags back in her lunchbox because 1) she doesn’t want to walk to the garbage can at school, and 2) she’s afraid the universe may come to a screeching halt and we will run out of garbage at home.

We will not.

I throw these empty Zip-Locs in the garbage because the idea of putting a new meat sandwich into what once held an older meat sandwich makes me want to throw up. The question is what to do with all the garbage? Or rather, with the recyclables. Such a nice word, recyclable. It’s not trash, it’s recyclable. And we do recycle, we have a curbside bin provided by the city and I fill it up every week. The problem is that there is still trash, er, recyclables, to be put in there because The Quartet ingests copious amounts of milk, gingerale and Chef Boyardee. So the left-over trash – I’ve just now decided to call it what it is, trash – piles up. In my home.

I know we can call the city and request an extra curbside bin. We had two at one time, but the extra … disappeared. It was recycled, I imagine. I hope. I have to believe that at some point the trash collector assumes that two bins is a mistake, and an egregious paperwork error has occurred somewhere in the chain of command, and liberates one of them. And I’m left, again, with a pile of trash in my house.

Kristy and I disagree on immediate solutions. She says we should take our neighbor’s bin since he just moved out of town and the house is vacant; let recycling logistics be the home buyer’s dilemma. I say fill up the recycle bin with the appropriate garbage and dump the rest in the big, green can.

We are at an impasse. But, I’m the one taking the garbage out.

Ryatting

From 1945 until 1970, my grandfather, Cal Alley, was editorial cartoonist for The Commercial Appeal here in Memphis. In addition to his editorial duties, he wrote and illustrated a nationally syndicated comic strip called "The Ryatts." The Ryatts was a strip celebrating the day-to-day life of a family with five children, gleaned from Cal's own family life. I like to think that Urf! is my own little Ryatts, though I don't claim to have a quarter of my grandfather's talent.

What I do have now is my own space in The Commercial Appeal to highlight my family. I, along with the multi-talented Stacey Greenberg, will be penning a column about our adventures as parents called "Because I Said So." It is to run every Thursday on the cover of the M section and, apparenlty, the day before on the internet. Stacey's can be found here; mine will appear next week.

What can you hope to learn from Because I Said So that you haven't from this blog? Well, you'll find out who I really am, you'll learn the actual names of The Quartet and, together, we'll find out whether or not you can use the term "public flatulence" in a daily newspaper with circulation over 100,000. Please read.

Changing Channels

Dinnertime at the Castilo has matured somewhat. I'm afraid to say that for years we have been one those typical American families that would eat in front of the television, if not all of us, then at least most of us. Recently, however, in my infinite wisdom and out of true paternal devotion, I've put an end to that and we've been eating around the massive dining table that Big Mama bought for me several Father's Days ago.

And it's been fun. Mostly. The kids look forward to the dinner hour when we will all sit together to eat and talk. But like so many other things, they've taken it to its most irritating extreme. They talk and talk and talk, and touch, and stand and sit and stand and sit and stand and sit. They need more milk. Now. JP won't leave C alone, and S only wants to eat three or four more bites. C is still telling us how his day was.

Perhaps this is how supper has always been, though drowned out by The Simpsons or 60 Minutes. Or maybe The Quartet was so mesmerized by the predicament Earl had gotten himself into this week that they'd forgotten to pick at each other. Whatever it was, I think I might want it back. It was quieter, less kinetic, and all happened an appreciable distance away from me. Kristy and I could sit at the table, if we chose, to talk quietly, read a magazine or book, or work the day's crossword.

The silence wasn't total, but the interruptions seemed fewer. Messes were still made, but they were out of sight.

This could be seen as parental regression, I know, taking the kids from the family table and putting them back in front of the TV. It's the lazy way out, sure. But who knew that without the inane chatter and hyperactive jump cuts of dinnertime television, that these kids would simply create their own?

Two

It was two years ago today that I latched onto the teat of the internet. Today is Urf!'s birthday and I feel I've nurtured it into the drooling, babbling, fit-throwing, high-maintenance toddler you know and love. I hope you'll continue to read and be a part of my family; there are a lot of exciting things happening, some of which you'll hear about in the next week or so.

Urf! by the numbers:

Years: 2
Posts: 410
Hits: 40,399
Children: 4
Bathrooms: 1

Flight of the C

I've heard friends talk about it for a while now, I've read bloggers' writings on it, yet I never understood just what it was. It was hilarious, though, friends and bloggers alike agree on that. So last night Elizabeth brought season one of Flight of the Conchords over for us to borrow. And ... it's funny, with the one guy and his Jagger-like mouth and the other guy and his hair helmet. But you know who really enjoyed it? C. Perhaps it's geared to a 10-year-old's sense of humor with its songs of robots and the one about crying. I'm assuming this show is kid-friendly. I know it's HBO, but I didn't see or hear too much that's offensive, other than the New Zealand accent. However, I did fall asleep during the last half of the second episode, so if there was any gratuitous sex or violence, then please let me know, because I don't think C would, such is his new-found love for Flight of the Chonchords.

Upon Returning Home From Work Yesterday Evening ...

GK: Mayor Herenton announced his resignation today, effective July 31.

Me: Wow. I guess the celebration has begun already.

GK: What's to celebrate? He wasn't defeated, he wasn't scandalized like John Ford, he's going out on his own terms after a 16-year run as mayor. He's imposed his will and his cronies on this city and, as a result, Memphis is a crime-ridden, downtrodden village. We're more racially and economically divided than ever and Herenton is just walking away from it. It makes me sad, it makes me sick every morning when I sit down with my espresso and bagel, trying to stomach the newspaper. What is there, really, that's worth celebrating?

Me: You make a good point for a 26-month-old.

GK: 21-month-old.

Me: Whatever. So who's the next mayor?

GK: I believe it will come down to a special election this November.

Me: Hey, maybe I'll run for mayor!

GK: Your fly is open.

Close Call

Let me tell you what almost happened.

Today marks the start of The Quartet's and Big Mama's spring break, which is why you saw me drive directly to work from home this morning without making all sorts of turns and stops to drop these kids off at their various destinations. I was talking to my Mom on the phone last night and she reminded me that Favorite Aunt Carol is flying down to the swamps of southern Florida today for a visit. When I told Kristy of this after I got off the phone she said, "You and GK should go down there." Yes! We should! It is spring break and GK does love her Jello shooters. Just for laughs I Googled up some airline flights and found that the flight to Ft. Lauderdale today or tomorrow is surprisingly affordable. But it's awfully soon. It all seemed too spontaneous, especially with work and various other responsibilities.

So we're still in Memphis, where it's not 85 degrees. Taking the trip was still on my mind this morning as I lay in bed thinking, and I started wondering if I could even do that. I've never been alone with GK for that length of time. Would I know how to take care of her? It would also be the longest she's gone without the possibility of nursing. Would South Florida be ready for Hurricane GK? What entertains a 21-month-old? I work six days a week and on the seventh I'm usually doing chores around the house or running errands (I know, I know, it's for the Parent of the Year panel to decide now ... or Harry Chapin to sing about ). Then I began thinking more specifically of the flight. She'd be on my lap for two hours, though she wouldn't want to stay there. She'd want to walk this way and that, possibly see what happens when you pull this latch. She's not at the age where I can read to her and she'll sit and listen, or sit quietly and color or play with a doll. She likes to go, go, go. When she's not nursing, that is, which is just out of the question. And what about the bathroom? What if I had to go? Those bathrooms are literal water closets and wouldn't fit both of us. Can I ask the stewardess to watch her? And, possibly, nurse her? And then I thought about sleeping. I get pretty tired after my second airplane bottle of scotch. Would that same stewardess be willing to watch GK during my nap? I'd slip her $10, of course, I don't expect her to take on that extra responsibility for free. I wonder just how friendly the skies would be after two hours of a cranky little, cooped-up girl?

I suppose it's good I didn't spontaneously book that flight because I really need to sit and stew on the idea for a while. By the time GK is eight or nine I should be ready to travel alone with her. By then she'll be able to sit quietly and read or color (I hope), and she'll be able to potty on her own (I hope), though it will be difficult to pass her off as under-two so I don't have to pay for an extra seat. But it will be nice to have someone so small to travel with whose tiny little hands can get the caps off those tiny little bottles for me.

Pick a Card

The school-age kids are involved in something called Accelerated Reader, or AR, at school. They read books at home, or get help reading books, and then amass points for each book read. They then use these points to redeem cash and prizes ... or something, I don't really know all the ins and outs of AR and its convoluted system of words and numbers.

The other night S brought home one of the Clifford books (one of the Clifford books that involves guns, surprisingly) and I was going to help her read it. Turns out she can't read a lick. Not a sentence. But then last night she picked up a card that was lying about and said, "Is this a one-eyed Jack?" And it was. So at least she's gaining some sort of education, somewhere. Although later she said, "What are those little green things that hide treasure at the end of rainbows called?" So I guess her education level fluctuates.

Pete

Kristy and I moved into our house almost 11 years ago; she was pregnant with C at the time. The neighbor to the north of us was Pete, and he's been there ever since. However, he's talked since the first day we met him about selling his house and moving out of town. Every time we'd run across each other outside, working in the yard, taking out the trash or passing each other on our way to or from work, he would mention thinking about selling his house and moving out of town. And now he is. He leaves today for Denver, a new job, and endless hours of trail riding and running.

The Quartet has grown up knowing Pete and they have come to think of his front yard as their own (sorry about all the Big Wheels, balls and various toys, Pete!). He's been a good neighbor and he'll be missed on our street.

Good luck, neighbor!

Big Help

The funniest thing to me going on in our house right now is GK helping me to put the clean silverware away when I'm doing dishes. She can barely reach the drawer, so she just throws them in haphazardly. I don't correct her or tell her she's doing it wrong, I just clap and then, when she's finished, we both jump around the kitchen as a kind of victory dance.

The second funniest thing to me going on in our house right now is Big Mama opening that same silverware drawer and seeing the pile of utensils. Because, see, I don't go back and straighten the mess, either, and it drives Kristy crazy.

[This is where the photo of the silverware
drawer would go if I had a camera.]

What's Broken Wednesday?

You know what, you guys guess what it is this time. What is it around Castilo Urf! that is broken this time? And, since things break in threes for me, you get bonus points if you guess the next two items to break, in order of course. For an extra bonus, if anyone would like to replace what broke tonight, then I will rename this blog after you.



[Happy Birthday, Papa Steve!]

Clap, Stomp, Beep, Chew ... Chew ... Chew ...

As both of you know, I don't like to speak ill of my children in print. Or on the interweb. However, there are three things on the list of things that are beginning to annoy the hell out of me that I just can't ignore any longer.

The first is JP and the incessant beat he seems to have going on in his head. He claps his hands and stomps his foot to a rhythm only he can hear. It's like living with an overgrown Chick Webb or a STOMP understudy, or like driving around town with Shane B. and a Big Gulp. I've actually let this go for a while because the boy obviously has the music in him, and I don't want to discourage his natural ability. So I would just ask him to stop at the dinner table, but allow him to drum and clap at will the rest of the time. But I just can't take it any more because he's also got the OCD in him and I think now that this is what's driving his patter.

The second is the chewing. I can't seem to get these kids to chew their food with their mouths closed. It's like eating dinner with someone treading water in a vat of macaroni & cheese right next to me. In the 1950s, NASA taught a monkey to pilot a rocket into space, but I can't teach three humans to masticate quietly.

The last one is C and this calculator/calendar contraption he got from school last week. He carries this thing around and shows it more affection than Kristy and I have shown any of our offspring. I don't know what else this thing does, but he flips it open and stares at it for hours on end. Occasionally it beeps at him and he laughs. I'm not so sure this is as much annoyance as it is fear. I worry that he may be planning something, or he may feel responsible for punching in a sequence of numbers every so often.

I suppose all I can do is try to maintain patience as The Quartet grows and learns. I can nudge them in the direction I think they need to go in order to become productive and caring citizens one day. And I can talk to them, talk until I'm blue in the face and then just sit back and shake my head as JP claps his hands twice, stomps his foot once, and then heads into the kitchen to chew a Pop-Tart.

The Best?

While flipping through the 11 channels of our substandard cable package last night, I passed - and then paused on - a reality game show crap program called My Dad is Better Than Your Dad. The Quartet was immediately entranced by the old men running and huffing around a soundstage while their offspring screamed encouragement at them, so I asked them all whose dad is best. "Who's the best dad?" I said, "WHO IS THE BEST DAD?!" Until finally they each relented and answered that I am, in fact, the best dad.

And then I changed the channel.

The Quartet complained and bellowed, as they were by now wrapped up in the competition. But I was having none of it, so they all left the room, leaving the Best Dad in the House in blissful peace.

This peace lasted about seven minutes before S came back into the room to tell me everything I'd missed on the show in the last seven minutes, and that it wasn't on now because there was a news break. The special news bulletin was to inform everyone of the six people, including two kids, found shot in Binghamton, not too terribly far from us.

The Best Dad tried to shield his kids from horrible television, yet failed to shield them from the horribleness of life.

The Tell-Tale Pants

I picked my second born, JP, up from piano practice at school this afternoon and was greeted in the hallway by a guttersnipe in khaki pants with both knees ripped out. I asked him what happened and he told me nothing, that they were like that when he put them on this morning. I stopped him and said (for my sisters, they should imagine Mom saying this because I could sense her presence talking to me 30 years ago), "You mean to tell me I took those pants out of the laundry this morning, folded them, and set them out for you with the holes in them." And he said, "Yes." I asked if he was sticking to that story and he said, "Yes."

As we waited the 15 minutes or so for C to finish play practice, I made a point of staring at his knees so that he would catch me, and then he would cover them with his hands and look away. I plan to leave those pants out here at home where he will consistently see them and he will consistently be reminded of the story he told me until one day he just can't take it anymore and he'll crack and tell me what really happened. And by then I'll probably yell at him that I don't know what he's talking about but he'd better get his pants out from the magnets on the refrigerator.

CD

This is the 400th post on Urf!.

I don't really have much more to say about it. I'd like to say that there are 100 posts for each of my four kids, but that's not completely true. There are a lot of posts just about me, some about movies or music, television or school, and a few are simply photos. But all 400 posts have one central theme: me! Not really, it's all about family - the silliness, the poignant, the profane and, of course, the good times and frustrations.

I hope you've enjoyed reading these first 400 as much as I've enjoyed writing them. And if you haven't lately, you really should go back to the beginning and re-read all of them. Go ahead, I'll wait ...

RJA and Kristy Plus Four

Occasionally I find myself in front of the television flipping through all 11 channels of our substandard cable package. If The Simpsons isn't on, then the TV usually lands on TLC. I find one of their shows fascinating. It isn't the one about the midgets or the tattoos or the house renovations. This is the show about a couple with eight children, six of whom are the same age.

I don't watch this family to feel bad for them or to laugh at them. I watch it because I envy them. These 10 people are always going places! They're traveling in their cool, large-capacity van, and they're traveling on airplanes. I was thinking tonight of all the places Kristy and I have traveled with half as many kids. We've been to Greensboro, GA, to visit Mimi & Pop; Statesboro, GA; and the Gulf coast a few times. And that's it. We've never even driven to Naperville, IL, to visit Favorite Aunts Carol and Lauren, for some reason. Never been four hours away to Murfreesboro to see Johnny and his girls. And we've certainly never been on an airplane together. I once looked into flying us all to the swamps of Southern Florida to visit my mother and the cheapest flight was close to $2,000 for us to drive to Nashville and fly out of there.

I watch the TLC program, and here is this family jetting around the country, so what I figure the Urf! contingent needs is a producer. We need a producer to put these trips together and wrangle some advertising money. I'll dress my kids in Nike or Coca-Cola or NASCAR or whatever you need to get us all out of town on your dime. We know we aren't reality TV worthy with our measly four, un-inked, average-height kids, and we're okay with that. We don't need to be on TV, we just need to get out from in front of the TV. And the farther from our television the better.

The Religion of Cute

I was raised in a Catholic family and in a Catholic school. One thing I always remember from my childhood is that my mother would make the Sign of the Cross any time we passed a Catholic church. It was never anything I learned specifically to do at school, though I was only 14-years-old when I left for public school, so I guess I assumed crossing yourself was something the Apostles had done whenever they drove past a church. No matter where in town we were, when we passed a Saint-anyone, Mom would make the Sign, it was the most reckless act of driving I would witness until cell phones came on the scene. Yet it was also somehow comforting to know that she was always thinking of where she was and, I suppose, where she’d come from.

I always counted on that simple motion just as I’ve come to count on something else as a parent. When out in public with my youngest child, GK, I expect strangers to stop when they pass and comment on her remarkable cuteness. It happens everywhere we go, people stopping to cross themselves with her beauty. I’ve even witnessed a genuflection here and there.

Another lesson learned from my mother was respect and tolerance for other religions. And I am both respectful and tolerant in my adulthood. But something happened today that I’m having a difficult time holding in high regard. GK and I were at the Home Depot (she’s thinking of repairing the leaky bathtub faucet herself and wanted to browse their selection of diverter stems) and people were stopping as they do to comment on her winsomeness to each other or to try to engage her or even just to smile at her. But then she walked in front of a middle-aged couple that didn’t stop or look away from their shopping to admire her. They ignored her! What kind of beauty atheists were these people? GK was even walking, and if you’ve ever seen her toddle then you know that it’s impossible not to adore it. I almost went back to these people to ask them what their problem was. Ask them if they even saw my daughter, or if Lucifer had pitchforked all aesthetic sense out of them.

I usually give people with their own kids a pass. I have four kids and I certainly never stop to ooh and ahh over some stranger’s snot-nosed urchin. But, again, that’s because I have my own. These Godless people looked to be two of that breed that have no children of their own by choice. They probably hate children. Or beauty. I have no idea what they were buying at the Home Depot, but I’m sure whatever they’re renovating or constructing will be ugly, pointy and dangerous, and probably best left ignored altogether.

One Through Six

Kids today. The Quartet and I have already reached a communications barrier, but it's not over the rock-n-roll or the new math or the designated hitter. No, it's over Star Wars. They've been watching the series over the past few nights, and they insist on calling Star Wars, the first Star Wars where we're introduced to Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan and R2-D2, "Number Four." And the third one, with the Ewoks, is somehow now known as "Number Six." There's no talking to these kids, they act like I was born in another century or something when I try to explain it to them.

Will I ever be able to talk to my children about the truly important things? About drugs and sex and relationships. About how in 1977 the computer technology just wasn't there to make Mark Hamill even a decent actor?

I'm Starving!

You've read about their food abhorrences. You've learned what foods will not be tolerated by

Sassy Molassy
Steph Chockleyblog
SAM
Listwork
Mrs. Katherine

And here is my own list. This is my list of things that aren't even food! You shouldn't eat these things even if you wanted to. Non bon apetite.

this calculator
this cigar cutter
that chair
my shoe
your shoe
recyclable water bottles
the remote
$1.25 in nickels
fleece
this ink pen
JP
the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle
squash
the front rotors and brake pads I just had replaced on the Volvo 740
erasers
this losing lottery ticket
a 40-watt light bulb
tiny little golf pencils
the Apple iBook G4
plutonium

Politics and Poop

Sunday politico program conversation:

Me: What are you doing my little snookum-wookum?

GK: Senators Obama and Clinton's campaign managers are making the rounds of the news programs and I'm considering both. Obama makes a strong case and has a good base with a large war chest to carry him forward to November.

Me: GK, dear, let me try to explain some things to you that you may not, in your 20 months, have comprehended yet. In this day and age, in this post-9/11 world we live in, we need a leader who can protect our country. We need someone who isn't scared to do and say what needs doing and saying. And there's only one person for that in this race, only one clear choice. It was a rallying point, a great day for America, when he rescued all of those hostages from what he thought was a gang of terrorists at Nakatomi Plaza. And that man single-handedly saved every soul on those airplanes that needed to land in Washington, D.C. Not to mention the passengers on the New York subway and the guy from the Apple commercial. How can you even think liberal in this time of war and strife? In this house, we vote one way and I expect you to remember that in 17 years.

GK: McCain, doofus. Senator John McCain of Arizona. M. C. C. A. I. N.

Me: Ohhh, I see. Nevermind.

GK: Hey, Russert, what say you change me now? I've been sitting in my own filth through your entire speech.

He Seems To Know Me

C has been cast in the role of "Peasant" in the production of The King in the Kitchen that the 4th Grade is putting on. (Spoiler alert!) The Peasant wins the princess.

I picked up my little Bobby De Niro after his first practice yesterday and he talked and talked and talked about the play like he does. He told me they were working on two plays that day. I said, "There are two plays?" And quick as he could, he said, "Yeah. But you only have to go to one." I think we understand each other.

Numbers, Words and Fire

I always had trouble with word problems in math class in school. I was good in math and I could read well, but when you put the two together it's like I was dyslexic. Whatever was being searched for in those riddles was beyond me. So I felt especially helpless tonight when C was trying to tackle a problem for school and asked me for assistance. Here's the problem:

Kate is 4 years older than Margaret. In 7 years, the sum of their ages will be 70. How old are they now? How do you find Kate's age using Margaret's?

I came up with the right answer, but I can't figure out how to explain how I got it, and the instructions ask for a table to show your work.

Parenting is hard enough with having to teach your kids right from wrong, to stay away from strangers, and which is their right foot and which is their left. But then you throw word problems in and it makes it only that much more difficult. It makes it about x times more difficult.

This evening I was also unable to teach GK how to use a Zippo. I blame this on her weak thumbs, which is going to be something she'll have to deal with her whole life. She gets weak thumbs from her mother.

Tears Among The Backpacks

As we pulled up to school this morning, JP said, "See that kid with the green backpack? That's Harold. Every morning he goes to the backpacks and cries and I go over to the backpacks and look at him." I suggested he should be nice to the boy and he said he is. "He's always okay by the afternoon."

JP is curious, but he has a big heart.

Par For The Course

On this fine, sunny Sunday morning I found myself out in the front yard with GK, mug of coffee in hand, watching her toddle around, ride the myriad tricycles and big wheels, and laughing at her as she implored me to ride the child-sized scooter. I knew that on the other side of the front door, the other three were wasting food, spreading debris around the living room, arguing, possibly crying and losing the remote. Again.

I leaned against the Volvo and watched as the three college-age guys who live three houses down stood around their upright golf bags and open trunk, no doubt discussing their plans for the day or remembering the highlights of their night before, whatever that might have entailed. They looked at me, I looked at them, they looked at me, I looked at them. I'm pretty sure they were envying my life.

At their leisure, they loaded those bags into the trunk, adjusted their windbreakers and ball caps and climbed in, heading off for a day at the course. I took my daughter up in my arms and headed inside.

Mud Angels

I can remember being a kid in February and holding out hope against hope that it might snow so that we would get the day off from school. Some days, though, it was only bitterly cold in the mornings, yet dry. But then, miracle of miracles, the sky would open up sometime during the morning and enough snow would begin falling to whip Memphis into a frenzy. All school work stopped and pandemonium would ensue with kids running around, looking out the windows and waiting on their parents to come and release us from the clutches of our teachers. Those were exciting times indeed.

I just got back from picking up my kids from school early. It's 75 degrees here now on the 5th of February, and there are some potential thunderstorms on the way which could hit here anytime between now and 10 p.m. I'll say that again: The powers that be closed Memphis schools early because it might rain. I think it's great that the schools now have computers in them and it's really wonderful that somebody at the top has weather.com bookmarked, but having parents leave work early to rush around and pick up their kids, who then may have no place to stay, because of a thunderstorm seems a bit over the top.

And right now weather.com is telling me that there is a wind advisory for the area. So it seems schools closed early for wind. Breaking wind, which may reach 25 mph. My brother, down in the swamps of southern Florida, gets out of school for the threat of wind sometimes, but their wind is generally guaranteed, and it's usually 74 mph or more.

The Quartet is at home now with Big Mama, who is a teacher in the city schools, and I have this Rockwellian image of them drinking hot chocolate, bundling up until they can hardly move, and then walking outside to be blown over into the mud in the front yard.

Dennis

My family is large enough that we have a calendar put out each year with everyone's birthday listed. All of the little squares for each month are almost filled up now with names. We're very prolific in our baby havin'.

When you look at today's date, February 3, you see that it is my cousin Dennis's birthday. But this square also tells us the year of his death, 2002. Dennis would have been 27 today. When I think of Dennis, I can't help but think of a day when a few of us were getting together at Aunt Jeannie's house. Dennis's young body, at that point, was already ravaged by MS; he was on steroids and swollen, and he walked with a cane. But he came in and the first thing he did was to ask me how I was feeling. I'd had some stupid sinus infection or something and he'd heard about it. And he asked me how I was feeling. But that was Dennis. He was always interested in how everyone else was doing. He was a good kid, loyal to his friends, he loved his mama and sister, and adored his nephew and niece.

Dennis left our lives like a landslide and he is dearly missed, because no matter how full that calendar gets, the gaps are just too big to be filled.

He's A Character

I've been getting these kids up and ready in the mornings and dropping them off at daycare or school for 10 years now. Shouldn't it be getting easier? I'm not even talking about actual drop-off, I'm talking about getting them out of the house. Don't I deserve a baby who doesn't mind being set down so I can tend to the 50 things I have to do each morning? Or a 5-year-old who will get herself dressed? Not one who can dress herself, mind you, but one who will dress herself. Isn't it my turn to leave the house without a kid crying for ... some reason? All I ask is one morning where I can walk out of the house with four happy kids following and a cup of coffee in my hand.

Throughout my life, upon any little hardship, Favorite Aunt Carol would tell me that that obstacle would build character. Whether I have any character left is debatable, but if I do have some, I would be willing to trade just a bit of for a kid who could wake up and find both shoes upon command.

Overheard On The Davenport

JP: Hillbilly.
C: You don't even know what a hillbilly is, do you?
JP: No.
C: It's, like, somebody who doesn't go to school and says stuff like "Yes'um."

Dining With A Monkey

I would like to invite you all to dine with me at Dino's Grill. I would like to, but the fact is that I've seen your table manners and I'd rather not be a party to any of that. So you'll just have to read my review of Dino's over at Dining With Monkeys. I'll reimburse each of you for the cost of your box of wine. Mangia!

Newhaven

Nostalgia runs rampant on the interweb.

It has been brought to my attention that my boyhood home is for sale. This is the home, in the 38117 zip code of Memphis, where I lived my seventh through 14th years of life. From that point it was less than a mile to school at St. Louis Elementary, where I spent the second through eighth grades. There was a magnolia tree in the front yard that probably still has my initials carved somewhere near the top, a dogwood tree, a gravel driveway and a rope swing in the massive Oak in the back. I had my own room, a bathroom across the hall, two sisters in the room next door, and my father eventually enclosed the screen porch in the back to make an additional room with a brick floor. The girl across the street was my age and who I spent most of my time with, running and playing and laughing, until sometime in the seventh or eighth grade when she became a woman and stopped speaking to me altogether. I had friends and family close by and what felt like all the time in the world. I was allowed to run and bike and travel as far as my imagination could take me.

I have mostly happy memories there. And this is why the most difficult part of the real estate listing is in the description of the house, which reads: Tear down house for lot. Tear down house for lot. It might as well say, destroy childhood memory for profit. Every so often, if I find myself in East Memphis as I did just last Saturday while shopping at the Home Depot, I will drive by my old house, visit my childhood. I find it somewhat comforting to see the house and the yard and to know that part of my past is still in tact even if the house has undergone changes making it look like only a notion of the structure I once lived in. It was still there and I could drive my kids past it and say, "Look, that's where I come from."

But not for long. Not unless I can come up with the $214,700 it's going to take to buy it and preserve it, much like Graceland, as a shrine to me and to the era of 1977 - 1984.

GK Says

Every once in a while I'm reminded that this blog is a place of record for my kids and their leaps and bounds. So I need to say today that over the past week, it seems, GK has begun talking. It is her birthright to talk - a lot - as she comes from a family of talkers. She's been taking gradual steps toward verbosity, but the past week has really seen a torrent of new words and sentence-like structures. I attribute this to the near-constant din in our house and needing to be heard above it, and the tutelage of Miss A. and her Montessori ways.

Here is a list of GK's vocabulary at 19 months in no particular order (except the first one):

Daddy
Mommy
ball
bye-bye
fish
yes
no
woof woof (her term for dog)
meow (her word for cat, though it's pronounced ew)
Toby
bath
ice
eat
baby

Know What? He's Right

Conversation just now on the walk from school:

Me: JP, tie your shoe.
JP: I don't know how!
Me (to C): Aren't you supposed to teach him that?
C: That's your job.

Meanwhile, Over At Listwork ...

This is what I do with my time when The Quartet gives me a moment of peace.

Air Supply

When I left work this evening, I noticed that one of the tires on the Volvo was nearly flat (of course it was!), so I stopped at the Shell filling station at the corner of Union Ave. and Belvedere in Midtown to fill it up. It now costs 75¢ to buy air, in case you didn't know. 75¢. So I was filling up the leaky tire and afterwards noticed a sign on the pump declaring that kids under the age of 16 are welcome to free air and to simply see the clerk inside the station.

Free air! I'm not even sure what that means for me, but I've got four kids under 16 and they're all entitled to air at no cost. They have plenty of air now, and it's free, but they also have plenty of DVDs, which were all free as far as they know, yet they require more and more. Granted, The Quartet places value on items based on whether or not Daddy's money was spent, but they also enjoy pushing a lever and hearing a hissing noise, so their prospective level of excitement is up in the air. So to speak.

Free air from a major oil conglomerate, this is almost too much. I believe I need to think on this some more, right now I'm still giddy that there is something free for my children just down the road.

I'm Out Of Order? You're Out Of Order!

Sometimes I think NetFlix is messing with me, sending me crap that there's no possible way I asked for. Movies that there's no possible way any studio green lighted. Last night, GK and I found ourselves watching Two for the Money, starring Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey and Renee Russo. At some point about halfway through, we had this exchange:

GK: Hold on, is that Michael Corleone's father?
Me: No, that's Michael Corleone. Al Pacino.
GK: How the hell does one go from being Michael Corleone to starring in this unwatchable piece of pap?
Me: He's just making a living, sweetheart. And don't use that kind of language.
GK: Don't tell me how to talk, old man.

And it went on from there, I won't bore you with the rest of it. I know the leading theory is that Pacino just plays himself in movies now, so the directors all know what they're getting before shooting even starts. But come on, this is Dog Day Afternoon we're talking about. He's Tony Montana, he's Serpico! And now he's what's-his-face from Two for the Money?

The general theme of the movie, from what I could glean, is that money isn't everything and true happiness should be found inside each person. Perhaps that's expecting too much from this film, though. But the fact is that I was trying to point it out to GK while explaining that Pacino is, in fact, simply picking up a paycheck now and it must have been very confusing for her because she pooped in her pants.

Instinct

I'm scared. There, I said it and I'm not ashamed. For the first time ever, both adults at Castilo Urf! are sick and the kids are not. Big Mama and I are in a bad way and I'm afraid that The Quartet will seize on this advantage, pack together, and take us down like gimpy wildebeest on the Serengeti, leaving our bloodied carcasses strewn about in front of the television and, of course, under the couch.

The other thing that concerns me is that the dishwasher broke last night (of course it did!) so The Quartet has no clean dishes to eat our meat off of. And as certain as I am that they will work together to bring us down, I am equally as certain that they will never come together to hand wash dishes. The very idea of washing a dish in the sink would be more foreign to them than the idea of eating their own parents.

I suppose I need to go home tonight and, in my feverish state, try to repair that appliance. You people all know how much I love to repair things around the house two or three times. I just hope I can concentrate on the drain pump when I know four hungry children are just behind me, pacing, waiting, and licking their chops.

Paging Mr. Herman

C's birthday was last Saturday, just two days ago. We've known it was coming up since his last birthday which was on the exact same date last year, yet we still didn't have a present ready for him on that day. I came up with the excuse that we wanted him to pick out his own bike for his birthday, because the alternative - I'm a bad parent - just didn't sit right. There are enough reasons for guilt when trying to raise children, yet birthdays are a given from year to year. All we can hope is that our kids don't remember those days as we do when they're older. And that their therapists aren't all that bright and are unable to extract these long-buried disappointments. I spoke to my mother yesterday and she told me a story about a particular birthday of mine that she still feels guilty about to this day, it's something I have no memory of whatsoever which makes us both feel better. Now I just have to keep C from reading this, ever.

As it turned out, C was also sick on his birthday and didn't even feel up to bicycle shopping, so we went the following day. We went to Target (if one more person tells me that Wal-Mart has a better selection of bikes, so help me I will turn this blog around right now!) and he picked out the one he wanted, which wasn't the one on sale for $40 off in the sales circular from the paper that day because we couldn't find that particular model anywhere. We brought it home and he rode it around and when I got to looking at it I noticed something wasn't right. The back wheel was slightly bent, causing it to rub against the brakes.

Tonight, when I got home from work, I loaded The Quartet (all of them) and the flawed bike into the Volvo and went back to Target. There was only one other bike matching his in the store and it had the same defect. The one in the ad, the one one sale, was out of stock, and that was just the one he wanted. So I took all four kids up to stand in line at the return/exchanges counter to get a refund and a rain check, the whole time listening to S alternately whine about some candy she wanted and watching her soak the front of her shirt at the water fountain.

When the lady at the return/exchanges counter gave me the rain check, she also printed out all the stores that had that particular bike in stock. And then, in a shining moment of patience, and to assuage my birthday guilt, I drove all four of those kids, at 6:00 at night, through the Walnut Grove/Humphrey's Blvd. intersection (you locals will understand that) and out to the Super Target in Cordova. And there was his bike. And there was my $40 savings.

When I was about C's age, maybe a bit younger, I got my first 10-speed. I don't remember it being the coolest bike in the neighborhood, it was brown on brown, but it was the late 70s and who didn't love brown back then? But I rode that bike all over the place, it was my transportation, it was my steed. C's bike is a 21-speed and it truly is the coolest bike in the neighborhood, with black on silver and shocks and grip shifters. It's a bike he can grow into and then some, a bike to get him around, get him away for a bit and discover what's out there all on his own. I hope he enjoys it, I know I'll enjoy watching him on it.

Back To School Regurgitation

Today was the return to school for The Quartet, a day I've been dreading since two weeks ago when they first got out for the holidays. We have very little structure in our house during the school year and when the kids and Big Mama are out of school then there is even less, if you can imagine that. The older kids have their TV and the joy of staying up late and sleeping in, and GK has her mama. Twenty-four/seven she has her mama. And then, suddenly, she doesn't and she's being left again at some place she only vaguely recalls, some place she thought she was finished with forever.

The truth is, though, GK did great. She was so happy and so much fun this morning before we left the house that I wanted to buy her a pony. She fell asleep in the car on the way to school and, once there, seemed a bit confused and just the slightest bit upset, but when I left she was curled up in Miss A's lap, quietly snuffling. She'll be just fine, I know.

C, however, is with me today. He'd been feeling puny for a few days, even on his birthday, but he seemed over it by yesterday afternoon. There is a report, though, that apparently hasn't been turned in at school and hasn't really even been worked on, and I thought this may have something to do with his relapse this morning. It was either that or, judging by the sounds he was making while laying on the couch this morning, he's at about seven centimeters. I was going with the theory that I was being scammed, but I didn't really have the time or patience this morning to argue the point with him. So I was short-tempered and demanding as I told him to just get dressed and go to work with me, but that I couldn't believe he was missing his first day back after vacation. Then I just now heard him throwing up upstairs here at work. Do you have any idea how the sound of puking resonates in all this tile and 25-foot ceilings? Sounds like he's expectorating a GK-sized hairball up there.

Sick or not, he needs to be coughing up a report on Sebastian Cabot because he will be at school tomorrow. I, however, may be out riding GK's new pony.

A Decade of C

Happy birthday, C.

I've been a parent for a decade now, ever since the birth of C, a day that is burned into my brain. I don't have the best memory, yet I'll never forget the moment C emerged. He looked really gross. And beautiful. He was a difficult baby, but he's grown into a very helpful, smart and funny little boy with talents and potential as large as his smile.

When C was only four-years-old, he and I took a trip on the train up to Chicago, just the two of us. The train north runs at night and I hadn't thought about how to sleep on board, but once he fell asleep in the empty seat next to me, I realized I couldn't comfortably sleep without worrying that he'd wake up in the middle of the night and wander off or be carried away by some crazy riding the rails. So I draped my legs over him and dozed for just a few minutes at a time throughout the night. We rolled into the city the next morning in tact, stopped in to see our Favorite Aunt Carol and then I took him to the Field Museum of Natural History to see an actual T Rex skeleton. And, to make the day more exciting, he took his his first ride in a taxi. And then I took him to a cigar shop. We spent that weekend with family and C had a great time running around with his cousins. He was upset every night at bedtime because he missed his mother, and this may have been the greatest test of the weekend for me. It wasn't easy being a solo parent and navigating a child from Memphis to Chicago, then around that city, making sure he'd eaten and gone to the bathroom and was having fun. But it really wasn't easy seeing him upset at night at this young age and trying to make him understand that his mother was just at home waiting on him, that she missed him, too, and that he'd see her again in just a couple of days.

We made it through that trip unscathed and well-bonded. And we've made it through these first 10 years the same way, I hope. It hasn't been easy, but it's been a load of fun, and every day has been a first for him, Kristy and me, as we try to figure out how to make our way.

Happy birthday, C. I love you.


Ten things C enjoys:

• Riding his bike
• Reading
• The Marx Brothers
• Drawing
• Spending time with family
• Staying up late
• The Simpsons
• His friends
• Ravioli
• Talking

Dream Weaver

As told by Aunt Elizabeth:

One morning in Florida over our Christmas vacation, Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Katherine and S were sitting around enjoying their coffee when Elizabeth began telling them about a dream she'd had the night before. S chimed in with, "My daddy had a dream that a hamburger was eating him!"

One Man's Trash

You know how if a tree falls in the forest when no one is around then it doesn't make any noise? Or how if you're on a golf course and no one sees you kick your ball onto the green then it doesn't count as a penalty? Or how when I was only 14 I made out with that really hot, older girl on vacation who then went back home to Canada never to be heard from or seen by any of my friends? Well, The Quartet is still on Christmas vacation for the rest of this week and I've often wondered what it does when I'm not around. Okay, not really, but this evening I came face to face with the answer - it makes garbage, copious amounts of the stuff. A new bag was put in the trash can just last night and I know for a fact that no garbage was made during the night, and everyone was still asleep when I left for work this morning. Yet when I came home, that can was full to overflowing. So I surmise that these kids spent the whole day sitting around watching cartoons and generating garbage organically. And they made noise. Even though I wasn't in this forest today, I know there was noise.

Beach Conversations

Me: JP, what's your favorite thing about the beach?
JP: Cable.

Beach Views

Getting there

Taking the beach!

Kids in the surf

Beach mommies

Kids everywhere

Kids with 'staches

Ravioli!

White, Sandy Christmas Vacation

I just now got back from the beach.

Did I mention we'd be going to Florida after Christmas? We traveled to the panhandle to visit with family in a palatial rented beach house for a few days. Sure, the house is a short walk from the sand, but it's a serene walk through nature on wide and sturdy boardwalks. And, sure, I wore jeans and a long sleeve T because it's not exactly balmy, but there I was at the beach, in December. The Quartet is having a big time digging holes in the sand and searching for shells, visiting their cousin, running along the boardwalk and watching cartoons on the house's gigantic television. The adults are having fun relaxing, eating, drinking wine (15 bottles to start with, Steph) and watching cartoons.

This vacation, however, almost didn't happen. We stopped at the Walgreen's just a few blocks from our house when we first started on our nine-hour drive and C chose that time to put a movie in the Mazda's DVD player. And that DVD player did not work. I almost turned the van around then and drove back home, because I've never done a road trip with these kids without the distraction of the blessed DVD player. I know that in the old days people used to travel without television and I can only assume that they played games or read or (shudder) conversed, but I didn't think I was up for it, I didn't think I had the right stuff for such an endeavor. But I have to say that the kids behaved famously. They took the lack of optical stimulation in stride and took the opportunity to nap, eat junk food and to stare out the windows.

Of course, we still have to drive the 500 miles to get home in a few days, so I better go now and nap.

Beautiful Music

One day just before the Christmas break I picked JP up from piano practice. As we walked together down the hallways of his school I asked if he could play like Oscar Peterson yet. Without missing a beat he answered, "Not yet."

Rest in peace, Oscar Peterson.

Pretty As A Princess

S received a princess make-up kit from Santa this year. It's a little pink package of daddy heartbreak. She spent all yesterday applying and reapplying fingernail polish and eye shadow. I know it's only a toy, but she was so excited about it and so eager to show me how she looks with make-up on and all I could think was Not yet, please not so soon. I keep pushing the idea of her and GK as young women out of my mind and the painted face doesn't make that any easier. The Christmas holidays strengthen the magic of being a child and I want these kids to hang on to that magic for as long as they can before becoming adults, or even looking like adults, because there will be plenty of time for that later.

Oh, and the princess make-up kit, and S's affinity for nail polish, also explains why the nails on my left hand are pink. I don't know how to get this stuff off, but I can tell you that Zippo lighter fluid doesn't work.

Ho Ho Ho

Santa Claus was at our house until almost 1 a.m. last night waiting for children to fall asleep, setting up toys in imaginative positions, listening to music and talking. Big Mama and I are Santa, and what an awesome responsibility that is. Like all of parenthood, there is no handbook for being Santa, you just become him. One day you aren't, and then just like that, some December 24th, late night, you are. Nine years ago, I found myself suddenly awake later than normal, snapping plastic pieces together, eating complimentary cookies and completely wrapped up in the Christmas spirit from a perspective I'd never had before.

Being a parent is the most important job I'll ever have, and acting as Santa once a year is an extension of that. It's not just the giving of life to a child, but giving childhood to a child. Keeping the magic of being a kid alive from year to year. There are no official lessons for this, there aren't even instructions handed down from generation to generation, it's just something that is done. The tradition of being Kris Kringle is a baptism under fire as we sneak around filling stockings, pulling toys from their myriad hiding places, putting together Big Wheels and plastic kitchens and Lincoln Log houses before wiping the Chinese lead from our hands to eat cookies and drink milk. And wine. This most wonderful time of the year is for the children, but this time of the night, on Christmas Eve, is for the parents to be alone and wallow in their very own traditions. Have fun with it, talk about your kids and know that it will all be a secret from them until they are parents themselves one day and by then they'll have their very own midnight tradition.

The Quartet was thrilled this morning, of course, they got new things left under the otherwise useless tree that has taken up space in their house for the past three weeks. They played with their toys and ripped into the wrapped packages and then they just fell into the middle of all of this holiday detritus with the swollen and contented look of a sated hog on their elf-like faces. And this, really, is what it's all about. It's the moment we as parents talk about. They don't need to know what frivolity and giggling went on just six hours earlier without them. Let them figure it out on their own one day, one day when the childhood magic has gone, let them find their own magic on the other side of that red suit.

Merry Christmas ... Everyone

Merry Christmas Kristy, C, JP, S, GK, Mom, Steve, John, David, Elizabeth, Toby, Katherine, Keith, Harper, Mimi & Pop, Carol, Mary, Johnny, Angela, Christina, Lauren, Ken, Eric, Ben, Mark, Cathy, Maria, Heather, Bobby, Jessica, Martin, Elissa, Gaylen, Tanya, Aldo, Patricia, Gina, Cara, Jay, Amy, Little Aldo, Andria, Jeff, Miss M, Mr. Baby, Stacey, Warren, Satchel, Jiro, Stephanie, Chip, Connor, Chloe, Melissa, Caleb, Harlowe, Shannon, Brian, M, Heather, Rodney, Clara, Robin, Jeannie, Mike, Judy, Jeremy, Jennifer, Kitty, Brian, Terry, Pam, Bill, Megan, Joe, Jo Ann, Lynn, Mike B., Ann, Dana, Peggy, Matthew K., Cousin Pat, Bob, Jack, Joe Jr., Bryan, Melissa, Charlie, Patricia, Charles, Kim, Mark, Tracy, Matthew, Niel, T.J., Catherine, Larry, Sharon, Tracy J., Tiffany, Steph's Mom, Bettina, Beverly, Dwayne, Georgia, Hamlett, Julie, Bobby Spillman, Mel, TheoGeo, Brooklyn Dan, James, Jim, Amy, Ben, Stella, Rose, Gretchen, Rob, Julia, Olivia, Katie, Rob, Sarah Kate, Theresa, Rodrigo, Pete, Hugh, Melissa, Miss Adrienne, Cherry, Kimberly, Jeremy, Zack, Luke, Owen, Jeff A., Sonny and anyone else who may have been unintentionally left out.

Please have a safe and happy holiday from my family to yours.

Pipes

JP today, in the throes of curiosity and with seemingly limitless wisdom, put an empty toilet paper roll in the toilet and flushed. Where do these pipes go? I could hear rattling around in his snot-infused skull. Luckily, Uncle Ken is a plumber and I need his help. He happens to live just outside Chicago, but that's not a problem, because the help I need is for him to take this kid from me for a while. Far away. About 500 miles away. And while he's got him, perhaps he could take him on some jobs, show him the ropes, or the pipes, as the case may be. Show him where they go and what will and won't fit down there. And perhaps Uncle Ken could show JP one of his invoices, let him see just how much it costs to get a plumber out to unplug the only toilet in the house on Christmas Eve.

[Just so you all know, it flushed. No need to call a plumber out. But it could have been worse! Sometimes my instruction is based completely on what-ifs.]

A Day For Daddy And Daughter

Kristy takes on the burden of Christmas shopping in our house, I'll own up to that. I just don't have the patience or imagination anymore for full-scale shopping. However, every holiday season I need just a taste of the craziness, a glimpse of the crush of shoppers to see if it's the madness or the cheer that prevails. Today seemed the perfect day for just that, so I gathered up S and we ran a few errands before heading to the bookstore for coffee and hot chocolate, browsing and people watching.

S, at home, is loud and rambunctious and can be trouble. Today, though, I couldn't draw her out for anything. We got our drinks and sat in the cafe, the perfect daddy/daughter date, and I asked her about Christmas and what she thought Santa would bring her, whether her brothers should be on the naughty or nice list, and whether she is excited about our upcoming trip to the beach, but I couldn't get much of an answer on anything. A lot of shrugging and mono-syllabic answers but, so far, none of the eye rolling or whatevers that I know adolescence will bring, if I can even get her to sit with me in public in eight years.

From time to time I like to do something with each kid one on one, hang out, talk with them to find out what they're thinking, about their hopes and dreams and plans, find out which parent they like better. With C it's no problem, he'll talk until you implore him not to anymore and then he'll just question you about anything and everything. S and JP really don't have much to say, and if I take them out they'll simply request this or that be bought for them and then ignore me while they ignore whatever treat I just bought them. GK, if you sit with her for more than two minutes, will just bury her nose in a New York Times crossword, occasionally sipping from her Americano.

The shopping frenzy S and I witnessed this afternoon wasn't bad at all. Of course, I wasn't panicking for gifts, simply browsing leisurely. People were friendly, they were mostly smiling and saying hello to S, and there was Christmas music playing everywhere. It was just what I needed. I needed to mainline some holiday cheer and I got just that, even if I didn't have anyone to talk with about it.

Rise And Shine

The alarm clock goes off every morning at 5:30, I wake up automatically every morning at 5:28. The most trying time of my mornings is waking S up and getting her dressed for the school day. She is most assuredly not a morning person and is usually still half asleep while I dress her and implore her to get her lunch and pack up her backpack. This morning, however, being the first day of Christmas break, a day when there is no hurry, there is no backpack, she woke up on her own a full 45 minutes earlier than usual. There are no lengths these kids won't go to to get under my skin.

Like A Bad Penny

I'm back!

I'm back from The Week That Was Broken with some good news and, naturally, some bad. The hard drive on the Apple iBook G4 has been replaced and all data recovered thanks to Uncle Toby and some little elves in California. Much, much thanks to T, in fact. We procured a dryer and I immediately took it apart to put a new belt on it and it works. It works! Really! So all of our clothes are clean and dry.

The bad news is that my baby girl is now broken. "Broken" meaning coughing a lot and running a fever. I took her to the doctor a couple of days ago and learned she has an upper respiratory infection and she's now on the pink stuff. Amoxicillin should come in big jugs like milk so we could keep it in the fridge and administer it as needed to The Quartet. At least, until the fridge breaks.

And now, because I know you all missed the funny, I leave you with this little nugget from C, handwritten on the back of a discarded Christmas card envelope, sure to find him on the naughty list and with an extra hour of studying spelling:

JPA stinks, smells, and looks like a terd [sic].

The Grinch Who Broke Christmas

You know, I can't remember the last time I was in a laundromat. Oh, wait, yes I can. It was only three hours ago. It's where I go to read. It's where I go to read when our dryer at home is broken. Night before last I spent taking the thing apart and putting it back together again to get to the squeal emanating from within and lube it up. I did that three times that night. Last night I only did it once, but now the motor is just seizing up after about seven minutes of run time. So it's useless. I suppose I should also mention the light fixture in our one bathroom that went out last night. Why should the dryer have all the fun? I did manage to take it down this morning and rewire it into the wall and, as of 8:00 this morning, it was still working. The best news, really, is that the heat in our home that wasn't working this morning, began working once I reset it at the circuit breaker. That's good, because it's going to get very, very cold this weekend. On second thought, you should probably stay tuned for details on that heater because, again, it's going to get very, very cold this weekend. I suppose I should back up, really, to Tuesday when my laptop's hard drive finally gave out. That's why I've been away, I have no computer. Uncle Toby is helping, though, to recover all the business documents I had stored in that box, as well as everything I've ever written. Ever.

This bad luck always comes at me in threes, but I'm confused now. Was the bathroom light the third thing? Or was the gas leak/new meter/no heat for a night last week the first thing? Does the heat not working this morning even count or is it merely a harbinger for an all-new rotation of bad luck? I'll have to sit down with an Excel spreadsheet and figure it all out. Oh, wait, I can't do that, can I?

Regardless of where we stand in the Bad Luck Cycle, I hope The Quartet enjoys their Christmas gift, their shiny new clothes dryer. Maybe they'll have some fun with the box it comes in, pretending it's a space ship or a submarine or the Grinch's cave.

[Thanks to Tracy for letting me borrow her computer to say hello to y'all.]

It's Not Personal

Two weeks ago, GK began going to a new school. It's a Montessori school in Midtown that many of our friends' kids attend. JP and S attended this same school before signing up for the public school they're enrolled in now. I took the opportunity of that first week of school for GK, this giant step forward, to write a post here. For various reasons, I'm going to do something I don't do very often; I'm going to apologize. (Just ask Big Mama, this hardly ever happens.) I'm sorry if what I wrote belittled what you teachers and caretakers do every day. Be sure that if Kristy and I weren't comfortable, weren't completely happy with where our children stayed for seven hours a day, five days a week when out of our sight, then we would not leave them there. We wouldn't even consider it. GK has done great these past two weeks in Montessori and we have every confidence that she will continue to do so under the care of the women I leave her with in the morning.

Ah, but it's not that easy, is it? Because I'm also going to explain myself. I'm going to explain, as I do every so often, that the main purpose of Urf! is to amuse myself. And one other thing, I'm a smartass. It's genetic. You have to take everything you read at this URL with such a large grain of salt that you may want to have a tall glass of water on hand. Or a deep, deep margarita. I see the changes my children go through as funny and I try to make others see it that way as well. But I'm also extremely protective of The Quartet, and were I really unhappy with GK's school situation then you would know it, make no mistake about that. If I weren't also watching The Godfather as I write this, I'd go back and look through the archives to link to posts I've written here wherein I've had serious problems with the City School System and there isn't much humor at all to be found there. Sure, there was some humor, because I just can't help being funny, hilarious at times even. And if you look back, I guarantee you'll find many, many more posts where I good-naturedly poke fun at the public school, my kids' friends, their teachers and assignments as well as some of the rules they're made to follow. An overly-structured school environment for six-year-olds is funny to me. But so is a non-structured environment. Why? Because kids are silly, and putting them into different little ecosystems and watching how they behave is funny to me, and this is where I write about it.

I really am sorry if what I wrote previously was construed in any way as being malicious; it most certainly was not meant to be and I was surprised to find that it was taken this way. Almost as surprised as I was to find out that instead of six readers, it appears I have seven. Who knew? But I hope the fine teachers at this particular school will continue reading and that they will laugh along with me. And I hope that if they don't, they won't take it out on GK, because she's going to need those cloth diapers attended to regularly.

I Was Like ... @#$%&#

You may need to read this previous post about kids repeating themselves for this to make sense and to be hilarious to you. Or you may just need to have your own 6-year-old living in your house.

I walked into the living room just in time this morning to hear JP saying to C, "I was like, What the hell?"

JP, if you're going to say it, then say it. And if you get away with it then good for you. But don't repeat yourself at the risk of getting caught.

Light My Fire

We arrived home from work and school earlier to find a message on the front door from the local utility company, MLGW, that a leaking gas meter had to be replaced. It also informed me that I needed to call to have someone come out and turn the gas back on. Okay, fine, you repaired a gas leak I didn't even know existed and possibly saved the lives of my entire family. Wonderful. But that was over four hours ago and the brain trust at MLGW still hasn't sent anyone out to turn the gas and, subsequently, the heat back on. And it's currently 36 degrees outside and going down.

Me being me, though, being the upbeat, look on the bright side, glass is always half full, kind of guy that I am, I decided we would make a game out of it. We would live like the pioneers of old for a night! Or until MLGW shows up! Or until we go to a hotel! So here we sit, indoors, with only the light of the lamps and the overhead fixtures to guide our way, and only the most basic of cable television and, of course, high-speed internet. The stove and oven are gas, so the only food we can prepare has to be done so in the microwave or in the electric toaster oven, or eaten cold right out of the refrigerator. The water heater is gas, so there's no bathing and the kids do stink.

But all I really want, much like the pioneers, is a cup of hot tea. And not microwave hot, but boiling hot. Stove top hot. It's frustrating when, in a house normally so full of gas, none of it is usable.

MLGW just now stopped by our lean-to, by the way. The leak, it turns out, was not fixed, though the meter was replaced. The MLGW representative is sending someone out tonight to fix it. Again. I can only assume that by "tonight," he means "before sunup." So we're left here, under a mountain of blankets, half-starved and bored with whatever tattoo or midget show is on our very basic cable television, to wonder why the geniuses MLGW sent to replace the meter didn't then check to make sure the leak was taken care of. That, and to wonder who the cause of all the worthless gas is and how it will affect the burning of this Christmas tree for heat and tea.

You Can Say That Again

Out of all of The Quartet's irritating little habits, their most irritating is relatively new. They seem to have the need lately to repeat themselves. After saying something they find particularly funny, they immediately say, "I was like ... " and then repeat whatever it is they just said. And odds are it wasn't that damn funny to begin with. It's like a shrill echo heard through the muffled chewing of Pop-Tart. I'm sure these kids will find numerous ways over the years to grate on an adult's nerves, as children it's their job and they've gone above and beyond so far, but right at this moment it's hearing them all say the same thing again and again as though there isn't already enough talking in this house. I told them they're like a broken phonograph, which still makes no sense to them.

I was like ... Out of all of The Quartet's irritating little habits, their most irritating is relatively new. They seem to have the need lately to repeat themselves. After saying something they find particularly funny, they immediately say, "I was like ... " and then repeat whatever it is they just said. And odds are it wasn't that damn funny to begin with. It's like a shrill echo heard through the muffled chewing of Pop-Tart. I'm sure these kids will find numerous ways over the years to grate on an adult's nerves, as children it's their job and they've gone above and beyond so far, but right at this moment it's hearing them all say the same thing again and again as though there isn't already enough talking in this house. I told them they're like a broken phonograph, which still makes no sense to them.

Well Done, Tesla

Kristy and I are one month shy from having been parents for 10 years, and just this weekend one of our children did something which hasn't been done in all that time. One of these tiny little geniuses stuck a metal Christmas tree ornament hook into an electrical outlet with a flash of flame and a resounding pop. The Quartet's ages are 18 months, 5 years, 6 years and 10 years. Who do you think did this? I actually wish I could say it was GK, the youngest and least mentally developed. You're probably thinking JP, if you've ever met JP. No, it was C. My oldest child never learned not to stick metal into an outlet, thus singeing a few fingertips and a bit of pride.

My fault, you say? I didn't teach him not to touch metal to electricity, you say? Probably not. But this weekend, in one fell swoop, all four of my kids learned this invaluable lesson. One more item ticked off my To Do list.

Go Elf Yourself

Direct from the Naughty List!