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