Firsts

This was a fall was filled with firsts. My son’s first day of kindergarten. His first bus ride. His first time getting off the bus. His first time getting back on the bus and getting off at the correct stop. My son’s first Christmas play. It was also the first time my wife watched him get on the bus, never ever, ever, ever to see him again. (Strangely, when he safely got off the bus that afternoon, she claimed she wasn’t at all worried.) It was also the first time I realized what a craven coward my wife is.

It all started three weeks before Christmas. That’s when she started her nefarious plotting. She made several references to my son’s Christmas play and wanted to make sure I was going to be in town. I checked my schedule and made sure everything was clear. Honestly, there was no way I was going to miss his first (well, actually it was his third, but it was the first officially sanctioned by the American public school system.) Christmas play. Especially after listening to him practice his songs.

Pretty much from the end of October I ‘d hear them practicing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I’d sneak into the living room and as soon as he saw me, he’d clam up and tell my wife to stop singing. When I asked what they were doing, I was firmly told, by both conspirators, that it was a secret.

A couple weeks before the play, my wife casually (I should learn that when she casually slips something into the conversation, I need to pay attention) mentioned that my son also had his class Christmas party the same day of the play. I recall she added that she had volunteered to help out. Now, at this point, my respect for her rose by leaps and bounds. Anyone that would volunteer to be confined in a small room with twenty six-year old sugar-addled, pre-Christmas hyped hooligans deserves a special place in heaven.

Because it was the end of the year, we had money set aside for medical expenses that had to be used or it’d go back into the tax pool. (Don’t ask me. When my wife explained it, it made sense.) And she had a coupon for a local dentist. She’d been complaining about a crown or something. Apparently a crown has something to do with your teeth and is not a bid to be treated like royalty?

Now, I grew up with the phrase, “I’d rather have a root canal than do…” fill in the blank. And in over forty years, I always thought that was just a hugely exaggerated phrase. That is until my wife told me that she had scheduled her root canal for the Tuesday before Christmas. I can think of many ways to prepare for the holidays, but for some reason, a visit to the dentist never ranked real high on my list.

Remember the statement that there is a special place in heaven for people that volunteer to be caged with over twenty six-year olds? Well, I’m even surer that there is a special place in hell for wives that volunteer to do that, then schedule a root canal and send their husbands in their place. I found out about her evil bait and switch Tuesday morning.

Since my son has a dye allergy, and his teacher was on vacation, one of us had to go and make sure the substitute didn’t give him anything that would make him sick. One of the great things about where we live is, everyone knows and watches out for him, even his little friends. But with Christmas just around the corner, we didn’t want to take any chances.

My son’s class had their Christmas play first, so we went to see our firstborn’s fourth first Christmas play. They did a great job. My favorite was, All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. The fact that for most, it was true added to the realism. Then seeing close to one hundred kindergarteners leap when they sang “Sister Suzie sitting on the thistle, OUCH!” really sold the song.

Afterwards, my wife still maintained that she would be able to help out with the party in the afternoon. I was impressed at how she lied without flinching. When I got the call, that after the root canal, she “just didn’t think she’d be able to go, could I?” I wasn’t mad. I’m not the one going to hell.

So, with my most stain resistant clothes, several cups of coffee in me to fortify, I went to face my doom. I knew what my son was like at home. Him multiplied by twenty, with the excitement of Christmas, I figured we’d throw the pizza, cookies and juice through the door and wait until the noise settled down before going in. Add a substitute and I wasn’t sure I’d get out alive.

We were invited into the classroom and I stared at those little eyes, waiting for them to pounce. Then something amazing happened. “I don’t see all the kindergarteners sitting and quiet,” the substitute announced. I thought, that’s because they are getting ready to ambush us.
Then, just like in the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes, all those little hooligans sat, cleaned up their desk and looked on… with… angelic faces. Even my son! We had pizza, punch and cookies, played games, made reindeer antlers and I survived my first immersion into the wild habitat of a herd of kindergarteners.

I hope everyone has as wonderful a holiday as we did.

The Best Christmas Period

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
We all were hiding, scared as a mouse
My son and daughter were barricaded behind the couch
As down the stairs, stomped Mommy, the grouch

My son's eyes were bright with fear
My daughter, the youngest, huddled near
We heard the dishes break in the kitchen
And the eerie noise of muttered bitchin

We shared a look and gathered our courage more
We knew the stakes, and had survived this before
The straws were drawn, I got the short hand
To get the Midol, across no man's land

My son heaved a sigh of relief, another Christmas he'd see
And in his best Tiny Tim voice, said, “Father, it twas nice knowing thee.”
My daughter, eyes wide as a saucer
Silently asked, if this too would happen to her

Apparently she saw the worst in my eyes
For without hesitation, she got up and switched sides
“Daddy's in the living room.”
She declared, sealing my doom

So, with my army cut in half
I feared I wouldn't be having the last laugh.
A poke on my arm, “I ate the last cashew.”
My son's lip quivered as he said “and I told her it was you.”
My frown must have deepened, my face a bright red
With a tear and cry, into the enemy's arms he fled.

Gathering my nerves, over the back, I looked, of our now flimsy settee
Both my children, the fruit of my loins, were standing there, pointing at me!
“I'm bloated and retaining water”, came the battle cry
“No dear, you're not and in those jeans, your butt looks fine,” I said, practicing my lie.

I ducked the frying pan, the pitcher and glass of ice water
Imagine my surprise when both my children re-armed her
Now, you may be thinking, there's another Christmas gone bad
But there's a silver lining to my Christmas ballad

When the dishes were gone and the blender retrieved from the roof
(When she's mad, she's got an arm like Babe Ruth)
We all gathered round the Christmas tree to sing
And roast marshmallows, which I remembered to bring.
As the snow blew in through the broken windows
We opened presents, wrapped with papers and bows
My wife sedated with IVs of Midol and chocolate
It was a Christmas, we would not soon forget

Quality Time

This past summer, my daughter really found her legs. It’s been amazing watching the differences between her and her brother. He spent the first four years of his life in Vienna, Virginia. I think the biggest hill around us was shorter than me. Oh, we had gradual hills, but nothing compared to western Pennsylvania, where we moved when he was almost four and his sister was still learning the freedom of crawling.

Just like Vienna was pretty much flat, western Pennsylvania is pretty much flat. The main difference is the flatness is mixed in with constant hills, valleys and mountains. That first summer we all enjoyed exploring our new domain. (We moved from a postage stamp lot to three acres, so it was huge in our eyes.) There was one small problem. While living on the side of a mountain guarantees you spectacular views, it means you are on the side of a mountain. When we bought the house, I knew we’d be carrying my daughter for that first summer. My wife even made the comment that she was looking forward to walking up and down the hills and getting in shape. (After fifteen years of marriage, I knew enough to keep quiet whenever she made that comment.)

I don’t think my daughter is stronger or more stoic than my son, it’s just that she’s never known anything but hills. My son and I had a nice tradition in Vienna. After dinner, when the weather permitted, we’d walk to a creek about a mile away from out house. Sometimes he rode his tricycle; sometimes he’d push his mower. When we got to the creek, we’d take turns tossing rocks into the water. We also played in the cul-de-sac with the other kids and the parents. So, he wasn’t a junior couch potato. He must have thought it very rude to find his flat turf replaced by unending hills.

One of the rudest things I found was when I got a call from my wife saying a tree had fallen across our driveway. When we first saw the house, the driveway amazed us. Over a hundred feet long and laid perfectly with pavered blocks. Not only that, but huge rhododendrons bordered both sides of the driveway and in the spring it was like driving down a tunnel of purple. Near the house, the driveway spread out to a large parking area with two ancient trees in the middle, the pavered blocks around the trees. All in all, quite impressive. Until a windstorm blew one of the trees over and took out our power, cable and telephone lines.

To add insult to Mother Nature’s vandalism, the tree fell barely a month before we were going to host my wife’s family reunion at our new house. I still had to finish the deck, convert half the garage into a guest room, as well as my normal work. In other words, I was going to have a very irritated wife when everyone arrived and nothing was completed. (I’m great at starting projects, it’s the whole finishing thing I have a teeny tiny problem with.) We had a bit of luck in that we could still drive my car around the fallen tree. However, my wife’s minivan was a tight fit.

Now, there are those that will say, “So it’s a tight fit. Why’s that an issue?” Those are the same people that have seen the sides, bumper and tires of her car. It’s not that she’s a bad driver. If you’ve heard of touch typists, that’s how my wife drives. When she hits a curb, it’s time to stop. (Even my son, at four, knew it was ok to tease her about her driving. He told me, in great detail, how he looked out his window one time and they were flying. Since my wife was standing nearby and he was giggling the whole time, I knew he was teasing her.)

So, I had an almost four-foot diameter tree lying across our driveway and my wife’s car hopelessly trapped. And I had a trip to Washington DC coming up the next week. So in a weekend, I cut, chopped and split enough wood to last us for the winter.

The silver lining was that in September, the evenings tend to get chilly in the mountains. A good chunk of the stump remained and it made a cheery gathering place during the family reunion (We quickly ran out of neutral corners) as I tried to burn it down. (It only took a year and a half to completely burn the stump out.)

This is when I learned about my daughter’s fascination with fire. At almost two, she’d sit with me and laugh and chortle as the sparks shot into the night. That love of fire translated into watching me start the BBQ grill, fires in the fireplace and rewiring light switches.

Before I got a bellow, I’d spend several minutes blowing on the fire to get it going again after it’d burned down. Of course, she’d join me. There’s nothing quite as funny as watching her on her hands and knees, a good, safe distance from the fireplace, huffing and blowing. “I start fire for you, daddy,” she’d say confidently and turn her blonde head back and keep blowing. With her help, we’d get the fire roaring again and then we’d settle in for an evening of rocking. Now that I have the bellow, getting the fire going is easier, but when my daughter helps, we still do it the old fashioned way.

Green Eggs and Ham

“Sam I am!” My daughter, at 3 has learned the final line by heart and knows most of the rest by now. I usually try to give my wife a break after dinner and read our children their bedtime stories.

When our son was born, I did the nighttime routine with him (except for the bath. I didn’t have the required doctorate in Babies and Water, so I wasn’t allowed near the bathroom during that time. However, the one night our son had a high fever I was the one that got to sit in the cold bathtub with him while my wife called the doctor, emergency room, her mother and Dr. Sears.) That meant swaddling and giving him his nighttime bottle. This was our bonding time.

Eventually the bottle changed to a cup of milk and crackers while I read him two stories. It had to be two stories, not one long book or three short books—two! Anything else and his little world was thrown into chaos. Now, you might be thinking that is a sign of future problems. Both sets of grandparents thought the same thing and delicately brought up that he needed to be evaluated. But this is my son. While he can be a little OCD about his Hot Wheels cars, the two books, when you add in my wife’s genes and mine, made perfect sense.

One book meant he was going to bed too early, because two is obviously more than one. But… he knew if he pushed it to three, he was skating on thin ice, especially after I’d had a bad day at work. So two was safe, and if he picked out thick ones, he could push the limit even further.

When our daughter graced us with her presence, I did her nighttime routine also. We moved from Washington, DC to Pennsylvania shortly after she was born. My daughter and I spent many a relaxing evening next to the fire, watching TV while she had her bottle(s). At least that was the plan. Usually, she’d wake up halfway through the bottle and decide that her tiny fingers needed to see how pliable my eyes were.

We had a nice routine for a while. Both the children would take their baths/showers then I’d separate my daughter from the pile of energy that raced around the house, wrestle her into her pajamas (I only made the mistake of telling her one time that she was getting her brother’s old pajamas. The, “They too big for me!” left no doubt what her opinion on the matter was.) and take her downstairs to rock. When she outgrew her bottle (an executive decision my wife and I made after she unscrewed the lid and poured the contents out) I decided it was time for her to join her brother during story time.

To make it fair, she picked one book and her brother picked another book. Since they are both adorers of Thomas the Train, we were guaranteed a book that took us to the isle of Sodor. The other book was usually a Dr. Seuss.

As a writer and teacher, I’ve always admired Dr. Seuss. He wrote books to help children learn through repetition of small recognizable words. And then managed to rhyme each sentence (no small feat but made somewhat easier by his knack of making up words.) As a father, who’d spent the day working on computers or teaching people and was drained, I’ve always carried an undying hatred for him. Getting my mouth to form those made up words and my eyes to focus on them in the early evening is a stretch. That is, until I found Green Eggs and Ham.

Pure and simple, this work should go down in history along side War and Peace. While it may not address the same social, economic and political issues that Tolstoy covered, it has saved my sanity. I know the words by heart and… every single word in the book is a… word! Fifty plus pages of rhymes with words that I knew.

After the first thirty or forty times of reading it, I sensed that my children were losing interest in the storyline. Now, I could have just let it go and moved on to another book, but I was still looking forward to our nightly reading. Our children are complete opposites when it comes to eating. Our daughter will eat anything (including strawberries dipped in mustard) and our son would make a picky eater jealous. So, thinking quick one night as both kids began wandering away when I reached for Green Eggs and Ham, I shouted, after the first refrain of, “I do not like Green eggs and Ham,” “Do you like green eggs and ham?” My daughter looked and me and shook her head, “No.” My son followed with “No!”

We had common ground now. I lead them both through the refrains, each time louder until the house shook with their screams of, “No, I do not like green eggs and ham!” (Yes, my wife also pointed out that getting them that riled up right before bed was not the brightest move I’ve made).

We finished with the revelation that green eggs and ham are good. I had no doubt my daughter would agree (remember the strawberries). I was shocked when my son answered, yes, he does like green eggs and ham. I was even more surprised when the next night at dinner, he did his normal balking at trying something new, until I brought up green eggs and ham. He tried the new dish. When I asked him how it was, he answered, “Not too terrible.”

Well… you can’t win all the time.

Snow

We had our first real snow fall of the year this past weekend. So, of course this meant my wife was sick and the kids had to go sled riding. With no other option, I did the daddy thing. Both kids were bundled up until they couldn't move and shoved outside. Since my wife was still in the house, I had to go out with them.

I made the first run down the hill next to the house. When we bought the house, one of the selling points for me was the hill it sat on. I saw many winters of fun sled riding with the kids. In DC, the snow usually lasted a weekend at most and the hills near our house dumped you out into a busy road. So, while it looked fun, and I kept telling my wife we could always make more, sled riding was frowned upon. Another nice feature that both my wife and I liked was the creek that ran through the property. Unfortunately, I didn't quite put all the geometry and physics together when we bought the house. Water runs down hill, and that is also the general path a sled will take. This meant that the sled run tended to end up at the creek. Luckily, there was a row of bushes and trees that bordered the creek. So, you'd have to be going pretty darn fast to actually make it into the creek.

Last year, both kids had been too young and it was easy to keep them toward the bottom of the hill. This year, I think my son is going to feel the need for speed, especially when his friends come over. If it was just me, I wouldn't worry. By the time he has his long johns, snow pants, boots, coat, hat and mittens on, he is pretty much invulnerable to anything. He has rolling off down pat. There is nothing quite as funny as watching him fly down the hill, snow flying over his head until he dives off the sled, the red mingling with the white. However, with his mother, and both grandparents ready to voice their "opinions" on safety, I'm pretty sure we will be making the sledding hill "kid friendly."

This year, I figured it would be a slow run to start. We only had a little over an inch of snow. A few runs down and most of the snow should be gone. I didn't take into account the leaves. We had a belt break on the tractor this fall, so I dug out the manual and replaced it. After successfully proving my mechanical manhood, I was able to use the tractor to gather the leaves that had fallen. What I didn't take into account was that if one belt breaks, there's a good chance the remaining ones are probably going to break soon. That soon was before the majority of the leaves in our three acres covered the ground. Between work, school starting and general laziness, I never got around to replacing that second belt. So, we have a nice layer of leaves covering the grass. When you add snow on top of the leaves, you get Mother Nature's grease.
That first run, over the thin snow turned into a race of death to the creek. Of course both kids stood at the top of the hill cheering. They must have mistaken my screams as excitement. Luckily, the first row of trees slowed me enough that I gracefully plowed into the prickers right along the back of the creak.

The next time it snows, I'm making sure I get sick first.

Home Health Care

Several years ago, before we had children and our own business, I worked for a government contractor with a great health benefit system. Before my wife and I started our own business, we agreed it would be a good idea to have my knees checked before we started out and ran up our insurance premiums. It'd been several years since my last physical or visit to a doctor of any kind (When ever I go to a doctor, they either want to stick a needle in me or chop on my knees. This tends to make me a little reluctant to visit that profession). Since I am basically helpless when it comes to picking a doctor, my wife helped me and did a ton of research. She found a joint specialist in Washington, DC that also did most of the joint work for the Washington Redskins.

Since my bone disease is fairly rare, we spent a few visits explaining and educating this doctor. After the third visit and no needles and no chopping, I was feeling pretty good. That's when the hammer dropped. He decided that I needed to have a few bones removed and my kneecap "cleaned." So the date was set and my dad came in to help take care of me while I recovered. My two executioners (this will become clear in a little bit) drove me to the medical center for the out-patient surgery. I had definite plans on how the surgery would happen, and they all involved me being blissfully comatose through the entire thing. My wife, on the other hand had gone and done more annoying research. Apparently, general anesthesia was now considered dangerous. So, my plans were cancelled and I was talked into getting an spinal tap, with the guarantee that I wouldn't feel a thing. They even promised me something to help me relax and sleep. A long needle in my spine and the chance to be permanently paralyzed or an IV with nice drugs...

So they put in the spinal block and put me on my side in the pre-op area and waited for it to take affect. After about twenty minutes a nurse came back, tapped my leg and asked if I felt anything. Nope, everything was going according to plan. My right leg was completely numb. The nurse asked if I was ready and even started to wheel me to the operating room when I casually mentioned that I could still pretty much feel everything in my left leg. This brought a frown of confusion and a question of why I brought that up. I calmly mentioned that they were operating on both my knees. (While I did contemplate not saying anything and then collecting on a huge malpractice suit, it was only for a second when weighed against the pain.) So, I was flipped over to the other side until my left leg was also numb then off we went.

The promised drugs did relax me and I drifted off to a peaceful sleep. I also woke up about halfway through. There was the coolest movie on the screen. It looked just like the sandworm in the Dune movies. Except you could see it burrowing through the sand. I must have made a comment because someone said that was the arthroscopy. It took a few minutes to put it all together... I was actually watching them "clean" my knee, a surgical instrument inside my body, while I was awake. Only one word can adequately sum up that experience-cool!

Surprisingly, in Washington, DC, if you get your body cut open, bones literally hacked out by a hammer and chisel (granted, it's an EXPENSIVE hammer and chisel) and your kneecap buzzed by something that looks like a sandworm, it is classified as out-patient surgery. I'd no sooner woke up completely than they started getting me ready to go home. I mentioned that there was still a huge honking needle in my back that might pose a problem getting into the car, and they graciously removed it. My knees were locked in two thick braces, so I had no choice but to let my wife drive home.

Once home, my wife and dad sprang into action. Ice was applied, pain-killers ordered, something to drink and read kept close by as I was laid to rest on the couch. Everything went along smoothly until nature began calling. I'd made sure the crutches were nearby so I reached for them. Both of my guardians leapt up and wanted to know what I was doing. I explained the basics of biology and how the human bladder is a finite organ that needs emptying periodically. Truthfully I was little disappointed in my wife. She new enough about general anesthesia to know it was pretty much fatal (at least for me) but going to the bathroom was a surprise to her.

They both insisted they help me to the bathroom. I should mention that the house we were living in at the time had amazing hardwood floors throughout. It was an old house, so they were polished from years and years and years of use. I was wearing a pair of shorts, two thick knee immobilizers and and socks. My two caretakers each took an arm to help me up. As they lifted and I put weight on my feet, my socks slipped and instead of going up, I ended up on my butt. Instead of the expected gasps of anguish at how they'd failed their jobs, both of them were laughing uncontrollably. Apparently they thought it was quite funny.

So, my wife and dad have been added to doctors in the list of people that seem to want to hurt me for no apparent reason.