My Latest Home Improvement...

This isn't a "before"--more like an "in progress" shot. The "before" photo didn't get taken because the room was just so depressing--stepping out of the show onto a carpeted floor...just wasn't right. So I wrecked our house just in time for Kaitlyn's birthday party (no one knew...we kept the door closed). And dust got everywhere...

Here's the final product--worth it!

I've Been a Dad for Eight Years Now...

It's that classic dilemma portrayed by the angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil over the other, each giving advice. My wife has told me before that she really enjoys the blog entries I write where I talk about my kids. I would say that she's a pretty important critic.

On the other hand, I read someone mocking that type of blog, calling it a "mommy blog". I was kind of chuckling about it, and then, like some dumb jock that didn't realize the joke that everyone was laughing at is really about him, stopped mid-chuckle as my face turned red and my hand involuntarily raised to cover my mouth.

Today is Ryan's birthday--he's eight. I remember that the night he was born, I held him and rocked him quietly in the hospital room all night as Fran slept.

He's a great kid--the kind of kid where other parents tell us "I sure wish our kid was as well-behaved as Ryan." How do you answer that?

Not to say that we don't have a lot of challenges with him. He loves to play video games and computer games, and I want to make sure he doesn't end up preferring that to reading, although some of those games are cool. He really likes "take over the world" games like "Age of Empires" and "Rise of Nations". These are pretty complex games where you learn to balance a mini-economy, build a society, and then, basically, go wipe out all other societies. And yes, we've had the discussion of "You know this isn't real, right? That it's wrong to go and overpower other people?"

The main issue that I've seen lately is that he has a hard time staying focused. Seriously, if I tell him to go to his room and get his shoes so we can run to the hardware store. He obediently turns around and heads in that direction. Suddenly, a dog barks in the distance and the next thing you know I find him in front of the TV watching a show, and I believe him when he tells me he forgot all about the shoes, the hardware store, or the fact that I had even spoken to him all day. He genuinely looks surprised.

His teacher reports similar behavior at school, and his grades have dropped slightly in the past month (they were all high A's, so he's okay--I have a hard time criticizing him about his grades when he does his homework each night, plus a little extra work that we do together--I don't want to be an Adolf Hitler parent).

Fran thinks it's just the fact that he's growing at an exponential rate right now. It's getting his mind all muddled, and he'll snap out of it at some point--we should just be patient with him.

On another front, he is being aggressively pursued by lots of girls at school (What is it with kids these days? Just kidding--they were the same way when I was eight.) One girl gave him a huge stuffed teddy bear for Valentine's day, along with a note (which Fran found in the bottom of his backpack) which asked him if he wanted to be her boyfriend (check Yes or No)! Of course, Fran freaked. Ryan was completely embarrassed and didn't want to talk about it. My motivation was more philosophical. I just told him that he didn't do anything wrong, and that it was really nice of Brianna to send him that note. Some kids just like to pretend to be grown-ups (this girl seems to be overly mature for a 2nd-grader). I just asked him to let us know about stuff like that when it comes up in the future.

So, there's my "mommy blog" entry for today--I figured I could indulge myself on Ryan's birthday.

I got home tonight, and just felt like going out, so we headed for a nearby Mexican food restaurant. Kaitlyn, who was sitting in her high chair at the head of the family, has recently been exhibiting all the drama of being a three-year-old. It's very tiring to endure the highs and lows, which seem to change by the moment.

One minute, ecstatic to see a container of steaming tortillas with butter arrive, and then the next, crestfallen and tortured because she dropped her red crayon on the floor.

It was at that moment that our young, Mexican waiter arrived at the table.

Kaitlyn wrathfully turned to him and, looking him straight in the eye, declared, "You will NEVER bring honor to your family!"

The young man stared at us, turned around, and silently walked back to the kitchen. I was a little worried that he might not come back.

I guess we've watched Mulan once too many times...

Stand Up Guy

I was watching a show on TV yesterday and something reminded me of an old friend named Gary. Just one of those guys who walks along with you on the path of life for a while and then gets off the path and is never seen nor heard from again. But thinking of Gary made me laugh.

It had all the potential of an awkward situation. I was working as an evening supervisor at a nationwide call center, and when all the managers left I was the guy in charge.

This wasn't a regular company, with happiness and smiles and forgiveness--this was an evil empire of strenuous rules, petty fiefdoms defended to the death, people fired over rumors and hearsay, and an out-of-control, autocratic Office Manager who was harsh, vindictive and a little bit crazy, even for a six-foot tall woman from Chicago. In short, it was pretty much like every other office out there.

Gary was the Office Manager's son, and was nearly exactly my age--We must have been around twenty-three. His mother was very overprotective even though he had been away for college for a couple of years. She was pretty shameless about it, so I dreaded having to supervise him because there were lots of rules and if I enforced them all, I would be a real hard-ass. If I let them go, which we often did, then I'm breaking the rules in front of the boss' son.

As a supervisor, I was supposed to distribute work and keep general order. So I was a little irritated when, after working on my shift for about a week, I walked around the corner and spotted Gary with his feet propped up on a short table. You see, the company had purchased a number of small tables so operators wouldn't put their drink next to the computer workstation--in case something spilled (ie. they treated the employees like 5-year-old kids). Not only did he have his feet propped up, but he also was reclining almost horizontally with his head thrown back, looking at the ceiling while he talked to the customer.

I walked up to him and said, very quietly,"Hey, man--this isn't your living room..."

He looked up at me with saucer-like eyes, shocked that I would say anything--actually, a little wounded.

I continued, "Yes, I know who your mom is, too...but she's not here right now."

He burst into immediate, genuine laughter, looked down, and shook his head from side to side in surrender. I would learn that that was just the kind of guy Gary was--his strongest reflex tendency was to laugh at everything. We hit it off immediately.

This was back in 1993, and during that year, Dallas acquired the Dallas Stars professional hockey team. Before that, the only time we could catch ice hockey was on TV during the Olympics, but it was a complete and utter mystery as to what was the point of the whole thing. In fact, the newspaper had to create a special section where they would list the rules of the game so the fans could understand what in the hell was going on.

Being from Chicago, Gary was a huge fan of hockey, so he would organize about 8 of us together to go--back then, the tickets were very cheap because the game hadn't caught on yet in this area. We found ourselves getting great seats, and we had so much fun--I still have the tickets from going to seven games the first year--people would even ask us when we were coming back, because we would jump around and high-five everyone around us when things went well.

Gary went back to college, but, alas, it wasn't meant to be. He moved back, mid-year, announcing that he had dropped out of college to be a stand-up comedian. He performed at the local comedy club...right up until they told him to stop coming back. He told me that he was bombing one night and just decided to start cursing continuously because that seemed kind of funny to him. And he was laughing as he told me...but here he was working in the call center, not going to college, and starting to feel like he was off-course.

Hockey season was over, so Gary and I got our group back together to go to a baseball game. Here we were again, a group of twenty-something guys laughing and high-fiveing and cheering and jumping around. It ended up changing Gary's life.

Juan Gonzalez crushed a home run to center field, and we all jumped to our feet in celebration. Even more exciting, the Jumbo-Tron featured us jumping up and down and celebrating. I turned to Gary, who was staring at the huge screen but had lost all happiness from his face.

"Am I really that fat?", he asked.

Well, how do you answer that? So I didn't.

"I mean, look at me, there. I stopped jumping but my stomach did two or three more bounces." As if on cue, the Jumbo-Tron actually replayed our group in slow motion jumping around. I didn't really notice anything, but Gary was horrified.

"Oh my God!" and he dramatically covered his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Hey, lemme get you another pretzel..." was my helpful solution (because that's the way twenty-something year old guys rub things in).

It turns out that the Jumbo-Tron changed Gary's life forever. He went on a regimented diet and exercise routine and lost over 100 pounds. He went to join the navy, and they told him that he had to lose 35 more, and he did. It all took over a year, during which time his mother bought a horse ranch in the country and Gary quit his job at the call center and ran the ranch. The physical work helped him shed some of the weight, and when he finally got accepted to the navy, they had a party out at the ranch.

That was the last time I saw Gary, although he did call from Seattle during his training and he dropped me a card a year or so later.

For a guy who couldn't cut it as a comedian., it's odd that he still cracks me up 14 years later.

Is it really that AMAZING?

Overused word alert: the world really can't be as AMAZING as it is being cracked up to be these days.

The first sector I heard it from was the highly religious. I think it was intended to replace "flippin' sweet!" Now, it is permeating everything in every media format that I see or hear. Yesterday, I had the radio on for several hours and heard no less than four different commercials touting something as "amazing".

You ever ponder a word again and again and all of a sudden it starts to take on a different meaning or implication? Well, I'm starting to see a skinny dumb guy straightjacketed on a white hospital bed--he's staring, open-mouthed and drooling, at one of those baby mobiles that gets hung over a crib.

Look at the pretty colors!

I have to admit that I'm pretty sensitive to that type of word hang-up. One time, when I can home from summer camp as a kid, I was stuck on the word "Oi!" I quickly became conscious of the fact that I would use it about 3 times per minute, and I couldn't help myself. It just seemed to fit every occasion. I used it in the same way most people would use the word "duh". As in "Duh, Mary! Everybody knows that..." So, it was a convenient way to be both offensive and annoying.

"Oi!" seemed to last for several months before, one way or another, it got knocked out of me.

Another one that I use quite often is "man". You know: "Hey, man, how's it going?" This immediately makes me sprout an Abbie Hoffman beard and make me want to listen to Jimi Hendrix (I had a drum teacher name Jimmy Hendricks). And it drives Fran nuts when it is said to a woman, specifically her. But sometimes the world just cries out for a confusing appositive.

And then there was "like". As in, like, you know, like. That was one that I swore I would never get stuck on. We used to, like, make fun of people who talked that way--like "Valley Girl". But eventually it wormed its way into my head, and now it comes out sometimes.

So, I just felt like calling out "amazing", and seeing if anyone else had noticed this trend...

By the way feel free to list any overused words so we can banish them from the vernacular.

Things Domestic...

Among mothers, I've noticed that it is a form of unpardonable insult for a dad to say that he's "babysitting". I suppose babysitting only applies when you are watching someone else's kids. I just always thought that was funny--they seem hyper-vigilant to become ticked off about the term.

For the past couple of weeks, Fran has gone back to work at a temporary job. This is part of the "Year of Fran", as I jokingly started calling it early on. Circumstances just seem to be falling into place nicely for her (knocking wood). Aside from her temporary job, which is working in a beautiful showroom talking to people buying things for fancy boutique stores, she also got an audition to sing in a chorus.

For weeks, she nervously tried out different audition songs on all of us, settling on Voi, che sapete che cosa é amor , which she then worked on and sang wonderfully in the audition. When she came home and told me that the director, who turned to the pianist and raised his eyebrows when she hit the first note strongly, offered her a position on the spot, which is relatively rare. I smiled and shrugged and said "Of course, it's the Year of Fran!"

It was also funny to hear Kaitlyn requesting that Fran sing her aria around the house--no makeup, non-matching socks, in jeans and a t-shirt. Mozart would be proud. Actually, it's my preferred way to hear it. It was further funny to hear my 3-year-old singing in Italian once she had learned the aria.

I think that it's great for all of us that she is doing more activities outside the home. It's given me some time around the house. Naturally, my first instinct was total destruction, so I ripped up the flooring in the master bathroom and stripped the cabinets so they can be repainted. I plan to lay down some tile, buoyed by my previous success upstairs in the kids bathroom. But I feel like this is "for keeps", since it is such a critical part of the house--if I screw it up, everyone will know. But I have faith,.

In fact, this time around the house with the kids has made me eager to launch all kinds of reorganizing and reconstructive projects. My goal was for Fran to come home from work each day and be wow'd by something I had accomplished, and I think I accomplished my goal. And I got to laugh a lot, too, at the domestic mayhem I was able to produce.

One of the funniest incidents occurred when I had Ryan ready to head out to a birthday party last Saturday morning, and Kaitlyn's slippers had become damaged--there was a large stuffed "Dora" head that had come unsewn. How hard could that be to fix? So I grabbed Fran's sewing box, threaded a needle on the 10th try, and stitched the head back on the slippers while Kaitlyn watched intently, delighted. I was tying it off when the telephone rang--Ryan ran to answer it. Just then, Kaitlyn, having seen me stash the needle and thread into the chair's upholstery, pulled it out and, in one stroke, planted it in my leg above the left knee. I was howling loudly when Ryan brought the phone to me with his friend's dad on the other end of the line.

Now, the temp job is over and things are getting back to normal. I think it gave Fran a big self-confidence boost--of course she's really smart, and was very successful in the corporate world before we had Ryan and she decided to stay home (she always says it was her "promotion"), but it sounds like she was helping everyone with their computers, which were a little tricky, was called on to translate, and was given a bunch of nice gifts to take home from the showroom. In fact, her boss gave her a little bonus above what he agreed to pay her since she stayed late and helped (my theory is that she stayed so it would give me time to finish folding all the laundry). She was proud, and is looking forward to going back to working there in a few months when they need her.

We also produced a lovely Pink Princess Birthday Party for Kaitlyn--I think when you turn three you can be indulged a little. The ladies in attendance were invited to wear pink, and it was fun that they did. We grilled out and had about 30 people over at our house (we didn't let them into the still-ripped-up master bathroom, but I did get compliments on my redone bathroom from last year). Kaitlyn was beaming, and all of a sudden looks a little more grown up.