When Daddy is in charge...

Funny things can happen when Dad is in charge of bath time.

Exercise for killer calf muscles

This is an exercise bound to give you calf muscles the envy of any bicyclist or basketball player. It tones and shapes your muscles while burning fat.

Take a three-year-old boy, approximately 25 pounds in weight. Turn on some music with an aggressive rhythm (tonight's selection included Bon Jovi, The Goo Goo Dolls, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Rob Zombie, and The Ramones), and start jumping up and down. Don't stop for 45 minutes.

For an added level of difficulty, do whatever the boy tells you to do. Typical commands include "jump up and down," "go side-to-side," "run up the stairs," "faster" (I get this one a lot, usually paired with another command. E.g., "Jump up and down...faster"), and, my favorite, "spin around...faster." The last command is code for "make yourself throw up." For best weight loss results, perform immediately after eating.

Trust me, this is a killer routine. After developing the routine tonight my calf muscles are killing me.

mw

To Tiffany's point...

Yes, we are LDS.
Yes, we are a family.
Yes, we carved pumpkins this week.

Well, pumpkin, actually, and a rather diminutive one at that. However, when asked if he wanted one of the larger ones, Caleb's response was, "No. That too heavy." Since I was carrying the pumpkins, it makes me wonder at his opinion of my abilities.

mw

He doesn't know any better, but still...

This morning The Boy curled up in my lap while I tried to start catching up on the blog. After sitting quietly for some time...

The Boy: This is my daddy.
Me: Yes, I am. I am so glad to be your daddy.

*pause*

The Boy: You're a good daddy.
Me: *trying to be tough and not get choked up*

mw

Happy Father's Day

Being a parent means late nights, early mornings, teaching manners, practicing manners, saying no, saying yes, making time, making it better, changing habits, changing schedules, and changing diapers.

It means singing the same songs and reading the same stories that you sang and read yesterday and two minutes ago.

It means trying to explain why toy cars roll down a hill at 5:45 a.m.

It means putting yourself second, and then third, before and after a long day at work.

It means cleaning the house five times a day and not being able to tell that you did it even once.

It means discipline, worry, happiness, fear, pride, laughter, and love.

“I believe that all good parents are optimists. Who else would attempt the thankless task of turning two-year-olds into human beings?”

I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Happy Father’s day to all you optimists out there.

mw

6:15, and all is well

It is 6:15 am and I'm writing a blog using only one hand. It must be a weekend morning.

The Boy is asleep on my lap, a flannel blankie clutched tightly to his chest. This causes me to press the space bar very gently, as it sticks a little and I do not want to disturb him. Upstairs, Neesha is sleeping in; a well-deserved break. Sunlight is starting to make its way across our front lawn to our window. The house is perfectly still. The only sounds I hear beyond the clicking of my keyboard are some birds outside and Caleb's gentle breathing, interrupted occasionally when he sucks on his thumb.

I think I am doing something right.

mw

After the pillow fight

I think I won. At this point, I think that is a good thing.
mw

Tuesday: guy night

Tuesday nights are Neesha's nights out. Tuesday nights are the Guys' nights in. Most every Tuesday, Neesha goes out with the Relief Society presidency to visit sisters in the ward, and twice a month they have a meeting afterward to talk about the things that warrant talking about. These same nights I get The Boy all to myself and we share some genuine, high quality, unadulterated, one-on-one Man Time. I think I get the better end of the deal.

Tonight we puttered. I put some new glass shades on the vanity lighting in the master bath and fixed a couple of dings in the walls.The Boy , meanwhile, fixed the toilet, the shower, the shower curtain, and a bottle of lotion. Impressively, he did it all with the same tool: a stubby, no. 2 phillips screwdriver. The kid is a natural DIYer.

Afterward, we built towers with his over-sized blocks while listening to the sort of music reserved for when Mommy is not in the house. I showed him the importance of alternating the seams in your blocks as you build upward and of having a wide base for a low center of gravity. He then very patiently showed me why my his method of building was preferable, in that his towers were easier to knock down than mine and why else would you build a tower in the first place?

The night ended exactly as all such nights should. We curled up in the rocking chair with Teddy Bear, a blanket, and a good book (The Little Mouse, the Red, Ripe Strawberry, and the Big, Hungry Bear). The Boy was asleep before the mouse disguised the strawberry with a pair of glasses.

mw

On organic matter

What, exactly, is organic matter? Every so often, I'll fixate on a question and, no matter where I am or what I am doing, it fires across the synapses of my brain, constantly mocking my intellect with its absurdity. For the past 44 hours, I have been pondering the meaning of this term: as I bathe in the shower, as I zone during conference calls at work, as I try to fall asleep in my bed, as I remove pound after pound of a dark gray material from the kitchen sink; a substance, they tell me, known as organic matter.

Tuesday night while cleaning up dinner I noticed that, as I poured water down one drain in our sink, the other would fill up. At first I thought this a neat trick and considered taking my sink to audition for David Letterman's "Stupid Human Tricks" (I've never been sure which term the adjective stupid was meant to modify), but then realized that this was the equivalent of a teenage boy laughing milk through his nose.

I have never found someone laughing milk through his nose amusing. Now, even less so. Tuesday night turned into Wednesday morning before I finally conceded the first match and went to bed. Wednesday night held more promise. I donned my lucky ACE sweatshirt and, with the Lovely Wife and Boy cheerleading (picture The Boy crawling under your arm, looking up in your face and saying, "Hi, Daddy. Fig it."), attacked the clogged drain like a man repossessed. Match two ended about an hour and a half later, but only because I ran out of auger (sink 2, me 0). I took out my frustration on the basketball court and called a plumber.

I think my sweatshirt is defective.

So, one half-gallon bottle of Drano Max Gel, one box of baking soda, one gallon of white vinegar, two p-traps, 14 gallons of boiling water, 25 feet of auger, 109 dollars, and one male ego later, the issue was resolved. Neesha tells me the sink is flowing smoothly now, and the plumber is telling me that it happens to everyone. And I'm left to ponder the deeper meaning of the term, organic matter. While certainly not on par with world peace, or even sunless tanning, I believe the successful resolution of this issue will be the defining moment of the 21st Century.

mw

The Oval

We have learned that buying paintings is the easy part. Neesha gave me a signed copy of Greg Olsen's A Prayer for Peace for Christmas. It is one of his least well-known pieces, and is a departure from his typical motif. It is also one of my favorites and I'm grateful to Neesha for it. Having acquired the painting, a process that in itself took multiple years, the real challenge emerged, however, as finding a place to hang a new picture in a fully-furnished home.

We settled on hanging it in our family room in a place previously occupied by a quote from Nelson Mandela, which Liz had put into an oval frame and mat for us. It was a prominent place for the picture, which suited me, and it filled the space well, which pleased Neesha. Satisfied, we hung the picture, relegated the former occupant to a dark corner of a dark closet, and all was well.

The Boy woke up from his nap one hour later. The two of us were playing on the floor of the family room when he looked up at Daddy's new painting, cocked his head to one side, then turned to me and asked, "Ovoh?" Now, in my defense, he is only twenty-one months and a lot of his words sound alike; I reached over, picked up him up, and spun him up-side-down by his ankles, thus turning him "over." He patiently let me know I got that one wrong.

Right-side-up with the normal amount of blood in his head again, he guided me over to the wall. There he explained that, while I may like the new painting, he preferred the old one and would I please put it back up, thank you very much. Not in so many words, perhaps, but that is what I understand from, "Ovoh. Ba up. Wie hewe. Wah" ("Oval. Back up. Right here. Wall." I find it remarkable how much meaning kids can put into so few mispronounced words).

I took him upstairs, showed him the oval frame, and explained that we would put it back up at some point, but for right now it was going to stay in the closet. I then went down to the kitchen to tell Neesha the situation and how I had resolved it as only a dad could. When I walked back into the family room, The Boy was standing on the couch with the Nelson Mandela quote in hand, trying his best to hang it on the wall. This isn't as delicate a process as you might imagine.

Neesha made some comment that doesn't bear repeating about how dads resolve things, then asked The Boy if he would like to help Daddy hang the picture in his room. So, together, The Boy and I found a stud over his dresser and hung the picture across from his crib. I'm pretty sure I missed the stud, but I did make my son happy.

Once I had thought I would hang The Oval, as it is now known, in my office. I'm thinking The Boy's room suits it much better, now.

mw

We Cuddled a Bit Longer That Night

I came home from school in time to get The Boy ready for bed. Part of the routine involves washing his hands. He sits at the sink in only his diaper (some nights I let him wear his pajamas, which usually necessitates another changing; I don't know why I do that), and as I hold his hands under the water to help him scrub we sing the ABCs. Usually he sings along with me, but this night he just watches me in the mirror with eyes as bright and honest as they are blue. We finish and I reach to turn the faucet off, but he asks for "moe" (more). I wash his hands and sing the ABCs again. When we're done I ask if we should do it again. He shows me his dimple before saying, "yeah." I realize it isn't the hand washing or even my singing he is asking for. I skip the song this time, and we just listen to the water splash in the sink. My hands engulf his. They are so small; fragile, yet I can feel the strength in them. When we finish he puts his thumb in his mouth, lays his head on my arm, and closes his eyes.

mw