Stop By....Anytime

Hey how are you?  Thanks for stopping by.  Let me tell you, we've been busy. The yard isn’t what it used to be, I've managed to get the grass cut but had to stop there.  I was all set to trim the hedges when there was a red alert diaper change and then an impromptu nap time in my arms…..end of workday.

Don't mind the barking, the dogs do that now, a lot.  A new development.  A cry for attention (I know all about crying these days).  They like to make a fuss and then look to me with those precious moments eyes, pouring it on thick with their best In the Arms Of A Stranger stares.

Anyway, welcome inside…

Watch your step, my wife’s breast pump/purse is on the floor near the door. She must have dropped it when she came home,stumbled through the door exhausted, mumbling something about school. Oh watch that!  Let me move the car seat, weave around the diaper bag and then sidestep the recycling…..there we go!  I should take that out.

How's my wife you ask?  Oh uh, I saw her a couple of days ago, passed her in the hallway. It was her turn to shower, long overdue I'd say. We're thinking about both showering one day and having dinner....at the dinner table....together. 

Are you okay, you look....uncomfortable.  Here, look at this picture of my son I took yesterday!

Please excuse the mess, we run the dishwasher at all hours like a hospital kitchen. The laundry grows like kudzu, piles of twisted and tangled outfits that climb from the floor while overtaking shoes, books, and even small furniture. Wayward socks can be found, one here, three there. Their infestation is stifling, nesting in corners of the house, behind chairs, seeping into drawers, and between sofa cushions along with the hats, jackets, pants, and diapers, plenty of diapers…

Oh you went to see a band...at 10 pm.  I was asleep at 9, but I'll play some music, just shake one of the toys in the pack-and-play to hear some tunes. Catchy huh? I find myself humming them at work.  Other’s make loud zinging sounds that prompt the dogs to bark and the cat to dart down the hall….oh yeah, we have a cat…

Let me get you something to drink…actually if you can just open the fridge and grab a water for me….the top shelf is breast milk, not bad with Cheerios if you're in a bind.

Wow, haven’t seen you in a while, how have you----hang on, Mason, give me the nuk, No!  Sorry about that, the dogs love these things, pretty expensive treat you know?

But we're getting by, working on four months now.  And you know what they say, after the first year you're in the clear...

What?  Don't they say that?

Oh, leaving so soon?  I feel like you just got here. Oh well--can you take this diaper genie bag out to the trash on your way out?

And here's one last picture of....Oh okay...See you later!

The Redneck Next Door...

I've never considered myself to be a redneck (not that there's anything wrong with rednecks of course), but how I perceive my actions and myself are two very different things, as proven by my actions over the weekend.

Saturday morning I was cutting the lawn when the engine sputtered for a moment and then poof, the motor cracked.  Really, there's engine block shrapnel in the yard, I may want to start checking the oil. 

The gears started churning--not in the mower, it was still smoking in the yard. But I remembered the old mower engine in the basement (kinda redneckish), prompting some custom ingenuity. As my son slept peacefully in his crib, I went to work.  With tools spread amongst the dark oil dripping onto the driveway (my wife loves me), I affixed the mower engine that works onto the mower frame that wasn’t broken. And it worked!  Sorta...

We live by the woods on a dead end street and there’s a home for sale two houses up from ours. Lately cars drive down our street scoping out the neighborhood.  Such was the case when I had my wife (or for this post should I say old lady?) hold the funnel in place as I tilted the blown up mower engine, pouring the gas into the Frankenstein mower I had pieced together.  (All that was missing was a car sitting on blocks in the front yard.)

On to Sunday morning:

Taking the dogs on an early morning walk, before the runners and other dog walkers crowd the trails near our house, I looked around and then unhooked our husky Mason from his leash because well, I’m stupid.  Off he goes into the woods...…way off…..haha so long sucker off.

He'll come back I'm thinking as I continue down the trail.  And then I hear it.  The bark, the one that means I have something…or I really want something.

He did want something. I spotted him from the other side of the creek, jumping around a rock, home to a beaver or whatever critter was squealing in the dark hole.  Shaking my head, I crossed the bridge with Bruce, my loyal lab, and we fought through the overgrowth of tall weeds and bamboo and I prepared for a snake bite to the leg while climbing down the rocks towards my lunatic dog.

Soaking wet and covered in mud, his blue eyes were full of maniacal intensity.  Steeled and determined, husky owners know this look.  It’s a look that means I will stay here for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes.

My options were limited.  Come now!  Wasn’t going to get it done.  Mason doesn’t so much need a dog whisperer so much as he needs a life coach with a bullhorn and whip. 

I slid down the bank towards the tip of his white tail, which is all I could see as his body was fully submerged in the hole.  Ready to bolt if something suddenly scampered out, I lunged at my dog, grabbing him by the tail and carrying him back to the trail where I secured him with the leash.  My apologies to all of you activist out there but there was no other way.  

At that point, it was safe to mention that if there were a film crew following me, the viewing audience at home would be placing bets on how many pairs of camouflage pants I own. (One pair of shorts).

I got Mason home where he promptly upchucks a muddy mixture of dirt and sand before I gave him a much-needed bath in the backyard.  After which, he ran laps around the yard before finding a good spot of dirt to roll around in so that he looked as though he had just run the Kentucky Derby.  It’s pointless….

So let’s recap.  Piecing together a lawn mower in the driveway may not have been such a redneck thing to do, but combined with noodling my dog out of a cubbyhole down at the creek the very next morning, well, I’m only a sleeveless Big Johnson’s t-shirt away from tailgating a Larry the Cable Guy gig.

Kitchen Philosophy...

The other night while making dinner....helping to make dinner....handing my wife the cheese from the refrigerator, we listened to the playful tunes on the Baby Einstein station on Pandora while my wife sang along.  I held my son in my arms as he watched with wonderment as the ceiling fan worked its magic. Outside the azaleas were bursting with bright pink flowers after a springtime rain.  Mason, our hyper husky chased a bumble bee like an idiot.  Everyone was happy.  I couldn’t help but to think just how drastically different my life is now compared to what it used to be.

It wasn’t so long ago that a good friend and I found ourselves in the kitchen, taking shots of frosted bourbon we had discovered in the freezer.  With each shot we became drunken philosophers, discussing anything from world politics to American literature.  It was near dawn when we realized neither of us knew what we were talking about or more importantly, whose kitchen we were in.

Those were some crazy days.  I have a picture in a box somewhere (my wife didn't like it on the mantle) that encapsulates my twenties.  In it, a group of us are gathered in the courtyard of an old apartment complex drinking beer.  The characters:  An elderly woman, complete with a walker, drinking a Miller Highlife.  A strange lady with a really short skirt who had just happened to walk by moments before the picture. A random guy with a football...why not?  And of course there’s us, arm in arm, both with carefree smiles on our faces.  

My current lifestyle is much easier on the liver.  I’m waking up around 6am and changing a diaper while trying to coax a smile out of the little guy. I'm fluent in baby talk, taking piggies to the market and all sorts of other places.  I'm testing the temperature of breast milk on my wrist and can even pour it into a bottle with one hand, all things that were unimaginable to me even a couple of years ago.  And I would never go back. There are far worse ways to spend one’s time.  Perhaps it’s age, perhaps it's having a family, but these days I like to know whose kitchen I’m in.  Life is much simpler that way.

Recently, that same friend—whose son is almost three and whose wife is expecting, sent me a text asking if I would like to get together and catch up over a beer.  In the text he mentioned that he could meet me any time after 8pm.  I looked at the phone as though I were holding a human heart. After 8pm?  Is he crazy?  I was laughing off this late night invitation when, sure enough the phone buzzed again.

 I meant until 8pm.   

Oh, okay. 

Our lives have changed.  Our bar meetings are months apart and usually consist of a couple of beers and a glance at the clock.  We’re gone long before happy hour ends and at home before the band has set up their equipment.  I leave the bourbon to the kids who don't know any better and the old timers who can handle it. I have no time for kitchen philosophy…

Diaper Disaster

Back when I was an inexperienced new dad I had quite the mishap with a diaper change.  I wrote about it over at Great Moments In Parenting.  Feel free to stop by and have a laugh at my expense.