So I realize that if I had lots of time and an complete lack of need for income, I could regale you with Muppet stories pretty much every day. So if you love reading this as much as I love living it and sharing it, we can definitely strike some kind of deal. You give me money, I provide you with consistent enjoyment, amusement, hilarity, breaks from your daily grind. Just wanted to throw that out there. Run it up the proverbial flagpole and see if anyone salutes…
Anyone?
Anyone?
Buhler?
Buhler?
Ok, guess not. Well, then fine. Have it for free. But no more bitching about the quality of service on the lido deck then. And we are moving to well drinks in all the bars now. All the fine liquor will be in the captain’s quarters from now on…come to think of it, it always has been. Move along -nothing to see here.
Alright, you know something mush have happened to drag my sorry butt back to the keyboard. So let me get to it. Once a month, I have to be in K-town now to do some work. It’s a good situation, but it does take me away from Ferf and the Muppet for short stints and that part can be trying. The Muppet has been surprisingly nonplussed about it. Ferf has been fairly good about it. I have been accepting all forms of sympathy however and milking it for all it is worth - but that’s just how I roll. With the advent of such wonderful technology like Skype and internet phones I can all but touch my family while I am gone. If I could actually touch my family, or at least Ferf, while I was gone then I am pretty sure that this would quickly become a little too personal a post for most of you to read. That or I would make it a members only site and start making some real money…but I digress.
SO one morning, I got a phone call from Ferf. This is not that unusual, but normally we do our calls in the later afternoon or right before the Muppet goes to bed so we can stick with the whole bedtime ritual and routine. But this day I got a call fairly early in the morning. So I answered it (cause that is the normally accepted response to a ringing phone. In fact, it has become almost Pavlovian these days, which you would think would mean that I should be able to get my dog to answer the phone, but the best I can do is get him to run to the phone and slobber…). Anyways, I picked up the phone and seeing it was a call from m ever-lovin’ wifey, answered it. (cause with caller ID that whole Pavlovian response things is less relevant. In fact, you shouldn’t even bother trying to get your dog to answer the phone. If you could get him to read the screen and tell you who was calling however, that would be a neat trick and could probably score you an appearance on David Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks. Unless he was busy destroying his show by sleeping with people who work for him. Maybe he might want to sleep with your dog…you know what. Let’s put this whole dog, phone, David Letterman affair behind us shall we. It leads to dark, awkward places.)
So, lets go back to the beginning. The phone rang, I saw it was Ferf and I answered it. See, that wasn’t so hard was it. There is absolutely no reason to go delving into things like dead Russian psychologists and whether or not David Letterman has a predilection towards bestiality. Why do you people do this!?
SO I answer the phone with out a single thought outside of answering the phone…and Ferf tells me that the Muppet doesn’t think she should go to school that day. Now, understand that this is a HUGE thing. The Muppet likes school. In fact, the Muppet loves school. She’s a role model for goodness sake! She loves the kids, the teachers, the uniforms - she loves it all. So her not wanting to go is well, huge. So she gets on the phone with me. And I ask her how she’s doing the fine morning. (Cause you don’t want to play into anything unwittingly.) She tells me that she is not doing well. I can tell this is going to be a bit of a drawing out process.
Me: Why are you not doing well? Isn’t today a beautiful day?
Muppet: I don’t know if today is beautiful I haven’t seen it yet. And I probably shouldn’t see it.
<Now, to be fair, and in the interest of full disclosure, she did have a bit of a cough - and evidently a tickle in her throat judging by the horrid sound she was making that was more than clearing one’s throat, but less than anything else I could imagine. I realized that at some point it would be my fatherly duty to teach my little princess how to “hock a loogie”. I have come to understand that this is not a practice that girl daddies normally participate in. One doesn’t see a lot of little girls all dressed up in frilly lacy pinky things spitting hocked up snot onto the sidewalk like they might see a teenage boy doing. But even if one is reviled by the concept, one must admit that said teenage boy had to have been taught how to both hock and spit said loogie at some point - either through intentional tutelage or by personal practice from mimicry. However it happened, there was a definite exchange of knowledge, and as I am less inclined to allow others to teach my daughter things “on the playground” I figured that it probably fell to me to cover that particular portion of the life curriculum - mostly because I know for a fact that her mother doesn’t have the knowledge to share with her. I know this because her mother once asked me to teach her how to do it. We were already engaged, so I guess the gloves we off and she figured I had made enough of a commitment that she did not have to fret over whether or not I would call her the next day if she asked me how one does it. Being the good and kind fiancee I was, I acquiesced to her query. We were sitting in Queeny Park in Vancouver - overlooking the entirety of the place, which by the way, is gorgeous. That fact plays little part in the story, but it does help with setting and sometimes context matters. It was late morning, so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. We were sitting on a park bench that was placed with a perfect view of the city, but probably not with loogie hocking practice in mind, but hey, you cannot anticipate everything. So Ferf got the hocking part pretty quickly. (She does have a younger brother and I know for a fact that ScottyBear can bring up quite a loogie, so I assume that she learned the internal portion of the project from mimicking him.) Evidently, though, she never had really “gotten” the concept behind spitting. So there was a gap in her learning that she desired to close. I showed her a couple of times with what were, I must admit at the risk of sounding prideful, beautifully arching blobs of the perfect mixture of saliva and mucus that flew no less than 7-8 feet before impaling themselves on the blades of grass on the lawn before us. I talked at length at the importance of rolling the tongue, the science of creating an airtight seal with your lips until the last moment to achieve maximum velocity, and the art of the perfect trajectory. In fact, it might have been one of my finest off-the-cuff lesson plans. When she finally worked up the courage (and the loogie) to try, she was giddy with anticipation. We were sitting side by side and both looking forward in order that we might together view her first successful attempt so we could do an after action review of her performance. I counted it off for her….three…..two….one….GO!
The sound that emanated from her cheeks, as well as the flakes of spittle on the side of my face gave me instant informational feedback that she had indeed not made an airtight seal like we had spoken of. It was then that I felt the delicate pressure on the top my shoe. That perfect amount of pressure that only comes from a dainty loogie being deposited by gravity onto the top of your foot. I looked at her briefly before looking down to survey the carnage that was my Nike Air. I knew two things instantly. One, the girl before me who would become my ever-lovin’ wife, was not going to “get it” when it came to this activity. And two, she was getting a cold. But I digress…>
So the Muppet had a tickle in her throat that she was unsure how to scratch, but the noises she made suggested that she was not going to scratch that itch before she made anyone around her with a half decent sense of auditory awareness really uncomfortable. Also, she had a bit of a dry cough. Not quite Swine Flu, but evidently annoying enough to her to be worthy of a “I can’t go to school today” intervention.
Me: Muppet, what’s the problem? Are you sick?
Muppet: Oh yes daddy. I am SO sick.
Me: How sick are you?
Muppet: Too sick to go to school!
Me: How sick is that?
Muppet: Well daddy, I have a cough. I couldn’t sleep last night because of the cough.
Me: Baby girl, Daddy went to school lots after not sleeping all night. You can do it.
Muppet: Daddy…<sniffing like tears were beginning to well up in her puppy dog eyes> you don’t understand.
Me: What don’t I understand baby girl?
Muppet: I am exhausted and catastrophied!!!
Me:
Muppet: Daddy, did you hear me!?
Me: Ummmm, yeah. I got you there chief. Exhausted and catastrophied. That sounds bad.
Muppet: Oh it is bad Daddy. So very bad.
So Ferf let her stay home from school. The cough was not very nice and the sounds she was making would have been distracting even to the most dedicated kindergarten student. And through it all, I got a new vocabulary word. One that I am certain we have all felt at one time or another. Catastrophied. Yep, we’ve all been there baby girl…we’ve all been there.
So I picked the Muppet up from Kindergarten today. It’s a fun thing to do when I am able to. She’s always surprised that I am there, and she is always ready to talk about her day: who she sat next to at lunch (which has the possibility for endless drama on an almost daily basis), what she did at school, what she learned, who her favorite teacher is (which never changes, but she wants me to guess every time and seems genuinely amazed at my almost precognitive ability to guess right every time), and other such important details in the life of a 5 year old.
Truth be told (and every now and again it is here on the Maru) I really enjoy the entire verbal process. It’s her inviting me into her world. I know that she might not be so eager to do so later in life, so I relish it now. Today I got some serious scuttlebutt on the goings on in the kindergarten class. There is all kinds of stuff going on there. The Terry Fox run is tomorrow and the kids are raising money for the Terry Fox Foundation. The Muppet decided that she wanted to raise money for Terry Fox like she did last year. She told the kids this. They were not as impressed as she thought they should be - mostly because they are all doing the same thing. SO, being the Muppet, she felt it necessary to remind them that she raised more money than them last year and would do so again this year.
Heh. Funny, cause last year I was working in an office and I could let her go from cubical to cubical soliciting people who would feel occupationally obligated to help her out. This year, I work from home…
But this would not be something that held her back. She told me that we could make calls and get people to give on the internet. Seriously, my child is 5 and has a pretty good understanding of the vehicles best suited for fundraising. I told her that we would make some calls, but she had to do the entire solicitation. SO she had to be prepared to ask people to sponsor her, and then be ready to tell them what she was doing and WHY she was doing it. She seemed to get the picture, so I called a buddy and asked him if she could solicit him for a fundraiser. I explained in great length that he was welcome to say yes or no because the lesson was learning how to ask and how to be grateful no matter the response.
So after the quick run down, I handed the phone to the Muppet. She said hello and then immediately asked if he would like to support her cause. (I winced a bit because first rule of making an ask is to spend some time establishing rapport with the donor…seriously, everyone knows this and the kid blew right by it.) I could hear his side of the conversation and it went like this:
The Muppet: “Hello. Would you like to support my cause?
Her mark: “Well, what’s your cause?”
The Muppet: “We are raising money for Terry Fox.”
Her mark: “How are you doing that?”
The Muppet: “I am calling people and asking them if they want to support my cause.”
Her mark: “How much are you trying to raise?”
The Muppet: “I am letting people decide how much they want to give.”
Her mark: “What does the money go to?”
The Muppet: “The money goes to help little kids in the hospital who have cancer in their bodies, so they don’t have to die like Terry Fox did.”
Her mark: ” <blink> <blink> “uh, okay…how much do you want?”
The Muppet: “However much you want to give so the kids don’t die.”
Her mark: “How’s $50?”
The Muppet: <pulls the phone away from her ear> “Daddy, he’s giving fifty bucks!!” <puts phone back to ear> “Thank you…daddy will get your money.”
Seriously, this happened over and over for about an hour (though the $50 was the high water mark in single gift size). She told the same story time after time. I asked Ferf if she had coached her on wording, and she assured me that she had not, and that the Muppet had come up with that all on her own.
So she’s running in the Terry Fox run. I am pretty sure she will be the highest fund raiser in the class again. But, if you want to give, you can. Click this link to the Terry Fox National School Run. Where it asks for a participant code, type: APSEQT That’s the Muppet’s page. Donate however much you want so the kids don’t die. The Muppet and Terry Fox will both be grateful.
But to get back to the original point of this story - drama in the classroom.
Where were we???? Oh yes, we were on the way home from Kindergarten and the Muppet is sharing her day with me. She sat next to Emma at lunch because her favorite friend was absent. But that’s okay. Her favorite friend was probably sick…or on vacation. And Emma is nice to sit next to because she chews with her mouth closed. And she doesn’t spit when she talks. Both of which are social skills that are evidently not universally practiced in her class. Then, with absolutely no segue, she mentions that Nate doesn’t like it when everyone in the class looks at him when he gets in trouble. I mentioned casually that maybe he should stop getting into trouble if the looks of others bother him so much. The Muppet seemed to be underwhelmed with my suggestion and gave me a look that I AM CERTAIN she learned from her mother who gives me the same look when she is underwhelmed with suggestions I make. She paused dramatically to give the look and continued on with her story about Nate and his distaste for groups of people looking at him when he gets in trouble. Wanting to be an active listener, I asked what kind of things he did to get in trouble and thereby garner the looks. The Muppet told me that he is usually just silly or does inappropriate things.
Now, to be fair, the Muppet has a vocabulary that is kind of outside the norm for 5 year olds (at least this is what I have been told by others. Personally, I think she has an appropriate vocabulary for a 5 year old, but then she is the only 5 year old I have ever had and thus she is judged against herself in my world - thereby ensuring that she is constantly normal). So when she says that someone does something “inappropriate” I (a) know that she is aware of the meaning of the word and (b) ask a follow up question that you would expect me to: “What kind of inappropriate things does he do?”
Again, I am honestly expecting her to reply with something fairly benign like “forgets to wash his hands before eating” or “cuts in line at the water fountain.” Inappropriate to be sure, but hardly earth shattering. So, when I asked the question it was almost a throw away line. I am driving, she is in the back seat and I simply want her to know that I am listening and engaged with her. So you can understand that I almost drove off the road when she said, “Like when he’s inappropriate with others in the cloak room.”
<blink>
<blink>
<blink>
<remember to breathe>
<stop the trembling in your hands>
<release the death grip on the steering wheel>
<calm your voice before you speak and sound relaxed>
“What do you mean baby girl? What kind of inappropriate things does he do with others in the cloak room?”
<blink>
<blink>
<blink>
<check the clock>
<what’s taking so long to answer?>
<don’t sound pushy>
<don’t panic>
“ahem…Muppet? Did you hear my question?”
“What daddy?”
“I said, ‘What kind of inappropriate things does he do with others in the cloak room?’”
“oh…he talks. You aren’t supposed to talk in the cloak room - it’s inappropriate. He does, and so he gets in trouble, and then everyone looks at him. He doesn’t like that.”
<as feeling returns to my extremities and thoughts of justifiable homicide recede from my consciousness and my heart rate returns to normal>
“yes…I can see that. Wanna listen to the radio for a bit?”
Seriously, we’re like 3 weeks in…I don’t know if my heart can make it through a whole year of this kindergarten drama…And poor Nate has no idea how close to death he came today - somebody was gonna get hurt real bad!
note to self - teach the Muppet another word for “inappropriate”…one that doesn’t illicit such strong emotional responses from little girl’s fathers.
Has it really been almost a month since I posted?? I have been too busy on the ever-lovin’ wifey’s internet presence and have let my own go a bit. I am truly sorry about that to you whom look to the Maru as a constant (or at least consistent) source of…source of…ummm…whatever need it is you have that somehow goes unmet in any other place in your life. I can only imagine how difficult these last few weeks have been on you. Seriously, I can only imagine because I wouldn’t actually know in a personal way. But I am here to empathize with you. I feel your pain. Let’s move on.
So Ferf broke her foot this weekend. Yep. Broke her right foot - and know I don’t mean she broke it off in my arse. I mean she broke a bone in it. Fracture of the fifth proximal metatarsal.
So now she has a big black air cast boot on her foot. Very sexy. She wears it well - makes it look good.
But how did she break it you ask. I’m glad you asked. She tripped over thin air whilst walking across the bedroom floor. She swears that she tripped over my house shoes, but I think that’s bunk. My house shoes are not something easily tripped over. They are size 12 after all. How on earth does someone overlook a freaking foot-yacht parked in the middle of the floor? If it were me, I would rather have people believe that I tripped over thin air. But she stands by her story…well, sits by it really. She doesn’t stand so much right now. heehee.
She did it right as I was leaving for the weekend. Friday morning and it is literally 10 minutes before my ride was coming and she takes the dive upstairs and I run up to find her doing a full frontal face plant on our bedroom floor - her head landed 4 inches from the door jam. The good news is that she didn’t brain herself as well. But we got her up and down stairs and her foot elevated and iced. It was already swelling by that time and she couldn’t put weight on it. So she asked me if I could go to the store and get her some crutches before I left. Dutifully I checked on line and made some calls to drug stores and such. No luck. No crutches to be had. I had the dubious honor of letting her know that there would be no crutch based assistance coming. I offered to cancel my trip, but she wanted me to go. When my ride showed up I took my bags out to his car and when he opened his trunk, there was a set of crutches. I asked him if he were planning to get injured to which he responded that they were a set he used after ankle surgery and he was taking them to the Salvation Army. I laughed and took them into the house for Ferf. She used them all weekend and waited until Monday to even go see a doctor. Ahh my wifey. She’s a keeper!
Evidently the Muppet was quite the trooper this weekend. She took care of everything that Ferf needed. She carried food and dishes to Ferf, she brought her drinks and kept the house “tidy”. She did her chores and never once complained. She was awesome. In fact, she tried to do everything. She tried to not only bring Ferf a bottle of extra strength Advil liquid gels, she tried to open them and give her some of them. Unfortunately she was foiled by the child proof lid.
She tried and tried to get the bottle open, but to no avail. Frustrated she handed the bottle to Ferf and told her that she could not get it open. Ferf smiled and told her that it had a safety feature - a child proof lid. The Muppet thought about that for a moment and said “it’s child proof?”
Ferf said, “yes honey…it’s child proof.” Again, the Muppet thought about that and finally said with a deeply sincere look on her face,
“But HOW does it know that I am a child???”
Later I told the Muppet that it is magic, like a thermos. It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold, but nobody knows how it can tell the difference.
So today is an “anniversary” for me. At least that is what we call it. I have often wondered why we use the term “anniversary” colloquially only to refer to annual celebrations of weddings i.e. wedding anniversary, but we say birthday to celebrate the anniversary of our birth. And we use Christmas to denote the anniversary of the birth of Christ. And we use a length of time in conjunction with “reunion” when we celebrate the anniversary of our graduation from school (like this fall will be my 20th reunion - though I have not attended anything close to 10 others).
For those who pay homage to the great god google I give you this piece of intelligentsia:
An anniversary (from the Latin anniversarius, from the words for year and to turn, meaning (re)turning yearly; known in English since c. 1230) is a day that commemorates and/or celebrates a past event that occurred on the same day of the year as the initial event. For example, the first event is the initial occurrence or, if planned, the inaugural of the event. One year later would be the first anniversary of that event.
But this day is actually none of the above, but it does commemorate a past event - 12 years ago today my father died much too young. He was 57 years old. He never saw me marry Ferf. He never saw me move to Nepal. He never saw me get dual citizenship. He never got to talk to me about my travels all over Africa and south-east Asia. He never heard me speak exotic languages poorly. He never saw the birth of the Muppet - nor any of the followig growth she has done in the almost 5 years since. He never drank really good scotch with me and talked about my life and my goals and dreams. He never saw me get my CFRE designation or the years of work that went into earning it. He never celebrated my first 7 figure gift that I brought into an organization. He never saw the first house I bought…or the second one for that matter. He never saw me screw up so badly and then pull life out of the ditch (with the help of more friends than I could ever create nicknames for).
Bottom line…he missed a lot. And the list grows every day. I think that is one of the hardest things to get over. He should be 69, about to turn 70 this year. That’s young…young enough to still be alive that’s for darn sure.
He died of cancer over a decade ago. Sometimes I think I am still pissed at him for having the audacity to die. Yes, that is incredibly self-absorbed to the point of bordering on narcissim…I’m comfortable with that. At least I’m self aware. SO many people miss the boat on that one. But not me. I got that going for me. Which is nice.
It is an amzing thing that our subconscious can remember the anniversary of the deaths of loved ones even we don’t consciously think about it. I had a list of things to do today that I didn’t really get through. I just wasn’t feeling it, you know? I couldn’t get in te groove. I felt blaise and weird and out of sorts. I wasn’t depressed but I was far from perky. Then I looked at the calendar and it occurred to me that this was the day that my father had died on. That gives me a complete pass on all things emotional I think. It’s like playing the orphan card (which Ferf and Merf do WAY better than I because they have lost both parents at much younger ages than I lost the one, so in the scheme of things they totally win on this). If I kinds sulk around on the 19th of May and just don’t get a lot done (or at least as much as you or anyone else thinks I should) then I get to play the “my dad died on this day in 1997″ card and you have to back off. It’s like a rule. No, more like a law. A universal law that must be obeyed.
I am lucky in the one respect that my wife and her family totally get what I am going through. Marvin married a girl and BOTH her parents are still alive! It’s like she’s rubbing it in. She can sympathize, but I get the full on empathy. It’s a totally different ballgame.
So here’s the deal. All of you out there with fathers that are still alive. Right now, go….wait!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? Okay. OKay, not RIGHT NOW…let me finish first. Go get a pen and paper, or open your Outlook (or whatever email client you have chosen or opted to accept like mindless sheep because it came installed on your Bill Gates controlled PC - those of you who use Eudora or Thunderbird, you get a pass from that last rant. If you own a Mac, then you get a cookie) and wrote them a letter RIGHT NOW telling them how much you love them and that you appreciate everything they do/have done for you - especially the being alive part, that is more important than you realize, trust me on this one. It doesn’t have to be long, though seriously, if you are balking at this because of the necessary length of said letter, than you do not understand the point behind this and I am going to have to ask you to go stand in the hall for 20 minutes or until you realize what a selfish punk you are - whichever comes first.
Then, call them too. Becaus hearing their voice is something you should do as often as you can. Just because you can. Besides, Fathers Day is coming up. Get a jump on the crowd.
Go…
Go on,
DO IT.
I am going to call them and ask if you did or not. I swear. GO!
So the Muppet is a huge fan of music. It probably started when she was in the womb and her Aunty Merf would put headphones on Ferf’s belly and play her favorites. Hundreds of hours of bands who graced the cover of classic Rolling Stones Magazine covers. And then, we would all get up for middle of the night feedings and dance back to sleep with the dulcet tones of Marvin Gaye and James Taylor. However it happened, she LOVES music. And she has very specific tastes. I remember when she was like 6 weeks old, she would often ask us to change the radio station if she did not like the music…or maybe she had pooped herself…either way, I usually changed the station (while Ferf changed her - we all had our assigned duties).
But when the Muppet was old enough to talk - so like 12 months old - What? She was extremely bright, and every time I have told this story she gets younger. I realize this, but it is my story so back off. Where was I, oh right, the Muppet was about 8 months old and she would ask for a specific song to be played over and over and over. (Ok, so maybe she was almost 2 years…whatever, it is barely relevant to the story.) It was Toby Keith’s Whiskey for my Men and Beer for my Horses. I know right, who teaches there two year olds that kind of music, but it was usually on the way to church, so that’s when we listen to worship music…
Anyway, she would be sitting in her astronaut-like 5 point harness baby seat in the back and she would simply say, “More Toby please.” If we dared to play a different Toby Keith song, she would become indignant and chant over and over, “NO NO NO…MORE TOBY PLEASE!!!” Until we played it again. Lucky for me, I like the song. Still do surprisingly enough.
Whatever, my point is that her love of music started early. So I was not too surprised when I was listening to music on the computer (that was TOTALLY LEGALLY DOWNLOADED I might add in case anyone is reading this…are you a cop?? Sorry, I ask that of everyone on advice of my attorney, don’t take it personally. Besides, you aren’t a cop are you?” Anyway, I was listening to some music that was suggested to me by my personal music sommelier Mr. Seth - who is a surprisingly astute judge of music for an Orthodox. What? How is that offensive?? It’s legitimate. How many Orthodox do you know that suggest really good music - especially underground style musicians that you have never really heard of? Does this look like an icon you’d find on your ipod:
But I digress, I simply want to give credit where due to the guy who hooks me up with new music - usually every Friday, though he has been slacking in that department for a while now, but this is not the place to publicly call him out for not living up to his job description…that would be really awkward to do to someone - especially a friend.
Anyway, so one day I was working on the computer - probably entertaining my Maru passengers if I am being honest - and listening to said totally legally downloaded music, which in this instance was a lady by the name of Regina Spektor.
For the purposes of full disclosure, and because I think this lady is seriously talented and that everyone should give her a listen: Regina Spektor (born February 18, 1980) is a Soviet-born Jewish-American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered on New York City’s East Village.
Ok, enough superfluous background info about the song…back to the actual story that made all this relevant and not just me being a Dad bragging about his daughter’s musical interests at an early age…in a semi-anonymous way…on a blog that is a spec on the naval lint that is the internet. There is a point! And I shall find it…it’s like a recession you spend your way out of…this is an alphabetical sink whole that you write your way out of. I’m printing money word here. I’m the alphanumeric treasury department. Sure, if I just keep writing then the value of every word is lessened, but we are in a word recession here and dog gone it, I am going to make sure that everyone has as many words as they need until this crisis is over! A chicken in every pot and a post on every blog! For those who don’t get the reference (not you…I know you get it, but there are a couple of dumb errr culturally illiterate I mean, young people who might not get it) - in 1928 the Republican’s promised that if Herbert Hoover was elected President there would be a “chicken in every pot and a car in every garage”. Of course it was a scant 7 months after he was elected that the stock market crashed and the US entered the Great Depression. Even funnier that Hitler took up that charge when he took power in Germany (to give every German a car) and thus was born the VW.
But I digress…When we last left our heroes, they were in a car - ok, so that’s not where I left off, but I am skipping ahead to make a short story long long story short. Or at least shorter. Work with me here people. So, what do we know?
the Muppet has a strong love for music
the Muppet has an even stronger sense of what she does and doesn’t like in her musical tastes
Tex is a really funny writer and you are glad you are here
Tex is not above shameless self-promotion when it is late and he is writing a blog post
History is fun and Tex linked the Republicans and the Nazi in a VERY uncomfortable way even though it is the Democrats that seem to want to nationalize the automotive industry in the States today
When making lists, Tex is easily distracted by stream of consciousness and should go back to anecdotal, or at least narrative writing
Tex, and the Muppet, both like the musical talents of Regina Spektor - and neither of them is getting paid for this heartfelt endorsement
The story that Tex should really get back to telling (sooner rather than later) takes place in a car
Everyone caught up? Anyone need to pee before we get back on the road? Good. Here we go.
Last weekend we as a family took a vacation - see previous post for details if you missed them. I had a fantasy baseball draft to do, and K-town was where said draft is held every year. And, yes, I did draft a freaking amazing team and should walk away with the championship yet one more time this year. Thank you for asking. The team is called the Sons of Thunder and we stole our logo from the Trenton Thunder (the NY Yankees AA affiliate ball team). We use the alternate logo:
Yeah…it is very cool.
But I digress…so after said draft had taken place, I collected the Muppet and Ferf and we got in the car to drive home - usually about a 3.5 hour drive. Though often times it will take longer because we have to stop in Merrit, and Hope, and Chiliwack so that the lovely ladies of my family can pee. Each of these places is like 5 minutes from each other. I kid I kid. But this time we were leaving a little later than I had wanted, and so Ferf and I formulated a plan. The Muppet had nothing to drink for like hours before we left, and we had her do a “last pee” right before we loaded up and left. This would, in theory, get us past Merritt and let our first stop be Hope. (And in a perfect world, our only stop.) But as we neared Merritt, we heard the first of the plaintiff cries from the back - “I have to pee!!” SO I looked at Ferf and said, “let’s stop in Merritt, I will top up the gas tank so we do not have to stop again, and you can drain the Muppet, so we do not have to stop again!” It seemed the perfect plan. Tank got filled, and the Muppet expelled the fluids that she had somehow managed to create out of nothing. We loaded back up and got on the road again.
Now it really is no more than 45 - 60 minutes from Merritt to Hope if you are driving the speed of traffic - which I was. But I swear it was like 10 minutes outside of Merritt that the Muppet said, “I have to go potty again.” Now, this was not something that made me happy to hear. I like to hear my daughter say many things…”I love you Daddy” is pretty high on the list…”uh oh” as a non-sequiter is low on it. But 30 seconds after she just voided her bladder and we are on the road through the mountains, “I have to pee again” is right there at the bottom. So, I looked at Ferf with that Dad look that communicates, “aw hell no” without actually saying “Aw hell no” cause my momma raised me better than to talk like that. And then I said, “Baby girl, you are gonna have to wait until the next place - cause YOU JUST WENT PEE. There is no way you have to go again.” Then Ferf whispers, “she really did pee back there - a lot!” So now I am convinced that she is just restless and thinks public toilets are cool. So I decide internally that I will not stop in Hope unless I become convinced that she really has to pee, and by rule (newly instituted solely for that drive) I will be hard to convince. So for the next 40 minutes we are serenaded by the Muppet bouncing from ” look Daddy, there is snow on the ground…I really have to pee Daddy…I see the moon Daddy…the moon is following us…I need to pee Daddy…my dolly can fly…I want to be a princess when I grow up…I need to pee Daddy…Mommy, did you know I need to pee…the moon is still following us Daddy…I have to get my masters degree before I can marry right?…are we there yet…I need to pee.” You get the picture. Any kid who is that easily distracted, does not really have to pee. The need-to-pee-ers bounce up and down a lot and focus solely on their painfully obvious need to pee, they kick their feet back and forth on the seat back in front of them in such a way as to annoy their parents rhythmically as if each kick to the seat was punctuating “I’…”NEED”…”TO”…”PEE” over and over, and their eyes start to well up with tears cause it hurts so badly (from which we get the phrase - “I have to pee so badly that my eyeballs are floating”). The Muppet was exhibiting none of the classic signs of serious urinary need. SO, as we passed the last exit to Hope, I motored on. Besides, Chiliwack is like only another 27 miles (44km to those who so love the Queen’s rulers). And she did not say a thing about peeing for the last 10 minutes before Hope or the first 5 minutes after Hope. And I figured that even if there had been the smallest degree of legitimacy to her claim, that we had simply been party to that mystical happening where the pee simply goes away. We’ve all had it happen…you have to pee so badly you think it is going to burst out of some other orifice, or create a new one, and then suddenly, it just goes away. We don’t really know what happens to it. It’s there and then it is not. Like some kind of bodily fluid Bermuda Triangle. But it only happens to pee…cause if it happened to say, blood, we would be in a world of hurt.
Police Officer 1: What happened here?
Police Officer 2: We don’t really know sir.
CSI: Don’t look at me.
Coroner: Don’t quote me on this, but it would appear that his blood simply went away.
Police Officer 1: I thought that only happened to pee!
Coroner: We thought so too. But if the bodily fluid Bermuda Triangle is expanding…well, I don’t even want to speculate about the consequences…
So maybe my burgeoning career as a screenwriter just went down in flames. But that is okay. I was digressing anyway. So meanwhile back at the ranch, we were minutes past the last exit for Hope and the Muppet is back to providing us with a need to pee play-by-play. And I think, maybe, just maybe, she really does need to pee. But I go back to the bag o’ tricks to see if she is distractable. We talk about the moon again for a while, and she seems to become oblivious to the pee - only to have it rear it’s ugly head in her consciousness once again. SO we move on to princess stories and contests to see how much dialogue from EVERY FRICKIN BARBIE MOVIE THAT IS IN EXISTENCE AND I HAVE BEEN FORCED TO WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN LIKE A CHINESE WATER TORTURE she can remember. (turns out to be just about every jot and tiddle in case you were wondering.) (And here is a link to the Wikipedia entry for what a jot and tittle is in case you were wondering that. I am a full service blog post provider and never let me hear you say differently!) But again, her mournful cry would echo through the car at random intervals, “I need to pee REALLY BADLY NOW DADDY.” So, I dug deep down into my repertoire and pulled out - the ipod. And the playlist that makes the Muppet happy. So we plug it into the lighter outlet in the car, and wallah - instant personal radio station. And I figure if I put on one of her favorite songs, then she will be so enraptured with singing along that all thought of urination would cease and desist. So I scramble to scroll through the list of over 500 totally legally downloaded or otherwise acquired songs, and the first one I come to that I know makes her short list, is Regina Spektor’s Fidelity. It is a great little diddy that will get stuck in your head and is fun to sing along with - thus making it perfect to help a 4 year old forget her (possibly) pseudo need to pee.
And at first it had every appearance to work exactly how I thought they would…she saw that I was turning on the ipod and immediately perked up and started asking if she could choose the first song. But I was already ahead of her on the song choice. I wanted to get something on ASAP. So I told her, I picked one of your favorites, and I pushed play. The first notes of the song flitted through the air from the speakers and her eyes lit up with recognition and she said, “OHHHH! Regina Spektor. I like Regina Spektor!” And she started singing along. At which point I looked over at Ferf with, I am sure, the most smug of looks thinking, “HA I KNEW IT! I WIN!” (yes, I realize this makes me horribly shallow that I somehow turned my daughter’s ostensibly fake need to pee into a contest of will with me, and worse, that it was important to me that I win. But I deal with it and move on…so should you. Nothing to see here people. Move along.)
It was about that time that the Muppet spoke from the back shattering my thin illusion of superiority. She simply said, “I love Regina Spektor. And speaking of Regina, my vagina needs to pee.”
I pulled over at the next gas station. I had to. I could not drive I was laughing so hard and my eyes were blurry from the tears.
And just for your listening and viewing pleasure, Here is the song we were listening to at the time. I hope it doesn’t make you have to pee…
The long dark tea time of the soul - also known as the weekend girly, giggle-fest tea party with a temp-bachelor dad - has come to an end. The gaggle has been disbanded - with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I love the silent G in gnashing. It rocks. I think we should do more silent G’s. I mean sure we already have gnashing, and gnat, gnome, sign, campaign, reign, foreigner, diaphragm, design, resign, feign, champagne and, my person favorite - phlegm. But the ones that start with a silent “g” are extra special. Uncle Gaydog, is also a fan of silent letters. He and I were both voted down by our respective spouses when we suggested we put a silent “Q” in the middle of our child’s name. Think about how awesome that would be. Little Johnny becomes Little Johqnny. Then when said child goes to school each year on the first day when the teacher is reading the class roll they would get to Little Johqnny and stumble over the pronunciation. At this point Little Johqnny says, with just the right amount of disgust (and a well practiced eye roll), “It’s pronounced Johnny…the Q is silent. Obviously.”
However, now in retrospect, I will admit that having to type Feqrf or Mquppet multiple times in most posts would have been a serious pain in my aqss.
But it appears I have digressed. I was writing to celebrate the end of my 3 day long celibacy time away from my ever lovin’ wifey and my survival of the weekend little girl pinkapalooza - A 24 hour sleep deprivation party that provides opportunity for nail painting, singing and dancing, hair do-ing, dancing and singing, Barbie movies, sugar rushes, giggling and screeching. Little girls absolutely love it. Daddies smile and nod a lot with tears from both joy of knowing their daughters are having fun and a soul-wrenching migraine born of having one’s nails painted instead of watching March Madness all weekend long like had been planned for months and months and made even better with the release of the brackets that provided some of the best match-ups in college basketball. SO, let us celebrate the joy of survival. By no means would I belittle the suffering of others by comparing what I went through to the suffering of others - especially in a historical context. However, there were points where I was ready to admit that this was a whole new standard by which future things could be measured - especially in the midst of the Duke vs. Texas game when there were a series of tears from each girl in succession because they had each wounded another in deeply scarring and immediately forgotten ways.
I love my child with all my heart, but next time such a thing lines up on the horizon, I am taking a short 3 hour boat tour:
And on a completely separate note, Ferf is going to a hip-hop dance class tonight. Oh yes. I said it. She’s gonna go do hip-hop with other moms. They need action figures:
Say it with me, “yo yo yo Ferf!” She left for class listening to Snoop Dog and dressed like Flava Flav:
Yep… Ferf is pimpin’!! I’m thrilled for her because she is so freaking confident that she will do this. And yet, at the same time (in possibly equal amounts) I am horribly embarrassed for her. Cause seriously…upper middle class white Canadian hip hop moms?? Seriously? …
…
…
…
Just in case you want to join her in her quest…I give you free dance lessons courtesy of the Godfather of Soul and the hardest working man in showbiz:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdz88MBWomo[/youtube]
So, evidently I am on a roll here with thematic stories. I don’t like it any more than you do - trust me. But this is my life…what am I gonna do. All my loyal reader(s) know that my wife is a professional passion coach. It’s true. And yes, I am a lucky man. But that is not the point. Ok, Ok…considering the fact that my wife is a passion coach, who cares what the point is. You noobies can dwell on that for a bit longer, but I am moving on ahead.
So Ferf is a passion coach and one of the things she does is answer people’s questions. Not the “where’d I leave my socks” type questions, but the “there is no way in hell I am going to ask this out loud” type. Hence, she gets many questions via email. ‘Cause was can all type p-e-n-i-s, s-e-x and v-a-g-i-n-a even if we don’t like to say them out loud.
Sometimes these questions are truly heart wrenching. Sometimes they are truly disturbing. And sometimes, like today, they are down right hilarious. Now, please understand, I am kept completely in the dark as to my wife’s client list - though often times I get these knowing nods of “dude, thanks” from guys and I figure their wife was a client. But outside of that (which makes church awkward) I am out o’ the loop regarding who she sees or who asks what question. And that, my dear friend, is what allows me to share today’s story with you. We are all in the dark and can assume that I might have even made this up…but I didn’t!!!!
So this letter comes from a guy. A dad. Might have even been a single dad. Don’t know. But the fact that it is a dude writing, tells me that this guy is seriously seeking help. Guys are not the first ones to run for “help” in any area that pertains to the sexual organs. If it’s our organ we figure we have got it under control. If it’s someone else’s organ and there is an issue surrounding it, then we are ABSOLUTELY SURE that there is a game on TV that needs watching. If it’s someone else’s organs and the issue is that they are spilling out of a bikini top - then yeah, sure we’re there to help. Outside of that. Not so much.
But this guy - he’s looking for some assistance (though not with his sexual organ I might add for the sake of clarity, and because if I don’t clarify half of you will stop reading…and badger will just be disappointed). No, this gentleman is concerned for another. Which of course is very noble. Only one thing could be more noble according to the Princess Bride:
Miracle Max: You got any money?
Inigo Montoya: Sixty-five.
Miracle Max: I’ve never worked for so little. Except once, and that was a very noble cause.
Inigo Montoya: This is noble, sir. His wife is… crippled. His children are on the brink of starvation.
Miracle Max: Are *you* a rotten liar.
Inigo Montoya: I need him to help avenge my father, murdered these twenty years.
Miracle Max: Your first story was better.
Anyway…the gentleman in question had to gather up all his gumption and sit down at the keyboard and over come the normal PEBCAK issues that stop most of us from doing something on the internet and then write out his story & the resulting question and then send it out into cyberspace.
All in all, not the most fear-free of activities. So kudos to this guy. He deserves a moment of honest appreciation…you know, before we kinda mock him. So here’s to you question sending dad guy!
Ok… on to the story. (Though Ferf did not give me a lot of lead in details, so work with me as I am having to make a lot of this up use inductive reasoning to solidify some of the normal surrounding detail. SO, dude, emails my wife because he has a question that needs addressing so he can get some sleep at night and not feel so awkward when he is out and about with friends and family. The sheer horror of his certainty that he is the only person alive who has been confronted with this potentially humiliating, if not fully scarring issue has provided him with little sleep and even that has been filled with night terrors not seen since before horror movies were serialized into plot-less caricatures by a soulless Hollywood hell bent on turning a genre that was intended to scare children into unquestioning obedience into a uncreative money-grab. But I digress…
This man has come to the guru seeking knowledge. His dilemma is as unconquerable as Mt. Everest to him. He has no one to turn to and needs an answer. How can he look at himself in the mirror and feel that he is anything but a failure as a father if he cannot deal with this? Sure it starts small, but if left unchecked, how can he be certain that he is not a scant couple of decades away from being keelhauled onto Oprah or worse - Jerry Springer because of his inaction as a father…
So he asks the question. “What should I do?” He gives some basic info: “I have a 5 year old daughter. And she, she… *sigh* I have found her in her room on occasions… “should I make an issue out of this, or just let it go…” “My 5 year old daughter likes to hump her teddy bear because she says it feels good!”
I can’t help myself. As I fall down into fits of hysterical (if not maniacal) laughter, I suddenly I have this image of a made for TV mini-series, produced by HBO -
The Playground Pimp
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.
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If I were writing the response (which I am not for obvious reasons), I’d tell him to get Teddy a necklace and put it on the little stuffy slut:
Enough with the emails and late night phone calls. Enough with the letters and text messages. Enough with the smoke signals and Morse code - I KNOW I HAVE NOT WRITTEN IN A WHILE. Cut me some slack here, I’ve been busy. Yeah. Busy. Ok? What do you mean “doing what?”? Stuff. Business stuff. Family stuff. Stuff! And yes, as a matter of fact, it has kept me too busy to write. But because I love you so much - no not you, you’re a guy, I meant the chick - I have abandoned all other duties and shirked all other responsibilities in order to give the smallest smidgen of meaning to your color needing existence. I am the color guy. This blog is like a freaking 64 box of crayons with the sharpener in the back.
(only I took out eggplant cause it’s ugly, so maybe it is the often talked about, seldom seen 63 box of crayons). And by the way, Happy 51st birthday box of 64 crayons. You made my childhood awesome!
But I digress. The point is not that crayons have brought so technicolor dreams to children for half a century. The point is that the Maru is a small patch of color in a sometimes dreary virtual world - or real world, depending on how you are doing. How are you doing? Whatever, I don’t have time for small talk. I’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there. So today I am like the Smokey and the Bandit of blogs.
[youtube]xN8dP4CoFaw[/youtube]
SO much to cover and so little time. Let’s see. VD is coming up this weekend - the hallmark-induced holiday not the STD. But you know my thoughts on this particular “holiday” (in case you have forgotten see this.) But as it is, I was treading the waters of other people’s blogs. (I know, me visiting other people’s blogs is like a 5 star chef deciding to sample fast food fare, but hey, whatcha gonna do?) I came across this particular post that I thought was worthy of passing along. It’s all part of the service I provide.
Personally I will be spending the evening of the anniversary of the St. Valentines Day Massacre with my ever-lovin’ wifey of 10+ years and my great buddy Hamie and his newly minted “girlfriend.” I know that newly minted might be a strange way of saying it, but their relationship is strange (in a cute and aww puppy love beginnings kind of way). He’s American, living in Canada, working in Swaziland. She’s South African, working and living in the UK and they met in Africa, are dating long-distance and spending VD here before their next soiree in the Greek Isles. Yeah. I know. Keeping up with their burgeoning relationship is like being back in high school government class and coloring world maps… But, the four of us will be hanging out on this most inauspicious of days. There will be much wine and laughter and I’m sure I’ll end up in bed with my date. Sucks for you Hamie!! Maybe you’ll get some lip if you’re lucky.
So, enough with all that. I could go on making fun of him for days. Literally. Days. But most of you don’t know him and what fun is that for you? I am not so selfish as to simply think of my own amusement but not yours. At least not all the time.
Alright. I have been avoiding this particular story for quite a while cause I was not sure that I should even share it. But it is, while truly disturbing, so very blog worthy. And this is a semi-private blog and since my daughter still can’t read yet, I figure I can still get away with it before she ends up on Oprah one day blaming everything on me and my blog. For those who might be new to the Maru…well, sorry. For those who are semi-regular attenders…well, sorry. For my loyal reader with rss…well, sorry. There. Did we cover everyone? Good. Quick background reminder: I have a amazing wife and a 4 year old daughter who is quite possibly the greatest thing in the entire world.
Ok, that’s enough background. I am not really sure how to build up to this story. Honestly. Sometimes, I can write 3 pages just to get to the payoff cause that’s just how I roll. But this time, I am just not sure. So here’s how it went down. It’s morning. I’m freshly showered and primped. Yes, primped. Don’t mock. Anyway, I was almost fully clothed. All I needed was to pull a shirt on over my undershirt and head downstairs to make a “complete breakfast” that would make the American Medical Association proud. Ferf is in the en suite (bathroom attached to the bedroom for those not familiar with the term) doing something with her hair - seriously, the fact that I remember anything from that morning is fairly impressive. Most people would have forgotten every moment about it - either through natural shock or through medically induced amnesia, but not I. I still have vaguely specific flashes in my mind. Anyway, I am getting ready to put said shirt on, when Ferf calls out and is saying something to me that I cannot really make out. So, I walk over to the door of the bathroom and, like a warm and caring husband who hangs on every word that flows from the honey lips of my wife, say “huh?” To which she says, “The Muppet… Did you hear anything I said?” To which I reply honestly that I did not, but in retrospect wish with every fiber of my being that I had lied. Thus she begins again, for my “benefit”. “How do you think we should deal with this?”
On a side note, whenever your spouse asks you how “we” should deal with something, it usually means that whatever it is already happened and she has done nothing, but feels like she should have. As a supportive spouse and co-parent of a child, it is usually in your best interest to have a handle on all things that might need your input. So, it makes total sense, considering this, that I walked in and sat down to hear the specifics of whatever had happened. It is also why, being a guy, I silently switched into “solve it” mode. The place in our brains that as guys we can go to find solutions to anything and everything in the world almost anything and everything in the world. Hence, I was focused and ready to solve the problem, be a hero to my wife, and most probably ensure some physical gratitude for myself when I got home that night. Oh yes, how at the time everything seemed to be lining up perfectly…
Back to the story…”How do you think we should deal with this?” was the question at hand. In response I said, “deal with what?” A seemingly innocuous question really. At this point my wife says to me, “the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…”
Again, I am already finishing that sentence and putting together answers in my head…
the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…and she poured all the shampoo into the bath
the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…and she refused to get out
the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…and she refused to get in
the other day I was giving the Muppet a bath…and she got soap in her eye and now won’t take a bath
Honestly, I was ready for so many of the standard possibilities. But, alas, standard was not on the docket that day. Instead of any of these I get:
“The other day I was giving the Muppet a bath, and on her way to the bath, she took off her clothes and threw them in our dirty laundry basket.”
There was a pause here. Long enough that I was thinking how well behaved my offspring is that she is putting dirty clothes in the hamper. But, the pause was short lived.
“The other day I was giving the Muppet a bath, and on her way to the bath, she took off her clothes and threw them in our dirty laundry basket. Then she bent down to pet the dog, and the dog started licking her vagina.”
…
…
…
*blink blink*
…
…
…
*twitch*
…
…
…
At which point, I stood up, looked solemnly at my wife of over a decade and the mother of my child and the love of my life, pulled my shirt over my head and said, “That is so your department! I got nothing. Nor do I really want to know how to handle that. Ever.” Then I went downstairs wondering if I poured bleach in my ear if it would clean my brain. I walked by the cutlery drawer and considered a home lobotomy. Then I just figured that I would share it with all of you and then wait and see if you gave my any ideas of how you are going to get that story out of your head.
If we have a boy, I promise I will handle the conversations about the skin mags we find under his mattress. When the Vaseline jar goes missing - that’s my area. I’ll happily deal with ALL that stuff. God, Please give me a boy…
So this morning we got up to find even more snow on the ground. This is not incredibly had to comprehend since we live in the proverbial Frozen North. But it always adds a layer of complexity to driving for me (growing up in Texas, we didn’t get a lot of practice with cars and snow) as well as adding at least two layers of clothing (especially on Ferf and the Muppet). So we start the day a little behind the 8 ball on time, as Ferf wants us to leave early to get the Muppet to school on time and to ensure that we have enough time allotted to crawl forward at 5 mph in case the roads are slick.
So while trying to get the Muppet to shotgun a bowl of cheerios, we were concurrently putting her fully clothed body into a full body snowsuit with straps over the shoulders and a separate snow jacket.
Then we had to put the snow gloves on and then the hat over the ears and then the Pièce de résistance - the snow boots. The boots have to go on last, but the snow pants have two parts and the internal sleeve of them is supposed to go inside the boots, while the outer sleeve goes over the boots, thus ensuring a warm and dry foot experience. The whole thing breaks down when said sleeves bunch up inside the boot causing consternation for your four year old because it is “uncomfortable”. Then your wife tells her to stomp her feet a bit and it will all be better. And then it’s not “all better” and the tears well up in you little girl’s eyes and she says, “fix it Daddy. You’re a good fixer.” And you wonder how in the heck you are going to “fix” this - again, with a background that includes Texas heat and where “layering” meant you did this with your shirts:
But undaunted, I tried moving things around near her boots and pulling up her socks a little more, and of course, none of this worked. So I employed that old stand-by that has worked for years with children and less intelligent older people (of course I don’t mean you…I’ve never done this with you) and changed her focus by mentioning the fact that there was lots of snow on the ground and if the suit was uncomfortable, we’d probably have to stay inside today and not go play in the snow. In fact that sounded like a great idea - it’s warmer inside and we won’t catch a cold…and about this time the Muppet declares that it all feels much better and Daddy fixed it, cause he’s a good fixer, and we should get to school so she can play in the snow.
Mission Accomplished.
And then we got in the car and drove (slowly of course) to school. When we pulled to a stop in the parking lot the Muppet slid down from her legally required booster seat
and started scrunching her face up in obvious discomfort. She wiggled her bum around a lot and then said, “Mommy, my panties are all up in my bum!” As she says this, she keeps rubbing her mitten covered hands over her multi-layered covered bum and trying to grab anything so she can tug on it, and having nothing even remotely resembling success. I am in the driver’s seat with a serious smirk on my face, trying not to laugh out loud because I know this is semi-serious to the Muppet.
I did however, in the interest of disclosure, sneak a smile at Ferf as she opened the back door to get a better handle of what was going on.
She asked the Muppet, “can you wiggle it out?”
Muppet: “No mommy, it’s way up my bum.”
Ferf: “How can I help you baby girl?”
Muppet: “Pull them out!!”
Now again, the Muppet it wearing a coat that covers her down past her bum. She has on snow pants that go up past her bum, under them she has on pants with a shirt tucked into them and of course under that she has a pair of panties that are making a run for it up her tail pipe. SO, Ferf gives the briefest of exasperated looks (heh, I said brief) and then pulls her hand out of her warm gloves and proceeds to burrow it up the jacket, down the snow pants, under the pants, up the shirt and finally (evidently) finds the offending area. She looks at me and says, “wow, they really are way up there.” Then she (evidently) gives some helpful tugs on the pinched material. As she goes in for another pull (from what I could tell from the outside) the Muppet says, “That’s enough mommy!”
And I can only guess that Ferf either:
a) did not hear her
OR
b) thought that she would make really sure that they were fully extricated from the buttocks and not just “enough”
Because the Muppet says, “MOM - that’s enough. Please pull your hand out of my pants!”
I felt like I should comment at this point, so I jumped in with, “Anything over two tugs is considered inappropriate!”
Then I fell into laughter and Ferf grinned and the Muppet just looked somewhat put out. But at least her bum was comfortable.
I say all this to say that this is yet another example of how to know when your wife has truly made the transition from woman to wife to mother. When they are willing to selflessly and unhesitatingly uncover their hands to bare skin and then reach down and grope around a 4 year old’s bum so that she can pull bunched panties out of a butt crack. THAT IS MOTHERHOOD!
So maybe the unusually lengthy title implied the intent of this post. Or it is possible that some of you are still a little confused, or maybe you just really don’t trust me not to pull a bait and switch on you. Whatever the reason, you have already read this far and I have not gotten around to getting to the point.
So, point. No wait, context. Let’s go context first. Ferf called me today at work and asked if there was anyway I could pick up the Muppet from preschool. Now this is not a difficult thing for me necessarily, as her school is literally 5 minutes from my office - ok, 7 if I hit all three lights on the way. But 12:30 is hardly high traffic time - even with the normal lunch rush type commuters on the roads. But it is not a normal request for her to make of me. She almost always picks the Muppet up from school. Since she doesn’t work at that time of the day…you know how it is with Passion Coaches, they work the strangest hours. Anyway, in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I hesitatingly said yes. You know how it is, one of those slowly and haltingly stated “suuuree hun…”
One of those comments that implies an affirmative, but concurrently denotes a “why are you asking me this????” But in a very kind way of course. Because one wants their wife to know that they would indeed do anything for them, but that having said that, you don’t really expect them to ask. Honestly, one never really expects someone to cash the proverbial blank check. But Ferf, she has been known on occasion to cash that check. And this was, obviously, one of those times.
So I dropped everything I was was doing…and therefore should really apologize to the world for poverty and world hunger still being in existence…I was so close to solving it, but alas she completely broke my chain of thought, and for the life of me, I have not been able to get it back. Nonetheless, I did leave work and go to pick the Muppet up from school. I drove up, parked, got out, and walked into the school to sign her out. As I stood there in the hallway, outside her class, surrounded by other moms of students I realized that I was the only dad there to pick up his kid. Not that big a deal for me, I can handle it. So I lean back against the wall and stand there silently. I do this because I am totally not sure about social protocols in this circumstance…so I thought about other social protocols that I am familiar with. In both elevators and while standing at urinals it is proper to not make eye contact or make conversation. SO even though I was not going to be changing floors or peeing on them for that matter, I figured strong and silent would work for me. The moms seemed somewhat understanding of me and for the most part left me alone in my strong and silent ethos. When the door opened, the Muppet was the first kid they let out. She lit up like a Christmas tree, said “DADDY!!!” and ran to me, threw her self into my arms and hugged me. (yes, it was the perfect thing to play into my strong and silent thing I had going. I am absolutely sure that in that moment, every mom there wanted me. But I digress) In her hands she had a picture that she had drawn and in her excitment she told me that she had drawn it to give it away as a present. I was about to ask her who she was going to give it to when she walked over to the front office desk and said, “excuse me” to the school secretary, Mrs. Barbara. Then she told her that she had driven a picture of a continent and wanted her to have it. As she explained to her which continent it wasi n great detail, one of the moms said - I think to both me and the other moms who were watching this intently - “she’s going to grow up and be class president one day. You can just tell.” The other moms smiled and nodded and even verbally agreed with her and looked at me with encouraging eyes. It was a freaking Hallmark moment for these people and all I could think was…”CLASS President!?!? CLASS??? Are you freaking kidding me!? Wanna set your sights a little higher there toots?” But I looked at her with a gentle smile and said, “awwww thank you.”
After the Muppet gave her masterpiece over to the Mrs. Barbara, who taped it to the wall by her desk, she grabbed my hand and we started walking to the car. As we were walking across the parking lot, the Muppet looks up at me and says, “Daddy, guess who I sat with at lunch today?” This is not an uncommon question for her to ask, as her school puts different kids next to each other each day to encourage diverse friendships. So, I said, “I don’t know baby girl. Who?” And as I close the car door she says, “Eric.” As I walked around the car to my side, I thought, “huh.” And, “who the heck is Eric?” And, “have I ever heard this name before?” And, “I should ask Ferf if she knows a kid named Eric.” And, “I’m starving…I can’t believe that Ferf called me last minute to do this and I didn’t have a chance to grab lunch.” WHAT? It is what I was thinking…
But once I got in the car and started it up, I had already forgotten all about those thoughts. I was already thinking ahead to getting back to work once I dropped her off with her mom. But the Muppet’s train of thought had not skipped tracks. No, she was sitting there in the back seat with a big smile on her face, and said, “Daddy, guess who I sat next to at lunch today?” This brought me back to where I was, and I said, “hmmmm…was it Eric?” She lit up and said, “How did you know!?” with genuine excitement. I told her that Daddy’s know everything. Then she said, “You know what Daddy?” To which I replied, “Talk to me Goose.” And she said, “every time I look at Eric I think I about being married to him.”
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For all the dads out there, I can tell you that I did not wreck the car.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I tried “strong and silent”. And that got me a repeat of the line because the Muppet thought I hadn’t heard. So once again, I got, “every time I look at Eric I think I about being married to him.” I nodded and said, “yes dear, I heard you. That’s really nice.”
I am never picking her up from school again. I don’t care what Ferf is doing.
And Eric, if you are reading this, dude, I will kill you if you even THINK about her. Don’t even try to play the “innocent 4 year old” card with me. I’m serious kid…
I figure I have a lot of years to perfect that speech and a lot of young boys to scare the hell out of, but for now, I will keep it short enough that even a 4 year old can understand.
