Having kids in not for sissies. Almost every couple wants to start a family at some point, or at least the THINK they do. They visit with friends who have babies or toddlers, or they have nieces and nephews that they love and feel close to, and they see how great it all looks from the outside. So at some point, most couples decide that it's time to start a family and commence the baby-making process.
My wife and I went about it in what we thought was an intelligent, reasoned way. We waited until we were settled into our respective professions, had good jobs, some money in the bank, and a had house that would be a good home to our prospective crop of children. We thought we were prepared.
What we didn't know, of course, that being prepared to have have children is abject bullshit. It can't be done. Sure, you can put all the pieces in place, wait until you're financially stable, decorate the baby's room, start a college fund, and move to a place in a good school district, but this is all just window-dressing for the carnage that's to come.
In the beginning it's kind of fun. You have all these great ideas and visions of Sunday mornings in bed watching cartoons, their college graduation, their wedding, and grandchildren on your knee in your later years. This is how I know, to a moral certainty, that there is a God and that he has an amazing sense of humor.
We started the baby-making process in earnest in 1994, and, like all great adventures, the beginning was filled with promise, optimism and a LOT of sex. Unfortunately, while a lot of sex is fun, we weren't having much success with the getting pregnant part. We tried everything. Different positions, sex during the day, sex at night, sex in the afternoon, yet nothing seemed to work. Worse yet, sex was beginning to feel like work. I remember being at work, in the board room with all of the senior executives from all over the world, in the middle of a critical meeting. The phone in the room rang, and the receptionist asked for me. My boss, who answered, handed me the phone with a quizzical expression and went back to the table. It was my wife. "Come home NOW, I'm ovulating". I couldn't interrupt the meeting to speak with my boss so I passed him a note, "Pam's ovulating, I have to go!" was all it said. He looked at me, smiled, and gave me a thumbs up. Then he turned to the assembled executives and said "Tony has an urgent matter to attend to, so he'll be leaving in 5 minutes, but I expect him back later this evening", and off I went. My wife monitored her temperature, drank herbal concoctions guaranteed to make her lady-parts fertile ground for baby-making, meditated, ate crazy foods and exercised. But, try as we might, month after month, no seed would take root.
After a few months we decided that seeing a fertility specialist might be helpful, although I'm pretty sure that by that point we had the mechanics figured out pretty well. So my wife, always good at the details, put together a list of perspective doctors that we could go see. Now being of Italian ancestry, the first thing I looked for on the list was a doctor with a last name that ended in vowel. Unfortunately, not one name on the list met my criteria, so I went to the next best thing, a Frenchman.
In my experience, if you want advice on sex, you gotta go to a guy with a vowel at the end his name, or, failing that, someone from the country that invented a very popular sexual activity. So, seeing a doctor named Pierre on the list intrigued me, and we made an appointment.
On the day of our first visit to the fertility specialist, I was ready with my questions, prepared to sound like I knew what I was talking about, and even had some notes that I thought I would refer to during the visit. We went into the office, and I was not disappointed. Pierre had a thick French accent, a big nose, and the kind of glasses that make you look intelligent. He looked so French that I half-expected him to light up and break out the brandy.
Not only did that not happen, but I was subjected to an hour of clinical descriptions of the male and female reproductive systems, with diagrams and photos. Now I personally am a fan of the lady-parts, but the pictures he had were completely devoid of artistic merit, and the lighting was so harsh they reminded me of autopsy photos. I think I almost threw up in my mouth when he pulled out the close-ups.
He then informed us that he needed to run some tests on each of us, to ascertain what, if anything, was preventing us from getting to the pregnancy promised-land. I felt a little bad for my wife, who had to have her legs up for 20 minutes, followed by MRIs,an ultrasound, and an X-Ray. Also, she had to pee in a cup. I, on the other hand, had but a single task to complete, and it involved porn and a plastic cup, so I figured "Hey, anything for a good cause" and agreed to do my part, trying not to sound too eager.
At the end of the first meeting he wrote out the scripts for the tests we were to take, and asked if we had any questions. My wife, being the detail-oriented one, had a two-page, double-spaced list that she went through, taking copious notes and making references to journals I thought only doctors and research scientists at NASA read. When it was my turn to ask the probing, thoughtful and intelligent questions I pretty much drew a blank. That's when I saw the video tapes behind his desk. So, without really thinking about it, I blurted out "Can we see the breast self-examination tape?". Pierre didn't seem fazed by my question in the least. He thought about it for a few seconds, leaned forward and said "when you get her pregnant, I'll GIVE you that tape". So I had that to look forward to.
After the tests were completed (Side note: fertility clinic porn sucks, so bring your own or be prepared to be there a while) we met with the doctor again. He told us that there was nothing seriously wrong, and that my wife had a mild case of endometriosis, which is an inflammation of the uterus. He wrote her a prescription for that, and for some fertility drugs, and off we went to restart the procreation derby once again.
If you've never seen a woman on fertility drugs, I envy you. Every month, when a woman gets her "lady time", a number of changes take place in her body. Not the least of which is a hormone dump that signals it tampon time. Now some women go through this every month without a hitch. I've never met one, and I think you'd have a better chance of finding a unicorn in your garage than finding one yourself. My wife had terrible "lady time" episodes, like the time she flew into a rage because she walked to the mailbox and the mail hadn't come yet. This was the baseline that I was dealing with.
I don't know if you know what's IN fertility drugs, but let me tell you, it's a hormone bomb. One minute everything is coming up roses and the next minute your at Def-Con 5 running for the underground bunkers. The next several months were a roller-coaster ride, lots of shots, lots of sex, lots of yelling and screaming (but not during the sex) and still no luck.
Eventually we grew tired of the stress, so we decided to take a break from the hormones and the pressure. We were spent, stressed-out and feeling dejected. I suggested a weekend getaway, a hiking trip in Shenandoah National park. It was beautiful July, not too hot, we hadn't had any real fun in eleven months, and we needed to get away from sleeping in the "bed of disappointment".
We left on a cool Friday morning, hiked up into the mountains and put the entire experience on hold for a couple of days. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was breathtaking, and we began to feel ourselves again. What we didn't plan on was how early it gets dark in the mountains, even in the middle of summer. So when we pitched our tent, ate dinner and finished cleaning up. It was about then that we discovered that there really wasn't much to do once the sun went down.
Well, the WAS one thing...
Our daughter Kate was born nine months later.
Just a short note to those who've been following along: Thanks for reading! I started this blog for friends and family who've enjoyed hearing the stories and for my daughter, who wanted something a bit more tangible to share with her friends. I had no idea so many people would be interested. Please feel free to share the url of my blog with anyone you think might be interested. You can cut and past from the top of the browser or here: http://www.beingtony.blogspot.com
Thanks again for reading!
Tony
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Why I Can't Go to Popeye's Anymore
Divorce is always a sad thing, sometimes glad thing, but ALWAYS a funny thing (just not when it happens to you). My ex-wife and I agreed to share custody of our then 12 year old daughter Kate. In a lot of ways, Kate was your typical 12 year old kid, caught between wanting to be grown up and independent, and wanting to rush home after school so she could catch SpongeBob before dinner. Kate is a conglomeration of her mother and me. She's beautiful (Me), smart (Me), funny (also Me), has a wicked sense of humor (yes, Me), and she loves music and plays a couple of instruments (her mom). On the outside at least, she took the divorce in stride, as much as a 12 year old can, and focused on the benefits of joint-custody, rather than the detriments.
One of the many father/daughter rituals we enjoy is the occasional trip to Popeye's. Now if you haven't had Popeye's, go, now, before you finish reading this story. Why, you ask? Because Popeye's isn't just chicken. It's the gastronomical equivalent of a 70s acid trip. When you eat Popeye's it does horrible things to you, but you don't notice because eating Popeye's makes you hallucinate. It's a food-based religious experience. Colors are brighter, heavenly music goes off in your head, you get this intense salt and chicken-fat rush, and your heart rate doubles (although that's most likely due to the blockage in your arteries). So the trip to Popeye's is more like a pilgrimage than a quick drive-through trip.
When Kate was younger, we had a few other rituals, many of them bed-time-based. The one most relevant to this particular story is the pre-bedtime ritual of the "Chicken-Bones". Now I know that when you put a toddler to bed, the goal of the exercise is to enable them to make the transition from screaming meemie to slumbering angel. Tucking them in to a warm bed, having a short talk about their day, checking the closet and under the bed for monsters and reading a soothing story together are sure-fire ways to get a child in the mood for sleep.
Unfortunately for Kate, while we have had some really treasured moments doing just those kinds of things, I'm also a fan of the pre-bedtime ritual known as "cooking". I would ask Kate what she wanted to cook before bed, and she'd come up with something like "chocolate cake", or "scrambled eggs please". Whereupon I would pretend to crack eggs on her head and into the bowl in her belly, add some sugar, flour and milk, and then commence the "mixing", which mostly involved me tickling her without mercy for a minute or two. Then I would pick her up, push her into the "oven" and let her bake for a few seconds, only to pull her out and announce "Time to cut the cake!", followed by 2 or 3 more minutes of tickling.
Relax, I'll get to the Popeye's thing soon enough...
The three MOST ticklish things I would do to her (remember, this was all designed to help her relax and go to sleep) were something I called "Chachkies", which involved tickling her sides, "Rump Steak" which was more of an exercise in pinching her butt, and the dreaded "Chicken Bones". Chicken Bones is all about the knees. You grab the top of the knee, wrap your hand around it, and squeeze. In Kate, this can produce the same effect as being Tasered with a few thousand volts. I mean, the poor kid went into conniptions when I did it, so of course I did it a lot.
So, there we are. In the Popeye's drive through line, behind a line of 15 or so cars. She's hungry, I'm hungry. We both want to hurry up and get home after a long day of work and school, but we also want to get our fix. On the day in question the line is very long and very slow. So to pass the time, and without warning, every 30 seconds or so I surreptitiously reach over, grab Kate's knee in an iron grip, yell "BOOM" at the top of my voice and squeeze. This of course produces the aforementioned conniptions, where Kate pretty much bounces of the dashboard and door of the car trying to get away.
I laugh, she yells at me to stop, and of course 30 seconds later I'm grabbing, yelling BOOM and squeezing while Kate continues to bounce around the car. "Hey, this long wait has it's advantages" I say.
And this is where things began to go bad for me...
Kate looks over, and with a smiling look I hadn't seen before says "Dad, I'm gonna get you back". Up until this point in Kate's life I had been the all-knowing, all-powerful, omniscient father figure. In other words, infallible. Kind of like the Pope, but more fun.
So of course, know that I can't be beaten, I look right back at her and say "Kate, I invented the Get-Back in 1968, and you will NEVER, EVER, be able to defeat me". I say this with a great deal of confidence since, up until this point in time, I could roundly beat a 12 year old girl at pretty much anything. Hey, I didn't say it was fair, I just said it was true. But on this day, Kate looks right back at me with this unnerving smile and says "Well today's the day Dad". And with the foolish confidence of the undefeated I say "Well you're welcome to try...".
We proceed up to the window, where the girl in the drive through area tells me that they just ran out of chicken and it will be three more minutes before our order is ready. "Things are looking up" I think to myself, and immediately return to yelling BOOM and administering the aforementioned Chicken-Bones to Kate. With all the yelling and screaming and laughing, I didn't notice that the entire Popeye's crew had gathered to watch this father/daughter deathmatch through the window, but when I turned to check on our order there they were, about 15 of them, watching and laughing with us.
"Gonna getcha Dad", says Kate. "You can't defeat me", I say.
Finally the chicken was ready, the girl opens the drive through window, I open the car window, and as I'm reaching for the bag of deliciousness, Kate, at the top of HER voice, says "NO MISTER, I WILL NOT MAKE OUT WITH YOU! TAKE ME HOME RIGHT NOW!"
At this point several thoughts are racing through my mind. The first of which is "Shit, DEFEATED!", followed by "Holy-shit-I-gotta-get-outta-here-they-might-not-know-it's-a-joke" followed by "But not without the chicken!".
So I grab the bag, stomp on the accelerator, and make for home. At some indeterminate point in the drive back, after I realize that the police aren't chasing me and that the Popeye's crew was laughing louder than Kate, I look over at the smug smile of victory on her face as she sneaks a biscuit from the bag.
I've been losing ground every since...
One of the many father/daughter rituals we enjoy is the occasional trip to Popeye's. Now if you haven't had Popeye's, go, now, before you finish reading this story. Why, you ask? Because Popeye's isn't just chicken. It's the gastronomical equivalent of a 70s acid trip. When you eat Popeye's it does horrible things to you, but you don't notice because eating Popeye's makes you hallucinate. It's a food-based religious experience. Colors are brighter, heavenly music goes off in your head, you get this intense salt and chicken-fat rush, and your heart rate doubles (although that's most likely due to the blockage in your arteries). So the trip to Popeye's is more like a pilgrimage than a quick drive-through trip.
When Kate was younger, we had a few other rituals, many of them bed-time-based. The one most relevant to this particular story is the pre-bedtime ritual of the "Chicken-Bones". Now I know that when you put a toddler to bed, the goal of the exercise is to enable them to make the transition from screaming meemie to slumbering angel. Tucking them in to a warm bed, having a short talk about their day, checking the closet and under the bed for monsters and reading a soothing story together are sure-fire ways to get a child in the mood for sleep.
Unfortunately for Kate, while we have had some really treasured moments doing just those kinds of things, I'm also a fan of the pre-bedtime ritual known as "cooking". I would ask Kate what she wanted to cook before bed, and she'd come up with something like "chocolate cake", or "scrambled eggs please". Whereupon I would pretend to crack eggs on her head and into the bowl in her belly, add some sugar, flour and milk, and then commence the "mixing", which mostly involved me tickling her without mercy for a minute or two. Then I would pick her up, push her into the "oven" and let her bake for a few seconds, only to pull her out and announce "Time to cut the cake!", followed by 2 or 3 more minutes of tickling.
Relax, I'll get to the Popeye's thing soon enough...
The three MOST ticklish things I would do to her (remember, this was all designed to help her relax and go to sleep) were something I called "Chachkies", which involved tickling her sides, "Rump Steak" which was more of an exercise in pinching her butt, and the dreaded "Chicken Bones". Chicken Bones is all about the knees. You grab the top of the knee, wrap your hand around it, and squeeze. In Kate, this can produce the same effect as being Tasered with a few thousand volts. I mean, the poor kid went into conniptions when I did it, so of course I did it a lot.
So, there we are. In the Popeye's drive through line, behind a line of 15 or so cars. She's hungry, I'm hungry. We both want to hurry up and get home after a long day of work and school, but we also want to get our fix. On the day in question the line is very long and very slow. So to pass the time, and without warning, every 30 seconds or so I surreptitiously reach over, grab Kate's knee in an iron grip, yell "BOOM" at the top of my voice and squeeze. This of course produces the aforementioned conniptions, where Kate pretty much bounces of the dashboard and door of the car trying to get away.
I laugh, she yells at me to stop, and of course 30 seconds later I'm grabbing, yelling BOOM and squeezing while Kate continues to bounce around the car. "Hey, this long wait has it's advantages" I say.
And this is where things began to go bad for me...
Kate looks over, and with a smiling look I hadn't seen before says "Dad, I'm gonna get you back". Up until this point in Kate's life I had been the all-knowing, all-powerful, omniscient father figure. In other words, infallible. Kind of like the Pope, but more fun.
So of course, know that I can't be beaten, I look right back at her and say "Kate, I invented the Get-Back in 1968, and you will NEVER, EVER, be able to defeat me". I say this with a great deal of confidence since, up until this point in time, I could roundly beat a 12 year old girl at pretty much anything. Hey, I didn't say it was fair, I just said it was true. But on this day, Kate looks right back at me with this unnerving smile and says "Well today's the day Dad". And with the foolish confidence of the undefeated I say "Well you're welcome to try...".
We proceed up to the window, where the girl in the drive through area tells me that they just ran out of chicken and it will be three more minutes before our order is ready. "Things are looking up" I think to myself, and immediately return to yelling BOOM and administering the aforementioned Chicken-Bones to Kate. With all the yelling and screaming and laughing, I didn't notice that the entire Popeye's crew had gathered to watch this father/daughter deathmatch through the window, but when I turned to check on our order there they were, about 15 of them, watching and laughing with us.
"Gonna getcha Dad", says Kate. "You can't defeat me", I say.
Finally the chicken was ready, the girl opens the drive through window, I open the car window, and as I'm reaching for the bag of deliciousness, Kate, at the top of HER voice, says "NO MISTER, I WILL NOT MAKE OUT WITH YOU! TAKE ME HOME RIGHT NOW!"
At this point several thoughts are racing through my mind. The first of which is "Shit, DEFEATED!", followed by "Holy-shit-I-gotta-get-outta-here-they-might-not-know-it's-a-joke" followed by "But not without the chicken!".
So I grab the bag, stomp on the accelerator, and make for home. At some indeterminate point in the drive back, after I realize that the police aren't chasing me and that the Popeye's crew was laughing louder than Kate, I look over at the smug smile of victory on her face as she sneaks a biscuit from the bag.
I've been losing ground every since...
Monday, March 21, 2011
Perception Sometimes Sucks
We all see ourselves in a certain way, and I don't think I'm so different from anyone else in this regard. I think I'm a pretty nice guy, a good father, a loyal friend. I try to have fun when I can and I'm a professional at work. I always look for common ground when meeting new people and almost always have a smile on my face. I'm no star athlete, not the best looking guy in the room, and can be kind of absent-minded at times, but I won't steal your wallet or your girlfriend (unless you leave one or both on my bed).
Why then, do others see me so differently? Here are a few vignettes from the past few years that still have me scratching my head;
I'm a Partner at a Management Consulting firm, where I work with our clients' top corporate leadership on important issues like strategic planning, governance, mergers and acquisitions, and a slew of other problems. I'm pretty good at it too. When there's a tough problem to solve, I tend to approach it head on, which I think is a good thing. At least its effective and the clients seem to be pretty happy with the results. Now, I AM originally from South Philadelphia, and most of my family is still in the area, but I haven't lived there since I was 10. There's no sugar-coating it, I grew up around a few gangsters. However, I am NOT a gangster. Really, ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you . I'm a legitimate businessman.
I thought I had made the distinction until a few months ago when I walked into a meeting with my Partners at work. They were looking at a news article about a series of organized crime arrests in New York. They asked me if I'd heard about the arrests and wanted to know if any of the guys who got locked up. Now this wouldn't be so bad, except that night I went over to my girlfriend's house. When I got there she was watching the news and when the story came on, she turned to me, smiled, and said "Hey! any of those guys your cousins?"
A couple of weeks later, I'm laying in bed at 1am waiting for my girlfriend to finish the "potions and lotions" phase of her pre-bedtime ritual. I'm almost certain said ritual involves a wand at some point, but as of this writing, I have been excluded from witnessing what the hell goes on in there for an hour. Anyway, I'm laying in bed. Waiting. For an hour. During the entire time I'm waiting I was trying to read my kindle to pass the time, but a helicopter was flying very low over the neighborhood making a huge racket. I mean it made my teeth tingle, it was that low. The damn thing would circle overhead, go off a mile or tow, and then return. Finally, after the "potions and lotions" hour had ended, my girlfriend walks out of the bathroom, looks right at me, and in a voice loud enough to be heard of the helicopter racket said "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL YOU PLEASE GO OUTSIDE AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP? THEY'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU FOR AN HOUR!"
Why then, do others see me so differently? Here are a few vignettes from the past few years that still have me scratching my head;
I'm a Partner at a Management Consulting firm, where I work with our clients' top corporate leadership on important issues like strategic planning, governance, mergers and acquisitions, and a slew of other problems. I'm pretty good at it too. When there's a tough problem to solve, I tend to approach it head on, which I think is a good thing. At least its effective and the clients seem to be pretty happy with the results. Now, I AM originally from South Philadelphia, and most of my family is still in the area, but I haven't lived there since I was 10. There's no sugar-coating it, I grew up around a few gangsters. However, I am NOT a gangster. Really, ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you . I'm a legitimate businessman.
I thought I had made the distinction until a few months ago when I walked into a meeting with my Partners at work. They were looking at a news article about a series of organized crime arrests in New York. They asked me if I'd heard about the arrests and wanted to know if any of the guys who got locked up. Now this wouldn't be so bad, except that night I went over to my girlfriend's house. When I got there she was watching the news and when the story came on, she turned to me, smiled, and said "Hey! any of those guys your cousins?"
A couple of weeks later, I'm laying in bed at 1am waiting for my girlfriend to finish the "potions and lotions" phase of her pre-bedtime ritual. I'm almost certain said ritual involves a wand at some point, but as of this writing, I have been excluded from witnessing what the hell goes on in there for an hour. Anyway, I'm laying in bed. Waiting. For an hour. During the entire time I'm waiting I was trying to read my kindle to pass the time, but a helicopter was flying very low over the neighborhood making a huge racket. I mean it made my teeth tingle, it was that low. The damn thing would circle overhead, go off a mile or tow, and then return. Finally, after the "potions and lotions" hour had ended, my girlfriend walks out of the bathroom, looks right at me, and in a voice loud enough to be heard of the helicopter racket said "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL YOU PLEASE GO OUTSIDE AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP? THEY'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU FOR AN HOUR!"
The Birds and The Bees
Back when I was married, I was a bit of a romantic. I liked to give gifts that had meaning, particularly gifts I made myself. Now I wasn't always the handiest guy in the world, but I figured that my wife would appreciate the effort that much more if I made her something myself. Besides, I'm a guy, so it follows logically that I can do guy-stuff if I put my head to it, and drink a goodly sum of beer during construction of said gift.
We had a very large king-size bed in those days. The kind you can put yourselves, 3 kids, 3 dogs, two cats and an assortment of book, toys, chewies and other sundries in and still have room to stretch out. The bed was so tall we actually had a set of steps on each side of it so my young daughter could climb up and crawl in with us when she wanted.
My wife always wanted a nice blanket chest to place at the foot of the bed, to put the "display pillows" in. If you're a woman or a married guy, you are undoubtedly familiar with the concept. These are pillows that sit on the bed, but you are NOT allowed to lay your head on them. When you want to go to sleep, you have to take the display pillows off the bed and sleep on the "regular pillows". Hence the desire for the blanket chest. She wanted something to keep the pillows "organized" and the room tidy. The problem was, the damn bed was so big we could never find a blanket chest that was big enough to look like it matched.
So a couple of months before Valentines day, back around the time my daughter (who is now almost 15) was in second grade, I started looking for do-it-yourself plans for building one. The plans I found seemed doable, especially since they came from a book called "Weekend Furniture Projects". The instructions said the total construction time was 3 days, so I picked up the material and went to work.
Three weeks later, the finished product turned out looking surprisingly good, and the finish even matched the bed perfectly. My wife was pleased, if not impressed, my ego was intact, and life was good.
What I didn't count on was my 8 year old daughter thinking that the most comfortable place in the world to lay her head down was a blanket chest full of fluffy pillows. So the display pillows did eventually get a work out. From time to time, my daughter would come in our room, and announce that she was going to sleep in the "crate". Why she called it a crate is beyond me, I swear the thing looked like a real blanket chest, honest.
So about now you're probably thinking that this story was supposed to be about The Birds and The Bees. You may even be saying to yourself "I thought this story as about the friggin birds and the bees!". It is, and here's why...
For most of my daughters early years, I did most of the bedtime stuff with her. I read the stories, sprayed the monster spray, checked her ears for bad dreams and otherwise tucked her in each night. On the night in question, my wife was out of the house for one reason or another, so I was alone with my now 9 year old daughter, in our bed, reading her a bed-time story.
At the end of the story, Kate looked up at me sweetly and said "Dad, can I sleep in the crate?". I thought for minute and replied "honey I think mom and me would like some alone time tonight". To which she said "I can sleep in the crate, and if you want to have sex, you can close the lid".
After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I asked her how she knew about sex and without missing a beat she began very confidently to tell me that she know all about sex. So of course I had to ask for the details being her dad and all. Now it's important to note that my wife and I had discussed how we would approach sexuality questions with Kate when they came up, as we knew they would. We decided that we'd use the scientific names for body parts, and, that if she asked a question, we would answer it. We naively assumed that she would only ask when she was old enough to hear the answers.
Kate's description of the act wasn't too far off, although in her mind the man just laid on the woman and they kiss and hug, and then you have a baby. I chuckled a bit and told her that she was pretty close and tried to leave it at that. And that's when things started to go haywire. Kate asked what she was wrong about, and demanded the whole story. All the time I'm having this conversation I'm saying a prayer in the back of my mind for my wife to come home, PLEASE.
Needless to say, no prayers were answered, so I sucked it up, took a short pause, and, using my best I-am-the-wise-dad voice began the sanitized scientific description of the act of sexual congress between a man and a woman. It went pretty much like this...
"Well Kate, when a man and a woman love each other, and they're MARRIED, around age 40, the man puts his penis in the woman's vagina. A woman has an two organs in her body called ovaries. What? Yes, I said penis, and - What? Yes YOU have ovaries too. Now the ovaries have eggs in them and the man's penis sprays the eggs with fertilizer, and, sometimes, but not all the time, the fertilizer makes the egg turn into a baby". She looked a bit incredulous at the sound of my description, but I charged on, trying not to lose momentum until I could finish.
When I was through giving her the "talk", she thanked me, but still looked a bit confused. "Kate, is there something you don't understand?" I asked. "I think I get it Dad, but there's one thing I don't understand". "What's that?" I replied, feeling pretty full of myself for getting through such a significant milestone with only one question.
Kate thought for a moment, looked me straight in the eye and said "How do you get your penis back?". I thought for a moment, looked her straight in the eye right back and said "you don't, mom keeps it after that".
That isn't the worst part. The following evening I received several phone calls from parents of Kate's friends, who, through tear-filled laughter, wanted to know if I had a key to that drawer...
We had a very large king-size bed in those days. The kind you can put yourselves, 3 kids, 3 dogs, two cats and an assortment of book, toys, chewies and other sundries in and still have room to stretch out. The bed was so tall we actually had a set of steps on each side of it so my young daughter could climb up and crawl in with us when she wanted.
My wife always wanted a nice blanket chest to place at the foot of the bed, to put the "display pillows" in. If you're a woman or a married guy, you are undoubtedly familiar with the concept. These are pillows that sit on the bed, but you are NOT allowed to lay your head on them. When you want to go to sleep, you have to take the display pillows off the bed and sleep on the "regular pillows". Hence the desire for the blanket chest. She wanted something to keep the pillows "organized" and the room tidy. The problem was, the damn bed was so big we could never find a blanket chest that was big enough to look like it matched.
So a couple of months before Valentines day, back around the time my daughter (who is now almost 15) was in second grade, I started looking for do-it-yourself plans for building one. The plans I found seemed doable, especially since they came from a book called "Weekend Furniture Projects". The instructions said the total construction time was 3 days, so I picked up the material and went to work.
Three weeks later, the finished product turned out looking surprisingly good, and the finish even matched the bed perfectly. My wife was pleased, if not impressed, my ego was intact, and life was good.
What I didn't count on was my 8 year old daughter thinking that the most comfortable place in the world to lay her head down was a blanket chest full of fluffy pillows. So the display pillows did eventually get a work out. From time to time, my daughter would come in our room, and announce that she was going to sleep in the "crate". Why she called it a crate is beyond me, I swear the thing looked like a real blanket chest, honest.
So about now you're probably thinking that this story was supposed to be about The Birds and The Bees. You may even be saying to yourself "I thought this story as about the friggin birds and the bees!". It is, and here's why...
For most of my daughters early years, I did most of the bedtime stuff with her. I read the stories, sprayed the monster spray, checked her ears for bad dreams and otherwise tucked her in each night. On the night in question, my wife was out of the house for one reason or another, so I was alone with my now 9 year old daughter, in our bed, reading her a bed-time story.
At the end of the story, Kate looked up at me sweetly and said "Dad, can I sleep in the crate?". I thought for minute and replied "honey I think mom and me would like some alone time tonight". To which she said "I can sleep in the crate, and if you want to have sex, you can close the lid".
After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I asked her how she knew about sex and without missing a beat she began very confidently to tell me that she know all about sex. So of course I had to ask for the details being her dad and all. Now it's important to note that my wife and I had discussed how we would approach sexuality questions with Kate when they came up, as we knew they would. We decided that we'd use the scientific names for body parts, and, that if she asked a question, we would answer it. We naively assumed that she would only ask when she was old enough to hear the answers.
Kate's description of the act wasn't too far off, although in her mind the man just laid on the woman and they kiss and hug, and then you have a baby. I chuckled a bit and told her that she was pretty close and tried to leave it at that. And that's when things started to go haywire. Kate asked what she was wrong about, and demanded the whole story. All the time I'm having this conversation I'm saying a prayer in the back of my mind for my wife to come home, PLEASE.
Needless to say, no prayers were answered, so I sucked it up, took a short pause, and, using my best I-am-the-wise-dad voice began the sanitized scientific description of the act of sexual congress between a man and a woman. It went pretty much like this...
"Well Kate, when a man and a woman love each other, and they're MARRIED, around age 40, the man puts his penis in the woman's vagina. A woman has an two organs in her body called ovaries. What? Yes, I said penis, and - What? Yes YOU have ovaries too. Now the ovaries have eggs in them and the man's penis sprays the eggs with fertilizer, and, sometimes, but not all the time, the fertilizer makes the egg turn into a baby". She looked a bit incredulous at the sound of my description, but I charged on, trying not to lose momentum until I could finish.
When I was through giving her the "talk", she thanked me, but still looked a bit confused. "Kate, is there something you don't understand?" I asked. "I think I get it Dad, but there's one thing I don't understand". "What's that?" I replied, feeling pretty full of myself for getting through such a significant milestone with only one question.
Kate thought for a moment, looked me straight in the eye and said "How do you get your penis back?". I thought for a moment, looked her straight in the eye right back and said "you don't, mom keeps it after that".
That isn't the worst part. The following evening I received several phone calls from parents of Kate's friends, who, through tear-filled laughter, wanted to know if I had a key to that drawer...
Dad's Life Rules
When my daughter was born, I started thinking about the kinds of wisdom I would eventually share with her as she grew up. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't know much, but, having lived a while, had been kicked in the teeth enough to know a few immutable truths that I wished someone had shared with me. Could have saved me a lot of time and bullshit, so here they are:
The Rules
1. Shit Happens. Doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, sooner or later shit is going to happen to you. It's inevitable. Get used to it. Anticipate it. Embrace it. Whether you like or not, in one way or another, from time-to-time, you're gonna get fucked. Things break when you need them most, friends will let you down when you count on them, and you're do may really eat your homework one day.
2. When Shit Happens, it doesn't have to ruin your day. Hey, like I said, shit happens. Get past it. Everyone has their own shit happening to them. They don't want to hear yours, and wallowing in your shit just makes you smell like shit, and, more importantly, feel like shit. Get mad, get sad, have a good cry, and move on. Put it behind you and feel better.
3. Boys are Disgusting Pigs. If you're a boy and you're offended, fuck you. Boys ARE disgusting pigs. The pick their noses, fart, and yes, they really only have one thing on their mind. I have a daughter, and, being a former boy myself, knew that she would have to learn this one for herself. But hey, I'm a dad, so I had to give it a shot.
4. Do the Hard Thing First. Everybody wants to go out and play. Everybody wants to watch TV, or play XBox. That shit can wait. Do the tough thing right away and the rest will take care of itself. No one ever won a Nobel Prize for being the high scorer in Halo. If you buckle down and take care of the hardest task early, you'll only have easy shit for the rest of the day.
5. Manners Count. Most people don't even know what manners are anymore, so if you get some, you're already way ahead of the game. Manners are how we tell people we care about them. Get some, use them, and stop picking your nose at the table.
6. Life Isn't Fair, but You can be. People are weak assholes for the most part. If not all of the time, at least some of the time. No one owes you anything, and honor and integrity have gone the way of black and white television. But just because everyone else is an asshole doesn't mean you have to be. Be fair with people. They may not be fair with you, but you'll be less of an asshole and that counts for a lot.
7. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. Education is essential to personal growth and success in life. But if you really want to get somewhere, you need experience. Unfortunately, you only get the experience but getting your ass kicked. Try hard, fail, try again. Learn from your mistakes and don't be afraid to make them. Anybody who ever lived and was worth a shit made a lot of mistakes. But try not to make the same one over and over.
8. Don't let anyone's thinking replace your own. Your friends don't know shit. Whether you're 12 or 65. Form your own opinions about things, don't be afraid to adjust your thinking as you learn and get some experience, but make your thoughts your own. You may be wrong, but at least you'll be authentic. Also, if your friends are jumping off the bridge, don't do that.
9. The older you get, the faster life goes. You'll be dead before you know it. If you have a burning desire to climb a mountain, travel to Bhutan, or visit an ashram, go fucking do it now. If you wait for the right time, it'll never be here.
10. If you want to have a friend, be a friend. If you want to have a family, be a family. In other words, don't be a selfish asshole. You want your friends to help you move? Help them move. Aunt Ester is having a tea party and you hate tea? Too fucking bad, go to the party. Aunt Ester could die tomorrow and leave you a mattress full of money.
10. If someone loves you, you win. Go to school, get a good job, buy some stuff. It's the American way. But stuff, prestige, your car and your house don't define you. You can tell a lot about someone by looking at who loves them. Someday you'll die, and your stuff will not come to the funeral. Pay attention to your friends, your boyfriend or spouse, and your family.
The Rules
1. Shit Happens. Doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, sooner or later shit is going to happen to you. It's inevitable. Get used to it. Anticipate it. Embrace it. Whether you like or not, in one way or another, from time-to-time, you're gonna get fucked. Things break when you need them most, friends will let you down when you count on them, and you're do may really eat your homework one day.
2. When Shit Happens, it doesn't have to ruin your day. Hey, like I said, shit happens. Get past it. Everyone has their own shit happening to them. They don't want to hear yours, and wallowing in your shit just makes you smell like shit, and, more importantly, feel like shit. Get mad, get sad, have a good cry, and move on. Put it behind you and feel better.
3. Boys are Disgusting Pigs. If you're a boy and you're offended, fuck you. Boys ARE disgusting pigs. The pick their noses, fart, and yes, they really only have one thing on their mind. I have a daughter, and, being a former boy myself, knew that she would have to learn this one for herself. But hey, I'm a dad, so I had to give it a shot.
4. Do the Hard Thing First. Everybody wants to go out and play. Everybody wants to watch TV, or play XBox. That shit can wait. Do the tough thing right away and the rest will take care of itself. No one ever won a Nobel Prize for being the high scorer in Halo. If you buckle down and take care of the hardest task early, you'll only have easy shit for the rest of the day.
5. Manners Count. Most people don't even know what manners are anymore, so if you get some, you're already way ahead of the game. Manners are how we tell people we care about them. Get some, use them, and stop picking your nose at the table.
6. Life Isn't Fair, but You can be. People are weak assholes for the most part. If not all of the time, at least some of the time. No one owes you anything, and honor and integrity have gone the way of black and white television. But just because everyone else is an asshole doesn't mean you have to be. Be fair with people. They may not be fair with you, but you'll be less of an asshole and that counts for a lot.
7. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. Education is essential to personal growth and success in life. But if you really want to get somewhere, you need experience. Unfortunately, you only get the experience but getting your ass kicked. Try hard, fail, try again. Learn from your mistakes and don't be afraid to make them. Anybody who ever lived and was worth a shit made a lot of mistakes. But try not to make the same one over and over.
8. Don't let anyone's thinking replace your own. Your friends don't know shit. Whether you're 12 or 65. Form your own opinions about things, don't be afraid to adjust your thinking as you learn and get some experience, but make your thoughts your own. You may be wrong, but at least you'll be authentic. Also, if your friends are jumping off the bridge, don't do that.
9. The older you get, the faster life goes. You'll be dead before you know it. If you have a burning desire to climb a mountain, travel to Bhutan, or visit an ashram, go fucking do it now. If you wait for the right time, it'll never be here.
10. If you want to have a friend, be a friend. If you want to have a family, be a family. In other words, don't be a selfish asshole. You want your friends to help you move? Help them move. Aunt Ester is having a tea party and you hate tea? Too fucking bad, go to the party. Aunt Ester could die tomorrow and leave you a mattress full of money.
10. If someone loves you, you win. Go to school, get a good job, buy some stuff. It's the American way. But stuff, prestige, your car and your house don't define you. You can tell a lot about someone by looking at who loves them. Someday you'll die, and your stuff will not come to the funeral. Pay attention to your friends, your boyfriend or spouse, and your family.
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