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Goodbye Soy
Me: Do you want to stay in the room?
Liv and Max: No.
Lauren and I stayed in the room. Sawyer’s sick body laid there on the couch with a port sticking out of a bandage covering his little paw.
It was time to say goodbye. I fought through tears and kissed him on the head.
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The Summer of Us
It’s been almost eleven years. Eleven years since my wife, Lauren, and I have had freedom. Freedom from having to revolve our days around our kids. What did we do with ourselves back then? Did we just party all day? Who could even remember back that far? It was four houses ago. We were living in Brooklyn during Lauren’s residency and I don’t have a clue what our free time was like. I know at one point we got up at 5:30 every morning for 90 straight days and did P90x workouts which were all the rage back then. These days when I wake up at 5:30, it’s to pee for the third time since going to bed.
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The Sleepaway Camp
Me: Call the camp.
Lauren: And say what?
Me: Ask how she’s doing?
Lauren: We’re not supposed to reach out for the first few weeks.
Me: Make something up. Say you saw her in a photo wearing two different shoes and you’re concerned.
Lauren: But I didn’t see that! Fine, I’ll email them.
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Alfredo the Deer
Liv: Dad, come quick.
Me: What?
Max: Come, Dad, just come on, follow us.
It’s Memorial Day. I’m nervous. My kids are usually so immersed in their iPads on the weekends, that I’m not sure what could be so urgent outside of their iPads simultaneously imploding.
I put shorts on and follow them down the stairs. They open the front door and I follow them outside. We cross the driveway and pass our fence which separates our property from the next door neighbor’s. On the side of the fence, I spot something.
Liv: Dad, it’s a baby deer.
I walk over and bend down. There curled up in a fetal position is a baby deer with spots. He can’t be more than a few days old.
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Coldplay and Mongolian Food?
Lauren (my wife): My patient told me about this great restaurant where you eat with your hands. Would you want to go?
Me: Well, I eat with my hands anyway, so if there’s a place where that’s socially acceptable, of course.
Lauren: I think it’s Mongolian food.
Me: Mongolian food?
Lauren: Something like that.
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The Cyclist
Bicycle store – Present Day
Store employee: I can check in the back for a Double XL, but we usually don’t carry them.
Me: But I’m usually a Large. Are the bike jerseys cut that small?
Store employee: Large in the cycling community is not the same as Large in the rest of the world.
I head back into the dressing room and try to take the XL jersey off, but it is literally stuck to my skin. It’s like I put on my seven-year-old son Max’s clothes. After a long battle I am able to get it off. I exit the dressing room.
Store employee: I’m sorry, sir. We don’t have double XL. There is a Big and Tall store just around the corner that might have some jerseys.
Me: I don’t need a Big and Tall store.
I call my wife and tell her I can’t use the gift card her mother got me for my birthday to this store, that nothing fits me – bike shorts, shirts. This gets her hysterical.
Me: I hate you. I’m going to eat more now you know. This only makes me want to be fatter.
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The Supermarket
Daddy, when will I be a grownup?
When you go to the supermarket 14 times a week
We technically have a food shopping day. Often that day, Sunday, turns into Monday or Tuesday. Regardless of the day we go, we always wind up going back for something just about every day.1<———- CLICK ON RED BOXES
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The Ski Family
Mountain Creek Ski Mountain – Ski lift line
We wait on line. With me are my wife, Lauren, and our two children, Liz (8) and Matt (6). In front of us, are two teenage boys who have their masks pulled down below their chin and (I couldn’t make this up if I tried) they are trying to blow the cold air that is coming out of their mouths onto each other for fun.
“Daddy, why are their masks pulled down?”
As Matt has no ability to alter the volume of his voice so that others won’t hear him, the two kids look back at us.
“Well, you see the top of their heads,” I ask Matt loudly so they can hear me.
“Yes.”
“What aren’t they wearing on their heads?”
“Helmets.”
“Very good. When you don’t wear a helmet, you sometimes hit your head and it makes your brain stop working.”
I look up at the teenagers who quickly raise their masks over their noses.
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FINDING THE FUNNY AGAIN
NOTE: I was planning on posting this blog right after New Year’s, but that didn’t happen, and then the Capitol Riots occurred which made the timing of this feel wrong, and then… actually I’m not sure what happened these past 4 weeks. I just haven’t been able to get my act together, which is kind of part of the problem I explore in this piece.2 <———- CLICK ON RED BOXES
Then yesterday, Tom Brady, who is my exact age, finally caught up to me in career achievements. Tom and I have always pushed each other to reach greatness. So I had to step up my game and get this blog out.
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10 Lessons from Homeschool
Here we are after 14 weeks. A logical question would be “What have the kids learned?” I will not be attempting to answer that question today because:
- It’s boring
- The answer is: Not much.
Rather, today I will be figuring out what we as parents have learned from this experiment.
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The Chaperone
Lauren [my wife]: I signed you up to be a chaperone for Liz’s class trip.
Me: You know I have a job as a lawyer. Right?
Lauren: I would take it a bit more seriously if you didn’t only claim you were a lawyer when you don’t want to do things.
Me: No, I don’t.
Lauren: And claim you’re a writer only when an attractive woman asks you what you do.
Me: That is not true.
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My Mostly Comedic Journey to Ketosis
I fucking hate avocados.
I mean, I didn’t before this. But things have changed. It all started a few weeks ago…
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The Fishing Trip
Over the holidays, we were fortunate enough to spend a week down in Aruba. Normally, I use this time to lie around like a lox, with the occasional threat by my wife, Lauren, to get off my ass and acknowledge our children’s existence. 2
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The Ducks
Watching seven-year-old girls play soccer is like watching ducks attack a piece of bread in a pond.
And this is a vast improvement from coaching five-year-old boys.
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The Concert
“Brett’s scared of lightning.” my wife Lauren tells our group, while I look like I want to curl up into a fetal position.
In between lightning flashes, all I can think about is the made-up conversation these people are having in their heads. So let me get this straight… your husband doesn’t drink, he doesn’t do any fun recreational drugs, he no longer eats, and now with this lightning, he’s a complete wimp?
Well, he is a good designated driver when he’s not taking Xanax. And he has a bizarre sense of humor which you will really appreciate when you’re under the influence.
“Lauren should really just commit you to a nursing home already,” my friend says.
“Sounds good to me,” I reply. “I like those little ice creams they give you on your tray.”
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The One Parent Weekend
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The Cleanse
That fucking message. Twice a day. Usually right in mid-spoon of ice cream. So I’m fat. New fat. Like there’s Old Money and New Money. I’m New Fat. It’s fun being New Fat. People don’t know what to say when they see me. They just pretend they’re not staring at my stomach. Now I know how girls feel when guys look at their boobs while they talk to them.
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The Panacea
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, an issue that is personal to me as I’ve spent the second twenty years of my life battling anxiety and depression. Last year, I wrote a piece for The Good Men Project about The Anxiety and Depression Stigma. I hope we’ve made some progress since then to end the stigma.
One of the reasons for the unfair stigma is the misconception about what it’s like to live with anxiety and depression. There’s a perception that if you’re depressed, you can’t get out of bed or do your job.
For many who struggle, including me, that’s not usually how it manifests itself. It affects me in different ways, subtle ways, sometimes silly ways.
But ways nonetheless.
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The Game
The greatest Vampire Baseball player ever Baseball field, Brooklyn – 1984
Bottom of the sixth inning, last chance for the Braves, down 7-6, 2 outs.
Playing shortstop for the Giants, the seven-year-old boy who would grow up to pretend his name is Brett Grayson, waits for the pitch. The pitcher delivers (okay, I’m lying, it was T-Ball, no one delivered any pitch). The batter crushes a ball over the outfielder’s head. The Giants outfielder, who was in the outfield for a reason (not coordinated), retrieves the ball. The batter is rounding the bases, heading for home to tie the game.
The outfielder throws the ball to me, and I relay it home. The throw is hard and high. The catcher jumps, but it goes over his head. The umpire, standing behind the catcher, gets in the way of the throw, and it hits him right in the neck below the faceguard.
And he’s out! No, not the runner. The umpire. Out. Unconscious. Coaches run to his side and attend to him.
Me: (to my father) What’s the call, Dad? Is he out?
35 years later
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The Procedure
If you’re not familiar with our son’s story, first check out this piece I wrote for Scary Mommy: The End of Innocence
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Monday afternoon – Boston Children’s Hospital – bathroom
I rub up against my wife, Lauren, while she washes her hands.
“What are you doing?” Lauren asks.
I shrug my shoulders.
“You want to have sex in the bathroom of a children’s hospital while our son is having an eight-hour surgery?”
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The Death Talk
Never thought these two would share a photo I find the timing of when people pass away to be endlessly interesting. Sometimes a celebrity dies at the wrong time and gets trumped by someone more famous’ death. (poor Mother Theresa never stood a chance against Princess Di) Then there are instances when two people with no previous connection pass away the same week and become inextricably linked in my mind. My wife Lauren’s grandmother and Luke Perry both died last week. The only similarity between them before last week was they both stood upright (and even that was questionable the last few years of her life).
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