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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.
