the thing that strikes me about this picture is the necklace around anthony's neck. i'm struck because it is alex's necklace. it is very much alex's necklace. fact is that necklace proved to be (and continues to prove to be at the time of this writing) a very important token to alex. alex went through a few month stretch of separation anxiety when he was younger, like six and seven. this necklace ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. misdirected

having grown up in colorado, i surely remember taking advantage of many an overflowing gutter for boat-running and dam-building, but such affairs always took place during or after a rain. in saint louis and all the august-beating backyard pools, this storied child's affair can take place on any day, rainy or blue, that someone needs to drain a pool. and no one will ever say those dearmitt boys did ...

TROY
anthony, is there anything you would like for christmas?

ANTHONY
i would like bella to be called pinhead.

obviously i caught him in a moment of angst, an occasional artifact of living big. while i would contend we need to return to the well for another option, i fear marty's going argue for the name change because we can actually afford that.

marty got called up for jury duty. this is the third time since we've had kids. the first two times she got out due to breast feeding. this time she felt she should step up to it. she worked hard to figure out the logistics of getting kids where they need to be for the week. the mornings are are pretty much all me. yesterday morning, the first morning of the week, the three children and i were all in the foyer, minutes from jumping on bikes. the boys were putting on their shoes and i just removed some braids from bella's hair and was brushing it smooth. alex looked up and with great sincerity said, "wow. your hair looks beautiful bella." to this bella matter-of-factly replied, "well, don't even think of falling in love with your sister dude. there's too many girls in the world for that."

i'm quite confident if i spent more time with my kids, documenting their innocent, daily banter would become a full-time effort.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. problem solving

this weekend while lazing around the living room, alex asked anthony, who was wearing only underwear, if he wanted a wedgie. you'd think that might be the funny part of the story but it definitely got better after anthony said, "yeah, sure." marty and i took a break from our game of junior monopoly to watch alex position himself behind his brother, get a good hold on the elastic of his batman undies and near lift his brother off the ground. by my estimation it took an enormously long time for anthony to start rapidly saying, "ouch! ouch! ouch!" than i would have ever guessed it would.

and as if that wasn't enough, which i assure you it was, having anthony reach behind him and curiously feel the rope of fabric that was wedged between his paper-white butt cheeks with a wondrous look in his eyes as if her were petting a stingray at the zoo or touching a freshly born baby may have been the most unexpected bit of it all.

bella's room perpetually looks like an orangoutang had a rage-fueled fit in there just minutes earlier. because of this problems exist.

her first problem: it is not just her room. she shares it with one of her brothers. luckily, her brother is the most understanding and reasonable dude i have ever met.

bella's second problem: the room pisses her mother off. i only include marty...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. enjoy your anger

anthony regressed in his potty training. out of fear of him not being able to go to pre-school, marty panicked. she agreed that every time he went pee or poop on the toilet he'd get twenty minutes of computer time. this plan turned the tide, saved the day and was working famously.

on saturday i passed by the kitchen and heard bella "encouraging" anthony to drink a large glass of water. he resisted saying he wasn't thirsty. she then countered in a sing-songy voice that if he drank a bunch of water, he'd have to go pee more which would mean extra computer time. after a pause of contemplation, i heard the glass get lifted off the counter followed by bella saying a conspiratorial, "good boy anthony."

sure, as a parent, there are plenty of perks to having older siblings around your younger ones. but subjecting younger siblings to the equivalent of a fraternity hazing rituals so you can draft on their extra minutes of pbsKids.org does take a few marbles out of the good deeds jar.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. good thinking

while alex and anthony were taking a bath together, alex started playing a puppeteer game with his penis (a surprisingly under-mentioned perk of not being circumcised). after taking this show in for a few moments, anthony asked, "why do you do that with your penis yallix?"

alex matter of factly said he did it because it was funny.

after watching and listening to alex's antics a few more moments, anthony brightly called out his agreement saying, "it is funny alex. it is!"

chalk this up as another reason younger siblings are on the concord of development. without an older brother to teach him, anthony may not have discovered that his penis could double and a funny finger-puppet until he was four, maybe even five.

bella was messing with anthony and he got upset. marty entered the scene and told anthony that if he didn't like what bella was doing he could tell her so. with this counsel, anthony turned to bella and said "bewah, you are breaking my spirit!"

if marty can do that with a three year old just imagine what she could achieve with someone who actually cared if they were sitting in their own feces.

in our home we have a bedtime hour. in this hour, every motion, action and thought is to be directed at the transition from being a foul, bristling, engaged, sporting, singing, learning, living, sassing young person to a sound asleep human. this is an all hands on deck affair and anything short of full participation has the home listing and fighting the currents.

last night, just seven minutes into the bedtime hour, i found myself locked up with bella on what began as a simple matter of semantics. i learned long ago that heated debate is not a conducive facet of the bedtime hour, but here on this night, i was fully engaged. this distraction left alex and anthony free to bury each other in the multitude of blankets and comforters piled on a bed. seeing this, i ordered them to the bathroom to go potty and brush their teeth. after studying my taut tone for the briefest of moments, they complied. bella and i proceeded down our path. just as i (and the beloved art of logic) was making headway, alex dashed into the room saying, "look at what anthony did." i studied him and saw nothing. i asked him what anthony did. alex turned to show a long smear of fluorescent tooth paste down the back of his shirt. ANTHONY! STOP PUTTING TOOTH PASTE ON YOUR BROTHER! i ignored his return plea of, "but, i like putting toothpaste on yallix." i returned my attention to bella. as we continued our slow trek to understanding marty called up the stairs, "i have to run some cookies across midland. i'll be back in a few." at this hour, with this start, i'm unable to count the number of bad things that could go down in "a few" minutes. but here we were.

digging out begins with a single shovelful of dirt. i looked at bella and said, "i hear your point but i hope you hear mine. i needed you to do something and i took the time to explain why i needed you to do it. in the future i need you work with me on that." with as much compliance and respect you could expect from a willful eight year old girl, bella turned to begin her bedtime ritual. i turned to alex, asked him to lift his arms up and pulled the soiled shirt over his head and told him to follow me. i walked to the bathroom and pulled the toothpaste out of anthony's hand, picked his protesting frame up under my arm, walked him to his room, threw him in his bed, and told him if he got out i was going to frazzle his biscuits and make him sleep on the garage roof. by some karmic credit i accrued in a previous life, everyone was asleep within the hour.

if there is a human (non-sleeping) restful state such as the peace a person meditating finds, the experience of wrangling unwilling, untamed children without the use of physical trauma is the opposite of that restful state. and were you to remove all life-threatening scenarios from the picture, this act of directing children stands as one of the most trying human endeavors an adult can navigate. that said, we've had our share of moments where a call to 911 was surely in the cards, placing these matters occasionally into the life-threatening category (although, that is not the exact spirit i am talking about here).

and, to be fair, while marty isn't one of the most diligent practitioners of the bedtime hour given she's essentially been in a form of the bedtime hour all day at this point, she also does not typically leave the home and the night i described above was an unusual exception. but she may have also seen the dark cloud forming in my study and chose to save herself from the next fateful (and unpredictable) eleven minutes that unfolded in the upstairs of our home during the bedtime hour.

the kids were getting ready for bed. marty and i were in bella and alex's room. i fell into bella's lower bunk bed. marty wanting to tell me something grabbed a stool and sat on the side of the bed. she began filling me in on some school-related matters for alex. she paused waiting for me to say something.

TROY
i think i would have loved having a bunk bed when i was a kid

MARTY
would you have wanted the top or bottom bunk.

TROY
bottom. then i would have hung curtains so it was like a fort. i would have put a shelf up on the wall to hold my books. and had a light, like bella's, so i could read. it would have been awesome.

MARTY
my brother matt had a shelf next to his bed. he was on the top. i remember when he was gone i'd climb up there and look at the stuff on his shelf. he had an small engine he built that you could turn on and it would make lights flash. and he had a little silver radio with a circle dial. that was the first portable radio i ever saw. on sundays matt would sit up in his bed and listen to some guys top 100 countdown. i remember i'd hear the pop songs from the hall and think how i liked this one or that one.

TROY
you didn't go up in the bed and listen with him?

MARTY
oh god no. you only went into the boys room when the boys were away.

shortly thereafter the kids walked in. as soon as bella saw me lazing in her bed she walked to the side, made a hitchhiker thumb and said, "out mister". however much the world changes, there are certain immutable facets that always remain the same.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. daredevil's club

the settings on my camera got jacked up and i was trying to get things back to where they should be. to help with the focus settings i called bella and alex up and asked told them i needed to take a couple of pictures and could they stand there for me. this was the result.

marty went to a play with her mother last night thus putting me in the box with the kids. dinner (custard french toast) went well. immediately after dinner alex and anthony played trains while bella snuck in some computer time. a neighbor girl called asking if she and her brother could come over to play. whispering into the phone, i told her i didn't think it would be a good idea tonight. i whispered my response because i didn't want the natives to know i was nixing a play date. but it was getting late. and i was alone and greatly outnumbered already. i had reasons. to my whisper, the girl whined out a long 'pahhhlleeeezz' and added that they'd be no trouble at all. going against my better judgment i greenlit the visit.

i could picture the groan in bella's face when the knock rung through the house. computer time is sacred to child with no television. after being let in, the visiting girl immediately came upstairs and found me. she asked, "will you play ogre?" this time my face groaned. i said no. she asked why. i said because i didn't want to get everyone worked up just before bed. another whiny pahhhlleeeezz rolled out of her saggy-shouldered body. no trouble my ass.

after a short while of non-ogre play time the girl's mum called and the kids went home for bed. i ushered my kids to the bathroom for peeing, pooping, brushing and the hearing of the petitions to sleep in the clothes they'd been wearing all day. then anthony, alex and i moved to the upper bunk for reading. bella was below reading her own books. even though no one is listening to her story she reads out loud. i've asked her if she can read in her head when i'm reading to the boys because her reading when i'm reading is distracting. she argues that if i get to read out loud she shouldn't have to read in her brain (her words) and she doesn't care if her reading out loud is distracting when i'm reading out loud because my reading out loud is distracting to her trying to read in her brain. this girl could twist a physicist in knots in minutes.

alex starts fading first. i'm about three minutes behind him. staying awake at this moment is the hardest thing i've done all day. i always fall asleep after reading to alex. sometimes he goes first. sometimes i go first. but we both go and we usually do so within minutes of one another. i usually sleep for twenty minutes to an hour. it's my pre-night power nap that allows me to work until 2am. but tonight, tonight i can't fall asleep because i do have anthony and i don't have marty. but i do fall asleep. anthony, bored, leaves. i sense him leaving but can't open my eyes. i groggily hear bella call out "it's ok dad. i got him." more sleep. i hear anthony call out. it's been just minutes. not hours. i force myself up and down the bunk ladder. i walk to my bedroom where i hear voices. bella and anthony are snuggled, sitting up on the pillows with the covers pulled up over their laps. a mess of books are spread out before them, but they aren't reading. bella is holding anthony's fist out in front of him and is modeling his fingers in different poses. she's saying: i know it's possible to get through life without a village, but i gotta say life's much more pleasant with one.

the first thing bella said to me monday morning. while bella does have a knack for dramatic portrayals of everyday things, she is spot on in this particular assessment.

if you hear bella or alex say the words - "anthony come here, i have a really great idea" - eight times in ten anthony will be crying inside of ninety seconds.

while reading to the kids one night, bella grabbed up a notebook and started making notes. shortly after this began alex realized bella was writing in one of his notebooks. alex tore the pad from bella's lap and immediately scolded her for the trespass. seeing how upset he got bella took the notebook back from alex saying she could fix the problem. her solution was to tear the page she used out so it was as if she never touched it all. it became apparent to both bella and i, slightly too late, that this was a far from acceptable solution by alex's estimation. his state worsened.

the next evening on my way home from work, i stopped at a bookstore and got alex a brand new notebook. it had dividers and pockets and a flashy cover (i'm very interested in supporting alex's newfound interest in drawing and writing). coincidentally, this was also the day alex got five shots at the doctor, so the timing worked out nicely in that the much spoiling happens for the kids on the one day in their life they have to shoulder five shots at the doctor's office. upon walking in the door he saw the new notebook sitting on the foyer bench. he picked it up and asked me what it was. i told him it was his brand new, very own notebook. he hooted, raised it in the air and ran from person to person showing off his perfectly pristine writing journal. when he came to bella she turned dour.

BELLA
that's not fair. i don't have a notebook as cool as his.

TROY
it's ok hon. we'll get you one. but today he needed one.

ALEX
well then that's not fair because now we have just the same amount and if you get her one then she will have more than me.

TROY
alex, she's older than you, you will find she often has more than you.

ALEX
uhhh! not fair.

TROY
but what you have to realize alex is that is both good and bad. that means she has also had more pee than you, more shots than you, more poop than you, more choke-ups than you.

this fixed alex's funk but did not do bella's mood any favors. somedays this all seems rather un-winnable.

THE SCENE

THE SMILES

THE SLUGGER

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. adolescence

on saturday marty and bella went to a wedding. bella had the job of handing out hershey kisses to guests walking out of the church after the ceremony. as she dropped the foil wrapped sweets into the passing palms of exiting people she was instructed to say, "kisses from the bride and groom."

meanwhile back at home, i took the boys kite flying. it was a stupendous day for such an outing a...

anthony turns one today. this makes it just about four days shy one year ago that marty and i walked into our home, labored to put three children to bed and collapsed glassy-eyed in our own room numbly staring at one another. one of us said, "what have we done?", the other didn't answer. over the years marty has told countless new mothers "it gets easier, don't worry."over the same period, i have told countless new fathers "it's temporary, totally temporary". we both slept that night with these missives playing, on repeat, in our heads.

and here we are already, with another one year old. what can i say about him? most notably, it's remarkable how completely different three biologically-connected humans can be. you'll get occasional glimpses that they belong together but much of the time it feels like i just run around yelling "where did you come from?" or "hey! you! are you supposed to be here?" in the end, you could slice many of these anthony-related moments into the following buckets:

the obvious things
the anthony scoot dazzles and tickles onlookers without fail. you ever hear the phrase 'money in the bank'? well setting anthony down in a public forum is just that, money in the bank. one unknown detail about his mode of transportation: the outside of his diaper is typically way dirtier than the inside, especially when what's on the inside starts finding its way to the outside, an unfortunate phenomenon that has recently come to pass.

the unexpected things
anthony is our first white child. while this was unexpected, it nicely rounds out our set. we now have one dark, one light and one white. i have friends who have joked about the uncertainty of my race saying that one day marty and i would have a child and the delivering doctor would catch a fully black infant in his hands, subtlety look at the nurse and say "we may be about to have a problem here." they would then hold the baby up so i could see and i would arms-open yell "heeeeyyy! my son, ohhh he's so beautiful." to which the doctors and nurses would retire to the corner of the room and whisper among themselves trying to figure out how i did not notice this child was black and i was not.

the inevitable things
when bella was little, if her pacifier touched anything other than her open mouth it went straight into the washer. with anthony, i've picked a paci up off the ground, saw something on it, brushed it off on my pants, looked again and still saw it, shrugged my shoulders and popped it into his waiting mouth. if we have a fourth kid i reckon we'll not even bother with store-bought soothers but instead just stick clods of dirt and other random small objects into the kid's mouth.

the problematic things
i'm an only child so watching two siblings interact has been quite academic. when things are good, it's spectacular. when things are bad, it's terrorizing. dumping a third child into this already heady equation complicates the math to collegiate levels. anthony often serves as a pawn to exacerbate, calm, excuse and manipulate situations between his older siblings. obviously the lion-share of his participation is not of his choosing and consequently causes him angst. it is not uncommon to hear a parent yell "bella/alex put him down. he's not a doll! he's a person who gets to decide where he wants to go ... now give him here, i need to change his diaper." it's also not uncommon for a parent to yell stuff like "stop standing on your brother, you're going to make him puke!" only to have them say "but, he likes it" and when you go to investigate, the little nut is laughing maniacally under the weight of his sibling to which you don't have much to say other than "well, just don't do it too long."

the satisfying things
not only does anthony not look like anyone else in the family, his demeanor is also quite unique. with bella, she looked like me and acted like her mother. with alex, he looked like a walter but acted like me. with anthony, well, he doesn't really look or act like anyone already living here. when left to his own, he's perpetually happy. lots of smiles. lots of giggles. our house was already jovial-rich but now we got a one foot high billboard scooting all about wearing a slobbery, indelible grin. it's warming. it also tempers a home otherwise rife with an ever-changing and frenetic energy.

happy birthday sir anthony. thanks for being something we totally didn't expect.