during the holiday break i was neck deep in multiple deadlines and working nights and weekends with marty managing the home and children. the unexpected death of her father brought a swift role reversal sending her from the home to handle business matters and leaving me in charge of our house and children.

at 5am after my first night alone, anthony came to the side of my bed pushed me in...

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.

in tumult of everyman season it has been days, possibly even weeks, since i've been able to talk about pee, poop, choking up or bodily excretions of any sort. so, recognizing this, lets get it on.

last weekend we went camping. alex used a true outhouse for the very first time. and i'm not talking about one of those city-park, johnny-on-the-spot deluxe models but a full-fledged, hole in the ground, shanty outhouse. marty walked him in and he slid up on the seat. seconds later his face screwed up and desperately looked to marty exclaiming, "ohhhh mom! what is that horrible smell?" marty gave him the dope. alex lifted a cheek and looked down the well, staring right into hades itself. after that, alex moved his bowels in record time.

on the walk back to the campsite, alex asked how outhouses were made. marty detailed the obvious process. you dig a hole. you make a seat with an opening. and then you cover all that with a wooden shack. alex had great concern for the person who dug the hole. he feared it may have been a one-way trip. while i would have ran with that, marty explained how they probably have a system to get the human out of the hole before it's all put to use.

the next day alex scurried up to me saying he had to go. i knew there where real brick and mortar accommodations with running water a few miles away. i borrowed a bike and carrier from one of our camping mates and raced alex to these nicer facilities. after selecting a stall he stopped at the commode and pointed at two (clean) squares of toilet paper floating in the water and said this one was ucky and he'd need to find another. it's nice to see he's inherited my uncompromising and unmovable demand for standards. although the 50's dad in me was tempted to throw him back in the bike and make him use the satan-toilet again.

meanwhile, back in our neighborhood, alex's two primary playmates were eating mushrooms they found in the front yard of one of their homes. after learning of this trespass, their mothers called the doctor and were instructed to give the boys the throw-up medicine. after a quick run to the store, the two boys spent the next few hours of their saturday sitting together on a front porch puking into buckets in some grotesque community production of stand by me. unsurprisingly, alex was sorry to have missed this unique moment with his friends.

and then after returning home, bella called out in the night to report an accident in her bed. it was the classic thought i was going to pass gas and got more than i expected sort of episode. marty cleaned her up and changed her sheets. two hours later it happened again. while marty was cleaning up round two i approached bella while she was on the toilet. she looked up to me beaming with elation. when i asked why she was so happy she said mother never made her go to school if she might poop her pants.

and lastly, while standing in the tub for his bath last night anthony peed at his own will. i don't know who was happier, his parents or him.

i think that should get you all up to speed on life in my home. as you can see, it's just business as usual.

it started with a post-dinner, pre-bath diaper change. of the number two variety. in some regards this (pre-bath) is the ideal time to change a diaper, but in others (post-dinner) it is the absolute worst.

i stomached my way through the turgid mess just like you'd expect from an involved father of three. i tossed the diaper in the bin, stood anthony up and pointed him to the bathroom and his running shower. but instead of turning left as he should of, his naked buttocks turned right, went into my room and slammed the door. it seems he was interested in an impromptu round of hide and seek. i checked the water in the bathroom and then went to my bedroom door. just as i started pushing it open i heard his tiny voice excitedly call out "poopf! poopf!" as i've discussed previously, poopf means one of two things; book or poop. i cautiously swung the door open hoping anthony would be holding a raised book to me. no book.

the good news is that human feces is essentially the same color as natural-stained oak wood flooring. but this is one of those rare situations where the bad news is the same as the good news. wooden floors in old homes are chock-full of seams and crevices and cracks. while the residual cudgel blended nicely with the floor's color as i scooped up what i could, i knew there would be a later price.

after picking the freshly-fallen toddler-fudge off the floor i agitatedly picked anthony up by the armpits and carried him to the bathroom holding him out in front of me like he might shoot a fecal dart at my chest. i stood him in the pedestal sink and told him to hold still. i pulled a fresh wipe out, wrapped it around my fingers and turned him so i could clean up the fun that remained before placing him in the tub. i learned something about the human buttocks in the next ten seconds. when someone is standing their butt cheeks are much more firmly clamped together than when they are laid out flat. so much so that if you try to run a delicate towlette through the small crease it will tear and rip leaving the end-user unprotected. thus, when my fingers re-emerged from that hidden crevasse, that is exactly what i saw, my fingers and not the thin, cloth material i had covering my fingers. i never knew this detail about the human body before. and i'd like to say the world was a less scary place when that was the case.

saturday alex's training wheels came off. we were probably four or more months overdue with this but my knee surgery prevented my helping with the running alongside period of training. on the good side, when you over-wait this particular skill, kids hit the ground running, rolling and quickly flying.

we had friends over for dinner on friday night and the dad ran up and down the sidewalk with alex a very generous number of times (much thanks jk). during this alex looked very good so the next morning i pulled the training wheels off his bike (he had been practicing on bella's bike). by this time i just had to give him a slight push and he'd take off for about eight houses worth of sidewalk and then stop. i would walk after him (in that i still can't run or jog) and when i'd get to him we'd turn him around and i'd give him a push back the other way. after about three rounds of this when i was walking toward him he got tired of waiting and pushed off himself and shot right past me as if there was nothing odd about this new development (aside from a monster grin of pride on his face). and that was that. within the hour he and i were off for an hour plus bike adventure all over a university campus next to our home. there are many tree-lined, wide, twisty and smooth sidewalks to explore and on a saturday in early august, not many people. this was one of those special moments as could be seen in the perpetual smile spread across alex's beaming face as his little legs churned and pumped him with greater velocity and confidence with each conquered section of campus.

when we would pass a walking student or visitor alex would brightly say hi as he zoomed past. his hi's are very matter of fact. and alex rarely passes anyone without throwing one out there at them. he does not yet know that this ritual greeting is an optional part of society. unsurprisingly most people are startled by this small boy's resounding hello, especially when that 37 pound super-tanned, smiling kid is flying by on a tiny bike in his first hours of true two-wheel cycling. i like trailing behind and watching the dazed people come out of their stupor, orient their eyes to who just said hi, smile genuinely and then almost as an afterthought say hi back to the small boy who is already well past them.

our kids are pro-hello people. i reckon they picked this up from marty and i but they've been like that from the start. when bella and alex were both still in the rickshaw carrier and i would ride them through crowds of people they would wave and greet the throngs as if they were royalty being charioted to their regal home. in telling marty about alex's first ride out, she recalled once when she and the kids were driving through forest park (stl's central park) bella was counseling alex on how he should yell hello out of the window at all the people walking, roller-blading, running and biking. in showing alex how it was done, bella was yelling hi's and hello's to people out of her window. then the car passed a wedding party taking photographs in front of a fountain in the park, bella from the moving car screamed out of her window, "NICE WEDDING!"

for all the rigors of parenting, the payoffs are quite substantial.

before having children i'd used super-glue about four times in my life. since having children it shares equal prominence with the milk.

if i were ever tasked to teach a class on parenting it would be short. i would walk into the classroom and write the following bullets on the chalkboard:

1. put any material things you really care about in long-term storage. if you feel you can't live without them, visit them on the weekends.
2. if you feel yourself getting really angry, leave the house until you are no longer really angry. good things/decisions/memories never happen when people are really angry.
3. learn to breath through your mouth, exclusively. this doesn't become hyper vital until your child stops nursing and starts eating the same things you eat. but start practicing the skill early. when it becomes relevant, you'll be glad you did.

once you've read and understand the above points, you are free to leave. oh, and one last thing, your children will one day understand more about the world at hand than yourself, respect them accordingly.

when bella was a toddler she was a climber and defiant and adventurous which made her a handful for her parents, especially two new parents. fortunately there were two of us and only one of her which i'm convinced is the only way marty and i survived those early years.

when alex was a toddler he was compliant and gentle and happy. there's not much to say here, the boy was born smiling and never has really stopped, and this even with a big sister hitting him and bouncing books off his head.

anthony. well, for starters anthony has a code-name. his code-name is silverfish. it is silverfish for what i think are obvious reasons. silverfish was coined when our family was invited to brunch with friends. they have two children of their own, live in a house that is finely appointed and has many circles, nooks, crooks and crannies. at first marty and i were having trouble keeping tabs on anthony and one would think the other had him and you'd hear a crash in another room and the other would say they thought he was playing with the kids and the kids would say he was there a moment ago but now he is not. so a tracking system was devised. if anthony was playing in the room with the other children and he left, one of the other kids had to yell as loud as they could SILVERFISH IS IN THE WIND. this would alert marty and i and our hosts to quickly try to find anthony. when he was found the finder would yell I'M ON SILVERFISH. if that call didn't come soon enough frantic shouts went out that sounded like DOES ANYBODY HAVE EYES ON SILVERFISH to which frantic NOs would ring through the house. in the end this system held up and kept all the valuable art and decor in tact which meant our friendship could remain in tact. the busy day ended when one of the children called out from the playroom SILVERFISH POOPED HIS PANTS.

i felt very uninspired last week. which is sad and the opposite of what i wanted to feel and was supposed to feel after taking a five week break. in the past after my sabbatical i've been eager to return and usually had a few choice morsels in the hopper. not this time. and this was surprising because in those five weeks my family had taken two vacations, one to the beach and one to a lake resort. we had the outside of our house painted by two drunk guys. we renovated a bedroom. and both kids were on summer vacation. in short, we'd been busy and spent a lot of time together. yet, when i sat down to post last week i drew repeated blanks on what to say. towards the end of the week the dry well got me thinking this project has perhaps run its course and it may be time to shutter the windows and focus my attention on more pertinent matters. seriously.

then, saturday morning marty was organizing the kids in the front yard for a bike ride. i went out to help get the adventure underway. while i was strapping anthony into the rickshaw marty said behind me ...

alex, i want to hold your meat.

alex, in a ziplock baggie, was carrying some summer sausages i had just cut up for him to take along as a snack. the second marty finished her line, my head drooped and i started chuckling at her comment. marty instantly turned my way and chastised me saying that she already had three kids and didn't need a fourth. she then turned back to alex and said ...

alex, give me your meat.

and with that the log blocking my chi break through with a flood of commentary trailing behind. so, you can thank (or vex) marty for saving the day and dearmitt.com.

last night marty asked me to put the kids down for bed. alex and i got into a battle over his bath. it culminated with him refusing to get out when he was finished. while on crutches i'm a little impotent to put any teeth to threats about removing him physically so i told him if he wouldn't get out he could just go to sleep in there. twenty minutes later i went down to the kitchen where marty was cleaning up.

TROY
i have good news and i have bad news?

MARTY
ok

TROY
the good news is alex is asleep.

MARTY
ok.

TROY
the bad news is he's naked and sleeping in the bathtub.

in the end, i'm not entirely sure who won this grudge match but i do know i don't feel like i'm standing in winners circle.

i chatted with bookpimp the other night. he has a son, his first, who is one week younger than anthony. we were comparing what sorts of stuff they were doing. for me these conversations are a little awkward because anthony has chosen to put all of his eggs into one basket, the basket of destruction which as a parent isn't a highly pride-inspiring skill to get to boast on.

bookpimp was commenting on all the words his son knows. when he asked about anthony i had to report that anthony didn't have any words. not yet. but he is very good at hand signals. although, they aren't the typical cute baby gestures for MORE and DRINK and PICK MY ASS UP. anthony's appear to be more of the marine commando ilk. if anthony wants you to follow him, he grunts softly to get your attention then raises his arm in the air and pumps it downward making a fist at the bottom. it looks most like the arm gesture young kids use to get truck drivers to honk their horns. if he wants you urgently, he repeatedly pumps his fist and grunts louder. every time anthony does this and bella and alex are nearby, i expect him follow the initial signal with a series of complex finger gestures and motions that would equal "you take out the little one and i'll flank back and garrote the larger one. on my mark. three. two. one. mark." in my mind, after this complex instruction, he would then crouch and begin stalking his prey.

well this is what i told bookpimp of anthony's progress. he told me this made him feel better because another friend of ours who has a child a bit older than us is saying stuff like "look mommy, there's goes a big garbage truck, and the men on the back look quite morose." dang first kids. the morning after my depressing chat i was brought from slumber by anthony bouncing a metal car on my face saying "wuz this? wuz this?" without opening my eyes i pushed him away telling him to go ask his mother.

so pimp, i guess anthony does have some words after all. but for the life of me i can't imagine why his language isn't flourishing more. like my advice to him, perhaps i should go ask his mother.

bella is a willful human. changing her will, when she's willful, is as easy as compelling a devout vegan to eat raw meat, and requiring them to enjoy every sinewy bite.

now bella has always been spirited but i remember the first time her level of conviction alarmed me. bella was four and at the time of this tale was getting washed by her mother. midway through the bath i began hearing ra...

it was seven years ago today that marty and i entered the parenthood game. time, it do fly.

marty woke up 20 minutes late. i woke up 30 minutes late. what we were waking up late for was sunday brunch. guests were arriving in less than an hour and we were still bleary, un-showered and food-less.

marty made it to the kitchen first but was slowed down because alex wanted to help her make the custard french toast and bran muffins. after getting the fire going, i was soon hobbled by anthony nipping at my heels while working on the bacon. bella was yelling something indecipherable down the stairwell. the phone rang. it was marty's mother calling from florida. marty left her food station to gab ... for twenty minutes .. while i juggled food and humans. bella appeared in front of me seemingly out of thin air. she stretched her hand out forcing on me a full-size sheet of paper. once in hand, she turned on a heel and marched back upstairs. i read enough of the page to see it was a set of demands. i tossed it to the side and continued my circus act. marty hung up the phone minutes before our guests arrived and when she walked them into the kitchen made some crack to the room about how i should be cooking the bacon differently. our new audience was about to get a marital show-down, and i said as much, but comically announcing the point brought enough levity to pull us out of the spousal nose-dive and we went on to have a wonderfully homey and smiley day with friends.

after stomachs were full and the general fervor ebbed, i noticed bella's note on the counter. she was now beyond her funk and running about the house with her visiting playmates. i took the moment to read her text in full.


translated:
i decided that my webkinz is being cramped in their bed so until i can play webkinz again i'm staying in my bed and i will only come out when a movie is in or to play on the computer.

p.s. if you want me to come out you'll have to let me play webkinz again.

i'm hungry.

BREAKFAST ORDER:
oatmeal
mcdonalds
waffles
toast
pancakes
daddy cereal

for mom and troy
from bella

the true source of her angst is apparent given her use of "mom and troy" in the closing. bella lost her computer privileges a few weeks back and has been fretting for the webkin horse she received for christmas. for the uninitiated (read spared), you care for your webkin pet in this online environment, routinely giving it love and food and toys. after meting out the restriction i had a premonition that when bella did again log onto the website, she'd be met by a decaying, fly-covered horse carcass with cartoony fumes coming out of its sunken abdomen. another parent told me this is not possible in that the site is quite liberal with children's oversights and the worst she'd find is a pouty and tearful version of her horse. i think this is just another example of how our society is coddling our children to unhealthy degrees and years from now when bella finds some neglected real-life-pet molding in the bottom of an aquarium she will surely express surprise if not complete shock. and when her crest-fallen face turns to me for answers i'm going to be the one that finally delivers her the truth, "you should have stuck with those bullshit webkinz."

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. curious

anthony has earned the distinction in our home as the person who has deposited more objects into the toilet than anyone else. obviously, in his case i'm referring to objects not meant to go in the toilet. he seems convinced that the commode is the proper storage location for every loose and free-standing object we own. if you ever spot him meandering the halls with something in hand, you can be su...

alex stood quietly, watching me peel potatoes for dinner. the potatoes were wet and i was fumbling them in my hands. i started getting frustrated. i took a breath about to mutter something when alex spoke up:

aahhhh. you gotta be kidding me.

i looked at him and smiled. that is definitely something i mutter on a near-daily basis. he never took his eyes of my hands and continued to watch me struggle. after a few more minutes of slippery spuds i drew another breath and alex shot out:

son of a beeeeaaaannnn.

you see i usually catch myself before i finish that one and it would seem alex has surmised the word i've been omitting is 'bean' given the way i end up elongating the letter B. when the kids are a bit older i bet we could make a sporting game out of guessing the swear dad or mom would use given various scenarios.

it was on a thursday, August 23 to be precise, 5:42pm to be even more precise, that i carried our home's only television from the tv room to the basement. this was the first thing i did after arriving home from work. i did this namely because when i walked in the door and dropped my bag marty appeared before me and said, "i want you to put the tv in the basement" to which i said, "now?" to which s...

at a work christmas party tonight, a co-worker told me about a call she received from her ten year-old's school saying she needed to come in to discuss an in-school suspension for her son. it turns out he and a neighbor boy, using the internet and the family's color printer made baseball-cards of naked women and got caught showing them to other boys in the school. she described how mortified she was and the subsequent speech she delivered about the degradation and objectification of women. she also said when she asked her older brother about it, the first thing he wondered was what an 83 topps card of pam anderson was going for these days. sadly, women will never comprehend how depraved the male mind really is.

when my sister-in-law was exiting a store with her three year old, he spied a nearby baby, pointed at it and started loudly screaming, "stupid baby! stupid baby! stupid baby!" some hours later she called marty to commiserate about the incident. of course none of our children ever hurled insults at hapless passerbys from the red cage of a target cart. our children much preferred biting them. i mean, i've seen insulted kids not cry. the same cannot be said about freshly bitten ones.

the stupid-baby tale supports a theory i have about parenting: it is not the parent's job to mold the human, it is the parent's job to keep the human alive until adulthood. we come much more wired than i think many seem to acknowledge. for instance, we didn't teach bella to bite kids who touched her crayons. she just did it the first time it happened. as parents it's our job to teach her not to bite crayon-curious playmates because one day she may bite the wrong one and they, in turn, will eat her. we will have then failed her as parents.

another thing not often acknowledged is the full psychological rigors that come from life with children. sure, people say it's hard and it's this and it's that, but not many people talk about their honest emotions when coping with the frustrations of children. what previous experience prepares you to look at a stranger and say 'yeah, sorry my kid called your baby stupid. i'm sure he's not that stupid, you know, being a baby and all' or to make the phone call saying you're glad that the bite didn't break the skin. parenthood will for sure test the most patient and capable out there.

when marty is at her breaking-point she goes into this deep-breathing trance. she told me that during it she thinks about the child (in question) when they were still in infancy and still cuddly and toothless and wordless. a few moments of this helps her re-enter the heat of the fracas less likely to take someone (in question) out.

thinking about the past doesn't work for me, i have to think about the future. when i start unraveling, i say the three letters F and S and U, repeatedly. what FSU represents for me is the day in my future when i deliver my child to a university to begin their college education. i pick FSU, or florida state university, because it is far away and because it strikes me as a party school (two characteristics that twist the knife a little extra). so i imagine driving my child halfway across the country, unpacking their bags and boxes and then briefly inspecting their room. i imagine myself sitting on the couch of their room during the awkward last few moments. i imagine marty standing by the door gesturing for me to get up. i imagine my child not nearly as aware of the import of the moment as myself. i imagine that tighter than usual hug and a longer the usual kiss on the cheek. i imagine the hollow chasm in my chest when the dorm room door closes and i imagine the deathly silent walk to the car.

so when i walked into the living room six days ago and found the christmas tree toppled on its side ... FSU. and when i walked into the living room three days ago and found the christmas tree again toppled over on its side ... FSU. and when i walked in the door from work tonight and found our christmas tree fallen yet again ... FSU. and when i asked alex what happened and he said "anthony just looked at it and it fell down" ... FSU.

and now just even typing out how many times the christmas tree has fallen over the in the last week ... FSU.

when i'm the one who reads to the kids at bedtime, one of three things happens:

1. bella falls asleep first.
2. alex falls asleep first.
3. i fall asleep first.

last night was a number three night. when a number three night happens one of three things occurs:

1. some time later, marty kicks me in the feet and tells me to get up because i'm snoring and it's keeping the kids up.
2. i wake in the middle of the night lodged uncomfortably between the two sleeping children.
3. after about thirty minutes i stir on my own, get up and resume my evening.

last night was a number three night. i woke with a start and lifted my head. alex was asleep on one side of me and on the other bella was sitting up reading a book in the dark. she looked at me guiltily knowing she was not to be reading but either sleeping or trying to go to sleep. i was about to say something when she brought her hand directly towards me and started scratching the top of my head. my face fell back on the pillow and i was back asleep in seconds.

everyone in my family knows there are few things i like more than having my head scratched. seeing bella's hand come toward me in my groggy state reminded me of a movie scene where an addled patient wakes momentarily only to see a blurry vision of a doctor's hand depressing the plunger of a syringe returning them into darkness. after an unknown period of time, marty's voice talking on the phone downstairs woke me again. as i lay there, i'd hear bella occassionally turn a page in her book (my face was looking away from her). she was not scratching my head but if she sensed i was starting to wake up by my movements or breathing her hand would mindlessly return to my head and scratch it a circular pattern giving me another dose of medicine while she continued to read.

marty ended her phone conversation and started coming up the stairs. bella stopped scratching my head, snapped her book shut, slid it under her covers and (i'm sure) laid her head on her pillow in a closed-eyes, angelic pose. all was still when marty passed the doorway. i then heard marty in the ping-pong room typing at her desk. back out came the book. after a few minutes i lifted my head. bella again looked at me guiltily. i put a finger to my lips (shhh sign) and got up. i leaned in, kissed her on the forehead and thanked her for my head-scratch. she softly said 'you're welcome' and i left her.

i'm certainly in no rush to have my first child grow up but can honestly say i'm ravenous to see what kind of adult she becomes.

a peeve of marty's is when adults make condescending remarks to children about how easy their life is or how they've so got it made. these often take a sarcastic form like "oh, it's a hard life isnt it?" or "you never get anything you want, do you?".

after one of marty's huffs about it i asked her why she took issue so. she explained that she didn't agree with this widespread notion and c...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. outmatched

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. flavored and scented

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.