marty learned something new about anthony last week. before falling asleep at night, anthony had a habit of reaching up and under marty's shirt. when this happened she would push him away telling him he already nummed (e.g. nursed) and they were done for the night. he would grunt and continue with his wandering hand and the grudge match persisted until he would finally fall asleep. what she has just recently discovered, somehow, is he wasn't looking to nurse, he just wanted to fall asleep while holding her nipple in his fingers.

marty told me the story while making breakfast the morning after she figured this all out. she concluded her revelation by muttering a sarcastic "freak" at the end. after a pregnant pause, i said. "yeah freakshow. how weird" to which marty quickly replied, "nice try. don't think i don't know where he gets this little proclivity from."

hey, at least he got to experience the tap directly. i was bottle-fed.

a memorable moment from each of the kids over the last few weeks.

everytime we drove by a nativity scene, anthony would call out, "hey! baby genius! baby genius!"

and during our christmas meal thank-yous at my parents house alex led off with "i'm thankful we have food to eat and that none of us died before this christmas day."

and while driving home from visiting friends bella enlightened the family with the following bit of wisdom:

BELLA
don't ever say 'sitting' while holding your tongue.

TROY (after thinking it through)
where'd you learn that?

BELLA
school.

TROY
from who?

BELLA
i don't remember. but they taught a bunch of people by telling them to all say "i was sitting on the toilet the other day" while holding their tongues.

i hope your break was equally irreverent, insightful, and educational.

tactic #32 from the moms and kitchens section

STEP 1 unravel a complete ball of twine.

STEP 2 pour full glass of milk on unraveled twine.

STEP 3 walk away.

STEP 4 wait.

it may or may not surprise you to learn that the most zealous and enthusiastic participant of bella's girl scout troop is our very own alexander.

with anthony coming in a very close second.

aleo and i moments before walking up to his first day of school

anfer getting some individual attention while his siblings are at school (and he isn't)

today i have one boy turning three (anfer) and another starting kindergarten (aleo).

anfer (aka anthony) has been best described as, "just like bella, but male" which if you know bella at all you know just what a terrifying sentiment this is. a three-year old anfer is one year smarter, stronger and more bull-headed than the two-year old variety. wish marty and i strength and patience. and wish anfer continued cuteness for when marty and i run out of strength and patience.

and last night i watched alex fall asleep. while his body relented to the day and his fingers and arms began twitching in surrender, i studied his peaceful countenance and thought how the next day would mark the beginning of a new and long chapter of his life. i fear aleo will dislike many parts of this leg of youth (education) but i'm confident that through the journey he will discover what part of our world speaks to him. at least, i desperately hope he does because should he not find that facet of this universe which interests him more than all others, he may spend more time wandering dimly lit hallways than enjoying what he is meant to do in this world. godspeed my aleo.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. daredevil's club

when marty first saw it, she said she felt she knew what people with difficult pets, like marley, must feel like.

moments later she added if anthony were a dog she'd get rid of him.

i asked how she'd do that. via a dog pound or a country road.

she said a pound.

as she started getting into the real messy parts of it, i said i didn't believe her and thought she'd go the country road route.

she didn't respond.

at a recent family gathering, anthony walked by his fifteen year old cousin, emma. she was wearing a skin-tight, vintage-looking rolling stones t-shirt with the gaping mouth on the front. as he jetted by, she snatched him up and placed him onto her knee. she greeted him brightly. he looked at her face, then he looked at the large graphic on her shirt. he then raised his hand placed it under her right breast and gave it a few light lifts as if appraising its heft. after just a second of awkward looking at one another, emma lifted anthony off of her knee set him back on the ground and he resumed his journey as if nothing had ever happened.

it appears anthony is a believer in the "it doesn't hurt to ask" philosophy. i'm of the same ilk and have historically had about the same level of luck.

it's easter sunday. the whole lot of us are lazing on a fully-reclined, double-futon watching flipper, the original, on a 17 inch computer screen that's sitting across the room. we are laying on pillows and each other and under covers and watching with varying levels of attention and interest when anthony broke our collective stupor by calling out something that he calls out every time we watch a ...

1:30 i stood up from my desk to go to bed. marty was sleeping diagonally on the ping pong room futon. anthony was sleeping diagonally in my bed. i chose my bed. anthony is easier to push around than marty.

2:22 i woke up to anthony lifting my head with great effort and saying, "no you! ma-ma. no you! ma-ma." squinting my eyes, i lifted my head and had the following conversation with my blonde-headed 2 year old.

anthony, what are you doing?

no you. mama.

no me? no you. i'm sleeping here. mom is in the ping-pong room. if you want to sleep with her, go there. (with this i laid my head back down)

(anthony starts wailing and continues trying to push my head out of the bed) no! mama. mama! MaMa! MAMA!

i get up, carry him like a sack of potatoes under my arm to his crib and leave there wailing. i return to my bed, collapse in and am back asleep within 20 seconds.

2:50 alex whispers in my ear. he says he scared in his bed. wordlessly i lift the covers inviting him into my bed. he crawls in and snuggles into me.

3:43 alex wakes me again and says he really wants to sleep in his bed. i tell him to go sleep in his bed then.

3:47 alex wakes me again and says he still really wants to sleep in his bed but he's scared to alone and wants me to sleep in his bed with him. i tell him i can't because i'm already sleeping in this bed.

3:53 i'm climbing a bunkbed ladder with a sheet and comforter draped over my back like a deranged batman.

7:40 i stir to the sound of bella asking why she doesn't have any shorts in her drawer. as i open my eyes i realize i'm not lieing flat on my back. alex's head is under my right shoulder blade causing a large void beneath me and leaving me propped at an angle and pinned to the side safety railing of the bunk bed.

7:47 i gingerly rise to a sitting position and feel bones i never knew i had in my back rub together abrasively. a new day is underway.

when showering with another person there is an imminent battle for position. your success in this battle is key to how much you will enjoy your shower. lose the battle for position and instead of basking beneath sixty, hot, riveting jets you'll find yourself shivering in the back of the tub settling for a paltry mist ricocheting off the other person's heated frame. what sucks in my case is i'm getting bested in this battle by a two year old who doesn't even reach my waist.

the first few times anthony appeared outside the shower, pulled the curtain aside, and excitedly pointed in saying DA! DA! i was stoked that the little man wanted to hang out with his papa. i'd lean out of the tub and ask him if he wanted to get in. this was met with an exuberant yes. i'd unsnap and pull off whatever clothes he was wearing. then he'd bow his legs a bit and i'd rip the velcro tabs of his diaper causing it to drop heavily to the ground. as soon as it hit the floor he'd throw his very chubby, very white leg up on the side and pull the rest of his also chubby and also white body over the edge. as soon as he had boots on porcelain he'd confidently march forward, directly to the pole position to stand beneath the shower's jets. the cat-bird's seat. then he'd just stand there, head bowed reverently (which was pretty much what i was doing before he arrived). if you lean in above him to, say, wash soap or shampoo from out of your eyes and in doing so interrupt his water empire he will, without lifting his head, grunt and groan and push on your thigh relegating you to the back of the tub and out of his space.

this experience has led me to believe a house cannot support two shower fetishist who both want to just stand under a stream of piping hot water for twenty minute stretches, twice a day. one chilly winter morning, i recall standing above anthony, looking down on his thin, blonde crown of hair. i stuck my tongue out at him, but did so only momentarily and not because i was afraid he'd see me but because i found when i did that my tongue, like the rest of my body, got cold and shivery there in the back of the tub.

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.

anthony has transformed from a stout toddler to a crotchety geriatric in just weeks. the way he swaggers about the house, the way he pushes away things he dislikes, the way he scoffs at certain foods, the way he furrows his brow if you misinterpret his grunts and growls, you'd swear this guy is going on 80 instead of six months from three.

the other night a sound stirred from sleep, i lifted myself onto an elbow to look into the hall for the disturbance. as i squinted at the poorly lit corridor anthony came strolling by eating a banana like he was walking through the park on a midday lunch break. i looked at the clock. it was 3:27am.

for a bit his nocturnal movements perplexed me. i knew he could get out of his crib but i did not understand how he was getting back in. to clarify, anthony sleeps in a pack and play. for those that know what one is, it may seem like a cruel accommodation, but please remember that he started out on top of a ping pong table. for those not familiar with what a pack and play is, it is a portable playpen and nothing more than a mesh-walled box with a thin plywood base covered with a padded mattress. since the playpen is slightly elevated anthony can easily get out by swinging a leg up on the side and rolling over the top bar. but this same elevation makes getting back in much trickier because the bar is too high for him to pull his body up and over when standing on the outside. one night seeing him head that way, i got out of bed and quietly followed him back to his room. from a distance i watched him. with great confidence and routine he climbed onto a wooden chest which sits a few feet from his crib. once on the top he stood fully upright and after just a flutter of hesitation jumped towards the edge of the crib. his initial grasp was uncertain but he fought his way up and over dropping to the inside and then dropping flat similar to how you or i might fall into bed.

i recently described anthony to someone as being very much like bella but a male version of our determined girl. they put a hand on my shoulder and said, "sorry dude." a more serious and heartfelt condolence could not have been given by this particular person. and i accepted it with an equally serious and wordless grace.

my favorite family-mannerisms at the minute:

anthony
when anthony gets mad he flexes his entire body. he makes it so taught it arches in the middle as if her were a bow and the string was tied to his heels and the top of his head. his hands travel up his jutting stomach and search the clothing on his chest. he's looking for snaps or a zipper or buttons. if he finds th...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. stand-off

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.

when i put anthony to bed it is obviously without the numma-numma's he gets from his mother. i understand his thirst because i share his adoration of numma-numma time with his mother. but sporting a lactation-free body, putting anthony down requires me to get creative, because as soon as anthony realizes i'm there to end his day, he balks. in protest he wriggles, contorts and folds awkwardly in my arms. if i try to put him down before he's ready, his body acts like an opposing magnet to the crib.

one night, testing reason, i pulled the shade of his window back. i pointed to the darkness outside and said the sun had gone to bed and so must he. he looked out the window, blinked a few times and uttered a soft and convinced 'oh'. seconds later, he voluntarily leaned towards his crib. i lowered him in positioning his body in the only corner of the crib he's ever slept in. he slid one of his legs under the mattress sheet (one of his nightly rituals), and pulled his blankets into his chest like they were a teddy bear or future spouse. the battle was done and won.

little humans are odd folk. what makes them odd is they have no powers of logic. logic is what separates little humans from full grown ones. and how much logic they are able to acquire in youth separates the odd grown ones from the not so odd grown ones. so work hard early. it's a temporary gig and pays the best dividends you'll ever see.

anthony's latest and greatest physical quirk (someone recently reminded me of his earlier ways) deals with how he gets down off things. unless he is really high up in the air, like say on the top bunk of a bunkbed or sitting on a radiator, anthony doesn't jump off things, instead he just walks off the edge. the greatest example of this is if he's standing on the couch or a coffee table and wants to get down, he doesn't move to the edge and jump to the floor like most normal two year olds, he just starts walking to the edge and doesn't stop. once he hits the air he just kind of walks through space. when he hits the floor there is a little wobble but he mostly doesn't fall down. he just gets his balance back and keeps on heading where he's heading. it's very much like those old mister magoo comics where magoo walks through dangerous cities and construction sites and his path is always preserved by coincidental and happenstance events around him.

the best though is certainly when mothers not used to anthony's ways are over and see him about to walk off of something. upon witnessing the pending event their eyes grow big and they shriek and rush towards him to save the fragile innocent. by the time they get close he's already got boots on the ground and steadying himself as he jets past them as if nothing peculiar just occurred.

it begins with a full-frontal flash of any college co-ed's walking by our house.


then, the freefall.


nothin' but air baby.


the revelry


the recovery


verify audience acknowledgement


the return


wave to the fans


invite your father to disrobe and join you


flex for the cameras


resume


repeat

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.

last weekend i spent some time with bookpimp's son peter who turned two on sunday. peter and anthony are just a week apart so it's interesting to see another child so close in age. people say children develop either cerebrally or physically first, but not, or rarely, both. peter is a mental kid and anthony, well anthony likes to do swan dives off bunkbeds.

my favorite peter-mannerism happened when i first met him saturday morning (he was asleep when i arrived the night before). when i finally woke and came down the stairs, peter's mom announced me by asking him who was here. peter immediately scurried to hide behind his father's leg, eyeing me suspiciously. when i said hello he raised one hand cupping it over one eye, kind of a half-peekabo move. he watched me with his free eye for a few moments before the toy he was playing with re-attracted him. i seemed to be considered ok enough from then on.

peter's favorite word is yes which he answers to just about any question posed to him. knowing this proclivity bookpimp likes to ask him things like (in a deep, ominous, churchy voice) 'peter. do you renounce satan, his works, and all of his evil deeds?' to which peter will say 'Yes!' as brightly as if he were just asked if he wanted another piece of candy.

conversely anthony says no to just about any question asked of him. knowing this proclivity i like to take him on conversational passages like 'anthony, is there a better father in the world than yours?' to this anthony gives an adamant No! i will follow by asking him if he thinks his mother is doing a good job making lunch. this earns an equally convincing No! as well as an ever-ready eye roll from marty.

anthony's third favorite word, behind no and mama is 'poopf'. poopf used to solely refer to his bowel movements but somewhere along the way has come to also refer to books. the only way to tell which he means at any given moment is wether he is pointing at his bottom or at a bookshelf. although he sometimes points at me when saying it and i hope there is a third, as-of-yet undiscovered meaning because i don't look or smell much like a oversized dr suess book.