before having children i was a master of avoiding sick people. back then you most often had to skirt those who felt their role to their company was so vital that they had to come into the office even if grotesquely ill. the result was always the same. the self-important person pushed their unimportant widgets around the corporate warehouse infecting four people through their efforts. it was against these folks that i was masterful in avoiding the funk. first off i was known for casting a super-awesome scowl at bloodshot-eyed, blotchy-skinned, red-nosed people as they stumbled into my world looking like they should be in a housecoat and slippers and confined to quarters. one sneeze in my space and i would announce the meeting/visit/cube-call over.

there was incentive. at this company, every six months you went without missing a day of work, you earned a free vacation day. on the good side, this kept people from erroneously burning through their sick days. on the bad side, it encouraged people to come in sick so they wouldn't lose their free day. my fix to this minor problem would have been posting someone at the door who doesn't let any sick-looking people in. if it were my company, i'd also turn away dour looking people. this is a healthy and happy place. if you aren't those, you aren't welcome.

all of this is to say that all of the tricks and ploys and defenses i learned against adults are entirely useless against children who live with you. here you may wake up with a three year old on your chest. they're smiling. the have gelatinous plug of mucus blocking their nose and are pushing a slime covered finger into your own nose wondering why it is so clean and dry and beautiful unlike their own. little do they know that now it will soon be like theirs and when it is their funk has passed and they just want to play and read and rough-house making the reversal of fortunes all the more unjust.

the loss of a child's first tooth is a remarkable and special milestone to be celebrated. each and every tooth after that first one is a medieval and grotesque affair. alex went to school two days ago without a loose tooth in his head. he came home with one rattling around a tiny plastic treasure chest the school nurse gives to kids for lost teeth.

long ago, many years before marty and i had kids, she and i hosted a sleepover for some nieces and nephews. one of the girls complained of a loose tooth at the dinner table. i looked at it and told her i thought it looked fine. she kept saying it was terribly loose. i went as far as pushing on it with my own pointer finger and reported that the tooth was fine, solid and healthy. before dinner was over the girl, with great effort and conviction, had extracted this targeted tooth. she bled out of her mouth for better than an hour and we just kept stuffing replacement paper towels in there after she'd spit a blood soaked one into the kitchen garbage can. i was starting to fear that the girl was going to bleed to death in the night and i told her if it didn't stop hemorrhaging before we went to bed, i was making her father come pick her up. the gaping hole, with no new tooth anywhere in sight, somehow stopped bleeding on its own. the next day, for all i know i was sending the child home with an adult tooth in the linty front pocket of her blue jeans.

again, it's a medieval matter.

alex had some friends over to the house and we were playing ogre and chase and rough-housing. at one point in the mayhem, one of alex's friends stopped his play, turned to the side protectively and said with a serious urgency to one of the other boys: that is probably the most accurate, heartfelt expression i've ever heard for a guy's junk, like, ever.

someone had asked me how the new feel-good approach was going with bella. now two weeks in and sticking firm to the teachings i gotta say the transformation has been remarkable. this isn't to say i haven't been pushed by bella in the last two weeks because i have and will continue to be. what has been different is i haven't bitten. instead i've backed off and gotten her to back off until emotions and tempers can cool down. then when everyone is in a reason-worthy state, we talk.

in example, last night bella and i were supposed to go look at bikes because she has outgrown hers. i came home early from work to do this. when i arrived she was already in a fitful state. i calmly let her do her thing. she appeared before me in a huff and said she was ready to go. i said great. she asked how we were getting there. i said we were walking. she groaned loudly and said she wouldn't walk and would only go if we drove. i explained that if that were the case we wouldn't be going. she escalated. calmly, i told her she needed to go to her room until she could re-join the family in a calm and respectful way. she boisterously made her way to her room.

marty and i made dinner and did homework with alex and played with anthony. when dinner was ready, about an hour later, we called bella down. she appeared in the kitchen as if nothing had happened just sixty minutes earlier. without prompting she presented herself to me and said she was sorry for yelling earlier but her class got in trouble at school and they had to run a bunch of laps in gym and then she walked home from school and she was tired and afraid that she couldn't also walk to the bike shop. when she was done, i took her cheeks in my hands and said, "bella, how you just expressed yourself was amazing and if you'd said that, like that, an hour ago you'd have a new bike here and ready to ride to school tomorrow. thanks." with that we hugged, said we'd try to go tomorrow and moved to the dinner table to eat.

so in answer to the question, how has my new approach been working with bella, i gotta say, i'm a full-on, card-carrying believer.

locks of love got a ponytail.

bella got a double-shot of attitude.

i'm pretty sure the locks of love people needed that ten inches of hair much more than bella needed any more swagger.

someone asked about the summer challenge mentioned in yesterday's post.

the summer challenge program was an idea i had as last year's school season wound down. my original thought was to offer bella and alex a series of possible skills they could try to learn. options would have included things like magic, walking a tightrope, piano, riding a unicycle, yo-yo tricks, playing a drum to list a few. at the beginning of the summer they would pick the skill they were most interested in and every day they spent at least fifteen minutes practicing their skill they could make a mark on a calendar. if they accrued enough marks over the summer they would get a super-cool toy they really wanted. i had put a lot of thought into this and was both excited and proud with the result.

when i presented it to marty, she was six kinds of against it. she didn't like the notion of them feeling pressured. she didn't like the notion of tracking it. she didn't like the notion of them getting paid to learn. we bandied these issues about in the kitchen one night after the kids had gone to bed. this was so not the response i expected from marty. i thought she'd be appreciative of this option for the long summer days. i thought she'd be impressed at the level of thought and interest i put into it. in the end she told me that it was unfair to project my childhood regrets that i didn't better use my free time while growing up onto my children. with this wild right hook that seemed to be brewing long before this evening came to life, i backed off the topic.

the next day at work i talked with a colleague about the surprising episode. she is someone with experience dealing with young children and to my shock, supported marty's concerns. but instead of scrapping the idea outright, she suggested modifying things a touch. she suggested that i should just introduce the different skills to the home and make them available to the kids. she said not to put any expectations on their usage or routine, and thus not have rewards for time or consistent practice. in short, she suggested i make the whole affair less official. i was dubious of this and still liked my method better but thought this may be the middle ground marty and i obviously needed. and to give credit, marty was edging towards these same notions but didn't have the time or energy to express them more clearly.
so that night i re-pitched to marty and got her buy-in. in this new format i had some changes to consider but they were small and easily done. what i came up with was this. starting on the first monday of summer, i quietly introduced the first skill that was to be part of the summer challenge. every two weeks thereafter a new object would appear. midway through the kids figured out what was going on and finding out what the next challenge was before it was unveiled became as much of a pastime as the challenges themselves. in the end, here's what shook out.

THE 2009 SUMMER CHALLENGES
june 15th - tightrope / slack-line
june 29th - magic rope tricks
july 13th - ripstick
july 27th - trick-grade yo-yos

it was curious to see how the kids responded to each. bella was definitely the person most into the slack-line. after a couple days she started wanting to charge neighbor kids for lessons. i told her she had to be able to balance on there for five seconds herself before she was allowed to charge anyone. both kids seemed to like the magic tricks about the same. bella is now a proficient ripstick-girl (her father ain't half-bad either). and those yo-yo's were spot-welded to alex for most of our summer vacation.

so that is what the summer challenge program was about. i guess it was a success in that it made the list of things bella plans to take with her into her parenthood. friday movie night stands as my other proud addition to the home that made the cut. as for everything else, i'm beginning to understand the joy of grandparents watching from the sidelines now that they are not the one that has to divine, explain, and enforce the myriad of rules of a family home.

RULES FOR KIDS FOR WHEN I GET OLDER AM A MOM

1. as much computer time as wanted but have to buy laptop and get great grades. 1 minus and my computer (is gone) for a week.
2. no spankins.
3. have as many pets as you want. you buy them and we have 2 family pets.
4. each child gets 2 rooms. one for your pets and one for yourself.
5. every week of the summer i get you a challenge but we stop when school starts.
6. every month we go to fro-yos and you can buy as much ice cream as you want as long as you pay for your own fro-yo.
7. each night friday we have a movie night.

if you think i'm snooping into my daughter's life, i think you don't know my daughter.

if you think this open journal was left so accidentally, i think, again, you don't know my daughter.

if you think i'm not bustin' this series of pictures out after bella has kids, i think you don't know me.

it seems the mourning period has passed and we have a replacement hermit crab.

the former crab's name was nate. there is a nate that lives five doors down the street. this crab's name is sebastian. we have one of those four houses away. it seems alex has a thing for naming his pets after kids who live in the neighborhood. while i could jibe his lack of creativity, i prefer it over bella's motif. her monikers tend to more resemble quintessential stripper names (like krystal or cinnamon or pepper). so as it turns out, i'm rabidly supportive of naming pets after kids who live on our street.

after getting sebastian home i thought we should clean the habitat before introducing him to the mix. first impressions and all. we use a large, glass aquarium i found next to a dumpster when the college students were moving out a few years back. looking useful and being close to home i grabbed it up and threw it on a shelf in the basement. one curious thing i've noticed since we started using the aquarium is on the bottom corner of one of the long, front-facing sides there's a retro, red label that reads PLEASE DON'T FEED THE ARTIFACT. when i place the tank in the kids room, i always turn it so the label is on the backside. alex saw it during this recent cleaning and asked what the raised, white letters said. i told him. he asked what that meant. i told him i didn't know and i was reasonably certain it was something we were better off not knowing. being my son, that proved good enough for him.

(for those wondering why i don't just peel the label off removing the need to think about or explain its relevance, it's because then it would have less of a story than it does now.)

click for larger version

bella and i have been struggling. i would say we have been for several weeks. it used to go in spurts with moments of good followed by moments of bad but since school began it's mostly been on the tense side. this picture shows us in happier times at the beginning of summer break.

things came to a head on sunday when she and i had a battle over her going to a neighborhood baby shower our family had been invited to. while walking to the shower, bella went into full shrill mode, and i, predictable as crappy service at borders books, bit. the hook didn't just pierce my lip. i swallowed it whole and only the longest pair of needle nosed pliers operated by someone skilled in removing hooks this buried could have saved the confrontation. it culminated with me marching bella home (prior to us reaching the shower) and sending her to her room for the remainder of the day. this was at noon.

that night when i went to exercise, my bike computer was missing from my desk. i asked bella if she knew where it was, she said she didn't. the next day, with marty's help, we learned that she did know because she had taken it from my desk and hidden it. with this multi-tiered offense, bella graduated to a new level of childhood crime.

i couldn't even begin to fathom the appropriate punishment. i told marty to be prepared for something extreme. two days later i was still thinking what it should be. while walking to work and playing the pending conversation in my head i imagined myself saying to bella that no one in my life, professionally or personally, treated me with as much disrespect as she showed me on sunday. before my brain had time to move to my next line, my head responded for bella telling me that the same was true for her, that i treated her with more disrespect than anyone else she dealt with from day to day. this froze my thought. after our fighting and boisterous stand-offs bella could say the same thing of me that i was thinking towards her. this realization made me sick to my stomach. this was not the father i wanted to be.

i pulled a book off my bookshelf. it was a parenting book i read a few years back called parenting from the heart. obviously i needed a refresher. i started reading its pages which still held my markings and notes from the first time i took it in. the basic gist of the book is this. children are born inherently guileless and happy. parents and society pour notions of insecurity and distrust into these innocent creatures, in time making them skittish and less certain. it was most likely done to us and unless we become aware of it, we will do it to our children. another way of thinking about it is that inside all of us is a happy and centered person, we just have a bunch of crap (work, fatigue, worry, doubt, debt, apathy) piled on top of it suppressing that original person from making more appearances. it's like the notion that everyone has a six-pack (you wouldn't be able to get out of a chair if you didn't) it's just no one can see it because there's three to nine inches of fat sitting on top of the well-formed and toned muscles.

i came home from work. marty was making dinner. i asked where bella was. she said she was next door. i told marty i'd take care of her punishment and that i'd had a change of heart. marty's head turned to me looking surprised. i told her the offense was made upon me and i felt that i had done things to warrant it and would like to handle bella's punishment my own way. with a touch of uncertainty marty relented the fight.

when bella came home i asked her to follow me onto the porch. she immediately started asking what and why. i marched ahead not acknowledging her inquiries. once on the porch i sat down and told her to come to me pointing at the spot directly at my feet. she did so apprehensively. she stood there looking pensive. i told her i needed her to give me a hug. she asked why. i told her it was because i needed one. hesitantly, she complied. it lacked heart, feeling. i told her it wasn't big enough. it wasn't good enough. she hugged me tighter. and then i hugged her. i hugged her BIG. and then we hugged each other. i looked at her and apologized for not being more supportive or understanding towards her as of late. she reciprocated. more hugs. this full exchange was less than three minutes long and by the end we were smiling and giggling and tickling. for the days and weeks prior to this we had predominately been nothing but scowls and scorn. for the first time in many weeks bella and i shared a completely tension-free evening full of respect and more importantly full of adoration.

i'm learning, more slowly than i should, there is no cruise control for parenting. you always have to keep your eye on the road and your foot on the gas. otherwise, you are destined for the ditch. or worse.

please know, this record is more for me than it is for you.

when in santa fe on our holiday we stayed with another family. they had four kids. all but one was older than our kids, their oldest months from driving. one day while we were lazing about i asked the kids if there was a rule in their house they didn't like. after about thirty seconds the fifteen year old boy excitedly answered, "yes, the like jar was pretty lame." his sister immediately seconded the thought. i asked what the like jar was and before my sentiment was even complete, their mother groaned and her head sagged and to avoid her children's editorial she confessed the following, "i just couldn't take it anymore. the word like. it was constant. each and every sentence out of anyones mouth was peppered with five or seven or more likes. it was maddening. so i made a rule that every time someone said the word like in conversation and not in meaning they had to pay the like jar." her son then brightly added, "but it happened so often that mom couldn't keep after us about it and it died after, like, a day or two." i smiled at his enthusiasm as well as his slipping a 'like' into his taunt.

i said to the mother she should have promised them each fifty dollars at the end of the month but each time they said like, the month-end booty dropped a buck. with this she eyed the kids and with that they stopped smiling. or stopped smiling so obviously at least.

marty found a state park which had old cave dwellings which you could walk through. the experience began with a short walk through a forest and field to the main cave system. a few of the rooms were accessible via home-spun ladders. while the spaces looked spacious for a hole in the side of a cliff, they felt less cavernous once you crammed five people into them. and we didn't even have any of our stuff. like, where would i put my chinese teapot collection?



after working your way through the initial set of caves you hit a fork in the trail. one arrow points you back in the direction of the visitor center and the other sends you on an additional 1.5 mile hike through more woods to the community's defensive lodging. still feeling good, we opted for the extra leg.



when we arrived at the base of the defensive stronghold, you couldn't really see where it was situated in the cliff. but by the placement of the first ladder you got the sense that it was 'up thataway'. we ascended this first ladder and then wended our way through some tight walkways carved out in the stone. we hit the second wood and rope ladder. this one was twice the height of the first one and was bolted to a stone face that was more sheer and ominous than the first. in the below picture, it was about were that man was standing, facing out, with his arms in the air that i lost it. i blame him.



bella went first. then alex. then marty. then anthony. then me. on that ascent at about the point where the man was waving his arms the first wave of nausea hit me, then sweat. i was close in on anthony essentially looking at his butt. when the dizziness hit me i called up to marty saying i wasn't feeling right. marty is well aware of my issues with heights and immediately started talking to me, "ok troy. it's ok. you're almost here. just a few more. just keep looking straight." as soon as my body took in her words of encouragement. anthony let go of the ladder with his left hand swung out so he could turn and look down at me and said

ANTHONY
go pee daddy

TROY
no pee anthony. not now anthony. turn around anthony.

MARTY
anthony. not now keep climbing buddy.

TROY
go anthony! go now!

as of late anthony is playing this game where he likes to announce when he's going to go pee. when you ask him if he wants to go in the toilet he says no. i think he's just rubbing our nose in the fact that we're about to have some work to do. at seeing anthony hanging precariously off the ladder, holding on with just one hand, i was done and officially worthless. my sweaty hands tightened their grip on the uneven rungs and i pulled myself in closer to the ladder. marty coaxed anthony up the next few rungs and pulled him off the ladder and then talked me up the last few rungs. at this landing was another equally tall and sheer ladder. i looked at it then at marty. she put a hand on the my shoulder and said it was ok and she could handle the kids. which was good because while she was dealing with me, bella and alex already jetted up that ladder and were waiting to climb the next. marty followed anthony up and they continued onto the large cutout above while i sat on the ledge staring at the cliff wall.



marty and the kids returned after about twenty minutes. marty asked how i was doing. i said ok. i had been steeling myself for this moment and was prepared to get back down the evil ladder without issue. this time, alex went first, then marty, then anthony, then me, and then bella. marty was making sure anthony got down ok and was again talking to me. seeing what marty was doing once i was on the ladder, bella jumped in, as is her way.

BELLA
ok dad. it's ok. imagine that you're climbing on a ladder and that ladder is flying through the air.

TROY
oh jesus bella!

MARTY (in a hurried tone)
bella! you need to tell him things that make him feel strong. confident.

BELLA
ok. ok dad. dad. you're strong. very strong. you're as strong as a dinosaur.

amazingly, i got off that cliff without the aid of a helicopter.



in these woods that led to, and more importantly away from, the hell-cave we found that the trees smelled of cinnamon which for our family made them smell like french toast. bella sniffed the tree. bella hugged the tree. bella said the tree smelled so good she could marry the tree. and she doesn't even like cinnamon. that's my girl, amazingly unpredictable to the end.

the dearmitt clan on television
OR
why we don't own a television

one of the boys we're staying with is on his high school's swim team. i told him that i was trying to learn how to do flip turns. he eagerly launched into a tutorial starting by asking if i could do a flip. i said yes. he said show me. i did. he then went through the mechanics of the approach, the flip and the subsequent push off the wall. i took my place a few paces from the wall, launched into my stroke and took my first crack at the maneuver. after having actually achieved the approach, the flip and a partial push off the wall i rose out of the water knowing it could be better but amazed it at all resembled what i was after. he was standing ready to deliver his critique, "that ... was ... really ... terrible. i mean it was a complete failure."






speak with your heart and not your mouth and you will be loved.

on our second day on the road we gave nicknames to the children. they fell out as follows.

• bella 'really' walter dearmitt because of how she always says "really" after people say things to her she doesn't like or believe.
  
• alex 'no funniness' walter dearmitt because of how he always screams I WANT NO FUNNINESS when you try to play/mess with him when he's not in the mood for it.
  
• anthony 'showpop' walter dearmitt because of how he walks around the house all morning, day and night saying "showpop now. i want showpop now" which is what he calls my stovetop popcorn.
  

our first destination had a house-load of kids before we even arrived. most were teenagers and i learned the tenet of teenagers not finding younger kids cute was still alive and well with this current generation as could be confirmed by a conversation overheard by marty between two of them.

BOY 1
man those kids are loud.

BOY 2
yeah, and what's up with them. one is, like, american and the other one is, like, arabian or something.

poor aleo. and kids who have dogs look quite oddly upon kids who don't have dogs and like playing in the dog crates.



and we also got a taste of our future by watching a fifteen year old girl in summer mode, listlessly move about the house. one morning, or early afternoon, i overheard the following after the girl stumbled downstairs after waking up:

FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL
i feel like it's incredibly early

FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL'S BROTHER
it's 11:30

marty commented on the grace with which the parents shoulder the teenage daughters angst, which is another way of saying it was impressive that they didn't jump all over her when she said things like the above. the dad said that there were a few hard years, especially for the mother and the daughter. one day after observing a battle between the two the dad said to the wife, "you're working too hard. your job is not to run their life, it is to guide them and point them to opportunities." this notion went on to make a large difference and is probably something most parents could be reminded of time and again.

we're holidaying. it looked like we were going to skip this year and then a few things came up and now we're not. so as i'm able, i'm going to give you glimpses into our days as they happen so in case you are skipping this year's vacation like we planned to, you can live a bit through us.



a vacation ritual of marty's is to get a couple entertainment magazines, like Us, People, or Entertainment Weekly. then during a week of vacation, she'll methodically pour over them until they're entirely tattered and torn. you'd be surprised how comical it is to watch someone attempt to stay abreast of such free-flowing information only once every 12-14 months. for instance, such a discontinuous regiment fosters comments like from her:

i thought she just left him but here it says she's been artificially inseminated. but it doesn't say by who.

man look at this guy. he used to be pudgy. he looks pretty good now. but jeez, i think my treasure trail is more prominent than his.

we checked into the hotel at about 1am and immediately went to sleep. in the morning, we rose and packed getting ready to leave. as soon as the kids realized we were preparing to get back in the car, they freaked out thinking we were leaving without letting them watch any television. marty, reactionist extraordinaire, took the kids out to the lobby, got each of them a travel cereal boxes and marched them back to the room, each of them balancing their milk laden bowls. she then pulled a table to the end of the bed directly in front of the television, lined them up sitting on the foot of the bed, cereals in front of each and grabbed the remote. when she turned the television on, there was an image of an untanned meat-back flexing his oiled muscles in front of the camera sans shirt. that was all that was happening. nothing in the background, no sound, no voice-over, no nothing. just this smirking guy from the waist up. all five of us just sat mesmerized by this image that invaded our room for about ten seconds. then the inanity of the moment hit me and i started belly laughing. what struck me as so funny was not that this was on television (nothing will surprise me there) but that this is the the first glimpse of television my family got dealt on this vacation. after i started laughing, marty depressed the channel button. the next channel had just started credits for some animated dog show. alex immediately said, "oh i love this show" even though i'm quite certain he's never seen it before. so marty set the remote down, got her people magazine out and i opened my laptop and started typing this note. after about ten minutes we looked up to find all three children completely transfixed. bella's cereal was gone. the boys' was untouched. it looked like a scene out of one flew over the cookoo's nest. it took three calls of alex's name for him to even acknowledge anyone else was in the room. there's little doubt that marty and i could have been half way across the state before any of children even noticed or cared they'd been left behind.




and, in case it wasn't apparent enough in the pictures above, alex is wearing a tie. a tie he chose and tied himself.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. daredevil's club

below is bella's journal entry regarding nate's demise.

it is important to note that this is not bella's journal entry in her own journal, but this is bella's journal entry in alexander's journal. it seems she has taken up journaling about moments of import in alex's life in alex's journal i guess until he is able to do so himself. a bit more time and she very well may take over publishing content to this site as well. which would make sense enough given forty percent of the content is about her anyway.

click to enlarge


transcript:
THE DAY NATE DIED
nate died may 26, 2009. it was a very weary day. the day nate died he would never move again except in heaven.

everyone came and said their goodbyes. ellie, big ben, molly, me, my dad, cate, and of course the owner of the wonderful pet, my brother alex. we buried him under our favorite place to be, the swing that we all love to swing on. it was a sad, sad day. we all loved nate but we knew that he would die and the very next day he did. that is today.

i was in my office. it was late afternoon. i was talking with my boss on the phone. my cell phone rang. it was a call from home. my cell phone ringing was rare. and a mid-day call from marty even rarer. i said as much to my boss and asked him to hold on.

TROY
hello. marty? is everything ok?

BELLA
this isn't marty. it's bella.

TROY
oh hey bella. can i call you back in a minute?

BELLA
why?

TROY (pause and smirk at the very fair question)
never mind bell. what is it?

BELLA
it's nate. he's dying. he's mostly out of his shell.

TROY
oh. i'm sorry.

BELLA
we don't think he has much time left. you should come home as soon as you can. alex is quite upset.

TROY
ok. i will. thanks bella. sorry.

nate is alex's hermit crab and our family's first (and test) pet. nate was a real character until about a week ago when something happened and he became much less of a character. no one knows, or is fessing to at least, what happened. in addition to the sadness that comes from losing a pet, the kids are concerned on what this implies towards future pets. i told them we wouldn't be discussing such matters before nate was even in the ground.

as for nate's time with us, he led an attention-heavy life here in our home. one day while reading on the porch i saw alex throwing what i thought was a ball in the front yard. after a moment though i realized i couldn't see a ball and asked alex what he was throwing. he said he was throwing nate. i scolded this choice to which alex immediately replied that he was only doing it because nate liked it and he was throwing him in the grass and not on the sidewalk like anthony did. at this last bit of news my head sagged and all argumentativeness left me. another time nate went missing. when marty and i worked with the kids (with great effort) to reconstruct nate's last whereabouts, his morning journey seemed daunting between rides in a toy car and trips down the slide. the last recollection was he had been given to anthony who threw him on the couch and no one bothered to retrieve him. nate was then found picking his way through some knitted afghan. fact is, every time i'd see nate pop out of his shell and start crawling up my arm or shirt, i was mildly amazed at the spunky crustaceans grit.

when i sank the shovel into the dirt, the boy from down the way started humming what sounded like the ceremonial music playing at the end of the the original star wars movie. i glanced at him to find him standing with his humming head bowed reverently. there was a small and motley group of neighbor kids standing around for our family's first pet burial. alex was holding the plastic container that previously contained the creamy white icing you put on top of freshly cooked cinnamon rolls that come in the cardboard tube. a neighbor girl had lined the bottom with blades of grass and after setting nate and his painted shell onto the grass we covered him with more grass. alex now held this makeshift coffin in his hands and was quietly standing next to the hole i was digging.

when the hole was ready i asked alex to set nate in there. he didn't want to so i took the round container from his tentative hand and balanced it in the dirt hole. i picked up the shovel to cover the hole when another neighbor girl stopped me and said we should say some words first. i set the shovel to the side. i asked alex if he wanted to say anything. he did not. the girl who suggested a prayer then offered several kind sentiments about nate and how lively he always was. the boy humming the star wars music then began,

STAR WARS HUMMER
i knew alex's hermit crab a very long time and thought ... what was his name ?

TROY
nate

STAR WARS HUMMER
and thought nate was a fine hermit crab and good pet.

i then said our family would miss nate and was sorry he couldn't have been with us longer. bella interrupted me accusing anthony of being the reason nate died. alex then said it was my fault because i gave nate a vacation food pellet when we went camping and he didn't like it and starved to death. then the small band of neighbor kids began chiming in with their observations and memories of nate happenings. if there were a full-sized coffin involved i'm pretty sure someone would have thrown their body over it. i sternly quieted the crowd telling them that this was not the place to talk about what happened and that we were here to say our goodbyes to our friend. i then grabbed the shovel and filled the hole with dirt. alex put his face into my side. seeing this the others turned and respectfully walked away. when they were gone alex asked if we could take nate out now to say prayers to him. i explained that we wouldn't be taking nate out again now that he was buried. with this alex began to cry. he said we got to keep seeing grandpa when he died. i guessed that he was talking about the viewing and the wake and i explained that after the burial this did not happen anymore. i then carried alex to the front porch and held him in my lap while he cried, his face buried in my chest.

about ten minutes later the kids who attended the funeral came out the front door and started walking home. one of the girls a few houses away crouched down on the sidewalk and stood up with something cupped in her hand. she turned and ran back to our house calling out that she found a lightning bug, the first one of the season. hearing this alex sat up, slid off my lap and said, "i'll get the bug box." and that easily life moved forward.

part 2

it's sunday morning. i just had a great night's sleep. marty and i were lazing in bed chatting when the first villager crested the hill. it was alex. he came and threw himself onto the bed in an exasperated way. i asked him what was wrong. he said what was wrong was that i kept telling him i'd fix his remote control car but keep not fixing it. i explained the reason i haven't fixed his car is beca...

saturday anthony, alex, a neighbor boy and i biked up to a local park for some ogre play. when we returned to the house i was approached by bella and a mess of neighborhood girls asking if i would like a spa treatment. slightly startled at the option i asked what the spa treatment entailed. i was told it entailed all sorts of things. things like back rubs, head scratches, uninterrupted reading time (that was a marty suggestion), cuddle time with stuffies (stuffed animals), pet sitting (which i think meant you got to have our hermit crabs sit on you). i asked how much all this cost. bella said six dollars for your pick of one. she then eyed me a little more closely and said it was nine dollars if the person was sweaty.

the spa's front entry


the spa's front entry detail.
the main sing reads, "SPA-GET-AWAY they are awesome because people come often / $3 child / $9 adult / activities: recreation space, stuffies, uninterrupted reading time / come right now (kids will love it!)". the handwritten supplement sign reads, "its free today because its mothers day, so you don't have to pay, so why don't you stay".


this is the first sign/arrow leading upstairs


second directional pointer


the front counter


the register/till


and last but not least, the spa. scary but not in the usual $9 spa kinda scary.

not too long ago while chatting with bella before dinner, out of nowhere she says, "you're just crazy about me dad!"

laughing, i agree, to which she adds, "that means you really like me."

"yes i do bell. i like you quite a bit."

the smile this innocent observation and exchange sparked in me makes me think the world would be a happier place were there more positive moments of candor bouncing around our society and world. to do my part, i'm going to employ bella's antic at work, reminding my colleagues that they too are just crazy about me. i'm sure it will go over just as swimmingly as it did for my precious isabella. how could it not?

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.

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.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. found