"i had to ride my bike home with a stapler in my underwear."

marty's response to the question of how her day went.

there's a saying that kids say the funniest/darnedest things. there should be another saying that says kids make parents say the funniest/darnedest things.

what strikes me about the kids' gifts to marty this year is that they came without any sort of prompting. i never said "remember to do something for your mother" or "remember tomorrow is mother's day". this was all done on their own accord. fact is, i didn't even know they had done anything until i saw it unfold as marty did. and even with anthony i knew he had done something but he kept it secret until the gave it to her in bed that morning. most cool.

birthday parties at our house have a ritual called the birthday spoiler. when kids aren't looking the birthday spoiler takes and hides their party gear (pinata, games, cake) but leaves clues as to where the items got to. the kids have to solve the clues to find their stuff for the party to continue. this year alex used this tactic on marty.


TRANSCRIBED:
dear marty,
hi. i know you haven't heard of me. i am the mother's day stealer. i hid alex's mother's day gifts. you might find alex's mother's day gifts. but since i am nice, i will give you a clue. it is in a room where you go poop.


TRANSCRIBED:
marty,
i tricked you. but i will make sure you don't find it. here is another clue. it is somewhere where you send email.


TRANSCRIBED:
marty,
you found it. next year i will hide it even harder.

the teachers at anthony's pre-school had the kids make these books. they also had them make (not pictured) a small fabric pillow to be hung on a door knob that reads "do not disturb". while cute, i fear the frilly token may not be honored as one might hope.

this was back when marty only had one mother's day, as a mother, under her belt. it also marks a time when her fancy chair and half only had one, maybe two, scuffs on it. since then both marty and that chair have shouldered a good number of mars and nicks showing the love they have given to a house full of needy and sometimes inconsiderate humans. both are still standing strong and both are more c ...

it began with a jokey comment made by a five-year old anthony to marty in front of me. he leaned in on her and intentionally said loud enough for me to hear ...

ANTHONY
i love you more than i love daddy.

MARTY
well yes, that is true right now but it will change soon enough.

ANTHONY (perplexed anthony raised up)
what?

MARTY (without looking away from her paper)
there will come a time when you will look to dad to teach you how to be a man and when that happens, he will become more important in your life.

ANTHONY
and you can't tell me how to be a man?

MARTY
well no, i can't because i'm not a man. i'm a woman. it's my job to teach bella how to be a woman. what i can teach you is how to be a man that women would want to be with. but it's your dad's job to teach you how to be a man.

without even throwing a brotherly or conspiratorial nod my way given this newfound bond between us, anthony turned and walked off calling for his ten year old sister.

ANTHONY
bella? bella? where are you bella?

BELLA (calling back)
i'm in the kitchen anthony. what do you want?

ANTHONY (yelling out as he walks towards the kitchen)
bella, did you know mom is going to teach you how to be a woman ... and dad is going to teach me how to be a man?

MARTY (to me)
that sounded a lot more innocent when it came out of my mouth.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. the c-word

when a woman judgmentally asked what marty was growing in her under-developed garden, marty replied, "children".

MARTY
"anthony, we don't close our penises inside library books."

the most interesting part of the story is not that marty had to tell our four year old to stop closing his penis inside a library book but that she had to go on to explain why.

for marty's 40th birthday, the kids and i gave her a framed picture collage titled 40 things we love about you. in a couple of the panes we put lists citing ten things each of us appreciated about marty. the left-over panes were peppered with pictures of the kids and i.

the lists were crafted during my wednesday lunches with the kids (i eat lunch with one of my kids each wednesday in a rotating fashion). for these lunches i pick them up from school and we walk to a nearby restaurant of their choosing. it was during these lunches that i coaxed and cajoled these points from their minds onto a napkin. it is possible the process of collecting the points from them could be as curious as the results themselves.

a key that may help you. nummies are nursing breast and biscuits are butts.

1. nummies!
2. when you give me shoulder rides.
3. you smell good when you put that stuff in your armpits.
4. when you comb my hair.
5. when you give me backscratches!
6. you eatin' with me.
7. going to playgrounds with you.
8. asking you if i can jump on beds.
9. helping you make food.
10. you playing checker games with me.

1. you cuddle us.
2. you give us computer time.
3. you bring us to places to eat.
4. you make us dinner.
5. you read to us.
6. you make me lunch everyday.
7. you take us camping.
8. you go hiking with us.
9. you wipe our biscuits.
10. you help make science experiments.

1. you are patient.
2. you help me get my schoolwork done.
3. you take care of our family.
4. you are always honest.
5. you can pretty much read minds.
6. you always try your best.
7. you cuddle and talk with me every night at bedtime.
8. you always pay attention to our opinions.
9. you try to make our dreams come true.
10. you are my one and only mom.

1. that you said yes.
2. the curl of your upper lip.
3. your natural charisma.
4. that you do not shy away from any challenge or trial.
5. that your are the most conscientious mother humanly possible.
6. that you could take me in a fight.
7. your laugh.
8. that you are still as naturally beautiful as the moment i fell in love with you.
9. that you routinely pause the whirl of your life to tell me you love and appreciate me.
10. that i am the one that gets to plan another forty years with you.

oh, and just so she didn't feel totally ripped off, she also got a pink tech 3 pen, my all-time favorite pen thus far, as every person over forty should own a proper writing instrument. here's where you can get one for yourself. and here's one of the more curious pen reviews you'll possibly ever read.

after my mom died, i found the below card among her things. i don't remember how old i was when i wrote it. more truthfully, i don't even remember writing it. that said, i can tell you that seeing i wrote it, and that she kept it, has spared me untold agonies. i would suggest, if you have things to say you haven't said to people you deem dear, get them said. and after you do that, keep doing it. because even though i felt infinite relief at this discovery, i still carry the regret that i needed it to remind me i said it in the first place.


click to enlarge

TRANSCRIBED BELOW

yesterday i talked about the what i found most surprising about my trip, today i wanted to share what i found most enlightening. the moment came in the last hour of the 208 hour vacation experience. we were almost home. the kids were playing in the back as they had the whole way there and the whole way back. marty, in the seat to me, had her head back on the seat rest, her eyes closed, feet on the dashboard and a pillow wrapped up in her arms as if it were a stack of books and she were walking to class. after glancing at her for a moment i broke the silence by saying that when i was younger i was always hyper excited for vacations and uber depressed to return from them. but now, while i still love and anticipate vacations, i no longer experience the extreme elation and even more extreme letdown i used to. i view this in a very positive way as a mark of my daily life and routines and i'm immensely appreciative to have reached a place as satisfying as this.

without opening her eyes, marty responded that the thing she disliked most about returning from vacation these days was the solitude of her life. confused, i commented that it seemed she got out a lot, through arranged, weekly events with other stay at home moms and friends and such. she elaborated saying she didn't mean solitude as in simply being alone but rather solitude as in not getting enough adult interaction and that spending the lion-share of your time with someone whose conversational repertoire predominately consists of the question 'why?' takes a dramatic toll on an educated and previously mentally challenged individual. she went on to say how she totally understood how not all moms (or dads) could manage staying at home with kids because the reality and rigors of just you and a child or two at home are serious. the occasional bouts of disbelief at the state of your life, rational or not, could be defeating. i thought of a new neighbor, fresh from philadelphia and at home all day with a thirteen month old while her husband is at work and her with no local network yet. then i thought of our friend e-love who teaches school full-time and then changes gears, dramatically, to care for their children full-time in the summer months. even though e-love has the advantage of nine months of diversity, i imagine his scenario has to be an even harder lifestyle than a straight full-time parent who has at least the consistency-crutch to lean upon. after marty expressed her sentiment she slid into her quiet reverie again. i let her be and drove on wordlessly.

for some time now, i've been doing an exercise on monday mornings. it is from the happier book i read last year. in the exercise you are to imagine you are at the end of your life and mere moments from death. you have the sudden ability to travel, via a time machine, to your present day self. you are asked to contemplate and answer the question, 'what is the one piece of advice your expiring self would give your present-day self?'. last monday, my first day back from vacation and the day after i had the above conversation with marty, my answer to that question was, "be more empathetic about how challenging my wife's job of raising our children is — and how extraordinary she is at this job."

after a long family road trip and a week in a space that is not our home, the thing i found most surprising from this year's trip is how well our kids travel. they fare far better than i did as at their age(s) and i can't help but think they're better passengers than the seven kids packed into marty's family's wood-paneled station wagon, cage-match style. marty and i tried to dissect what it was that made our ilk so amenable to repeated twelve hour stretches in the car. i suggested that it was because they didn't routinely watch tv so their stimulus requirements haven't been unfairly "adjusted" thus making the notion of sitting in car for hours and hours untenable (we don't have a tv in our home so we obviously don't have one in our car, portable or otherwise).

but then there is also all the preliminary work marty does up front with their bins. here she goes out and buys a lot of dime store trinkets and activity books and travel games before the trip. she then sets each kid up with a bin or backpack of stuff they can do and throughout the trip sneaks new things into their stashes. although the older kids are now wise to her game and ask before we even leave if they can have a new thing now and if not when. also, with each new thing they get, alex is quick to ask if there are more new things or if the new thing supply has been depleted. hearing there might be another bauble or two in the wings creates a christmas eve like jittery anticipation.

this year i did something new and bought one thing to be worked into each kid's rotation. the one that got the most play was a license plate tracker game. it was a sturdy wooden plaque with the map of the us. on top of each state was a small block of wood that could be flipped. to start, you flip all the states to a text description of the state and its capital (after the kids learn the states, there is also a blank side option so you have to pick/find the state as well). when you see a car with a plate from that state, you call it out and whoever has the board will find the state, quiz the car on the capital and then flip it over, revealing a graphical representation of the state's license plate. the state capitals is something i never knew and would like to so i thought this would be a good way for me (and inadvertently my children) to learn them. it proved to be a great distraction and added a sporting element to our car time.

the other game i got for the trip and liked was a hangman game by the same company who made the license plate game, melissa and doug. although we only played a few actual games of hangman on it, it was mostly used by anthony to practice writing letters in the dry-erase part. what he would do is flip all the letters and body parts face down and then randomly turn the letters over one at a time. after flipping a letter he would draw it with the pen, and then erase it with his finger and go onto the next. i never quite figured out what criteria he used for flipping the body parts but there was some sort of logic at play in his head. in testament of how effective this was, before the trip anthony couldn't write a single letter, aside from the occasional, incidental capital i, and now the dude has written the entire alphabet many times, and with startling improvement.

another thing marty added this year, which i think started last year, was the kids get to pick one thing out at every gas stop. while the initial downside is it adds a small expense to the bottom line, the great upside is that they no longer clamor for mcdonalds which we only would ever eat at on vacation but have learned that they just want the toys and never eat more than six bites of the food and wind up starving again within the hour. and i've come to a point in my life where i can no longer stomach mcdonalds at all. and back in my work-traveling days, because of routine twenty minute lunches, there would be times i'd eat mcdonalds every day of the week, multiple weeks in a row ... and even liked it fine. but the best thing about the gas station allowance is watching the sorts of things the kids pick, the regrets they have about lesser picks, and how their choices fluctuate, sometimes wildly, seeing everything from bubble gum tape to a bottle of gatorade. the child's mind is a fascinating thing to watch, especially when it is confronted with selecting a single item in a labyrinth of florescent-lit of shiny, shrink-wrapped treats and eats.

once a year marty and i pick a show to watch together. we start at the beginning or wherever we left off and watch one episode a night until we are all the way through or caught up as much as is available. we watch at my desk, each in an office chair pushed up side by side in front of the laptop.

many of the nights i'll pop some corn. one night i noticed we each had a way of selecting our next piece of popcorn from the bowl. i watched her pick a piece or two and then sedately asked her how she selected her pieces. flatly, she said it was based on size. she then asked me how i picked mine (i guess i wasn't the only one that noticed our technique). i told her based on butter-coverage. then without further commentary, we returned to watching our show. this is marriage. knowing how and why your partner selects the pieces of popcorn they do from a bowl full of corn.

the show we are watching right now is lost. in a recent episode there was a scene where a woman had to leave her child, never to see him again. as the moment concluded i commented that i could never do that, walk away from my child knowing it was possible i'd never see them again. without looking away from the screen and between bites of popcorn marty replied that she could walk away at three in the afternoon. still without looking at me, she added it would be harder at night when they were sleeping and still and cute.

i was only momentarily shocked by this answer because i've heard people comment to marty how cute her kids were and they wish they could take one home. marty would tell them to come by tomorrow afternoon after two and before six because odds were fair that they could take one, two, and possibly all three home. this is another facet of marriage. knowing what time of day your spouse is most likely to give your children away in a fit of exhausted rage.

for christmas i gave walt some babysitting coupons. each certificate was redeemable for four hours of babysitting. she had one for every week of the spring semester (because that's when i had ready access to a mess of college students).

in february marty came to my desk and handed me two of the coupons. on each she had written a date and time. she had also scratched out the GOOD FOR dates. the dates for both of the coupons she gave me were expired. casually, i looked from the certificates to her, offered them back saying they were no good, and she would have to get ones good for the weeks in question. marty studied me momentarily before snapping the two scraps from my hand. she leaned into me, close, and said these coupons were a present to her and she had every intention of using them, all of them, expired or not. after feeling the breath of the last word pass over my face (and the vitriol it was coated with), she straightened herself, putting a normal distance between us again.

being the male of the relationship, not to mention the man of the home, not to mention the spiritual head of our family, i softly said ok and pulled the coupons from her clenched fist.


click to enlarge

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. oh yeah

a few weeks ago marty was out with a group of mom's from the kids elementary school. at several points through the evening women would break away from the conversation to call home and check in on the dads and the state of bedtime.

when one woman called, one of her kids, a first grader, answered. the mom asked how things were going the kid answered by saying, "johnny's being a dickhead." the woman's head dipped, she massaged her temples, paused and said, "put your dad on please."

obviously marty would never get a report like that from her house. not because her kids are above such blue language but because marty still doesn't have a cellphone.

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

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

marty told me about a house rule some friends of ours have. the rule loosely states that the mother is done being a parent come 9pm. the rule less loosely states that if you need anything reviewed, fixed, cleaned, spoken to, mended, treated, approved, addressed, or checked get it done before the nine o'clock hour.

this law came about after one of their kids asked the mother for help doing her due-tomorrow homework at 9:30 one night. the mom glanced at the page handed to her and then at the kid. the kid asked what the problem was. the mom replied that everything written on the page was in french. the kid asked if that was a problem. seconds after the last question was uttered the child was sent to bed (with her unfinished homework assignment in hand). and seconds after the child was sent to bed the off at nine law came into being.

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.

i can tell when marty has had a trying parental day because i find her at her desk at night after the kids are down watching the super nanny on hulu while paying bills and working at her desk. you just can't deny that there's something soothing about seeing people taking in more water than you.

and the one conclusion marty and i agree on is that having a beautiful house seems to be related to having evil and sinister kids because all the families on that series live in the most beautiful homes, show-home caliber really. if that holds true, logic would dictate having a messy house equates to familial bliss in which case we'd be swimming in the good times because most days it looks like we're in the midst of being evicted.

it was saturday morning. i was in the kitchen. marty was upstairs in the shower. the kids were in the living room. some yelling and fighting broke out. it didn't sound physical (yet) so i let it go and continued working on the dishes. some moments later i heard marty come down the stairs. she engaged the kids asking what was the problem and what they were fighting about. thinking i could help i moved to the foyer drying my hands on a dish towel. i looked at marty standing at the foot of the stairs, a towel around her head but naked otherwise and still wet from the shower. i then looked at the line of kids now quiet and staring back at her. as i scanned the row i spotted one extra kid in the mix. it seems a boy from around the corner had come over and joined the fray. when i saw him in the line-up i paused and took in his startled face and wide eyes. i looked back at marty who had just noticed the outcast. seeing him, she pulled the towel off her head and began wrapping it around her body. in embarrassment she asked shortly, "and why are you here ben? does your mom know you're here?" to this line of questioning ben lifted his gaze from marty's now towel-covered body to her face, ignored her questions and innocently asked his own, "why are you naked?"

i don't mind saying i derived more enjoyment out of this boy's simple question than a man my age should have.

marty's hairdresser is a single mother of two boys. one is eleven and one is nine. on friday nights the older boy goes to the roller rink. the first time he convinced his mom to drop him off on his own for the evening skate (because that's what everyone else was doing) she walked in with him, found the manager and told him, the manager, that if this one, pointing at her son, makes any trouble he, the manager, is to call her at this number and she'll come get him and he'll then be guaranteed that it will never happen again.

that conversation took place the first time she took him skating. now months into the ritual, they are pros and the drop-offs go quickly. last week she suggested he not wear his good shoes. he balked. she then told him if he had to wear them to put them in a locker. he balked again saying it would be too expensive. she said it's a quarter. you go in. you get your skates. you lock up your shoes. you skate. then you take off your skates. you put on your shoes. wallah. one quarter. he said it didn't work like that. when she asked how it worked he was unable to explain. she pushed a quarter in his hand and told him to lock up his shoes. looking at the coin in the palm of his hand, he swung the car door open and slid out.

the boy was spending the weekend with his father and was picked up by him at the end of the friday skate. when the boy was delivered back to his mother on sunday the first thing he said to her was, "don't get mad." the first thing she said in response was, "i'm already furious. what happened?" he held up one grateful dead, tie-dyed hightop. she asked where the other one was. he said he didn't know, he lost it friday night. she let him have it. both barrels. one shoe! one shoe! it would be better if you came home with no shoes! although i'd prefer two shoes but i realize that is too much to ask for. but one shoe! why weren't they locked up? what did you do with the quarter? ahhh! ahhhhhhhh!

then she went silent. she turned to the child and told him to put his shoe on. he asked why. her glare intensified. he put his one shoe on. she motioned for him to follow her. they went to the car. they drove to the roller rink. they drove behind the building. she stopped the car, looked at him, and then arced her thumb toward a large garbage dumpster. he said what. she said go. he balked. he balked hard. of her two sons, this was the delicate one. once in the dumpster his gag reflex got more exercise than it had in a year of hastily-prepared and inventive dinners made by the angry woman making him root through a garbage dumpster. when he got back into the car, with his missing shoe, his mother simply said, if you told me on friday instead of waiting till sunday, you would have had less garbage to look through.

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.

YOU CAN'T TOUCH ME BY MY GENDER!!!

this is what i heard bella yell, loudly, just before marty and the kids walked out to go to school. i pictured alex playing some game that involved him trying to tag her privates. when i later asked marty about it, she chuckled and said that i heard bella wrong and what she actually yelled was:

YOU CAN'T JUDGE ME BY MY GENDER!!!

which she shouted at alex after he told her she couldn't do something because she wasn't a boy.

either way you cut it, there's a whole lotta marty stuffed into that little girl.