all parents and potential parents have fears. will my child be healthy? will my child be happy? will my child succeed in what they want to do? while we all have them not everyone is forced to face them head-on. not everyone is actually dealt one of these blows to cope with, adjust to and move on from. while maybe not a foreseeable item for me, one of my greatest fears regarding a child of mine was realized last week.

awhile back i was approached by a guy who wanted to know if i was interested in doing some design work for a porn site or two. he assured me that he and people he knew had quite a need and the opportunities would be both abundant and lucrative.

the only burn i could see is that i'd be doing work i couldn't exactly put in my portfolio which is a little bit on the evil side. when i mentioned it in passing to marty she surprisingly had a few more negative items outside of the portfolio issue. "just how would you feel telling your daughter that you peddled pornographic material for a living?"

would i be sitting in my new Porsche when explaining it to her?

this would be an example of the wrong thing to say to marty when discussing such matters.

there were 11 kids and one father. the oldest was in high school and the youngest just out of diapers. the dad learned long ago trying to get answers from these greater-numbered masses proved futile so a system was devised to contend with the numerous overturned lamps, dings on the wall or basically anything that just seemed out of harmony.

after an infraction, they would be ordered to the basement. all eleven. they moved slowly and single-file down the stairs. i say slowly but not so slowly their compliance might be questioned. once there and standing in a motley line they would be instructed to undress. the pace in which this was done closely resembled the march down the stairs, not swift but definitely in motion. once all clothing was heaped on the floor in front of each child the man's belt would come off with a long pull from his fleshy arm. as the tip left the the last belt loop a silent starter pistol went off and there's really no other way to describe what came next other than to say, all hell broke loose. naked children ran screaming in all directions.

some crouched low and others ran outright but none stood perfectly still, it made for too easy a target. oftentimes two or more children would collide into one another. this could be a shoulder-grazing blow or a head-thumping collision. when this happened one, usually the smaller, would fall to the gritty floor. if down, they would madly crawl towards an outer wall not concerned with the potential scrapes from the unpredictable cement. the younger ones urinated as they ran, their erratic streams spraying on themselves as well as those who were just too damn close.

the adult in the center reached for the racing youths as they darted by. he'd try grabbing their flailing, wispy arms where he would then raise them high enough in the air to negate their churning feet. working his fat hand under their bony armpits worked best. the belt was in constant motion whether he held a kid or not delivering imprecise but meaningful blows. making contact on them as they shot by, while not as significant, still proved therapeutic. those who dangled beneath his raised arm would take licks to whatever side of their body was facing the advancing leather when it arrived. after a few strikes they would be released, their feet already in motion, for the next child to be snared.

it was certainly possible to make it back upstairs without ever having been singled out or even touched by the belt. it was equally possible to be collected multiple times. this was a gamble the children were willing to take, pitting their strategies of escape against their siblings. in the end, the one thing they all knew in the 60 watt darkness of their home's basement was that the only absolute defense would have been to be born in the house next door, down the street or on another continent altogether.

story told me almost 10 years ago by a coworker (g.s). it stands as one of the most vivid firsthand tales i've ever listened to.

the people who knew me before i was an old man with two children have witnessed a transformation in me. some think it's good. others find it annoying. i know i'm different, this i can admit. although, i don't know that i'd liken it to the full lobotomy bookguy swears i underwent. for instance, i asked a woman at the park the age of her baby and she replied 'oh, he's 16 and a half weeks old'.

i have a piece of advice for her. no one gives a shit. the correct answer was four months, my child is four months old. celebrate the half week anniversaries of your ilk in the privacy of your own boring-ass home, especially when it's four days beyond four months.

there bookguy, i told you it was only a partial lobotomy.

today is bella's birthday. she's two. two! i woke up this morning and i have a two year old child. you start gettin' the vibe of what older parents are talking about when they're all like "it seems just like yesterday we brought you home" or "they grow up so fast, right in front of your eyes". my response to them was always the same ... pah-leez. well, here i am wishing my eldest child happy two-year birthday and her saying "thank you. bella birthday. bella two. bella birthday'. why do i have a feeling i'll be at a high school graduation in about 12 minutes.

and for the goods, marty got her play-doh and i got her a silver ringer-bell for her bike. for those thinking what paltry gifts, last year we didn't get her anything. we actually bought ourselves presents for making in through the first year of parenthood.

a bad day is having your breath mistaken for gas by your wife upon first waking up.

a worse day is having your your breath mistaken for gas by your two year old daughter who won't stop chanting "gas. gas. gas. daddy gas. gas. gas. daddy gas. gas. gas. gas. daddy gas." and, all this while patting me on the shoulder just in case anyone in the store was uncertain of who exactly daddy was.

that spike in the altoids' stock was me. and me alone.

my household is keeping the oral b folks in business since bella discovered the host of cool things that can be done with a toothbrush. you'd never guess what a versatile tool it was. but to my point, someone i know owns and uses some juiced kind of electric toothbrush that has an auto-timer and other amenities on it. i'm looking for you. clues as to your identity.

1. you stayed at my home in the last year and a half.
2. on one such visit you touted the advantages of your shiny, automated mouth tool. and, if i recall, you may have been doing that while bella was using my toothbrush to apply diaper rash medicine to her perpetually moist teddy bear.
3. you did not specifically mention how this implement could be used for alternate, possibly sexual purposes, but i was thinking it.

if you are this person, please shoot me a note with the brand and model of this device. i would be forever grateful.

and, for those thinking that this is a bad plan and that i will now simply be repeatedly replacing a more expensive toothbrush, i'm way more anal about my gizmos than i am about my $1.39 pieces of plastic. i know it's sometimes hard to see the logic behind my actions but i assure you there is a tangible reasoning beneath the murk.

there is this popular video tape for babies that we have. i'm not going to say which one, no point. at the end of the tape the video's creator comes on to say something or another about the merits of the program and why you should buy more of them. i've come into the habit of uttering a particular phrase whenever she graces the screen. what i say each and every time is "stripper gone good."

the reason is quite simple. this woman simply looks the part. she looks as though she once may have felt comfortable walking around on tables in skimpy garments until marrying a wealthy patron where she's now doing that whole mom in the burbs thing, only with an entrepreneurial bent.

marty typically just rolls her eyes, employing her often used troy-annoyance-defense-mechanism. bella typically just looks at me momentarily and then returns to her task of beating her blocks against some valuable. the other day after saying my little quip, bella quite unmistakably uttered the phonetics of the same phrase. marty did not roll her eyes this time. they did something else, the description of which i will spare you.

my defense; "well, at least they weren't her first words".

and for the record "oh suck" which i say every time the wood bin is empty weren't her first words either. close to the first, but not her first.

bella's new favorite saying is 'my toy'. everything she can see, touch or conceive is her toy. when we were taking a shower the other day she pointed at my penis and said 'my toy'. i explained that i was very confident that that was not her toy, mostly because it was my toy, my favorite toy in fact. she thought on this for a moment before smacking my toy with a toothbrush, another of her toys and reclaiming it as her toy.

the best parenting advice i ever received came from my father-in-law; "you just gotta be smarter than your kids". i try to live this and thought quickly at this moment and decided to remove the curiousity, so i turned around before continuing my ablutions. i then heard another softer 'my toy' seconds before feeling the toothbrush attempt to pierce my rear crevice. let's just say my surprise could have snapped that brittle plastic in half.

when recounting this drama to marty she asked which toothbrush she had. all i could say with confidence is that she didn't have mine.

now oddly, my whole family brushes their teeth with the same toothbrush, mine.

so i'm working on a new section for the web site. i'm not entirely certain what to call it just yet. leading candidates are Rockefeller Center II, the Return of Rockefeller or maybe even Carnegie Hall.

for those bad at reading between the lines, yes, we are expecting number two.

and for those really bad at reading between the lines, that is not a reference to the feces-based number two but the kind of number two that a census bureau would be interested in.

and for those who are just butt stupid. marty and i are expecting our second child. you can expect to be deluged with photos and silly captions come early may.

excerpt from The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

i know i just did one of these but i've gotta tell the stories as they come. isabella recently learned how to throw clothes down the laundry chute. last night as i was emptying the bin in the basement i found the following items in addition to our soiled clothing.

a toothbrush
the cover from a magazine
a credit card
a floppy disk
a cup (which i think was half-full when deposited)
and a pair of my boxers that i'd only worn twice last week.

i have so much to teach little bella. everyone knows underwear doesn't get thrown down until the third wearing. sheesh.

take 9 bran muffins sitting in a basket on the counter.

take 1 isabella playing on the counter.

take 2 newish parents occupied in other matters.

do you know what you get?

10 partially eaten bran muffins. don't ask me where the extra one came from. i was hoping you'd know.

in a roll of film marty recently had taken, she took two pictures of bella and i sleeping. in both of them you can see my goods. yeah, those goods.

my mom asked why i wasn't wearing underwear. that is my underwear i explained. she then asked why i wasn't wearing shorts. i had no defense.

when thin when tan girl looked through the photos she was kind enough to laughingly remark that the mouse needed to go back in the house. not the lion to the den or even the pig to the pen, but the mouse to the house. i just can't catch a break.

and, no i will not be sharing these intimate shots in rockefeller center anytime soon. i have the kids and my reader's sanity to consider.

things found in bella's diaper this weekend during changes: urine, feces, a jenga block and one domino.

so if you ever play dominos at my house, handle the double-six at your own risk.

excerpt from The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

after bella was born a lot of people asked if i felt like parent. while you may think that the birthing event would slap one into the mood, it doesn't, or at least it didn't for me. the best way i can think to describe it is a sort of blissful stupor. i can be up at 3am cradling my screaming child, standing in my underwear and blinking clumsily in a dark room in attempt to stay upright and if someone asked me at that moment if i felt like a parent, i would cleanly answer No. i have caught myself wiping feces from the back of my hand onto my favorite college sweatshirt while bracing the phone in my neck as i talk to a nurse about the consistency of said brown matter and the color/hue of the phlegm that's adorning my other sleeve and if you were to ask me how parenthood was i'd suggest you locate someone who looks like they'd have experience in the subject.

recently I was brought out of a saturday slumber by a sensation i have never before encountered. upon opening my eyes and localizing the touch i found that my daughter was smashing her tiny face into my chest in attempt to breast feed off my miniscule man nipple.

i sat bolt upright holding her in my arms and looked straight ahead. at this moment, on this day if you, if anyone, asked me if i felt like a parent i would have responded "what the hell do you think, i got a little human trying to suck fluid out of my left nipple?"

and for the record, i had a little human trying to suck milk out of my left nipple on the following wednesday as well.

having this holiday week off, i've been able to enjoy having all of my showers policed by the ever diligent bathroom inspector, isabella. she does not let the minor detail of getting drenched deter her from pulling the curtain to the side so she can heckle and jeer your every move while blinking and shaking her head through the falling water. and whether she's standing at the rear of the shower getting a solid PG-13 rating or at the head by the knobs for the full frontal NC-17 vantage point, she's banging a toothbrush against the side of the tub before launching it into the porcelain chasm. she then politely waits for a bare foot to slide it up the side for her to grab onto so she can resume her bang and chuck routine.

i've been told that this shower humor is finite. when i asked one person why, i was given an account of my personality-ridden niece emma and how her aquatic privileges came to be revoked after a few modest observations. the first strike occurred when she commented to her mother on her "furry bagina", the mom's that is. strike two came after she, emma, complimented her father on his "very handsome penis". there was no third strike. it seems the second one carried enough import for her to be called out swinging. game. set. and match.

personally, i think i can admit that i am not one to chase off flattery and/or compliments, no matter the source or intent.

The other day Marty asked me to watch Bella while she attended to some household matters. She popped in this video called Baby Mozart which she said Bella liked to watch. This tape is nothing but a bunch of close-ups of moving images, like clocks and electric trains, to Mozart music. So Bella and I sprawled out on the floor in front of the tube and started watching the colorful antics. About thirty minutes later I hear my name barked in a fairly authoritative tone and turned to see Marty standing by her desk in the next room. When I looked at her she motioned down towards her feet where I saw Bella sitting under marty's desk gnawing on one of the computer power cords which were now in a tangle about bellas legs and waist.

So what I'm saying is Baby Mozart is a pretty good view and Bella's attention span doesn't yet seem to match her father's.

Tuesday, March 6, 6:51pm, St. Louis, Mo. (age: 10 minutes)

Exit Rockefeller; enter (name to be announced at future date). Mom, baby Rock and father are well. Greatly spent and overwhelmed, but well all the same. I regret to say that I am unable to parlay Rockefeller's post-utero name because both Marty and I were convinced that Rock would be male and were shocked to hear the words 'It'...

This scene represents a typical non-working day in the life of Marty and Troy. At the time of this shutter click, it is most likely about noon, maybe 1:00pm, and we are just now considering getting out of bed. Many times this simply means moving the show to the couch for a couple hours of mental preparedness for the trials the average American faces from day to day.

On Feb 3, we are f...