question. do you know the two words most used by a three year old? they are 'no' and 'why'. another question. do you know how demoralizing it is to get whittled down in an argument by an opponent who refuses to say anything other than 'why'? it is the equivalent of losing a chess game to someone who moves nothing but pawns, which for those who don't play chess is pretty sucky.

another que...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. a gooder name

this is an excerpt from an email i received yesterday from a lady i worked for many years ago. i love her dearly. my convictions and peccadilloes baffle her madly though. i prefer to think of it joann as someone with a keen sense for the annoying.

and, like there's something in the annals of this site that would deter a sensible human from choosing to sire and raise other humans. i mean it's not like they are going to eat feces off the bottom of their shoes or something, now is it?

yesterday i had two at-home jobs. the first was making dinner. after toiling to prepare wholesome and tasty sustenance for mi familia, bella sang a song through the meal, chin on palms, annie the orphan style that partially went something like this:

i hate being a kid
because everyone is mean
i hate being a kid
i wish i were a kitten
because everyone loves kittens
and father is so mean
father is so mean

we received this ten-minute, off-the-cuff serenade because i didn't serve her milk to her in a bowl. unbeknownst to me she was playing kittens and kittens don't drink milk out of cups, they drink milk out of bowls and fathers who don't know this are stupid-heads (child speak for priggish asses) and deserve, yep you guessed it, to be fired.

my second job was washing towels and rugs (because i didn't complete my chores on sunday). so i finished them and brought our fluffy yellow bathroom rug up. the kids were the first to get the benefit of the dryer-warm carpet, alex in particular. the second i pulled his diaper off for his bath he loosed a ten-inch long torrent of urine diagonally across the rug, smiling broadly at the arcing stream. not a drop hit the tile which could have been easily dealt with. all of it was perfectly placed and then absorbed into my freshly laundered mat.

but to be comprehensive about the day, while i was making dinner bella and i were playing prison-break. how prison-break works is she sneaks up behind me and bear hugs the bottom half of my legs together so i can't move. this is the prison part. then i have to use the keys, my tickle fingers, to try to get out of prison. this is the break part. when bella was three prison was fun. now that bella is five and quite strong, having her lock on unannounced is akin to someone duct-taping my feet together, hanging a fifty pound weight around my neck and giving me a hearty shove at the top of a stairwell. alex has watched this production a number of times, thumb-in-mouth and always standing a safe distance away. tonight he decided to step up and while bella was gigglingly bear-hugging my calves from behind and i was trying to tickle her loose i heard a quick, sharp crack, immediately followed by bella wailing. i turned to find alex with the biggest, proudest smile, resting a wiffle ball bat on his shoulder as if he's between walk-the-batter pitches. bella is holding the crown of her head with both hands screaming childs' curses towards him. this is one of those parental moments where the best you can do is simply not laugh out loud.

so obviously for a guy who gets heckled through the dinner he prepared AND has someone piss all over his day's labor moments after its completion, it's not shocking to learn the highlight of my march 14 was when my two-year old brained my five-year old with a long, yellow club. i mean, at least it was a plastic club and to be fair we were playing a game named prison-break.

bella fires more people than trump. this started a few months back. not sure what seeded it or even where she heard or understood the meaning. just one day people, meaning marty, started getting dismissed whenever bella became annoyed. earlier this week marty and alex were a few minutes late picking bella up from school. as marty approached, the door opened and bella's teachers walked her out.

MARTY
sorry i'm late.

MISS JUDY
oh, what's the bother? someone has to be first and someone has to be last.

BELLA (pushing her way through everyone towards the stroller)
mom, you're fired!

but, similar to the adoption trend, marty is the first to feel the brunt, but whatever hell she is catching is sure to be ultimately spread throughout the family. last night when i announced i had to walk the babysitter home, i was immediately "fired 50 times". don't get me started on this escalation-bullshit. upgrading my penalty by such magnitude is a complete abuse of one's power, and i for one take exception.

and forget the minor detail that we have children who don't wail and scream when we leave them with a sitter but instead when we return and send the sitter home. i always thought kids cried when parents left and rejoiced upon their return. we have to literally peel our children off the help just so they can get out the door. like my two year old son bear hugging the leg of our 20-something babysitter. which puts me in the awkward position of kneeling behind her prying his fingers off the back of her lithe thigh, pleading with him and apologizing to her simultaneously.

TROY
he really doesn't hate us. nor is he afraid of us. he just doesn't see outsiders too much because his mother is a bit of a shut-in and i'm a bit of germ-phobe. so, again, they don't get to see new people a whole lot. now dammit alex! let go of the maria's leg so she can go home! i'm really sorry about this.

in my distracted state alex leans forward and bites my hand which causes me to lurch forward head-butting the girl's ass (also lithe) which makes her fall in my lap and inadvertently pulls alex into her groin. this would of course be the moment marty chooses to enter the foyer finding the two men in her life rolling around on the floor with the one coed in the neighborhood who has not yet been warned to not babysit at THAT house.

i sense more firings on the horizon.

when bella was about two and eating not much more than a rod of melba toast, we ate out with some friends. during the meal their four year old consumed three plastic containers of cream cheese and nothing else. no bagel. no crackers. no fruit roll-up. just three smallish cups of cream cheese. upon leaving the restaurant walt and i had the 'did you see that kid inhale that bagel spread? my gawd! thank goodness that isn't our kid!' conversation about what we witnessed.

three short years later in our home, a 16 ounce brick of cream cheese is deemed a single serving. a stick of butter a half-serving. and a tub of crisco lard, reserved for special occasions, like saturdays, is considered a family size, although with so many little hands scooping the gelatinous, white goodness out you sometimes leave the table still craving more. and our salt, well, we have to keep that locked up in the home's fire-proof safe with our wills, swiss account ledgers and childhood photos because alex could eat his weight in salt, and that is without a drink. give the boy a simple glass of water and i'd comfortably pit him against a herd of bull elk.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. things that are yellow

we have defiant children. i'm told by some this is good. i'm told by others it is bad. good or bad, it is what it is. and, while i see they both have spit and vinegar, it is curious to watch the different ways in which they exercise their will.

bella is cunning. if you tell her to stop doing something she wants to continue doing she will say "ok. but i will stop only after you leave the room." i will let you surmise what happens after we leave the room.

alex is direct. if you tell him to stop doing something he wants to continue doing, he will turn, look you in the eye and sharply say "NOH!". if you repeat your direction the only thing that changes is the volume of his resistance. as i watch his tiny aggression my mind plays sound clips of how this dance may evolve as his vocabulary and confidence grow.

the simple NO will one day become ...
NO! I WILL NOT STOP DOING THIS!

which will become ...
I SAID NO DAMMIT! NOW STOP ASKING!

which will one day fully mature into ...
LISTEN HERE YOU SLACK-JAWED WHELP, TAKE THIS NO AND ACCEPT IT, SWALLOW IT, MAKE IT YOUR OWN OR ELSE I'M GOING TO WALK OVER THERE AND HELP YOU BEGIN THE DIGESTION OF MY RESPONSE TO YOUR QUESTION.

i just hope he's out of the house by the time he reaches this final stage. i can barely shoulder the wispy little NO's he throws at me today.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. marcher

something difficult to do in my home; keep the roll of toilet paper hanging next to the commode dry.

and, it's wet for different reasons than the roll at the shell gas station down the street is wet ... or at least that's what i'm repeatedly saying aloud as i'm sitting on the john delicately pulling the moist plies of paper apart so i can use them.

as for why i haven't engaged the issue more aggressively; i've never felt more fresh or pampered.

marty commented on how competitive bella has become as of late. for the last month or two we've been hearing lots of 'i beat you' or 'i can do that better than you' sorts of taunts. these heckles just roll off me given how accustomed i am to hearing such things. marty on the other hand has never had someone stick a pointed index finger in her face and bark 'EAT THAT BEE-AUTCH!' until two weeks ago when bella finished coloring a picture faster than her.

as to the source of her aggression, i'd like to place on the record the fact that marty had college scholarship options, of the athletic variety. the extent of my collegiate correspondence came in the form of a postcard informing me i incorrectly filled out their application for enrollment.

i get asked to write referrals for this or that every now and again. i reckon we all do. recently i was asked to do a new sort of one though. these guys were trying to be a host family for a child coming from another country to receive a medical procedure. the child would stay with them through the operation and recovery which would last almost two months. the reference, obviously, was going to the agency placing the child. i found this an extra-challenging item to write because it was not about some dude i went to college with or used to work with nor was it whether they would make a good programmer or college student, it was an assessment of a whole family and at stake was the well-being of a young and ill child.

fortunately i like this family. i like them a lot. this is what i wrote: while thinking about what to write i had a memory of a moment i shared with jack many years ago. some of his college buddies invited him to a week in a cabin on a lake. when jack asked about accommodations for his family the friend laughed at him stating that the whole point of the vacation was so everyone could get away from their families.

i didn't have kids yet so didn't think too much about the implications of the classmate's remark. i do remember though being totally transfixed on jack's disgust towards the comment. his emotion was so visceral that i knew there was a great amount i didn't understand about being a parent or even husband for that matter (a good one at least). he and his wife have totally given themselves to the life they have chosen. now that i have kids, i understand how hard this is to do. and now that i do understand this, my respect for how they live their life is ten-fold what it was.

and for those who know me well enough to ask about jack and jill's true identity, don't bother. i'm not sharing my alpha-family with any of you wannabes because i need all the help and one-on-one attention i can get.

how three people in my home enunciate the same five words:

MARTY	BELLA	ALEX
hospital	hostipal	noh
forgot	regot	noh
interesting	instring	noh
practice	prastice	noh
breakfast	bresfast	dink

it took me awhile to identify where regotted came from. i believe it to be derived from the word 'remember' as in the opposite of remember is regot (instead of forgot). witnessing a child's mind try to assimilate and make sense of the english language is for sure something to hear.

not long ago i did some research into best practices for sleep. one point all the researchers agreed upon was that alarm clocks are the devil's work. your body knows when it's sufficiently rested and will wake you naturally. i've been doing this for over a year now and will say there is a great amount of truth to that finding.

but to clarify, by waking naturally i mean (1) after having gotten the requisite amount of sleep my body wakes, without any kind of assistance or (2) getting pushed in the shoulder and being told by a hands-on-hip four year old, "father, i said you need to change my pull-up, so get up!"

in regard to yesterday's post about our four year old's blue language, i'd like to add i never use the phrase 'stupid-ass' but do have a certain lady-friend i'm married to who will on occasion drop the 'stupid-ass' bomb.

for those keeping score of who is responsible for bad words uttered by our kids, the tally currently stands at marty, two and troy, zero. although it's a rather empty victory because when bella finally does get around to floating a true troyism out there for our relatives or her classmates and either gets the family ostracized or herself expelled, i think marty's going to argue for a greater point value. but worry not, i'll negotiate it down ... to a double digit offense at least.

at alex's 2-year birthday party, all four grandparents were very impressed when bella said something was 'despicable' although it sounded more like 'spicable'.

the same could not be said this same evening when she later called one of her teddy bears a 'stupid-ass' which pretty much came out sounding like 'stupid-ass'.

marty abandonment update:
day three went swimmingly, one might even say spectacularly.

i attribute this success to the single-best piece of parenting advice i've ever received: the source of this sage insight, my father-in-law, who by my estimation did a pretty bang-up job.

thanks for the bail-out papa ken.

bella on observing grandma's natvity scene had been put away after the holidays.

before having two mobile and ever-curious children a productive evening for me might entail reading 100 pages of my book.

now that i have these two humans living in my home, i define a productive evening by simply finding my book.

alex has left the lump stage. for any who've not yet had the pleasure of living with small children, the lump stage can be defined by the three CCC's; crying, crapping and caterwauling in the night. for the most part these three behaviors represent the full extent of their meager abilities.

when i leave for work in the morning i say goodbye to bella and alex. for the last few months while...

i'd pay killer money for someone to wash me everyday. i'd just sit there and lift my arm when told. roll over when asked. and close my eyes when prompted. i'd be the best person you ever washed. so why doesn't she get what a stellar perk this is?

marty walks around the house with a kitchen timer clipped to her shirt. this means there is either some bread product cooking in the oven or a child on time-out.

it's the best when you see her stopped somewhere with a flour-coated palm to her forehead saying, 'now where did i put that damn timer'. without raising my eyes from my book or paper, i mutter, 'left hip'. she rips the thing off her sweater and glares at me only long enough to state 'don't look at me as though i'm losing my mind. i'm NOT losing my mind!'. i non-verbally respond with my 'i would never dream of suggesting anything of the like honey' face.

and, so goes our daily waltz.

i believe to get a representative feel for what life is like somewhere you have to capture the unceremonious words and images around you. the following snippet i overheard between marty and bella offers some insight into life in our home.

BELLA
can santa say words like dammit and stupid?

MARTY
i imagine he can but i bet he chooses different words.

BELLA
i bet he doesn't choose different words and does say dammit and stupid. a lot.

and, in the event you're still a little fuzzy on the scene, this conversation might sharpen the picture a touch more.

be thankful for...

your opportunities.
people who like you.
indoor plumbing.
and an underwear optional lifestyle.