alex has expanded his most most used phrases (previously why and no). i present, in order of frequency ...

• i no want to go home
• i no want to go to bed
• della ... della ... where are you della?

and on that last one it is great to see bella pop her head from around a corner and yell "i'm over here alex" with a big and sunny wave of her arm. alex then head-down runs with full swinging arms to join his big and super-fly sister.

granted, five minutes after that warming scene alex returns using using a phrase which is unfortunately climbing the ranks ...

• della hit me daddy

on the positive side, it's cheaper than speech therapy.

last night after brushing teeth and knocking the larger, more visible pieces of earth off the children we walked into their bedroom for pajamas and books. it was at this point we learned that earlier in the day bella had given one of her stuffed tabby cats an impressively thorough haircut. fine black and white synthetic hair coated the sheets of her and alex's bed as well as many other nooks and crannies of the room (damn the oscillating fan). and for added effect, perfectly centered in the room lay the large pair of orange-handled scissors used to commit the malfeasance. truth told, upon first impression, it looked like something pretty wicked happened in this corner of the house and i was somewhat relieved that the only victim was not only inanimate but also not one of my belongings.

as punishment we made bella vacuum the mess up. not only did she prove quite skilled at the cleaning, she enjoyed the act immensely all but asking if there was more she could do elsewhere in the home before going to bed.

i once read that the key to effective discipline is always knowing your child's currency, the one thing they covet above all else. i fear that bella may have read the same article because she's pretty keen at hiding hers from me. there's few things less sucky than handing out what you think is going to be a loathsome task only to have the recipient bouncily say, "ok. i'll get the vacuum' as if it's the high-point of their day.

in case you're wondering where your host has been, he's wondering the same thing. i haven't intended to checkout like i have but just got caught in the wake of change. with a new job comes new routines, new people, new focus, new hours, and quite simply just new, new and some more new. now that i'm going through it i realize i was in great need for some more 'new' in my life. and aside from the neglect this part of my world is seeing, things are going swimmingly, i just haven't yet hit on a steady cadence for my days.

last night while i cooked dinner, bella sat at the counter and sketched me (below). the details are great, from the print on my shirt (which is dead-on) to the korean bulgogi in the skillet (which was so good), to my cable-wrap glasses (which are mightily bent right now) to the smile and wide-eyed gaze (sleep deprived delirium) her eye was quite succinct. unfortunately that keen eye had to also nail my flared and stubby legs. dumb luck that.

our bathroom door doesn't lock. come to think of it, our bathroom door doesn't even latch. it stands wide open much of the time, occupied or not. casting a glance that way while walking down the hall often results with spying bella sitting on the john chin resting on her bracing arm and her legs dangling from the seat.

you may think that given the state of our door hardware, people would respect that when the door is swung closed, the room is occupied. we're not quite there yet. five minutes before the writing of this thought i was attending to my late afternoon constitution when the door pushed open enough for bella's head to pop through. "oh!" she exclaimed. "sorry dad, i just need one of these." her arm reached to the back of the door and pulled a bath towel off a hook and she and it disappeared. she called a "thank you dad" out as she quickly ran down the hall.

i'm not a math guy but this equation is one which i'm all over. that is, if bella is hurriedly after a full size bath towel, something pretty bad just went down. there was a time i'd try to figure out if it was one of my valuables or another's but parental experience has shown me that it is always my stuff. the kids have yet to be employed and therefore haven't acquired anything of merit or value. the last thing marty voluntarily purchased out of need or desire was back in 98 and that item fell when bella was just three. so what is left is a house chock full of dad-stuff. and it's not like i prefer delicate and costly electronics or anything. and certainly not stuff that couldn't withstand being doused with a bowl full of milk that got upended during a scuffle between bella and alex for the remote while yelling "my show, no my show, no my show, NO, MY SHOW".

many more of those sorts of battles and that argument will become a moot point because marty and i are in agreement that we're not replacing any more broken household items until the children leave for college. if you could see some of the antics that go on in our miniscule tv room, you'd know the tele is already living on some serious borrowed time.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. a gooder name

at our dinner table, we don't pray, we do thankfuls. about thankfuls:

• thankfuls begin by saying 'i'm thankful for ...' where dot-dot-dot equals something you're happy about in your life.
  
  
• thankfuls don't happen at every dinner.
  
  
• bella, to date, has been the one to determine if thankfuls occur or not.
  
  
• bella also determines who goes first for an ev...
  View in Gallery >>>

this weekend, bella and alex had a spend the night at their grandparents. when we dropped them off bella said to my mother in a very serious manner.

BELLA
grandma, i'm going to try real hard to not say 'oh my god!' while i'm at your house because i know you don't like it when people say that.

GRANDMA
well that is true bella. i would appreciate it if you did not say that at my house or ever. i think there are better things to say than that.

BELLA
yes i know, father told me. so instead we've been practicing saying things like 'oh my goodness', 'oh dear' and 'oh bother'. but sometimes i forget and still say 'oh my god' but i will try not to.

GRANDMA
well, i guess that's all i can ask.

upon getting the sunday report, bella didn't say it even once the whole weekend. and when she saw the one-legged man at the nursing home while visiting her great-grandfather, she didn't even ask him where his other leg went. so far, five seems way more mature than four.

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.

now that bella is five i've decided to close, or at least stop updating her gallery, rockefeller center, so yesterday's post will be the last made.

i've a few reasons for doing this and for once don't feel the need to iterate through my logic. i hope you've enjoyed watching our first child go from the womb to a shining and confident young girl as much as i've enjoyed capturing and sharing the images. in the name of equity, the same will happen with alex on his fifth.

the page will continue to be available and the stories of her impact, uhhm, i mean contribution, to our family will continue. it's just the consistent photographic updates that will cease.

and for those who never knew what the rockefeller or captain monikers even meant, they are what walt and i called them in utero (that's means pre-birth for my three guy friends).

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.

i'm sure you've all deduced by now that last week bookguy and i went on our annual ski trip, now seven years strong. the trips are always rejuvenating but they are also always melancholy at the end. the gloom begins when we part ways in the airport concourse exchanging a clap-on-the-back farewell hug.

after that comes the quiet and lonely walk to the gate. once there, i slouch in a chair waiting for the boarding call, sound-bites from the week playing through my mind. many make me grin. when the saint louis flight was announced i took my place in line. the guy in front of me was wearing a t-shirt that read across the back 'GET DRUNK, BE SOMEBODY' and the truthful reality of my itinerary sank in.

more melancholy feelings.

upon arriving home, my spirits lifted knowing i'd have different kinds of hugs awaiting me there. from marty, i got a thankful, re-enforcements have arrived sort of hug. from alex, a tiny-armed bear hug around the neck. but from bella i got a turned shoulder. i sat down next to her and asked what was wrong. she told me i was a bad father for leaving for so long and she was no longer going to be my friend. i explained that this was unfortunate because i had been away becoming an armpit doctor and was anxious to check hers to make sure they were alright. she turned towards me inquisitively.

BELLA (6)
are you being for real?

TROY
of course i am. do you think i could make something like that up?

BELLA
well, what do you do? how do you tell if armpits are ok?

TROY
like this ... (and i grab her tickling her madly)

and just like that we were again fast friends, for real. now i'm astute enough to know it won't always be that easy which is part of the reason she will start being invited on the annual ski trips very, very soon. i reckon the hard part will then be explaining what 'GET DRUNK, BE SOMEBODY' means and why she doesn't want to be that somebody.

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. adopt you

so, i've been a little bit out of commission as of late. i have a few weeks off work and within four hours of clocking out, i began deconstructing my office. my office occupies the smallest part of the smallest room of our house. fact is, my office is in a closet. granted it's a double door closet, but it's still a closet.

i've learned over the last few days that this miniscule space is the most coveted real estate in my home. once i had it emptied, marty stood in the room eyeing the double wide clothes receptacle. i didn't like the look. i asked her if something was wrong. she simply commented that a girl could spread a wardrobe out quite nicely in such a large closet. i told her not to even think about it, it was mine, i called it fair and square when we moved in. when bella saw the vast expanse she told me not to put my desk back in it because she and the defecator could play house in it. and by told, i mean instructed, harshly. when alex saw it, he just looked around and said NUNNEL which is how he says the word tunnel which is how he sought to claim my space because his favorite architectural structures are nunnels.

after making the modifications i planned (paint, more shelves, lighting) i had to reclaim the nook in the wee-est hours of the night. my plan would have been foiled had a single person been awake to obstruct my maneuver.

additionally, i'm not sure how connected i'll be next week either. so many engagements, so little bandwidth.

about a month back marty told the kids that they had to start thinking about my birthday present. marty no more than finished the sentence when bella said she knew what to get me. marty, playing along, asked what was that and bella replied, "well, when we were at aunt peggy's father really, really liked the homemade ice cream they made, so we could get him his very own ice cream maker!"

absolutely stupefying. no garfield ties for this dad cuz my little humans rawk! first serving will be ready for tonight's movie night. i also got a $50 credit with iTunes (thanks momz and popz) and a killer campfire popcorn maker which we're already two batches into via the fireplace which was at a four-log state all day thanks to the three inches of snow that was accumulating outside. which meant 5:00 sledding and 6:00 big V burgers. and because of those events, it wasn't until 9:00 that i noticed a card on the kitchen counter which contained the following ...





i do recall, vaguely, that trip peg, but not nearly as vividly as my big boy bank does. the card is already tacked to the wall of wonder.

i thank everyone who added to what amounted to a really spectacular day. i gotta tell ya, i'm floating.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. finish pooping please

we have ogres living in our basement, for-real ogres as bella would say. i've never seen one but bella has spoken to them a few times. the ones living with us are nice which is fortunate because, i'm told, not all of them are. that said, there are a few things they don't like. unsurprisingly i seem to be the only one in the home doing these things they don't like and i've repeatedly been cautioned against my inconsiderate behavior.

bella is responsible for feeding the ogres (if we're going to have pets, you're feeding them). ogres eat all kinds of different foodstuffs. i've accidentally knocked a box full of styrofoam peanuts down the basement stairs (father! now you've ruined their dinner. they are not going to be happy!) i've kicked a glass full of water over soaking my pantleg and shoe (oh great dad! that was their drink. now they will have nothing if they get thirsty!). and i've overturned a 2-gallon bucket full of dirt from the backyard mixed with ash from the grill (they are going to be really upset with you now father!).

this isn't quite how i envisioned this all when marty first asked if i saw children in my future.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. marcher

a curiosity about my family; they've all got impulse control issues. wether it is marty straightening the counter in your home's kitchen or alex eating your six month supply of potato chips in a single sitting or bella arranging the books on your bookshelf by size (and then color), they've, collectively, got some real and identifiable problems.

you'll notice my name missing from the above inventory. this is because i'm the only member of the clan without such an affliction. of course, i'm also the one responsible for repeatedly clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth so the universe doesn't collapse upon itself.

no need to thank me, i'm doing it to save my ass, not yours.

the teachers at bella's pre-school send a note home in her backpack every school day. these notes typically share what was done that day or plans for the next day.

earlier this week the note home read ... if you think anyone in our home was checked before me, you'd be horrifically mistaken. fact of the matter is marty had to pick through my hair while the letter laid at my feet with me repeatedly saying "do you see any? are there any? what is a nit? what do they look like? what do they do? oh my gawd, have you found any!!!!!?"

during my tremble-voiced questions bella stood in front of me, innocently looking up, saying ...

BELLA
dad, they're just like white ants and if we find some then we look for the mother or father and try to get them first so they stop making more babies in your hair.

TROY
white ants! babies! bella please stop talking while mommy checks daddy. and this is different than how mommy checks daddy on saturday mornings but all the same you got to give us a minute. marty are they really like white ants? please tell me they aren't really white ants! marty! have you found anything?

MARTY
just a little bit of dandruff. but i think you're lice-free.

TROY
dandruff! oh great. so instead of live ants i just got a bunch of dead debris living on my head. this is great. i'm going to go take a shower. and no more notes from school! i don't want to know!

BELLA
what's dandruff?

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.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. you rang

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.