alex stood quietly, watching me peel potatoes for dinner. the potatoes were wet and i was fumbling them in my hands. i started getting frustrated. i took a breath about to mutter something when alex spoke up:

aahhhh. you gotta be kidding me.

i looked at him and smiled. that is definitely something i mutter on a near-daily basis. he never took his eyes of my hands and continued to watch me struggle. after a few more minutes of slippery spuds i drew another breath and alex shot out:

son of a beeeeaaaannnn.

you see i usually catch myself before i finish that one and it would seem alex has surmised the word i've been omitting is 'bean' given the way i end up elongating the letter B. when the kids are a bit older i bet we could make a sporting game out of guessing the swear dad or mom would use given various scenarios.

when i stepped out of the shower i heard marty and the kids leaving for school. in the mornings i either take bella and alex to school myself or give hugs and kisses to them as they leave for the day. today i was wet and in a towel when i heard the front door slam. i ran to an upstairs window, opened it and shouted goodbye as they walked towards the car. alex returned the sentiment and bella turned paused and then shouted, loudly, "will you please shut the window! i can see your big, fat nipples!"

i can say with the full confidence that my nipples are neither big or fat. i just don't know how to say it with confidence to the neighbors who surely heard bella bark the information through the quiet morning street.

on saturday marty and bella went to a wedding. bella had the job of handing out hershey kisses to guests walking out of the church after the ceremony. as she dropped the foil wrapped sweets into the passing palms of exiting people she was instructed to say, "kisses from the bride and groom."

meanwhile back at home, i took the boys kite flying. it was a stupendous day for such an outing a...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. confused

at a weeknight dinner last week bella informed the table that our family needed a password. when asked what this was she went on to say that it's a secret word only our family knows and would use if we, the parents, sent someone to pick one of the children up. like if bella was walking home from school and someone pulled up saying, "bella, your mother asked that i take you home today." bella would ask them what the password was. if they knew it she would go with them. if they didn't she would not. this led to a lengthy discussion about what to do if the person didn't know the password. i suggested if the person was in a car, the child should turn and walk in the opposite direction and go to the closest home of someone we knew and ask for help. bella then asked what to do if someone didn't ask anything but just grabbed her. marty said, very succinctly, that she gave bella and alex full permission to do whatever they could to get away. kick, claw, bite, scream, punch, gouge eyes, you name it you can do it. bella then thoughtfully ranked her skills saying she was a great pincher and could kick hard and yell "YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER! THIS IS NOT MY FATHER!" louder than anyone else in the family. then she looked at alex and said "and alex is a great biter, especially with his zombie tooth." marty and i both turned our eyes to bella and said in unison "zombie tooth?" bella, getting her next bite of food together, said "yeah, his zombie tooth. that broken one in the front."

this would be his front-left tooth which bit the dust a few years back when bella, alex and i were leaving the pool. i mummy-wrapped a shivering alex in an adult sized beach towel and told him to follow me. when he took his first step, his feet got tangled in the towel and he fell forward. because his arms were pinned inside the towel given the snug wrap job i had done on him, the first thing to hit the pool-deck was his nose, the second was that unfortunate front tooth. when i picked him up he was a bloody mess and i didn't learn the extent of the damage until i delivered him to marty at home, still quite bloody. in the midst of her first aid she looked up and said "troy, his tooth is chipped." marty's a tooth-girl and was quite, well, pissed that i had wrecked her first-born son. she hot-lined the dentist and asked if there was anything we could do. while she was on the phone i was holding the still sobbing alex. she started relaying questions the doctor was asking. is it just the one tooth? is the gum-line bleeding? what color is the tooth?

MARTY
can you see a bloody-pulp?

TROY
a bloody what?

MARTY (to the phone)
did you say bloody pulp? yes. where?

TROY
marty, i think i'm going to puke.

MARTY
troy. look at the tooth. where it broke. are there blood and veins and stuff coming out of it?

TROY
oh my god, marty. tell them they're going to make me puke.

MARTY
just look at the damn tooth troy! is there a bloody pulp or not!?!?

there was no bloody-pulp on the tooth which kept my puke-free streak alive. seeing how upset marty was through the rest of the evening, the next morning on my way to work i stopped at the pool and found the missing tooth piece. i put it in my pocket where it lived all day at work. when i got home i told marty to hold out her hand and dropped the little shard into it. she called the doctor back and told them we had the tooth chip asking if they, or we, could glue it back on. they said they could but didn't recommend it saying the cement would age and it would break off at some point probably when the child was eating and he would then swallow it. by the time marty told me this news i said that was good because i forgot i put the tooth back in my shirt pocket and sent it through the washer. even though it wasn't of use, marty was non-plussed about my losing alex's tooth a second time.

marty can sometimes not see the bright side of a situation, like how her son now has a cool and jazzy weapon against would-be kidnappers; his razor-sharp and smart-looking zombie tooth.

i'm leaning in the corner of my morning shower and am extra foggy because of a long night with a sick anthony. i notice someone enter the room which in a single bathroom home is not all that uncommon. moments later a young falsetto voice behind me says, "hey dad, say cheese so i can take your picture." this part would not be so common.

i did say cheese. i did not smile. then i offered a little lecture about how taking pictures of naked people when they shower is considered, by some in society, to be an inconsiderate and rude gesture. they left and i figured i would throw the disposable camera away, never having it developed. later that day, my thirteen-year old niece who was staying the week with us came to me and said, "uncle troy. have you seen my camera? it's one of those green disposables."

suck.

when it comes to my children i have two speeds. they are:

oh my gawd, isn't this soooo much fun!
... and ...
oh my gawd, what just happened!

i believe there are some grey moments in-between but am pretty sure all the children or i will ever recall are the moments in these two extremes.

yesterday morning, marty woke me to say she was making an early morning run to the store. the next thing i discerned was the slam of the front door which officially woke alex and consequently brought him to my bed which officially woke anthony (who was sleeping by my side) which officially woke troy. now that i was up, officially, and had two wiggly, giggly kids playing about me, i decided to begin my day and head to the shower. i put anthony on the floor, raised the gate in front of the stairs and told alex to come get me if there was a problem. once in the shower i assumed my usual position leaning in the corner of the stall to begin my twelve-minute pre-wash soak. after just a few minutes i heard a spectacularly loud crash followed by anthony crying. i killed the water, threw the curtain aside and shouted "oh my gawd, what just happened!" and bolted wet and towel-free toward the disturbance.

as soon as my foot hit the wood floor outside the bathroom it slid like a freshly sharpened ice skate. my body made an instinctual attempt to stay upright but lost and i continued falling backwards. the next to hit was my right butt cheek which when upon the wood slid like a freshly sharpened ice skate. in that i was still falling backwards my shoulder blade was the next to make contact and, yes you guessed it, it also slid like a freshly sharpened ice skate. i slammed into the wall that ended this short stretch of hallway to our bathroom. my legs were in the air and my fleshy bottom took the brunt of the impact against the baseboard. i looked to my left. alex was sitting on the floor sucking his thumb right next to where i stopped. he turned and looked at me expressionlessly.

what just happened alex!?!?

you fell down.

no. not to me, what happened to anthony? why is he crying?

i don't know. why you fall down?

because the floor is wet.

why the floor wet?

well, the floor isn't wet. i'm wet.

then why you say the floor is wet?

where's your brother?

(he wordlessly points into my room at anthony who is now not crying).

(i lay my wet head down on the floor, stare up at the ceiling and take a deep breath)

dad.

yes alex.

i can see your penis.

just think, all this fun and i'm just seven minutes into another day with children. in re-reading this account i see there's good reason we only remember the harshest sides of our lives. i mean it's admittedly not all that often you get to carry on a relatively calm conversation with a wet, naked adult sprawled awkwardly on the floor ... without paying for it in advance at least.

i'm a popcorn snob. i use redenbacher, maybe newmans, but always someone who is passionate and gifted at the craft. i make it over a flame, such as a gas stove-top or open fire. i always use the same pot. i always use real butter. and i always make a tasty bowl of corn. and i do it a lot. marty knows all this. i shared it early in our dating relationship right after my positions on religion and children. given the reveal, by marrying me marty accepted this character trait. this is why our marriage works. she deals with my three flaws and i accept her sixty-four.

the other day while passing through the kitchen i caught marty, fresh back from the grocery, pouring a bag (a clear-plastic bag like we were simple heathens living in the forest) from some no-name maker of popcorn through a funnel and into an empty redenbacher container. i stopped and eyed the woman. she looked like alex when i found him unwinding a full roll of toilet paper into the commode. words weren't necessary but she said some just the same.

MARTY
i bet you wouldn't have even noticed.

TROY
don't test me marta. not you. not you of all people.

i don't want to call it a divorcable offense but it just may be the closest we've ever come to seeing one.

do you remember me talking about juju? i thought i was on my best behavior in utah. i swear. but by the looks of the blemish that has taken over the region above my left eyebrow it appears the ju-ju gods believe i took an aluminum bat to bookguy while he slept.

it began in the form of a small bump shortly after our return. then it started to show its teeth, growing in diameter, height AND darkness. saturday night i eyed it in the mirror, turning my head from left to right seeing how it looked from various angles. all told it remained quite innocuous but i let the fact that people were coming for brunch in the morning cloud my judgement and i threw down. two minutes in i knew the right move was to cut my losses but i had made some ground. eight minutes later i was waving the white flag, in this case a balled-up kleenex. i not only lost the war but took quite a thumping in the battle as well.

the next morning i studied the zone. there was no way to call it anything other than bleak. but i shook it off, i'm a grown man. what do i care if it looks like someone spot-welded a red bouncy ball to my forehead? i'm bigger than all that mess. in the midst of my self-pep-talk, i heard a knock at the front door and responded. it was a close friend of marty's. as she stepped into the foyer she made big, wild eyes and brightly said "ohhhh! what happened there?" and waggled a finger around the bouncy ball. i bashfully lowered my eyes and said i think i beat my friend with a bat while he slept.

as i cut the the french toast into kid-sized pieces i was planning my defense. you see, i've been watching this sorry slice of toast bounce around, unwrapped, in the freezer for almost a week now. several times i found it lazing about in the ice tray to which i'd pinch a hardened corner and wing it to the opposite end of the shelf. other times i'd find it sitting on top of the bryer's real-vanilla-bean vanilla ice-cream and would send it elsewhere with a flick of my finger.

as i poured syrup over the now bite-size squares, i thought how just six days ago this texas-thick slice was piping hot on the sunday-morning skillet, a butter-pat dissolving on it's face. it could again melt butter thanks to a forty second trip through the microwave. bella had resurrected it, saying it was the one and only thing she wanted for breakfast.

i was certain that when the first bite touched bella's tongue she would animatedly eject it from her mouth, sending it well beyond her plate. she'd yell an exclamation you only ever see spelled-out in the sunday funny pages (and followed by numerous exclamation points). i was sure all of this was moments away, which is why i'd been preparing myself to handle it in a way other than barking, "i told you it would taste like shit, but noooooh, you just had to have desiccated cardboard for breakfast and now you're going to eat it!" but she didn't spit it out and she didn't scream AAARRRGGGGHHH!!!! instead she thoughtfully chewed and swallowed the cudgel, smacked her lips and proclaimed it to be the BEST piece of french toast she's ever had. i leaned against the door-jam with my head lowered and rubbing my temples as i sometimes do in the pre-coffee hours. in my mind i pictured the paternity-test billboard out by the airport and wondered if five-years in is too late to know. my rumination was interrupted by alex, who pointed across the table and said he wanted what she was having. i matter-of-factly explained that it was the last piece and i didn't have one to offer him. he was audibly non-plussed over this truth.

it appears i was preparing the wrong defense on this morning.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. don't feed the animals

over the weekend, marty had to make a morning run to the grocery store. when this happens, my sleeping body will get nudged and told she is leaving and i'm on. i blearily sit up and look for the clothes that got dropped next to bed the night before. once she sees i'm staying upright, she leaves.

i immediately move to the bathroom, urinate, brush my teeth and walk out. bella, like an appar...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. free pizza

sunday morning is 'big breakfast' day in our house. on big breakfast day we make our one stovetop breakfast of the week. typical offerings include pancakes, waffles or french toast, bacon, omelettes, sometimes sausage, fresh fruit and occasionally hand-cut hash-browns. about once a month we look to invite another family over to share in our weekly debauchery. those gatherings are always pajama-friendly and never begin before 11am.

big breakfast is my favorite morning because in addition to lavish vittles this is the one day of the week where i am naturally drawn from sleep by the sound of birds or smell of cooking food. sometimes, on bird days, i might begin to wake and sense marty next to me, warm, close. i might hear bella and alex quietly engaged in a made-up game down the hall. it is here i viscerally know the value of my home.

big breakfast last weekend did not start in this fizzy way. on this day, the first thing i sensed was having my toasty flannel sheets and layered quilts harshly flung away from my resting frame. while my body tensed against the cold morning air and before i could open my lead-heavy eyes, bella excitedly screamed from the side of the bed, "DADDY! DADDY! I CAN SEE YOUR PENIS! I CAN SEE YOUR PENIS! I CAN SEE IT DADDY! ALEX, TELL DAD YOU CAN SEE HIS PENIS. GO ON, TELL HIM!" to which i hear my son obligingly, albeit less animatedly add, "i can see your enis daddy". not birds, not the neighbor's wind chimes and not wafting flapjacks, but instead taunts and heckles at and about my lifeless manhood. and i would say that on this day, at this moment, i also viscerally knew the value of my home which is seemingly about as predictable and hostile as the american stock exchange.

our home breaks more dinnerware than a 24-hour dennys. when i gathered the family to discuss this performance matter i was told that not only am i not in a position of authority over them i was actually several rungs below them on the chain of command. i kind of saw this coming when i overheard alex call bella to the meeting by saying 'della, the giant poophead wants to talk to us'.

before running out the door one morning i was sent upstairs to get a replacement dress for one that got soiled during breakfast. once upstairs i couldn't find the particular garment i was told to retrieve.

TROY (calling down steps)
hey bella, do you know where your red dress is? it's not in your closet.

BELLA (calling up steps)
uhhhm ... try checking in ... uhhhm ... did you look in ... uhhhm ... just try looking harder dad.

would you believe, her suggestion worked.

i have to go pee dad.

this is how it starts. with a small boy still in the rudimentary stages of potty-training tightly gripping his groin on a park playground. the more vicious the grip, the less time you have. you must also assess the feet because if they are fidgeting, time is extra-short. on this day, i gave the fist-feet combination a 7 out of 10 on the urgency scale. we were also about 50 yards from the indoor restroom. totally doable. i call across the park:

bella, i need you. come with us please.

why?

alex has to go pee.

ahhhh. i don't want to go.

come on, bell.

en route, i endure a lecture from bella about how she doesn't want to go to the bathroom and how she is old enough to stay at the park by herself. she informs me she is not going to go into the restroom because it is the boys room since mom is not here and boys are gross. and their bathrooms stink. and they can be mean. as we enter the rec center i point to a leather-bound chair and tell her she can wait there. she falls into it with an exaggerated huff.

when we get into the stall, i look at alex's fist and speculate his penis hasn't seen an oxygenated blood cell in four minutes. i lay a few sheets of toilet paper on the seat, pants the child and throw him on the commode. a heavy torrent begins the second his buttocks touch the seat, like there's some button-mechanism on his ass that controls his urethra's flow. when the stream ends, i ask him if he's done. a clenched face looks up at me, struggling to enunciate ...

i have to go poop.

oh. ok. that's fine. go poop.

in a still clenched and strained manner he informs me that he 'needs privacy'.

oh. sure. of course. i step out of the stall and lean against it. i take the first full breath of air since he announced his need on the playground. a guy at the other end of the long restroom calls out, asking if anyone has lost a girl.

i think she's mine. bella?

father. where are you? you guys are taking sooooo long.

bella, we're almost done. alex is going poop.

i'm done dad.

ok alex. i'll be right there. bella. wait right there.

dad, i'm done.

i know alex. i'm coming.

but dad. i've got to go too.

uuhhh, bella. ok wait just one minute. let me get alex.

dad. where are you? i'm done.

coming alex.

but, dad i have to go right now.

ok bella. coming.

i wipe alex and raise his two pair of underwear, one pair of pants and two pair of shorts. don't ask. meanwhile, bella has gone into another stall and is working on getting on the toilet. i come in, get her on the seat and am told she also needs privacy. i step out. she tells me to lock the door. i explain i can't lock it if i can't be in there. alex crawls under the stall before i can shriek for him to get off the ground. bella counsels him on how to work the lock. after he secures the door, she instructs him to leave. he crawls back out of the stall. more ground. more shrieking. bella calls that she's done and needs wiped. i explain i can't get in there because she locked the door. she clarifies that she didn't lock it and that alex did. during my eye-roll, alex shoots back under the stall. i've since surrendered that battle. he unlocks the door. i get bella out and place both kids in front of the sinks, even though what i really need is a mild acid and fire-hose. bella uses this time to reiterate, loudly, her male theory explaining how boys are dirty and gross and mean. three men standing at urinals turn their heads our way. i smile. they don't.

we make our way back to the playground. it's now twenty-one minutes since alex first called me. three minutes later alex approaches me again ...

i'm thirsty dad. can i have a drink?

no.

why no? i'm thirsty.

because then you'll have to pee again.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. dinner-table biology

the kids and i biked to a nearby park last weekend and i bumped into an ex-colleague. we were close enough to the playground that bella and alex continued on while i stopped to chat with my friend and his family. after bella got off her bike, removed her helmet and was ready to proceed she started calling for me. i was busy bringing my pal up to speed on my life; bragging on how well things were going with the new job and even newer baby. he asked how the kids were adjusting to anthony. i explained, honestly, that they were great. bella is doting and alex impressively gentle. overall things were very warm and loving. i should mention that the whole time i was talking bella was thirty feet away yelling at me, bike helmet in hand.

dad, we're ready to play.

dad!

dad get over here.

dad get over here right now!

dad git!

father. if you don't come here right now, you're going to be fired.

dad!

DAD! you're fired.

(alex was standing there sucking his thumb and looking elsewhere through this whole lambasting until that last line at which point he removed his thumb just long enough to say in his soft, partially interested voice)

yeah dad. you're fired dad.

i was specific in directing the warm and loving sentiments of my children towards their new brother, not their old father.

i was eating breakfast, marty was making lunches, bella was elsewhere and alex was sitting on a portable mini-toilet in the corner of the kitchen. an impressive burst of gas reverberated in the plastic compartment beneath alex's bum breaking the morning still of the room. he smiled widely at the echoing noise, marty grinned and i chuckled. we are a house of innocent pleasures.

ten seconds later alex made a face, pinched his nose and asked 'what's THAT smell?'. marty, never even looking away from her cut orange, naturally and medically responded 'that's your gas alex'. at this news his body slumped incredulously in the chair 'noooohhhhhh mom ... ' and then he pointed to me saying ' ... daddy gas'.

having my children associate all foul and wafting odors in the home back to me is not exactly how i envisioned my fatherhood. i cannot say why i position myself above such stereotypical unfairness, especially since 19 times out of 20 they'd be right in their aromatic hunch. this admitted, i still find the notion that i must quietly accept blame for every bout of flatulence that happens between my bouts of flatulence quite unjust.

marty recently suggested, seriously, that we replace our current furniture with outdoor/patio chairs and tables because she doesn't see the point in replacing our home's kid-broken furnishings with nice stuff just so it can be trashed like the originals.

i upgraded her thought by suggesting indoor tire swings and felled tree trunks like they use in the great apes display at the zoo. i mean why sugar-coat the problem we are combatting.

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.

alex has two toys of choice at the moment. one of them is a six foot inflatable alligator and the other is a three-inch high space-cowboy he calls 'cool guy'.

let's begin with the object that inflicts the most physical pain upon me, the life-sized gator. to date i've walked my groin into its upright tail four times. sure you'd think something this large would be easy to spot but it's a sn...

you know those small decals some people, usually high school or college-age women, put on their bodies while tanning? it often seems to be spring-break related and of a playboy bunny or rose or pot leaf. i currently have one of those, although it is not of a rabbit or prom-flower or infamous herb. it is the perfect profile of a three year old child in fetal position, sucking his thumb.

yes, my pale and hairless torso is emblazoned with this life-sized outline because my youngest child took a four-hour nap on my chest while i took a two-hour nap on a lounge chair while at the pool. i woke up slightly before him to find myself awash in sweat from his head, drool from his slightly open mouth and urine from his seemingly pointless swim diaper. while there are many tragic points to this gaffe, the most damning seems to be that this not-modest collection of body fluids acted as an accelerant to my tan which succinctly outlined his curled up frame on my concave chest and soft belly.

in the days since, i've studied this skin-art in the mirror after my morning shower. i contemplate the significance of the young women's choice of symbology comparing it to the message my branding will send to onlookers at my next visit to the pool. i'm going to go out on a limb and say my mark doesn't scream 'spontaneous hook-up' like a frisky feline on my inner thigh, also hairless, might. damn the luck of it all.

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...