when bella was a toddler she was a climber and defiant and adventurous which made her a handful for her parents, especially two new parents. fortunately there were two of us and only one of her which i'm convinced is the only way marty and i survived those early years.

when alex was a toddler he was compliant and gentle and happy. there's not much to say here, the boy was born smiling and never has really stopped, and this even with a big sister hitting him and bouncing books off his head.

anthony. well, for starters anthony has a code-name. his code-name is silverfish. it is silverfish for what i think are obvious reasons. silverfish was coined when our family was invited to brunch with friends. they have two children of their own, live in a house that is finely appointed and has many circles, nooks, crooks and crannies. at first marty and i were having trouble keeping tabs on anthony and one would think the other had him and you'd hear a crash in another room and the other would say they thought he was playing with the kids and the kids would say he was there a moment ago but now he is not. so a tracking system was devised. if anthony was playing in the room with the other children and he left, one of the other kids had to yell as loud as they could SILVERFISH IS IN THE WIND. this would alert marty and i and our hosts to quickly try to find anthony. when he was found the finder would yell I'M ON SILVERFISH. if that call didn't come soon enough frantic shouts went out that sounded like DOES ANYBODY HAVE EYES ON SILVERFISH to which frantic NOs would ring through the house. in the end this system held up and kept all the valuable art and decor in tact which meant our friendship could remain in tact. the busy day ended when one of the children called out from the playroom SILVERFISH POOPED HIS PANTS.

all of our kids have gone through a fascination with our home's laundry chute, but none of them have been as passionate or industrious as anthony. when anthony decides it's time to send the laundry down, you're lucky if there's a single stitch of clothing left on the second floor when he's through.

to begin, he swaggers to the bathroom and pushes, pulls and wills the rolling laundry bin into the hallway right next to the chute's small door. once there, he yells and grunts until someone places a step-stool in front of the chute so he can reach the hole to start throwing stuff down. when he gets towards the bottom of the rolling bin and unable to reach any more items, he gets off the step-stool, tips the bin on its side, climbs in and emerges with a few items at a time. he then climbs back onto the stool and makes them vanish in the wall. when the bin is finally empty, he rolls it back to its place in the bathroom. he then roams the bedrooms looking for any garments lazily cast about. once all the loose and truly dirty clothes have been dispensed of, anthony expands his rules of selection. when unsupervised, an ajar dresser drawer with visible clothes in it fall into anthony's 'eligible for cleaning' collection. granted when he finds such a stash, he crouches before the drawer, peers in and says, 'whazzat?', before pulling it open and looking brightly at the newfound stash. he methodically delivers the fresh and folded stacks of clothes one armful at a time to the chute. in the event his thirst is still not slaked he has been known to move on to drawers that were fully closed ... but easily opened.

for the record, doing laundry has never bothered me, but when half your weekly wash includes unworn and folded clothes, such antics become much less adorable.

the last week in our house has been unique. i have been laid up in bed for six days now, only getting up to visit the bathroom, and this only when the need becomes dire. my mother stayed with us the first few days, primarily to take care of me. and marty has been doing the whole single parent thing with the kids. in that i'm stuck in bed, the house plays out more like theater to me than life. my family serves as the characters swishing in and out of my doorjamb view throughout the day. this week, i'm going to take a day for each personality and write about what makes their performance noteworthy, to my eyes at least.


let me start with anthony. he's the only one in the house i'm actually afraid of. the older kids understand i can't play or roughhouse. anthony does not. and he is a hooligan. and he is completely unpredictable. and he is the absolute wrong height to be walking around people who just had knee surgery. and he moves about the house with a cocky swagger that smacks more of a ivy league frat boy than a diapered and wordless child. when i see him stop at my door my body tenses. most times though, he just walks directly to my side and rifles through the glasses and dishes sitting on my bedside table. he reaches into full glasses to pull out a little handful of ice which he sloppily moves to his mouth. it is not uncommon for this trespass to topple glasses and crash dishes to the floor. his raids are inelegant and unquiet.

when he's not stealing or upending my food stuffs he dances for me. the style most resembles a little soft-shoe with his feet shuffling about, his arms swinging at his side. while dancing, he watches his feet in a studious manner as if evaluating his technique, although i believe he is just taking in the show as is anyone else watching. after a bit he seems to sense the need to mix it up so he turns around and steals away in our bedroom's double door closet which is situated just behind his dancing stage. once inside he pulls the doors closed, mostly. through the small gap he peeks out. when he sees you seeing him he giggles and waits. after an unpredictable pause in time he flamboyantly throws the doors open, jogging forward to the ohhs and ahhs of the crowd. he will then turn and again disappear into the closet for a repeat performance. and no one will ever question his stamina or dedication to the show given how many encores he's prepared to deliver. he is a consummate showman.

saturday alex had a birthday party to attend. i was tapped to take he and a neighbor boy, sebastian to the celebration. sebastian lives a few doors down from us and is one of alex's favorite pals. the last time i took the two of them out, we went to a local attraction, the city museum, for the day. when it was time to head home, we had lost sebastian's shoes. when i delivered him home, i told his parents i had good news and bad news. the good news was i was safely returning the eldest son. the bad news was he no longer had his shoes. this saturday after his mother buckled him into his seat next to alex, she turned to me and said "and don't worry about his shoes this time troy, i put a really ratty pair on him." i appreciate human sensibility.

the party was leagues away. the birthday boy chose chuck e cheese as his locale and the closest one was several zip codes from us. between the distance and a highway closure, i ended up horrifically lost. a trip that should have taken thirty minutes took us over an hour and at our most remote point we were driving through farmland and at one point even found ourselves in the middle of a forest. when we were shrouded by trees i found the boys staring our of their respective windows, fascinated. this was about forty minutes into the trek and one of them asked:

SEBASTIAN
how much longer will it be until we are at chuck e chese.

TROY
uhhhm. well a few minutes ago i didn't know where we were, but now i do which means we are no longer totally lost. so that is good. and based on where i think we are, i'd put it at ten minutes away.

turns out we were twenty five minutes away but the moment i walked into this children's mad house, i yearned for the uncertainty we knew only a half hour ago back in the woods. in surveying the dark, cavernous room, i concluded i haven't been to one of these since i myself was alex's age. furthermore, i think i can sum up the day by describing three scenes:

scene one. the birthday party is sitting at a long table watching a video of people singing happy birthday. there are four other such long tables to our right and left. a commotion behind us causes all of the seated adults to crane their heads to see the source of noise only to spy a huge costumed rat walking towards the stage with a mob of children parading behind it. in the melee i see a child launch himself from a chair onto the rat's back. the kid looked like a miniature version of tom cruise acting out a scene from the mission impossible series. post-jump, i recognize the kid as being from our neighborhood. i looked to his mother who was sitting across the table from me. she looked both drunk and high:

TROY
lori, i think your kid just attacked the rat

LORI (smiling as though she didn't hear my comment)
i feel like i'm in a movie. i've never been here before. this is surreal. i don't think this is really happening to me.

she never acknowledged the fact that her son was chewing on the rat's tail and madly punching his right buttock. based on the rodent's non-response i think the high school kid wearing the costume either couldn't feel the assault or found it inconsequential compared to the fact he was currently wearing such an ill-fitting and socially-damning getup.

scene two. throughout the day the hostess of the party gave me over 150 gold tokens for the two boys i brought. at first i thought this would be far too many but learned it was possibly not enough. there was one game that had you deposit a token. the game would then shoot the coin into the air where it would land on one of three terraced metal trays. on the trays were the coins shot by previous players and behind the coins were several mechanized bulldozors which cyclically pushed at the coins. the goal was to land your coin in a spot that would cause the shovel to knock a bunch of coins off the tray. alex quickly fed five coins into the game. he then looked up at me and asked why nothing was happening. my eyes widened.

TROY
alex! what do you mean nothing is happening. don't you see it shooting your coins in the air?

ALEX
no.

TROY
well why'd you keep putting money in.

ALEX
i don't know.

TROY
you should figure out what's happening with the game before you pump a bunch of coins into it.

ALEX
oh.

after i explain the premise of the game, he becomes excited and pushes coins in faster than the game can launch them into the air or he can watch them fly. it turns out the best game of all is seeing how fast you can insert your fistful of coins into one of the machines.

scene three. i am sitting in a race car game. alex is on my lap. he needs me because he can't reach the gas pedal. i can see sebastian playing another game to my right. regarding alex's game i just keep the pedal pushed all the way down so i can watch sebastian. alex spins the wheel madly. occasionally a sultry sounding woman's voice comes through the speaker, "what are you doing? you are going the wrong way." she sounds annoyed ... but sultry still. without looking at the screen i tell alex to turn the car around. he asks why. i tell him he's going the wrong way. while we have this discussion i see a kid who looks about nine hovering behind sebastian. sebastian's game has spit out a bunch of tickets, which he hasn't noticed because he's focused on the game. the nine-year old reaches down stealthily and tears the tickets loose and stands to walk away. and this becomes the next thirty seconds of my life:

TROY
HEY! YOU! YES YOU. GIVE THOSE TICKETS BACK TO THE BOY! turn the car around alex. GIVE THEM BACK TO THE BOY! cuz the sexy lady said you're going the wrong way alex. STOP TAKING LITTLE KIDS TICKETS! you're still going the wrong way alex. APOLOGIZE TO THAT BOY! SHAME ON YOU! turn the car around alex.

at the end of the day the kids have collectively won just over 300 tickets with their 150 coins. before leaving we go to the prize counter to learn that they can have a plastic spider ring or fluorescent sticky worm that will cling to walls. because the two boys are not insane, they have no interest in either of those crappy baubles. the perky girl showcasing the prizes tells me that i can pay the difference between the ticket value and true cost of the toy if i'd like. they kids pick a ball game they can play together. my cut comes to more than twice what we would have paid for such a toy at the k-mart next door.

the moral of this longish story is this. if you have any money to invest, buy chuck e cheese stock because they have somehow figured out how to run a nearly criminal operation under the guise of a legitimate business. they are geniuses. their patrons are not.

the good news is we've got alex to stop calling people poop-head. the bad news is he's simply replaced the term with poop-things which is kinda even worse because previously the insult was quite specific. now he waves a hand in your direction and says 'you are poop-things dad. a lot of poop-things'. now it's not just my head but all of me and and not only am i just a turd on a pair of shoulders but all sorts of defacatory-related things as well. not a good place to be for a guy like me.

i fear we brought this upgrade on because of how we tried to defend 'poop-head' by saying that all 'poop-related things' belonged in the bathroom. it's actually quite keen of him to discern that there are more than just poop-heads in this big and great and mysterious world.

it seems a post from a few weeks ago has been causing a lot of confusion. first of all, marty is not pregnant and second of all marty is not pregnant. the first not pregnant clarification is for the people who felt the end of the previous post left things too uncertain. the last two lines read: i explained to marty that i was trying to be literary, not literal so hoped that by saying things had passed, i was implying that things had passed and we were out of the woods. sorry to have mislead some.

as for the second not pregnant disclaimer, marty recently got her hair cut short so anyone who knew of our ritual OR read that same post AND bumped into marty in the last few weeks was thinking that we were for real pregnant. now this confusion is certainly more justified and i'll say that even i was briefly duped by the circumstance of it all.

marty's stylist works a few doors down from our pediatrician so she booked anthony for a checkup and herself for a haircut in the same hour. we all drove to the doctor's office and then asked the kids if they wanted to go in with me and anthony or with mom. all voted for me and anthony (dumb luck that) so i escorted three rambunctious children into a cramped and spartan waiting room while marty took a peaceful stroll down the street.

surprisingly the kids and i got in and out quickly (you ever want to guarantee yourself good and fast service drag behind you three destructive and loud humans into places of business). upon getting into the car, we decided to go look for marty instead of waiting for her to return. i didn't know exactly where the salon was but figured if it was within walking distance we could find it. i drove down the road and soon spotted one and pulled into the lot. they had blinds up that prevented me from seeing the people inside so i told the kids to wait while i checked it out. i entered the lobby and stuck my head around the partition. i spied marty getting cut towards the back of the room. she and her hair lady were chatting lightly and i noticed that most of marty's hair was gone. i looked at the swaths of hair at the beautician's feet and ducked back behind the partition before marty could see me spying.

i somberly slid back into the driver's seat. the kids were going on furiously about if i saw her and was she in there and do they have candy for little kids who sit very still. i told them she was in there but that when she came out they wouldn't recognize her because she was getting a very different sort of haircut. for the first time they paused thinking on what i just said. after a few contemplative moments they started refuting my claim. i stuck to my guns saying they didn't know because they hadn't seen her and i did. right at this perfect moment, a hunched over elderly woman exited the salon. i pointed to her and said ...

TROY
there's mom guys.

BELLA/ALEX
what? where?

TROY
right there. she just came out.

ALEX
that isn't mom. that's an old lady.

TROY
i told you you wouldn't recognize her.

BELLA
we don't recognize her because THAT ISN'T HER!

TROY
of course it's her.

BELLA
if it's her why is she going to the car next to us.

TROY
she's just joking you. she's not really going to get in it. she's just playing.

(we all watch as the woman fumbles with her purse)

TROY
ahhh. she's tricking you good. in a moment she's going to come over here and say she tricked you.

ALEX
nuh-uh.

TROY
uh-huh.

(the woman found her keys, opened the door and got in.)

BELLA
see. she just got in.

TROY
man, she's really taking this far. she really want's to trick you big.

BELLA
nuh-uh.

TROY (i shouted at the window)
marty! get out of that car! you're going to get in trouble if someone sees you.

BELLA
dad! that's not her!

TROY
it is her. but she won't be able to start it so she's going to get out and come over any second.

the woman starts the car, backs out and drives off. somewhere during this the kids think that it may be their mother and are now concerned for her. with the kids twisted and craning their heads to watch the wayward woman drive off, marty emerged from the salon and got into the car while everyone else was peering out the back window. they spun around and excitedly caught marty up ...

BELLA
dad was joking us, saying you were some old lady. but then the old lady drove away. but it's ok because we knew it wasn't you and that dad was just joking us.

MARTY
yeah, he does that sometimes.

TROY
sooooo.

MARTY
sooooo what?

TROY
so, that's a pretty daring haircut.

MARTY
yeah, i decided to make it easy on myself.

TROY
there's nothing you want to tell me is there?

MARTY
no, i don't think so.

TROY
ok. because that is an awful short haircut.

MARTY
OH! NO! no! no. absolutely not.

TROY
ok. you gave me a bit of a start when i looked in there and saw you all demi moore'd up. i considered driving off without you.

MARTY
but you didn't.

TROY
yeah, it occurred to me i was getting the raw end given that i'd have three and you'd just have the one.

when i come home from work marty is typically putting the final touches on dinner and the kids are somewhere in the house playing invented games. the sound of the front door slamming at this time of day sends the children into an automatic frenzy and they scramble for hiding places because a game of ogre is now afoot. as i stand in the hallway i gauge each child's location based on their excited shrieks and hurried footsteps so i know where to begin my search for toes, tummies and biscuits. and on days when neighborhood kids are over, the fervor is extra-pitched.

when i stepped inside the house one day last week, i was not met with the usual cacophony but instead complete silence. i swung the door closed loudly and waited and listened. still nothing. my sweep of the first floor found no giggling hiders. i moved upstairs and checked the first few rooms. still nothing. then i found all three children shoulder to shoulder on the ping-pong room futon gazing blankly at a movie playing on marty's computer. as i stood next to the screen the glazed over kids barely acknowledged my arrival giving me a quarter-hearted 'hey dad' (we may need to take this no tv business a step further). i moved to my office to find marty sitting in the corner equally sullen. she was casually flipping the pages of a three day old newspaper.

hey.

hey.

how's things?

hanging on. long day. i haven't started dinner. feeling nauseous.

sorry to hear.

and, i'm too nervous to take a pregnancy test.

with our first few children marty used a pre-arranged code to tell me she was pregnant. the secret sign was she got her hair cut really short, like demi moore in ghost short. that's how i knew and when i'd first see her, she'd smile at me and i'd smile at her and then we'd hug and dance and shout right there on the spot (later i realized the flaw to this plan was some anonymous hairdresser learned i was to be a father before i did, but small price for the surprise frolic). now with three short haircuts behind us, i'm told the potential news while her eyes continues to skim the Week In Review section of the Sunday Times. marty is not a fan of unintentional things, especially when those unintentional things will go on to launch things off her dining room table during dinner and play with whatever they find lurking in the toilet bowl and repeatedly eat gravel.

and in case you were feeling anxious for us, marty's queasiness has since passed.

but the fear hasn't.

last night i was on the tail end of reading books to alex and bella when marty rushed into the room. she went to the back window, peering out of it. after a moment she called us over to see the lunar eclipse in progress. the kids quickly scrambled out of bed joining her. marty began explaining what was occurring. bella and alex stood on the windowsill taking in the scene while marty and i looked on from behind. three-fourths of the moon was already dim.

while we waited marty and alex began a guessing-game about the people traveling on the walkway behind our house. he would call out when he saw someone approaching and we would first try to guess their gender and then their name. my guesses of cornelius and pumpernickel were met with chastising looks from bella. between pedestrians, i got some paper and sketched out for the kids what makes an eclipse an eclipse. intrigued bella started asking questions about what direction things were moving in and what other things were possible out of this (i.e. solar eclipse). marty interrupted my lesson to point out a man dancing in his third-story bedroom across the way. we all silently watched this older man gyrate and swivel to music we couldn't hear. while no one announced it, i'm sure all four of us were squintingly trying to see if he was naked. in time he paused, walked to the window, seemed to peer at us peering at him. his arm came up and he twisted his venetian blinds closed. we returned to the moon and watched the last slivers of brightness fade. when it was done it seemed anti-climactic. slowly, people drifted back to their routine spots resuming their routine acts.

for as uneventful as this unique diversion proved, i have a sense that the twenty minutes the four of us gathered around a window in a dark room to watch the earth roll between the moon and sun will hang in a framed picture in my head for much longer than one would think such a mild-mannered event should or would.

monday morning i popped the top to my deodorant and found a gash through the typically smooth, glisteny surface. upon inspecting it closer the mar appeared to have been made by two small teeth. it would seem anthony is broadening his culinary horizons.

anthony has proven to be a bit of a problem for marty and i. with the first two children we just let them put into their mouths whatever they felt compelled to and let them learn first hand the reasons not all things are meant to be eaten. the first time i saw anthony play with a bar of wet soap in the tub, it wasn't long before he raised it to his mouth and took a bite off the corner. i quietly watched his face wrench up waited for the waxy chunk to drop out of his opened mouth. but instead of pushing the morsel out he lifted the bar back to his mouth and took another bite. i hope he's not a cusser because it looks like the classic punishment ain't going to have much teeth with him.

lately marty has been sending anthony in to wake me in the morning. reason is he is better at it than anyone else in the house. in trying to get me to play with him he hits me about the face, perches himself on top of my head hoping i'll try to make him fall and/or buries my face with books, toys and clothes. yesterday he woke me by trying to force a plastic car into my mouth. very effective that. i groggily sat up, patted him on the head and moved to the bathroom.

i mindlessly turned the shower on and walked to my office giving the hot water a chance to start its day. anthony waddled behind me at each stop hoping i'd toss him in the air or read him the book he held in his hand. as i leaned over my desk typing my password i felt something on my foot and looked down to see an arc of pee coming from beneath his unbuttoned onesie and landing on the top of my foot. he looked up at me proud and smiling. from my up-high view i didn't notice that he was diaper-less. my mind tried to remember if before cramming the matchbox in my mouth if he had sat on top of my head that morning. i couldn't be sure. while still watching the stream i let go a throaty "AAAAAAHHHHHHGGGGG!" hearing my exclamation marty innocently called from downstairs, "is anthony peeing?"

on the good side, i couldn't have been in a better place in my day to get pissed on. i was already naked and the running shower should have reached a steamy state by now. when i finished washing my foot five times (and my head twice just in case), i pulled the curtain back to find alex standing in the bathroom. his pants were around his knees and he was fumbling with the front of his underwear.

hey dad! look at this?

what am i looking at alex?

i can pull my penis out of this hole in my underwear.

well yes you can. and it's only 8:12 in the morning.

do you want to try to pull my penis out of my underwear?

not today pal. i gotta get ready for work.

standing in the kitchen, i quickly ate a bran muffin, got dressed and headed down to take the kids to school. as i descended the stairs alex was standing in the foyer with his pants, again, at his knees and showing his new trick to the rest of the family.

look mom. look della. i can take my penis out of my underwear through this hole.

(the girls bend and crouch to see the action)

i see that alex. now can you put your coat on for me.

no. wait. one minute mom. do you want to do it?

no. i don't need to do it alex.

della? do you want to do it?

yes!

no. bella doesn't need to do it either. please put your coat on alex. you're going to be late.

i wish i had a penis. (bella said in her saddest voice)

while not as noteworthy, this day held like surprises for me throughout. but i absorbed them all with a broad grin thinking at least these humans weren't smilingly dousing me in fresh urine, nor were they offering to let me bend and contort their penis through a too-small and not-straight-enough passage in their jockey briefs. you can't keep a man with this outlook down. it just can't be done.

anthony has earned the distinction in our home as the person who has deposited more objects into the toilet than anyone else. obviously, in his case i'm referring to objects not meant to go in the toilet. he seems convinced that the commode is the proper storage location for every loose and free-standing object we own. if you ever spot him meandering the halls with something in hand, you can be su...

i call this two-shot series photographed by alex "EVIDENCE".

alex had a playdate to the house yesterday. when the boy's mother came to pick him up she asked alex if he would like to come and play at their house. alex said that he wouldn't need to come to their house because he wasn't going to let the boy go home. the woman smiled at alex's cuteness and continued her departure. minutes later as she ushered her son to the car, alex stood on the front porch and screamed, "if he leaves, i'm going to take my penis out!"

i gotta say, i never had great luck with that threat either. i think a smarter approach would be to take it out and threaten to only put it away if your demands are met.

alex got a fisher price digital camera for christmas. on christmas day he took 231 pictures. since then it's been like living with a three foot tall paparazzi. it also makes me sensitive to how often i'm naked. and he could not be a worse height to be taking pictures of me naked.

our house has been caring for a one-legged cricket named jumpy. bella found him struggling along while she walked home from school. once home, she and alex prepared vast accommodations housing him in a large glass aquarium (suitable for a guinea pig) with cardboard huts, tunnels, water dish, and vegetable pieces. i dislike these sorts of games because of the kids perfect record in caring for living things. and that is perfect as in mortician-perfect, not hospital-perfect. a few weeks passed and jumpy was doing well. this was for sure a new milestone. he had even moved to the kids room and sat atop a dresser because, i was told, he got lonely at night having to sleep in the breakfast room all alone.

the other night bella and i got into a familiar spat about bedtime, the spat being it was bedtime and she did not want it to be bedtime. as she resistantly headed for the stairs she knocked some coats and backpacks off a coat-rack. i made her stop and hang them back up. she paused from her frustrating task long enough to say to me, "jumpys dead. i wasn't going to tell you because i know you don't like it when life dies, but he did so there."

i silently took this news in. i was silent because as a parent it is the right thing to do with a child's rage and because i was a little sad to hear of jumpy's demise. i was starting to like having him around. but i guess it was either that or the kids' perfect track record which is long enough now you sorta hate to see it get marred.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. sugar-coated

tickling is a major staple in our house. we have numerous tickling games, tricks, ploys and methods. but we are also a house of rules and some tickle-related rules we have include:

1. no tickling someone when they are going to sleep, sleeping or waking up.
2. no tickling someone when they are eating or preparing food.
3. no tickling someone when they are sitting on or standing in front of the toilet.

if i could only pick one of those to enforce going forward it would be number three, without question or hesitation. although number one is pretty sucky too.

many of these battles unfold a little bit like this:

TROY
alex, come here, i want to whisper something to you.

(alex starts walking towards me, albeit suspiciously. if bella's in the room her head snaps up and looks our way. if she's somewhere else in the house and heard my words she runs to the room we are in.)

BELLA
ALEX! don't do it! it's a trap! he's going to tickle you.

(many times alex has already moved too close and i grab him up, throwing him over my lap, tickling him madly.)

ALEX (through great laughter)
DELLA! DELLA! help me della.

(and bella does answer but as soon as she arrives to save him i push him away and grab her up throwing her over my lap and begin tickling her.)

BELLA
ALEX, HELP! HELP ME ALEX!

(and like bella, alex rushes to her rescue and i trade the kids out again. and so our game goes. sometimes i think the sport would go for hours but one, if not both of the children, in their excitement resort to hitting, kicking and biting to save their ally and they are big and surprisingly strong and their father is delicate so this is usually how the games end, with me massaging a bitten arm or rubbing a punched temple.)

last night marty had her monthly neighborhood meeting. i arrived home from work late and when i walked through the door, marty handed anthony to me and walked out the door. after about an hour of uneventful play, i herded the younglings upstairs, brushed teeth, pajamad bottoms and asked bella to read to alex while i put anthony down. five minutes later while rocking anthony near his bed i heard music start playing from alex and bella's room. TURN THAT MUSIC OFF! I'M TRYING TO PUT YOUR BROTHER DOWN! the music abruptly stopped. five minutes later bella walked into anthony's room, handed me a piece of paper as if she were serving me a summons, turned and walked out. the note read:



after getting anthony to sleep, i went to look in on bella and alex. alex was asleep and bella was scrawling out a second note. i asked what it was and she handed me her tablet. the page read:



item number six was not initially scratched out. that happened when i asked her why she included number 6. IS STRICT. she asked what strict meant. i told her. without pause, she took the tablet out of my hand scribbled over the line and handed it back to me. this edit effectively removed the only qualification i could claim on her well-itemized job description.

walking towards my office i hear a hushed voice say desperately, "he's coming! he's coming!!! Hurry!!!!" as i round the corner i see alex standing on top of the futon back with his hand deep into the front pocket of my computer bag and the neighbor boy, the one urging him to be quick, standing below him. both boys look to me, eyes wide and cheeks packed. earlier in the week alex saw me put a jumbo pack of juicy fruit in my bag. by visual estimation, i'd wager each child already had between four and six sticks of partially masticated gum crammed in their stretched mouths. this next stick would have surely been the difference between the 'fully struggling' and 'completely drooling' stages on the gum-chewing-effort scale. i shooed them away telling them it was rude to dig through other people's stuff and to stay out of my office. they ran off tittering like embarrassed school girls.

as i type this note to myself i can hear them on the other side of the wall already conspiring for their next run at my stash of gum. on the good side, i guess i should be thankful they weren't stealing peeks at marty's porn collection.

on saturdays i try to take bella and alex out on adventures. this is my attempt to reward marty at the end of her week. mainly it allows her to run something other than a zone-defense in her home, if even for a few hours. on the most recent outing bella and alex were in a bit of a competitive place. let me try to give you a sense of what two antagonistic sub-seven year olds sound like over a four-hour period:

37 x	I won
38 x	no, I won
10 x	everything is not a race alex
8 x	i'm not racing della
6 x	how about you're the second winner alex
5 x	dad, della is touching my shoe
4 x	dad, alex is making faces at me
1 x	dad, i have to go pee ... and poop
1 x	me too.
and this is what the father of two sporting kids sounds like over the same four-hour window:
16 x	bella, stop teasing your brother
15 x	alex, stop provoking your sister
10 x	do you two want to go home?
3 x	i need everyone to be silent and still for five minutes
3 x	the toilet paper goes in the bowl, not on the ground
2 x	leave it on the floor, don't touch it!
2 x	ahhh! i said don't touch it!
1 x	i'm done. they're all yours. i'll be in the shower...

bella spent the last two weeks at a circus camp. bella has been pretty keen on circusy stuff since seeing a trapeze artist perform at a shakespeare festival a few years back (when the girl we were watching finished bella was the first to rise and exuberantly applaud). at the conclusion of this camp bella informed us that she would be conducting her own camp at home for us, her family. marty and i nodded in support saying that was a fine idea and then dismissed it. moments after getting out of bed the next morning bella came up to me, handed me a sheet of name badges and told me to get ready because class was about to begin.


bella set her school up in our living room. she placed every pillow in the house in the center of the floor. marty somehow got a pass which left me, alex and anthony as bella's only pupils. she began by running us through a series of tuck and roll drills. next bella and i worked on a move where she stands on my shoulders, her arms stretched wide in the air (we're getting pretty good at this maneuver if you ever see us and would like a viewing). next i had to work on a headstand. bella demonstrated how to start out which is this precarious upside-down tripod like pose which i can't even begin to describe. once you're in it though and have your balance you are to raise your legs vertically in the air. i couldn't believe how hard it was to straighten my legs perfectly upright without haphazardly tipping over. seeing me struggle bella came to spot me and started trying to push and hold my legs up. watching, from my inverted view, her laborious attempt to get me into position made me start laughing, much to the chagrin of my six year old spotter. she let go and i fell flat still laughing. i was chastised for not being serious and having such heavy legs. fortunately this impasse concluded our first day of tutelage.

as we wrapped up bella informed me that for our real production to the neighborhood folks a few weeks out i would have to wear appropriate attire which is a leotard. when i confessed to not having one she said i'd have to make one. when i said i didn't know how to sew she said aunt cheri did and i should get her help. since aunt cheri lives in chicago i told bella i thought i could maybe fashion one out of a t-shirt. embarrassingly, this wasn't a lie. a friend of mine told me how her ten year old son got this notion of making a wrestlers bib. to do so, while naked he put on a t-shirt and then stretched it down into his groin and clipped the front and back together with a safety-pin. he was quite proud of his creation and ran around the house playing for a bit. when it came time to take it off, he hit some trouble. he found he was unable to get a good enough handle on the safety pin to undo it. he obviously became vexed by this and went to his mother somewhat distressed. she studied the situation and concluded there was only one way to approach the predicament; roll her sleeves up and go in. i'm convinced it is these unique moments that happen behind the closed doors of people's homes that create the special bonds that make families close and forever connected. because there is little doubt that if i performed a similar service for someone we're either related or seriously dating. the only question remaining is who is the lucky soul living in my house getting tapped when papa troy needs to make tinkle in the potty between acts.

a note about yesterday's photo. yes, bella is sitting in a dresser-drawer. she pulled it from the dresser on the very left of the frame about six months ago. after removing the drawer she stacked the clothes that were in it back into the newly created void. she then lined the drawer with a blanket and pilfered a pillow from the tv room to use as a backrest. she calls it her reading box and she uses it everyday, sometimes for hours a day. she's less than a month out of kindergarten and reading series based chapter-books. and she has a cooler reading room than me.

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.