if i were ever tasked to teach a class on parenting it would be short. i would walk into the classroom and write the following bullets on the chalkboard:

1. put any material things you really care about in long-term storage. if you feel you can't live without them, visit them on the weekends.
2. if you feel yourself getting really angry, leave the house until you are no longer really angry. good things/decisions/memories never happen when people are really angry.
3. learn to breath through your mouth, exclusively. this doesn't become hyper vital until your child stops nursing and starts eating the same things you eat. but start practicing the skill early. when it becomes relevant, you'll be glad you did.

once you've read and understand the above points, you are free to leave. oh, and one last thing, your children will one day understand more about the world at hand than yourself, respect them accordingly.

when i'm the one who reads to the kids at bedtime, one of three things happens:

1. bella falls asleep first.
2. alex falls asleep first.
3. i fall asleep first.

last night was a number three night. when a number three night happens one of three things occurs:

1. some time later, marty kicks me in the feet and tells me to get up because i'm snoring and it's keeping the kids up.
2. i wake in the middle of the night lodged uncomfortably between the two sleeping children.
3. after about thirty minutes i stir on my own, get up and resume my evening.

last night was a number three night. i woke with a start and lifted my head. alex was asleep on one side of me and on the other bella was sitting up reading a book in the dark. she looked at me guiltily knowing she was not to be reading but either sleeping or trying to go to sleep. i was about to say something when she brought her hand directly towards me and started scratching the top of my head. my face fell back on the pillow and i was back asleep in seconds.

everyone in my family knows there are few things i like more than having my head scratched. seeing bella's hand come toward me in my groggy state reminded me of a movie scene where an addled patient wakes momentarily only to see a blurry vision of a doctor's hand depressing the plunger of a syringe returning them into darkness. after an unknown period of time, marty's voice talking on the phone downstairs woke me again. as i lay there, i'd hear bella occassionally turn a page in her book (my face was looking away from her). she was not scratching my head but if she sensed i was starting to wake up by my movements or breathing her hand would mindlessly return to my head and scratch it a circular pattern giving me another dose of medicine while she continued to read.

marty ended her phone conversation and started coming up the stairs. bella stopped scratching my head, snapped her book shut, slid it under her covers and (i'm sure) laid her head on her pillow in a closed-eyes, angelic pose. all was still when marty passed the doorway. i then heard marty in the ping-pong room typing at her desk. back out came the book. after a few minutes i lifted my head. bella again looked at me guiltily. i put a finger to my lips (shhh sign) and got up. i leaned in, kissed her on the forehead and thanked her for my head-scratch. she softly said 'you're welcome' and i left her.

i'm certainly in no rush to have my first child grow up but can honestly say i'm ravenous to see what kind of adult she becomes.

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.

what follows are the first four things i heard coming out of my first night's sleep after my weekend away:

1. oh anthony! you wiped poop on your dad.
2. troy don't move. there's poop on your back.
3. hold still or you're going to get it everywhere.
4. oh crap anthony! you got it on the sheets too!

am i the only one to find it mildly interesting that marty expresses more dismay by discovering feces on her linens than on her husband. i mean she has at least two sets of sheets. sheesh.

if there is a good part to this story it is i wasn't actually awake through this and the commentary was only hazily registering with me. it wasn't until marty brought it up later that night that i turned to her asking, "you mean that really happened. shit." quite succinct on multiple levels.

three things that put baby anthony immediately to sleep:

1. the car
2. the bike carrier
3. the television

three things that make alexander weep:

1. bleeding wounds
2. people leaving the house without letting him push them on the buttocks
3. bella touching him with an index finger

three things isabella does to agitate people:

1. poking them with an index finger
2. hiding their belongings
3. pinching them in the groin

three things that make marty sleep deprived:

1. her children
2. the neighbors wind chimes
3. season three of LOST

three things my kids do to wake me up:

1. whispering
2. tickling
3. suffocation

the five rules of a marshall dunn tennis clinic:

1. always cock and ready your arm before swinging.
2. never take your eye off the ball.
3. always follow through on your swing.
4. never change a winning game.
5. always change a losing game.

oh, and whenever dispensing this advice he adds that all rules also apply to life itself.

match the expression of disgust to the person.

A. dammit	1. troy
B. oh hecks	2. marty
C. (loud, wet flatulence)	3. bella
D. oh suck	4. alex
E. darnit	5. anthony

04.30am		put my computer to sleep after working on a site design for 7 straight hours
04.35am		get undressed in the dark and fall into bed only to learn alex is sleeping in my spot. i yank my pillow from under his head and drag it behind me to his bed.
04.40am		listen to bella grind her teeth for five minutes and do some unqualified projections on what orthodontic expenses will look like in ten years.
04.45am		fall asleep
06.18am		roll over and smash my face into a metal thomas the tank engine toy. attempt to throw it across the room but send it into the wall next to the bed. fall back asleep.
07.30am		get pushed in the head by alex's foot and told to get out of his bed. i push him away telling him to go ask mom.
07.34am		get shoved again by alex, this time with a hand, and told more emphatically to remove myself from his bed. i repeat the instruction to take it up with his mother. he leaves.
07.50am		pushed in the back by marty and told to get up for work.
07.53am		bowl of grapes spilled on my head and chest as alex roughly climbs over me for the thomas train that accosted my cheek and nose earlier.
08.00am		pushed harder in the back by marty and told she's not telling me again to get up.
08.06am		tickled by bella and excitedly told 'first one to the tv room gets to pick first show'. i tell her i hate the formulaic brainwashing that happens on modern broadcasting and am fifteen hours into a boycott. moments later i hear her shout her first-show victory through the house.
08.10am		again shoved in the back by marty and told i am ruining her morning.
08.32am		i wake, naturally, and stumble to the bathroom feeling surprisingly refreshed and have a notion it is going to be a good day.
08.35am		i find my electric toothbrush lying behind the toilet. it seems the good day hunch was a tad premature.

bookguy calls it noun-challenged. to be noun-challenged is to be someone who can't remember people's proper names. between he and i, it's unclear who is more severely afflicted. as per usual, he would claim the title and i would claim he is wrong. either way, it is a fierce race.

as evidence to my condition allow me to turn to my proclivity for nicknames. i give people such monikers for three reasons; (1) to insulate them from embarrassing things i may say about them online, (2) because i can't remember their name at all, or (3) because i can't remember the version of their name (mike, michael, mikey, m-bag) they prefer or more importantly, they greatly dislike. and on that last item, i've argued many a time that mike, michael, mikey and m-bag are entirely synonymous and should be freely interchangeable.

to recap, some of the past characters, several of which you've heard of countless times ...

• bookguy
• bookpimp
• e-love
• man who screams like woman
• doctor j
• the way with words girl
• chavez
• smart ryan
• buddy james
• thin when tan girl
• the why the hell wouldn't ya guy
• the doctor of diss
• guy with mussed hair
• and of course, girl who dates guy with mussed hair

here's a few i've never shared online and use mostly when talking with walt (or rather marty) ...

THE FAKE MOMS
a group of highly augmented ladies who hang out at our pool.

NEWSPAPER DAD
a guy who sits at the park with his four young children reading the ny times and shooing his kids away anytime they near him.

HOLD MY BABY
actually bookguy-coined this gem but it is a fast staple in our home and i'm not really in a position to speak to its origin.

SMILING LADY
i see this lady all over the place and she makes the joker look morose.

BAD, DRUNK MOM
she's not just bad and she's not just drunk, she's both and therefore gets the double-bill.

YELLING MOM
the yelling mom scares me and is not too surprisingly married to ...

THE QUIET GUY
i got ten bucks that says this fella comes out soon.

some things i believe:

television killed the american family.

air conditioning killed the american neighborhood. *

and, irresponsible amounts of available credit killed the american society.

* television didn't do our neighborhoods any favors either.

i'm thankful to work in an industry that does not include the following phrases.

• second shift
• third shift
• or night shift

i'm unthankful that the advent of the pager is what made the removal of those terms possible.

click to watch
more than one person has commented to me that they imagine this is how i am at work. it is clear to me that those people either ...

1. work with me currently
2. worked with me in the past
3. have or had a hidden camera set up in my office.

three things i try to do everyday:

1. walk on grass
2. make my children laugh (giggling and/or tittering counts)
3. not die

movies that have made me cry ...

1. the champ
2. where the red fern grows
3. life is beautiful
4. fahrenheit 911

and, on that last one, i'm not talking about a welling up in the eyes but about full-on, cheek-streaming tears.

a few things i don't get...

1. people who think eating lots of food is funny.
2. my compulsion to roll the sleeves of my workshirts up like charles ingles did in little house (past the elbow).

thursday morning i woke up, took my shower and then went downstairs to the kitchen wearing a towel around my waist as i'm like to do. bella was already down there sitting at the counter eating her breakfast.

b: good morning daddy.
d: good morning sweetheart.
b: there's another daddy in the basement.
d: oh is there? that's nice.

one quickly adjusts to the rocketing imagination of a young child and learns to nod and 'uhm-hum' with great frequency. so i got my breakfast together and sat next to bella at the counter eating. then the 'other daddy' emerged from the basement appearing in the kitchen doorway.

o: good morning.
d: oh, good morning.
b: there's the other daddy, daddy.
d: yes, i see the other daddy.

turns out the other daddy in the basement was the exterminator marty had let in while i was showering. marty entered the kitchen and started rapping with the guy. i decided to quickly finish my breakfast and head back upstairs to get ready for work. but, the conversation he and marty were having proved interesting enough to draw me in. it's not often that i stand in front of strange men in nothing but a towel and jaw for 20 or so minutes but (1) i didn't know he was here and (2) it is my house and this is what i do. one may ask what can be learned in such a short span between a man holding a can of bug spray and another wearing a plush green towel. here's a sample of what i now know about this other daddy.

our exterminator ...

1. was one of eight children. four boys. four girls.
2. had a nun ram a pencil into the palm of his hand when he was in first grade. the lead tip is still there.
3. is a book-writing, painter.
4. grew up on a farmhouse built where a lake used to be. in addition to several feet of water they would routinely find salamanders swimming around their flooded basement.
5. went through a horrible divorce where he sold his bar in attempt to get his two sons. he lost the petition and was instructed to give them up and pay child support. when he and his wife exited the courtroom, she pushed the two boys to him and said you take them, but i still want the checks.
6. cried when he dropped his oldest boy off at college. he almost made it out of there but as he was driving away his son looked back and waved. it was here he lost it.
7. almost died from internal bleeding after having colon cancer surgury.
8. wished he had learned to play the piano in his youth, but feared for his safety given his three brothers.
9. tried to domesticate a flying squirrel, mole and just about anything else he could catch in the woods.
10. knows a guy who looks a lot like me.

i had no choice. i told the guy i had to go to work but he would absolutely have to come over for dinner in the very near future. once at work i had the following conversation:

g: hey troy. so what's up?
t: not much. although, i just met the most interesting guy this morning.
g: who was it?
t: my exterminator.

this modest piece of banter culminated with the following life-lessons being passed down to me by a half-circle of the hunting, scratching, full-time-uber-males i work with ...

1. the man of the house should always know, and i mean always know, when another man is in his home.
2. men do not walk around their home in a towel.
3. men do not talk to strangers while in nothing but a towel.
4. men do not invite perfect strangers to their home for dinner.
5. men do not wear boxers. (one guy)
6. men do not wear briefs. (another guy)
7. men switch between boxers and briefs. (and yet another guy)
8. men shower before going to bed and not in the morning.
9. men do not run outside in their underwear to grab the paper.
10. sleeping naked is left to hippies and perverts.

i fear these guys are three minutes away from dragging me to the bathroom to prove to them that i'm actually a member of their gender club.

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

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

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

10 days off work
16 days away from home
2,600 miles over construction-ridden interstates
48 hours in a rented mini van
4 uproarious travel partners
10 north american states
8 sunny days on the beach
9 competitive days of tennis
1 lap around d.c.'s mall
16 iterations of mamma mia on the hi-fi
1 backyard wedding
5 tetris competitions
7 episodes of world's scariest police chases
1 great house-sitter

and after all of the above blessings it was this single item

1 open flatulence rule

that turned what should have been a frolic-filled holiday into an every man for themselves version of survivor on wheels.

and, the only reason i'm not filled with hate given this tenet of war can be gleaned in that it was i who proved the victor in this improvised test of perseverance and dedication to all that is unhealthy to eat and subsequently digest.

i drove all over the country this weekend and send the following messages.

1. to the green jeep girl who drives with her left foot on the dashboard: enjoyed swapping the lead position for 150 miles through ohio.
2. to the droves of people who don't understand the purpose of the PASSING lane: (edited for legal reasons)
3. to the mini van whose driver was eating an egg-mcmuffin AND talking on a cell phone in Indiana: get off my road.
4. to the construction geniuses in Indianapolis who added over an hour to my voyage: i boycott your city.
5. to the girls in the red cavalier who worked very hard to catch up to me so they could laugh and ridicule my seat dancing and open window loud singing to Nu Shooz: i commend your commitment to mockery and it is justified, but you can't keep me from the point of no return.

for those on the get troy committed consortium, allow me to proffer additional evidence. for those participating in the troy is the most anal man on the planet group, allow me conclude your effort. and, for those who like to occasionally dine with walt and i, allow me to remove the mystery of what will be slopped in front of you on any particular evening.

while we each have our own reasons, a few months ago marty and i moved to a monthly menuing system. on marty's part she has been trying to keep our food budget somewhere near the allotted amount. i have been petitioning to know what we are having that night so the ingredients are ready for use (meaning not frozen) and accounted for (meaning not at the store). and, collectively we recognize that it probably isn't ideal to have our family meals at 9:30pm given the little human we are now responsible for. given these factors we now sit down at the end of the month and create a menu for the coming month. rules follow:

1. we alternate who gets to pick the meal from day to day
2. sundays are new dish night
3. mondays are staple night
4. fridays and saturdays are left open
5. tuesday through thursday rotates between rice, meat, fish, pasta and a wild card dish
6. and lastly, should you wish to dine with us, you must tell us before sunday, shopping day, so we may get extra stuff for your gullet. note: steak night works on a strict first call first come basis and if marty doesn't like you, she requires you pay for your own cut so kiss up well.

given this lengthy introduction, i now welcome you to visit the recently completed What I'm Eating section of dearmitt.com.

additional note: only the recipes we deem keepers are committed to the recipe index for your own use and edification.

THE PLAN
07:00-07:30 eat breakfast
07:30-08:00 install compost bin and mulch surrounding ground
08:00-11:30 install upstairs quarter round
11:30-12:00 pick up house and shower
12:00-01:30 go to darkman's 30th birthday party
01:30-03:30 tennis with e-love
03:30-04:00 shower and snack
04:00-07:00 hang out with bella, marty & peggy (returned from chicago)
07:00-09:00 go to a ron jeremy lecture w/ man who screams like woman (MWSLW)
09:00-11:00 watch the ron jeremy documentary P*rn Star
11:30-11:31 fall asleep

THE DAY
08:00-08:15 wake up an hour and fifteen minutes late
08:15-08:20 eat granola bar & drink thai coffee (#1)
08:20-09:00 install compost bin and mulch surrounding area
09:00-09:50 install upstairs quarter round
09:50-09:51 brake a pane of glass from a french door on my lap
09:51-09:52 step on drill bit with bare foot while backing away from broken glass
09:52-09:55 turn vacuum on so i can scream and cuss very, very audibly
09:55-10:15 clean up glass and apply band-aids to legs and feet
10:15-12:00 finish installing upstairs quarter round
12:00-12:45 pick up house and shower. oh yeah, and thai coffee (#2)
12:45-01:35 go to darkman's party
01:35-01:40 kindly request that conner the chimp be removed from my lap so i can depart
01:40-04:00 tennis with e-love
04:00-05:00 hang out with bella, marty and peggy until they leave for some family thing
05:00-06:00 sleep. thank god for sleep.
06:00-06:03 read sign stating the ron jeremy appearance has been canceled.
06:04-06:20 resist pummeling the ticket whelp who hung the evil sign.
06:20-06:30 win debate with MWSLW regarding best possible question to ask the hedgehog
06:30-08:00 eat at lemon grass - have thai coffee (#3)
08:00-09:00 go to ted drewes for custard - suck-up to marty via an oreo concrete
09:00-11:00 geek with MWSLW
11:00-11:45 repeatedly listen to the freshly downloaded beasty boys? song GIRLS
11:45-12:00 lay in bed unable to sleep, thinking how good a thai coffee (#4) would be

marty and i have been married just over four years and i have finally, just now, convinced her to do away with the metal undercarriage to our bed. now the box spring is right on the floor and the mattress, obviously, sits on top of that. some people think it's silly, stupid and without point. those people are wrong. and simple. and waste their hatred of things on really, really dumb stuff. if you are going to hate, you should hate something of consequence, something that merits your venom, like walgreens or people who say that titanic was really an ok movie.

reasons we are better off without the metalworks beneath our bed.

1. bella can climb in and out of the bed without the aid of a stepstool or boost from marty given her little baby legs.
2. troy can climb in and out of the bed without the aid of a stepstool or boost from marty given his malformed stub legs.
3. not tempted or able to store meaningless stuff under the bed.
4. more room in our room for my bursting ego.
5. summer is coming and we live in st louis and heat rises.
6. when in bed, the room looks super big and you can play the "i'm a little munchkin living in a mushroom house and it all looks wildly out of proportion but that's because i'm a munchkin guy and i am also wildly out of proportion" game.
7. the metal framework holding your box spring does not do anything. the fact that you think it serves a need is the result of a capitalist conspiracy.
8. after peeing the bed in the middle of the night and getting angrily thrown out by marty i don't have as far to plummet.

now i just have to convince marty to let me hang up my black felt iron maiden posters and my vision will be complete.

below are three questions that were asked of buddy james last week. [preceeded by the type of person who asked]  

1. [kind of slow teenaged boy] do you have "children of the corn" on video?
2. [an oafish white girl in her twenties with a "transformers" hat on] do you have any books on may-hee-co?
3. [a japanese guy in his thirties with 2 kids in tow] do you have any cookbooks on CD?

editor's note: the only thing i'd pay more for than my very own transformers hat is to see an oafish white girl in her twenties wearing a transformers hat. i wouldn't go as far as to call it a fetish, but i just want to make it clear i'd pay a lot to see the/a girl.

1. team sports
2. any and all bruce willis films, and yes including die hard
3. the fraternity lifestyle
4. the french fry you just ate
5. the employee handbook
6. signs that read "please leave underwear on when trying on swimwear"
7. chest hair removal systems