a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. oh yeah

bella turned nine last saturday and had her first party where the invitation did not read, "please do not bring a present". after last year's party, bella respectfully asked marty if we could remove that line from next year's invite. and so it happened.

when it came time to open presents, a big huddle gathered around bella and kids were shoving presents at her with shouts of open mine next and this one's from me and mine's the one with the fancy paper. one after another bella opened the presents and squealed and shrieked with delight at each turn. just looking at her reaction you would think that (a) each parcel contained a boxful of puppies or that (b) bella leads a terribly deprived life and never receives presents (although this was for sure her most decadent day ever).

i sat in a corner of the room and took in bella's wonderfully animated reaction to each gift. truth told, the gifts she was getting were both (a) right up her alley showing bella's friends know her well and (b) pretty dang cool toys. about midway through the production, i saw one of the boy partygoers stepping away from the group and looking dejected. before i could approach him, another mother went to him knelt down to talk with him. when they were done i went to this mother and asked her if everything was ok. she said that the boy was afraid that bella wasn't going to like his present and he was embarrassed. concerned and thinking out loud i said i should try to get to bella to tell her to make sure to treat everyone equally but didn't know how i could do this without making it obvious given the gaggle of children crowding her on the couch. the mother, a good friend of marty's and a big fan of bella's put her hand on my arm, smiled and said it would be ok and that i didn't have to worry and bella would handle it just fine. i looked at this woman and her quiet confidence in my daughter encouraged me to sit back.

i re-took my seat and waited. when this boy's present was finally put before bella she began extracting the card, peeling it open like charlie bucket would a wonka bar. in it was a hand-drawn card the boy made. the picture depicted a horse race which showed a horse and rider about to cross the finish line. written above this horse was YOU - 1ST and then behind this rider was writing pointing to a horse off the page which said ME - 2ND. after bella took in this card you would have thought she had gotten two boxes of puppies. she looked at the boy and gave a shrill cry of happiness and said that she could tell he knew how much she loved horses. he looked down at his fidgeting feet, a small bashful smile covering his face. scarring moment averted.

later in the day, after the guests had gone home, bella and i were walking through our neighborhood. i asked her about that moment and what happened. she said that she saw that he, the boy, looked sad and she thought it might have something to do with his gift so she made sure he knew she appreciated whatever he brought.

not a bad start to nine. i'm just a little dismayed, a friend of the family knew bella would pull it off before i did.


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if you came by early yesterday you may have not seen the day's post. i made a mistake entering the date and it didn't show up until later in the morning. so if you missed it, you may want to read yesterday's valentines post before reading this one.

regarding yesterday's post, more than one person wondered what marty's card looked like. and more than one person wondered if there was a reason i didn't share hers and was it because it was better than mine or that it was way NOT better than mine or that i'm self-centered or pouty or selfish or i want all the attention to myself and the answer is, yes.

and for those who thought that the thoughtfulness and sentiment contained in my card couldn't be beaten, prepare to stand corrected.




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sunday morning i was brought from sleep at 7:15 with a kiss on my forehead and the words "happy valentines day dad." it was bella. she then whispered, as to not wake up alex who was sleeping next to me, that my breakfast was sitting on the windowsill next to me for when i woke up "for real". she then quietly exited the room. some minutes later i cracked my eyes and lifted my head to peer at the window she referenced. on it rested a tupperware platter with two pieces of freshly made french toast, a puddle of syrup, and a glass of sweet tea with hand-crushed ice.

marty who was sleeping with anthony in our bed down the hall received a similar treatment. on each of our trays was a highly detailed, bella-drawn card. on this valentines day my eight year old daughter woke up before 7am, went downstairs by herself and silently made her mother and father french toast, from scratch, and adorned the platters with hand-drawn cards she secretly made earlier in the week.

there have been multiple occasions bella has left me speechless, but never more so than with this completely unexpected and unforeseen gesture of love and kindness. at multiple points throughout the day, i found myself staring at her, in wonder and curiosity and gratitude. at times like this marty calls her a paradox. i don't know that i ever could justly verbalize my thoughts on bella and the way she approaches life. i just know i'm thankful to have the front row seat that i do to watch her wend her way through it.






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in case you're in a pinch for something good to do, i thought i'd share bella's LIST OF THINGS TO DO. that #1 wasn't to "make a list of things to do" was a little disappointing to me but she more than made up for it in the long run.

28 and 23 would be my first two picks were i pushed to select.

bella's anti-pajama boycott is still going strong. she is now in her third week. i'm fearful to tell you the politicking required to convince her it was ok to take them off so i could wash them on laundry days. during the negotiation i asked bella if other kids were doing this? she said, "no just me. it's my funny but usual way."

this morning when bella asked for help getting the pantlegs of her jeans pulled over her pajamas, marty paused for a moment to ask what bella's end goal with this was. bella said it was to get the world pajama-wearing world record. marty asked what the current record was and how long she had to go. bella confessed to not knowing the answer to this. i told bella this was great news because that meant she had to have it by now and could stop wearing the pajamas. the look bella gave me told me that this argument did not hold weight with her.

once a year bella and alex's school has a pajama day where all the kids get to wear their pajamas to school. this day, to say the least, is wildly popular among the little ones.

at some point during this last pajama day someone must have asked if they could wear their pajamas the next day. to this, the principal of the school said that they could not and you could only wear pajamas on pajama day.

four days after pajama day, i saw bella getting ready for school. she was pulling her pants on over her pajama bottoms and we had the following conversation.

TROY
what are you doing bell?

BELLA
putting on my pants.

TROY
but your pajamas are still on.

BELLA
i know.

TROY
well aren't you going to take them off.

BELLA
no.

TROY
uhhm. ok.

three days after that bella wore her pajamas to alex's soccer game, sans outer clothing. during the game an older student from the school who helps with the coaching asked bella why she was wearing her pajamas. she told him that she had been wearing them since pajama day. he said that was over a week ago. she she said, 'yup'. he leaned into me and asked if she's been wearing those pajamas all week. i glanced at bella and remembered her pulling her pants on over them and replied that as far as i knew she has been.

it's now four days beyond that and bella's still holding strong. the scary part is she's not boasting about it or touting some point she's trying to prove. she's just waging a quiet battle against an invisible foe called principle. i can't wait until she swings these guns around in my direction to prove some point or subtlety to me.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. shame on you

a memorable moment from each of the kids over the last few weeks.

everytime we drove by a nativity scene, anthony would call out, "hey! baby genius! baby genius!"

and during our christmas meal thank-yous at my parents house alex led off with "i'm thankful we have food to eat and that none of us died before this christmas day."

and while driving home from visiting friends bella enlightened the family with the following bit of wisdom:

BELLA
don't ever say 'sitting' while holding your tongue.

TROY (after thinking it through)
where'd you learn that?

BELLA
school.

TROY
from who?

BELLA
i don't remember. but they taught a bunch of people by telling them to all say "i was sitting on the toilet the other day" while holding their tongues.

i hope your break was equally irreverent, insightful, and educational.

there's something about voicemail from kids that is so way better than voicemail from grownups.

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128kb / 31 seconds transcript hello. this is bella dearmitt at the troy dearmitt's house. happy birthday again. lots of people at school are saying happy birthday also. uhm. i was wondering where you wanted to go to work, or i mean, to dinner. we are all voting for sushi. i am voting for steak if you would like to. so give us a call. bye. in the end i trumped them all and returned to the natasha's kabob international for the second year in a row.

i was going to build a couple of chicken wire pens in our backyard to compost leaves. it occurred to me that if i installed them over our raised kitchen beds, we could use the decomposed leaves to nurture the soil before our spring planting. when i told marty of this plan she said i should have bella measure the beds to see how much chicken wire we needed because they were working on area and perimeter at school. when i passed bella during my chores i pointed to the kitchen beds, handed her a tape measure from my belt, and asked if she could sketch them out and measure their length and width. she was headed to friend's house so groaned slightly at the delay but took the tape measure from me and continued on.

the next time i passed through the kitchen, this is what she left me on the counter.


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while walking by bella's room, i heard bella say in a flat, conversational tone to a visiting neighbor girl, "my mom said when i get married i can do the french kiss."

this comment stopped me dead in my tracks. if i were one to say hail marys i imagine i would have uttered one right there, complete with waving the sign of the cross but since i'm not a formally religious fellow i instead closed my eyes reverently, considered how unprepared i am for my future and continued on down the stairs.

someone had asked me how the new feel-good approach was going with bella. now two weeks in and sticking firm to the teachings i gotta say the transformation has been remarkable. this isn't to say i haven't been pushed by bella in the last two weeks because i have and will continue to be. what has been different is i haven't bitten. instead i've backed off and gotten her to back off until emotions and tempers can cool down. then when everyone is in a reason-worthy state, we talk.

in example, last night bella and i were supposed to go look at bikes because she has outgrown hers. i came home early from work to do this. when i arrived she was already in a fitful state. i calmly let her do her thing. she appeared before me in a huff and said she was ready to go. i said great. she asked how we were getting there. i said we were walking. she groaned loudly and said she wouldn't walk and would only go if we drove. i explained that if that were the case we wouldn't be going. she escalated. calmly, i told her she needed to go to her room until she could re-join the family in a calm and respectful way. she boisterously made her way to her room.

marty and i made dinner and did homework with alex and played with anthony. when dinner was ready, about an hour later, we called bella down. she appeared in the kitchen as if nothing had happened just sixty minutes earlier. without prompting she presented herself to me and said she was sorry for yelling earlier but her class got in trouble at school and they had to run a bunch of laps in gym and then she walked home from school and she was tired and afraid that she couldn't also walk to the bike shop. when she was done, i took her cheeks in my hands and said, "bella, how you just expressed yourself was amazing and if you'd said that, like that, an hour ago you'd have a new bike here and ready to ride to school tomorrow. thanks." with that we hugged, said we'd try to go tomorrow and moved to the dinner table to eat.

so in answer to the question, how has my new approach been working with bella, i gotta say, i'm a full-on, card-carrying believer.

locks of love got a ponytail.

bella got a double-shot of attitude.

i'm pretty sure the locks of love people needed that ten inches of hair much more than bella needed any more swagger.

YOU CAN'T TOUCH ME BY MY GENDER!!!

this is what i heard bella yell, loudly, just before marty and the kids walked out to go to school. i pictured alex playing some game that involved him trying to tag her privates. when i later asked marty about it, she chuckled and said that i heard bella wrong and what she actually yelled was:

YOU CAN'T JUDGE ME BY MY GENDER!!!

which she shouted at alex after he told her she couldn't do something because she wasn't a boy.

either way you cut it, there's a whole lotta marty stuffed into that little girl.

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bella and i have been struggling. i would say we have been for several weeks. it used to go in spurts with moments of good followed by moments of bad but since school began it's mostly been on the tense side. this picture shows us in happier times at the beginning of summer break.

things came to a head on sunday when she and i had a battle over her going to a neighborhood baby shower our family had been invited to. while walking to the shower, bella went into full shrill mode, and i, predictable as crappy service at borders books, bit. the hook didn't just pierce my lip. i swallowed it whole and only the longest pair of needle nosed pliers operated by someone skilled in removing hooks this buried could have saved the confrontation. it culminated with me marching bella home (prior to us reaching the shower) and sending her to her room for the remainder of the day. this was at noon.

that night when i went to exercise, my bike computer was missing from my desk. i asked bella if she knew where it was, she said she didn't. the next day, with marty's help, we learned that she did know because she had taken it from my desk and hidden it. with this multi-tiered offense, bella graduated to a new level of childhood crime.

i couldn't even begin to fathom the appropriate punishment. i told marty to be prepared for something extreme. two days later i was still thinking what it should be. while walking to work and playing the pending conversation in my head i imagined myself saying to bella that no one in my life, professionally or personally, treated me with as much disrespect as she showed me on sunday. before my brain had time to move to my next line, my head responded for bella telling me that the same was true for her, that i treated her with more disrespect than anyone else she dealt with from day to day. this froze my thought. after our fighting and boisterous stand-offs bella could say the same thing of me that i was thinking towards her. this realization made me sick to my stomach. this was not the father i wanted to be.

i pulled a book off my bookshelf. it was a parenting book i read a few years back called parenting from the heart. obviously i needed a refresher. i started reading its pages which still held my markings and notes from the first time i took it in. the basic gist of the book is this. children are born inherently guileless and happy. parents and society pour notions of insecurity and distrust into these innocent creatures, in time making them skittish and less certain. it was most likely done to us and unless we become aware of it, we will do it to our children. another way of thinking about it is that inside all of us is a happy and centered person, we just have a bunch of crap (work, fatigue, worry, doubt, debt, apathy) piled on top of it suppressing that original person from making more appearances. it's like the notion that everyone has a six-pack (you wouldn't be able to get out of a chair if you didn't) it's just no one can see it because there's three to nine inches of fat sitting on top of the well-formed and toned muscles.

i came home from work. marty was making dinner. i asked where bella was. she said she was next door. i told marty i'd take care of her punishment and that i'd had a change of heart. marty's head turned to me looking surprised. i told her the offense was made upon me and i felt that i had done things to warrant it and would like to handle bella's punishment my own way. with a touch of uncertainty marty relented the fight.

when bella came home i asked her to follow me onto the porch. she immediately started asking what and why. i marched ahead not acknowledging her inquiries. once on the porch i sat down and told her to come to me pointing at the spot directly at my feet. she did so apprehensively. she stood there looking pensive. i told her i needed her to give me a hug. she asked why. i told her it was because i needed one. hesitantly, she complied. it lacked heart, feeling. i told her it wasn't big enough. it wasn't good enough. she hugged me tighter. and then i hugged her. i hugged her BIG. and then we hugged each other. i looked at her and apologized for not being more supportive or understanding towards her as of late. she reciprocated. more hugs. this full exchange was less than three minutes long and by the end we were smiling and giggling and tickling. for the days and weeks prior to this we had predominately been nothing but scowls and scorn. for the first time in many weeks bella and i shared a completely tension-free evening full of respect and more importantly full of adoration.

i'm learning, more slowly than i should, there is no cruise control for parenting. you always have to keep your eye on the road and your foot on the gas. otherwise, you are destined for the ditch. or worse.

please know, this record is more for me than it is for you.

in case you wondering where bella has been this week, she's around. she's our veteran student and going into the third grade. i figured that with her it was all business as usual. and then i found an old picture someone gave us of bella when she started kindergarten. i was shocked at how different she looked. at the time of that photo alex was three and anthony had just been born. she is almost unrecognizable to her current day self. so much for business as usual.

bella in her kindergarten days

and bella a deceptive three years later.

yesterday was bella's second to last day working at the horse farm this summer. before leaving the house we were fighting, unsuccessfully, with the zipper to one of her riding boots. she told me i should use a pair of pliers and that's what the boy at the farm did. what boy is that i asked. she said it was julie's son. i asked who julie was. bella said i paused from my work on the zipper to look at bella. i told her that is one of the finest descriptions of a human i've ever heard, that wasn't in a book at least. bella just shrugged her shoulders and looked back to the zipper. then i did too and that was that.

it was tuesday morning, a little after seven. marty and i were just stirring from sleep. the house was still, the boys obviously still asleep. this was the first morning that bella was away. she was due to call in the next twenty minutes to say how her first twenty fours had gone.

as marty and i drifted from slumber and waited for bella's call, marty began recalling a time she spent a week with this same aunt. marty was twelve or thirteen. this aunt, aunt cyntha, had two daughters, rachel and melissa. rachel was a few years older than marty and melissa was several years older. both of the parents worked, one as a fireman and the other as a hair stylist. when the girls woke up in the morning, there would be a chores list on the counter. come the end of the day, if the items on that list weren't done and done well, there'd be trouble in the evening.

many years later aunt cynthia explained to marty that she was a believer in physical labor, both for chores and punishment. she felt it worked towards a tangible work ethic. her favorite punishment was to make a misbehaving child scrub a toilet with a toothbrush. one time cynthia's husband came up from the basement saying he could barely get the freezer door closed and asked if they had plans to defrost it. cynthia said there was a plan but that rachel, their youngest and more incorrigible child, was having a streak of good behavior and that the freezer would be defrosted after her next mis-step. cynthia admitted such a system required patience. fortunately she had it.

marty also remembered her cousin rachel had become interested in boys and marty not so much just yet. given her cousin's pre-occupation, their days involved biking around the community to pools and tennis courts, namely to meet girlfriends and an inevitable clot of boys. marty deflected most of the attention sent her way spending most of the time wishing the boys would stop talking to the girls so the girls could resume their games of tennis.

another, and more vivid, detail marty recalls was that she had her second ever period during this week at her aunt's. it took a day or two to work up the courage to ask her aunt for supplies. consequently she burned through her stock of underwear much faster than expected ultimately leaving her with only one pair of gangly and tattered briefs. during those days, over her hand-me-down underwear obtained from her sisters, she wore hand-me-down soccer shorts obtained from her brothers. these were the thin nylon colorful shorts that wore loose. during one of the tennis court pow-wows one of the boys looked at marty sitting on the ground and said to her derisively, "nice underwear" in reference to her ragamuffin briefs that were visible through the short's gaping leg holes. to this day the boys' sneer and tenor has stuck with marty.

the suck part of that story for me is that had i been one of the young men standing on those courts with marty, her cousin and her cousin's friends, it's unlikely anyone would have beaten me to that observation and subsequent remark about marty's ratty underwear. fortunately, i was safely hidden away three states to the west and by the time marty and i finally met, making fun of girls' underwear was long behind me, by several months at least.

oh, and bella's first day went swimmingly. so much so, it's questionable how we're going to ever pry her from in-house cable, forty horses and a deep-county farm.

marty has an aunt that works at a farm rehabilitating horses. last year she offered to let bella come out for a day. the farm attracts a lot of young kids who want to experience the life. for most, this translates to wanting to ride horses. not wishing to run such a business the keepers of the farm operate under the policy of if you want to ride a horse you have to do all the things relevant to this experience, because they are running a farm, not a petting zoo. as for what all things relevant entails, it seems it's the routine matters that happen on the farm: mucking stables, collecting eggs, brushing horses, cleaning hooves, exercising horses. after paying some dues you then get to do what you came to do, ride a horse.

bella's first day out, or more aptly, bella's first ten minutes out, she was handed a scoop and a rake, pointed to a stall and told to clean it out. bella struggled with the large scoop and lugging the buckets out to a rear paddock and dumping the waste, but she did it. when she was done, she moved to the next stall. seeing this her aunt told her she only had to do one and could now move onto another chore. conflicted, bella looked into the second stall and said that it was dirty and needed to be cleaned. her aunt said someone else would get it. that someone else was bella. and, it was bella for four more stalls (or every one in the barn). she gets this obstinance and love of cleaning and organizing from her mother. given this adoration for chores, bella became a quick hit at the farm.

that was last year. this summer bella has been spending a couple days a week at the farm. this morning we took bella there for the day but this time she has been invited to stay a few nights with her aunt so she could get some extra time in. bella was thrilled. marty and i were moderately apprehensive at having our girl away for such a period. alex was concerned at losing his sister. anthony is just glad he gets the legos to himself. we woke up at 6am in preparation for the one hour drive. when i walked by the kids room, i saw alex hand bella his christmas snow globe. this is one of alex's most prized possessions and is his forth such snow globe and more importantly the first to survive more than four days in his care. this particular globe was a present from my mother and was obtained at a flea market. the scene inside is of an indistinct city skyline but is so old (and cheap) that the paint is coming off making the water inside murky looking and hard to see through. bella held the globe to her chest, thanked alex for it and promised to take very good care of it. i think everyone in the house was feeling a bit like alex at seeing bella go. alex was just better at showing his feelings than the rest of us.

when bella and i arrived, the farm was in full motion. two other young, local girls who work there were helping bring the forty plus horses in from the pasture. bella immediately put her bag in her stable locker and took a nearby spot at the ready. another girl who i would guess was about ten was told to take the tractor and close the upper gate. the girl left the barn and pulled herself into john deere's version of a golf cart. bella's aunt turned and told bella to ride up with the girl. bella quickly took the seat next to the young driver. the girl backed the cart up and off they rode into a pasture and out of sight. not having said goodbye to bella i milled about. the aunt saw me standing to the side, gave me a wave and said, "see ya troy. i'll have bella give you a call before she goes to bed tonight." i thanked her and moved towards my car. i looked into the rolling hill bella and the girl disappeared into. i wasn't sure how far away they were going or how long the task would take them. i waited a few minutes. still no sign of them. the aunt saw me again and asked if i needed something. i said i wanted to say goodbye to bella before leaving. she took an apprising look into the distance and said they should be back any minute. a few minutes later i heard the tractor chugging and then saw it round the corner and the two miniature farm hands rumbled in like they'd been doing that particular task together for better than five years. the girl stopped the tractor, took it out of gear, put on a parking brake, hopped out and walked back into the barn and out of sight. bella slid out of her seat, walked wordlessly to me, wrapped her arms around my waist pressing her sideways face into my chest, giving me a tight squeeze. she then loosened her grip, said, "see ya dad", turned and followed the first girl into the barn. as i watched her walk in her confident strides out of view i realized that one day that moment will be the real thing and she won't be leaving my house for three days but three months, or better. i hope i'm more prepared then than i am now.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. daredevil's club

not too long ago while chatting with bella before dinner, out of nowhere she says, "you're just crazy about me dad!"

laughing, i agree, to which she adds, "that means you really like me."

"yes i do bell. i like you quite a bit."

the smile this innocent observation and exchange sparked in me makes me think the world would be a happier place were there more positive moments of candor bouncing around our society and world. to do my part, i'm going to employ bella's antic at work, reminding my colleagues that they too are just crazy about me. i'm sure it will go over just as swimmingly as it did for my precious isabella. how could it not?

it seems nick-naming everyone may have a genetic component in that bella has taken to applying monikers to her own world. most notably last week a group of kids at school she calls the hannah montana girls. and for added bite, not all of them are girls.

recently bella made a comment about going to another school. when marty asked why she wanted to change bella said it was to get away from the hannah montana girls. marty paused from what she was doing, turned to bella and explained that there was no getting away from the hannah montana girls because every school had them. they are everywhere. by the dour look on bella's face you would have thought marty just told her there was no santa, cuddly puppies, or music-playing ice cream trucks. she was struck completely dumb.

and as i think i've noted before, bella calls grown up hannah montana girls, decorated ladies. and like their younger counterparts, there's no getting away from them either.

1:30 i stood up from my desk to go to bed. marty was sleeping diagonally on the ping pong room futon. anthony was sleeping diagonally in my bed. i chose my bed. anthony is easier to push around than marty.

2:22 i woke up to anthony lifting my head with great effort and saying, "no you! ma-ma. no you! ma-ma." squinting my eyes, i lifted my head and had the following conversation with my blonde-headed 2 year old.

anthony, what are you doing?

no you. mama.

no me? no you. i'm sleeping here. mom is in the ping-pong room. if you want to sleep with her, go there. (with this i laid my head back down)

(anthony starts wailing and continues trying to push my head out of the bed) no! mama. mama! MaMa! MAMA!

i get up, carry him like a sack of potatoes under my arm to his crib and leave there wailing. i return to my bed, collapse in and am back asleep within 20 seconds.

2:50 alex whispers in my ear. he says he scared in his bed. wordlessly i lift the covers inviting him into my bed. he crawls in and snuggles into me.

3:43 alex wakes me again and says he really wants to sleep in his bed. i tell him to go sleep in his bed then.

3:47 alex wakes me again and says he still really wants to sleep in his bed but he's scared to alone and wants me to sleep in his bed with him. i tell him i can't because i'm already sleeping in this bed.

3:53 i'm climbing a bunkbed ladder with a sheet and comforter draped over my back like a deranged batman.

7:40 i stir to the sound of bella asking why she doesn't have any shorts in her drawer. as i open my eyes i realize i'm not lieing flat on my back. alex's head is under my right shoulder blade causing a large void beneath me and leaving me propped at an angle and pinned to the side safety railing of the bunk bed.

7:47 i gingerly rise to a sitting position and feel bones i never knew i had in my back rub together abrasively. a new day is underway.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. found