a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. dry meat

for those left unconvinced after yesterday's evidence.



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if you ever see marty or i and we look fatigued, the below image will begin to explain why.



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a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. beatdown

this weekend while lazing around the living room, alex asked anthony, who was wearing only underwear, if he wanted a wedgie. you'd think that might be the funny part of the story but it definitely got better after anthony said, "yeah, sure." marty and i took a break from our game of junior monopoly to watch alex position himself behind his brother, get a good hold on the elastic of his batman undies and near lift his brother off the ground. by my estimation it took an enormously long time for anthony to start rapidly saying, "ouch! ouch! ouch!" than i would have ever guessed it would.

and as if that wasn't enough, which i assure you it was, having anthony reach behind him and curiously feel the rope of fabric that was wedged between his paper-white butt cheeks with a wondrous look in his eyes as if her were petting a stingray at the zoo or touching a freshly born baby may have been the most unexpected bit of it all.

MARTY
"anthony, we don't close our penises inside library books."

the most interesting part of the story is not that marty had to tell our four year old to stop closing his penis inside a library book but that she had to go on to explain why.

friday was anthony's last day of school. i left a morning meeting at 11am and set out on the ten minute walk to his school. on the way there, i reminisced on some of the moments from anfer's first year of school. like how he would occasionally leave his classroom for another if the other room looked to have better stuff going on than his own. or the time he he tussled with his best friend over a stuffed animal, which culminated with someone getting bit and me getting to apologize from my work phone and say that he wasn't usually a biter. or the time anthony left the school, as in left the actual building, because he was done for the day and was confident he could walk home "by his own".

after ten minutes of these mental rambling in spectacular mid-day weather, by the time i came upon the school i was feeling very sentimental and soft. i looked at the lawn of the school where the kids were lined up and sitting on the small grass hill awaiting their pickups. on this particular day, because of the achievement, there were many double parents and video cameras and grandparents in attendance. after anthony saw me approach, i knelt down for the big running hug i usually get from him when he sees me (his excitement stems from my presence usually meant he got breadCo for lunch). on this day though, he walked slowly towards me dragging his backpack behind him. when he got to me he looked at my face and loudly proclaimed, "my butt itches dad." with this unfortunately audible declaration, he reached around and dug in good and deep through his sweat pants. i raised up looking at my rooting kid. i then looked around at the other smiling, hugging, recording, gap-ad looking kids with my wispy bubble of anticipation freshly popped over my moment, leaving me dotted with the goo it was made of.

but as he always does, anthony pulled it out. while we strolled under the canopy of trees that line our neighborhood streets, anthony observed that the houses looked like they were made of candy and that he thought we might live in a fairy tale village. i smiled. he then went on to theorize that the sidewalks were made of candy books which further supported his suspicion that we lived in a fairy tale village. i smiled more at his fanciful take. and then when a neighbor stopped to talk for a minute, anthony, tired of waiting, said in full exasperation, "dad, let's go. my butt still itches!". more bubble goo.

walking down the hall, i passed marty getting anthony dressed in one of the bedrooms. she was crouched down helping him with his pants.

what anthony said:
there are two kinds of balls. there are balls in your body and there are balls outside of your body that you can play with.

what marty said to anthony in response:
the balls that are in your body have a long science name called testicles.

what marty said under her breath:
and, depending on the day and your mood, you might find there's a touch of overlap here.

CLICK HERE
for a visual representation better defining
anthony's playful balls theory

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. mouthache

anthony's go-to insult when he's mad is to, before turning and stomping away, yelling:

you're a stupid penis.

or the more granularly/glandularly specific

you're a stupid penis-head.

pretty sure he picked that up from the older siblings. i'm also pretty sure he's dropped the penis-bomb at school. such realizations make one worry for their child and how much you're reaching them or how they compare to other kids their age. and just when you might start losing hope in your progress, he'll turn around and with a cocked eyebrow ask:

dad, where is the future at?

or the nice twisty one anthony asked marty while her mother was visiting the house:

wait, since both of you are adults, how could grandma be your mom?

what makes that one surprisingly hard to explain is that anthony thinks there are four kinds of people in the world: beebies, little boys, kids, and old people. when you lump everyone fifteen and older into one category, such distinctions get quite blurry.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. take your meds

if you're ever doing something that bothers anthony, he turns on this very serious voice and says, "you make me nervous when you do that."

i have no idea where he picked this up but he uses it in a convincing and effective way that conveys a genuine sense of care and concern for your well-being. some examples of things that make him nervous.

• picking at your nails
• pouring my vietnamese coffees from the glasses they're made in to the nalgenes they're taken to work in.
• throwing him around too vigorously when playing ogre

as for the first time i tried emulating anthony's move, i was told, "well i guess it sucks to be you then."

the moving of bowels and the draining of bladders is big news in our house and gets screamed through the halls: "i have to go poop!" or, "i have to go pee and poop!" or "i'm going pee and i don't have to poop!". to these reports of nature marty and i respond with a mindless shout back, "ok, i'll listen for when you're done." when the child is done they will loudly call, "i'm done!" or "i'm done going poo!". here marty or i will stand and head to the bathroom where we will wipe bottoms clean and help to raise underwear and lift pants to their proper places.

yesterday when i walked into the bathroom to help anthony, i pretended to be a pretentious butler and spoke in a fancy, airy tone.

TROY
are the royal biscuits ready to be wiped.

ANTHONY
i'm not called biscuits, i'm called ant-ton-eee

TROY
oh, my apologies fine sir.

ANTHONY
and i'm not royal. i'm just rich.

and this from a kid that doesn't have a dime to his name. that's the kind of positive outlook i, and many others, chase every waking day.

although, if i had someone wipe my ass after every use, i might be fancying myself a tad on the affluent side as well.

anthony replaces SH sounds with an F sound. it's no kinda problem, cute even, until he starts talking about the honey i shrunk the kids franchise. things get a little dicey in those waters. especially in front of strangers. but even with the confusion, he's still pretty dang cute.

marty was putting medicine on anthony's legs before bed. he was resisting by twisting and crawling away from her because he wanted to rough-house with bella on the bed. seeing this as i passed by i went in and told anthony to hold still. he did not. so i grabbed him and held him on the bed so marty could put the medicine on. anthony told me to let him go. i said i wouldn't because he wouldn't hold still. anthony then told me as he struggled to get free, "you (squirm) don't (fight) treat (wiggle) people (twist) this way." marty and i did not reply as we were both trying to hide the fact that we were laughing from his effortful plea.

after alex's indoor soccer game this weekend, a coach of a team playing next asked if alex would like to play again as his team was short a player. we asked alex and, amenable as always, he said sure. i gave the coach the tip that alex was an outstanding mid-fielder and sent them on their way.

as marty has just spent the last hour wrangling anthony in the rec center while i helped coach alex's team, i said i'd keep anfer occupied. as we were walking to the bleachers to watch the game, a neighbor i haven't seen in a while stopped me to say hello. we exchanged pleasantries and when i turned to continue to the seats anthony was no longer at my side. my head panned around the large indoor arena for a sign of him amidst a sea of kids and parents. nothing. then i saw people in the stands laughing and pointing. i looked in the vicinity of their cheers and saw that moments after the whistle blew staring the next game, the one alex was playing in, anthony had climbed over the wall and was charging towards the goal. i immediately set out sprinting around the arena wall to where you could get on the field (by where the players sit). by the time i got there one of the coaches had run anthony down and handed him over the wall to me. i carried the fitful boy over my shoulder to the bleachers and sat him next to me telling him not to move.

after less then three minutes, he turned to me and said he was bored and wanted to go home. i told him alex just started playing in a game and we wouldn't be going home for an hour. he groaned. as i turned to address him further, i saw a colorful magazine under the bleachers. i told anfer he should go down and get that book and see if it was any good. it looked like a pokemon catalog or something but truth told only five minutes into my assignment of keeping tabs on the child, i wouldn't have cared if it was an x-rated anime catalog if i thought it would keep him within grabbing distance for the next fifty seven minutes.

it began with both boys choosing to get into the shower with their clothes on. it continued after they got soaked through and got out of the shower to walk around the house looking for me to ask if they could get in the shower with their clothes on.

glaring at the two boys dripping water on my hardwood floors, i chastised them both for their foolish choice. i sent alex back to the bathroom to take a proper shower and i stripped anthony's clothes from him and sent him to bed, crying (because he couldn't continue his shower).

then a partially informed marty who was downstairs when this took place brought a repentant and naked anthony before me to apologize and ask if he could return to the shower. she coached him through the steps of a negotiation prompting him at each turn. i smugly observed the teaching moment and said it was up to her but as far as i was concerned he should be sent to bed. marty vouched for the boy and escorted him to the bathroom. her first step onto the tile soaked her sock through as she experienced first-hand the boys' handi-work. it wasn't until then anthony wished he hadn't exercised the second-parent gambit.

following an episode like this i find myself whimsically contemplating how i'm going to spend our kid's college funds as it seems they may not have use or need for them.

the night anthony slept with the briefcase, i had put him to bed. this meant that when marty went to bed, and was sleeping next to anthony who was in my spot, she had no idea his legs were propped up on a full-size, man's briefcase. he woke at one point in the night and complained that something didn't feel right. he reached under the covers and started tussling with something. she assumed he just had another erection and was trying to finagle into a more comfortable angle in his pants. then she saw him struggling with something and threw the covers back to see him fighting with a large, leather briefcase under the sheets.

her words to me in the morning, "i'm prepared for a lot of things in life but when he pulled that out from under the covers, i must say i was at a true loss."

i'd like to add that the sound that brought me from sleep that same morning was the loud spring release of the locks snapping open after anthony had un-scrumbled the combination upon waking, as promised.

as i type this anthony is in my bed sleeping with his legs propped up on a locked, black-leather briefcase from the seventies. he knows the combo and plans on opening it first thing in the morning. this is why he has his legs on top of it right now. so he remember to open it first thing and so no one takes it from him while he's sleeping. after the initial opening in the morning, anthony will likely open it an additional forty to sixty times throughout the day. when he does open it, he will never take anything out of it, or put anything in it. he will just unlock it, open it, close it, and re-lock it by spinning the gold, number-dials. he may ask someone to scrumble the numbers for him. and if you say you're going to scrumble them so hard he'll never get it back open, he'll laugh hanging his upper torso over and doing everything but slapping his knee. when he composes himself enough to stand upright again he'll explain to you that you can't scrumble it too much because all he has to do is put all the numbers back on the circles (0's) and then he'll get it open again.

one of my kids pulled this briefcase out of a dumpster about four years ago.

who ever threw it out was kind enough to reset both the right and left flip locks so both sides were 0-0-0.

the combination thing reminds me of a friend of mine back in colorado-days who once found a bike lock on the sidewalk. it was one of those thin silver chain locks with a colored, usually blue or faded red, sleeve of plastic covering it. they had a four-number combination. after finding it he brought it home and over the next three months he and his three siblings would sit and try various combinations on the lock while watching television. they kept a notebook on the table with the lock and people would note the numbers they tried. they eventually discovered the combo. i don't recall how long it took them. it was in the months. and it was an impressive show of fortitude. (snake? do you recall?)

back to our briefcase.

there's always something in it. bella usually keeps her more personal journals in there. alex stores all sorts of random stuff in it which he re-discovers, with great fanfare, in later months and years.

approximately fifteen percent of our children's toys have been pulled, by them, out of dumpsters around our home.

as i think i've noted before, our hermit crab aquarium came from a dumpster. it still sports the red, raised-letter punch tape message that says PLEASE DON'T FEED THE ARTIFACT. we turn that message to the backside.

bringing things home they pulled out of dumpsters stands as one of my most vile, yet endearing, things my children do. in this father's eyes at least.

i keep trying to sleep but i just can't get the hang of it.

anthony to me the morning after i had problems putting him to bed

anthony was standing in line at school. he reached forward and took something from the boy standing in front of him. the boy started crying. a teacher seeing this approached the boys and told anthony that we don't take things away from our friends. anthony looked at the boy and then back to the teacher and said, "but he's not my friend."

the first question i was to field in the year two thousand and eleven came from anthony. after waking in the morning, he came from his sleeping spot to snuggle between a still sleeping marty and i. after cuddling into marty for a bit, he rolled over, turning his open eyes to me. he brought his hand up and gently rubbed the stubble on my cheek, chin and upper lip. after several wordless moments of he and i looking at one another he broke the silence by quietly asking, "why is mom is getting older?"

grinning and unsure if marty was awake to hear him, i asked what made him think mom was getting older. he explained it was because she had a bump on her face. i asked about this bump. his clarification, while equally unclear, implied it was over her eyes which i took to mean a furrow or knit in her brow.

i took the time to explain that he was also getting older and that every moment of every day all living things are aging. he chuckled at this as if i were silly and explained to me that he wasn't getting older, he was just getting bigger.

after a few more moments of silence i asked him if i was getting older. without hesitation he told me i was not, i was already old.

i was walking anthony to school. to get there we walk down a long, wide grass median filled with tall, mature trees. it is flanked on either side by 80 year old tile-roofed, brick homes. it is a picturesque start to my day and extra so when i'm holding hands with my bright-eyed and chatty four year old. we've travelled the route enough that anthony knows where each tree is that he can reach when r...

i mentioned that we recently potty trained anthony. he has recently entered phase three of the potty training process. in the event you have never potty trained a human and aren't sure what the evolution of a developing toddler looks like, it is this.

phase 0 : not potty trained. totally comfortably deucing in their diaper and sitting with said feces in direct, warm contact with their ski...

we went camping over the weekend. when we came home anthony started complaining that his eye hurt. marty looked at it but couldn't see anything. he continued to get more agitated until finally holding his eye closed with his hand for the rest of the evening. both marty and i would check on him after he'd been alone for a bit wondering if he was exaggerating his state but every time we looked in on him, he was playing with one hand and holding his eye closed with the other.

in the morning marty took him to our eye doctor. after examining him the doctor confirmed that his eyeball had been scratched. he leaned into anthony and asked him if he knew what had happened to his eye. anthony said that an invisible baby dolphin jumped at his face and scratched his eye with its invisible tail. fortunately there seems to be an antibiotic for that.