the kids start back to school tomorrow and i just finished up with their dad days last week. between having three kids and a two week vacation finding a way to sneak three more days into the summer break is surprisingly challenging. but, it is a highlight for my kids and i each year and a ritual i'd protect to the end.

i feel like i've talked about these before but in case i haven't or you hadn't read about them at least, dad days are a day dedicated to a child after a successful school year to celebrate their academic accomplishments. at some point in the day we talk about school and i tell them this day is in honor of all their hard work and i'm proud and appreciative of their effort. this year anthony asked if that meant if he didn't do good or try hard in school that he wouldn't get a dad day. i thought for a moment before admitting that yes, if he didn't try to do his best he would not get a dad day. i saw him reflect on this for a bit before moving on. i think that might have been one of those quiet, important moments.

obviously i try to cater the days to the likes of each child . here are the itineraries of each for this year.

ALEO
lunch (lions choice)
cabelas (archery glove)
go-karts park (w/ laser tag & water boats)
movie (pacific rim -- which was a bit much for him so we didn't stay )
cinnabon
more go-karts


BELLA
book store
lunch
horseback riding
movie (world war z)
steak house dinner
ted drewes custard


ANFER
ferry rides (into illinois)
water park
bookstore
movie (planes)
dinner (mcdonalds)
ted drewes

as one of my kids once observed about dad lunches (this is where i pull a kid from school and take them to lunch once a month) that it was not fair because i got three dad lunches every month and they only get one. i told him that was true but when they were the parent they would get to enjoy all the lunches too. and this is surely triply true for dad days as for the effort of planning, i get to experience all three adventures and spend some seriously memorable and fun time with my little humans (although they are surely not staying little which is always a reminder to me of the import of such rituals).

if asked to give a theme to this year's dad days it would be 'leisure'. previous years dad days were driven with a sort of frenetic-ness to fit everything in. now we take a whole day to spread out and relax and calmly go from point to point with no hustle or worry as evidenced best be the image above. part of bella's dad day involved going to a used book store that's in a great old house and just ...

last week our family watched a film called babysitter beware for our friday night movie. there was a scene at the beginning of the film where these kids put a dog's shock collar around an evil neighbor's neck and then repeatedly tricked him into shocking himself. on the following tuesday at breakfast, anthony said the following in regard to that film. i stopped making my lunches contemplating his notion, shook my head in agreement and told him i thought that he was right and that would have been a smart and funny add. i finished lunches marveling at the human brain, and the young mind sitting in my kitchen presently, that conjured that specific thought days after the initial experience.

for any envious of me getting to be entertained by my witty six year old so, let me share what came out of my cerebral cherub's mouth seventeen minutes later after i pissed him off for goofing around in the backyard when he was supposed to be getting in the car. after finally sliding into the backseat and slamming the door in a huff, he proceeded to light me up.

ANTHONY
i wish i came out of someone else's stomach.

TROY
what? why would you say that? we're going to school, we're not playing in the backyard.

ANTHONY
i wasn't playing. i was trying to walk to the garage without getting mud on my shoes.

TROY
well, i'm sorry. i didn't know that was what you're doing.

ANTHONY
i didn't want to track mud into my school. what kind of parent yells at their child for trying to be respectful of their school?

welcome to another glorious day in the corps of parenthood.

"penis! penis! penis! penis!"

the above is what anthony ran through the house screaming after i finished that night's reading of shel silverstein (this is what we read whenever marty is not around at bedtime as both the boys enjoy the poems). the reason he ran about screaming that particular phrase is connected to my promise (after reading shel in particular and before lights out) to turn a sentence said by one of the boys into my own shel-like-poem. anthony, obviously, wanted the first line of the poem to start with the winning phrase, penis-penis-penis-penis.

when instead, i chose to use one of alex's sentences, anthony became inconsolable. between groans of disappointment he said he wanted his sentence to be chosen. i explained that i liked the variety found in alex's sentences more. a moment later anthony went silent in protest. minutes in he broke his stand to ask what would happen if both he and alex said nothing but penis-penis-penis-penis after poems and before bed. i hesitantly confessed i guess the poem would have to start with penis-penis-penis-penis. suddenly his angst vanished and he raised his head to call down to alex in the bunk below, "alex! tomorrow night after poems you have to ..." i reckon you can guess the rest of the plan.

and i can claim yet another parenthood first for me--spending open neurons in my day trying to think of creative rhymes for the word penis. i'm pretty sure dr. spock missed that chapter.

yesterday i mentioned a ritual i do with the boys to end the day. there is another ritual i've been doing with bella first thing in the morning. after she gets on the bus, and drops into her seat, always the same one, i pantomime something as the bus drives off. my four second skits have included things like pretending to pick up poop (when we're dog-sitting and i'm about to walk the pup), or downhill skiing (when we have a pending ski trip), or struggling to pull up tight pants (when she had to pull half-dry pants out of the dryer), or doing an animated singing solo (when she has a choir performance in the day). the reward for me is to see her brightly look out the window before the bus starts moving for her day's mini-show. then seeing her throw her head back in a hearty guffaw at the daily choice as she slides out of view is more meaningful to a father from his daughter than would be a standing-o from a packed carnegie hall.

and please note, that while she would never admit it, she too is tickled by a good poop joke. the difference between she and her brothers is she has a one a day limit, or week even, where the boys would gladly take one a minute for a week.

the boys and i started a new bedtime game, especially after we've read shel silverstein. what i do is as we're approaching bed, i take a random sentence they say and then try to make a shel-esque poem out of it. as you'll see from last night's sample, the more bodily fluid and organ references that can be made, the better. the one below had them in hysterics (not the smartest pre-bed move) so much so they demanded a re-telling before they would go to sleep.

on a saturday night a few weeks back, we had a beautiful snow fall through the night.

on sunday, i built an igloo with anthony (one big enough for him to climb into) and then went sledding with alex (where we'd race down the hills and crash into each other if able).

on monday, i consumed an inordinate amount of ibuprofen.

i really wish they'd work on a drip mechanism i could clip into at work so i wouldn't have to groan each time i got up to get more pills.

these were the first words i heard coming out of sleep on the morning of friday, november 16th. marty spoke those possibly scary words. they were directed, i assume and hope, towards one of our three children. i'm not sure which one. i've been a parent of miniature humans long enough to know that you not only have to pick your battles but you also have to pick your details. there's only so much granular kid-centric data the average man can shoulder.

while eating breakfast, anthony told me that he liked having a dad who didn't always say yes. surprised at his share, i asked him why (as he and the others usually ask me why i have to be so much meaner than their mother). he launched into an excited, blended-syllable outburst where i made sense of only the occasional word—a few i could distinctly discern being "high roof" and "unicycle". it's rare that i wholeheartedly agree with someone when i only glean twenty percent of their story but in this case, i would have put my name to the dotted line in support of my need to be the heavy.

it is said with numbing frequency that when you have kids you get to (1) relive your childhood and (2) experience a childhood you didn't get to have.

there is a very valid reason that sentiment is said with such frequency. to this day i don't know who loved those wooden thomas tracks (or many of the gifts and trips) more, me or my kids. ...

apologies for my absence. i had a project unveiling at work on tuesday and slipped into my obsessive persona to make sure everything looked fit and fancy for the first sets of eyes.

the showing went swimmingly.

then yesterday, wednesday, i had my first dad lunch with bella as a junior high student. the slight bummer is she only gets thirty minutes for lunch. and her school isn't near any eateries. in thinking things through i remembered a city park i used to play tennis at just over the hill from her school. it had some rolling grassy hills and lots of trees. so as time neared, i got a lunch together and headed to the school. after i got her dismissed from class we made the two minute drive to the park.

the day was crazy bee-you-ta-ful, especially on our bench in the shade. after getting settled i pulled from my cooler a snarf's ham and cheese (a favorite for bella and i), a bag of chips and a large ice water. we talked about a number of things: how this was different from elementary, how we were lucky this park was so close by, how we played ogre on the playground several years ago, bella wondered what we would do in the winter (i admitted that was a good question because we were surely not going to get weather this nice all year), and we might have even talked about boys for a minute or two. then as she was finishing up her sandwich i dove into my small cooler and readied the next treat i brought. bella leaned over trying to see what i was doing but i blocked her prying view with my shoulder. then, when i lifted the bowl of chery cobbler from the weekend out with two scoops of still firm ice cream on top, my girl's face lit up like the blue-sky day.

later that night, marty asked bella how our first dad lunch of the school year went. bella told her of the cobbler and ice cream. she then said that "dad did good".

it's funny how a room of adults praising a piece of my professional work that i've spent more than six months on felt good but didn't come close to the reward i felt in getting my daughter's "dad did good" seal after a thirty minute lunch.

today i will walk my isabella to the bus stop so she may attend her first day of junior high. i'd tell you to send her some positive thoughts but i fear i may need them more. whatever happened to my baby girl.

and, like last year, we just snuck her dad day in before the end of summer. this year's day of decadence involved:

1. horseback riding
2. porterhouse lunch
3. bookstore hour
4. movie afternoon (step up revolution)
5. ted drewes custard

it was, hopefully, a day she'll remember. i know i will as i can't remember being that wiped out after a day.

and of all of that, i think she may have been most surprised and excited about seeing the step up revolution movie. at the end of the film she started an applause that the other patrons merrily joined in on. that may have been my favorite part of the day.

i can tell by bella's listening stance that she's dubious of the yarn i'm spinning. at this age she still did not fully yet know the annoying draw she got in fathers. now she can spot a questionable tale minutes sooner than most. while it surely makes her a tougher mark for me to hoodwink, i reckon it will serve her well on the debate team or in professional matters. ...

when young i was permitted to do little more than hold the tools. i remember thinking that sucked. and later in life when i was handed a hammer or drill, i proved pretty unimpressive. in dramatic over-correction, i (and marty) have pushed our children to hammer nails, drive screws and drill holes. while they won't be putting and master craftsmen out of work, they also will rarely turn down the cha ...

in all the hubbub i never finished our topsy-turvey tale. i left off with me having knee surgery (see topsy turvey part 1 for the detail). so i had my surgery on a tuesday and everything went fine and well. prior to the procedure i asked what to expect recovery wise. i was told i would walk in and i would walk out. i took that to mean it would be like nothing at all had happened and that my life would resume as soon as the anesthesia wore off. with this understanding, i told my office i'd be be out tuesday and back on wednesday. the first sign this was not the case was the prescription for 60 vicodans they handed marty on our way out the door.

in addition to the prescription there was the direction to keep the knee perpetually iced and elevated for the next 72 hours. while the week was shot to three kinds of hell, on the good side of all this dour news, marty and i discovered downton abbey. while laid up and bored in bed, i trolled the netflix hallways looking for anything of interest. something took me towards downton abbey. i watched the first five minutes of it and hit pause. i called for marty and said she should plan on having lunch with me in bed as i had a show for us to watch. so we sat in bed, my knee wrapped in ice and atop four pillows, eating sandwiches and discovering a 1912 english village while our children were at school. possibly our most quaint and romantic workday afternoon since our college days (and certainly our most peaceful moment in recent weeks).

i gingerly returned to work on friday to begin the dig out. it went slow but steady. at three in the afternoon marty called. she said the principal from the high school she used to teach at called. a teacher had taken ill and they needed someone to fill in for three weeks ... (pause) ... starting monday. after another pregnant pause i noted that by her calling me at work and positing the question, she was expressing interest. yes. after a third pause in the conversation, i said i supported whatever she wished and said we could talk about it further that night.

before children, marty taught for nine years (at this same school that was calling now). marty then took off nine years. returning to teaching is something that has definitely been on her thoughts especially now that our youngest, anthony, is slated for full day kindergarten next year. but next year is the earliest we'd ever thought about her return and would have, in an ideal world, preferred two years to give marty one year to breathe and collect herself before returning to the fray.

marty was interested on several levels which i'm sure i'd botch if i tried to represent them so won't. suffice it to say marty's brain was above an idle with the notion of challenging her mind beyond innovating on what went in her kid's lunchbags or reading a new goosebumps book to her five year old. i get this need. fully. when i returned home that evening and saw how lively her eyes were, i made three points. i asked that she didn't start monday because the still-broken fridge was scheduled for repair on monday. i asked that she not let this sudden jump back into a professional routine, taint her notions of returning for real because she wasn't giving herself a chance to re-enter work life with a proper amount of time to plan and prepare, professionally or mentally. and i said, i could handle the kids in the morning but she had to find places for them, especially anthony, when they got out of school. within twelve hours she returned the call saying she would do it. fortunately, because of paperwork she couldn't start on monday anyway so the fridge got repaired (thank gawd!!! as post-knee surgery is not the time you want to be without a working ice-maker).

her first morning of work she left at 6:00 am. i woke up early to make her breakfast. as she ate i confessed this was only a "first day back to work after nine years off" treatment and she shouldn't expect it everyday. i also made her a lunch and stole a little note in there in case she was getting treated poorly by the day or the kids. then she left. after a short bit of quiet, i started prodding kids out of beds.

the kids knew my getting them ready was going to be different. marty is definitely far more accommodating that i am. she is known for making them pancakes, kraft macaroni and cheese, or even crazy time-consuming waffles. when they ask me for such things, i look at them as if i didn't understand the questions, which in some regards is true. in the early days, they'd repeat the question and i'd tell them to go get a muffin and yogurt. now they don't even repeat the question. they just look at my face and head to the muffin tin all on their own. progress! and, if i'm known for anything in the morning it is when i am ready and they are not i stand in the foyer and yell, "you're putting me behind schedule Dufresne. don't make me come up there and thump you." rabid fans of shawshank redemption might recognize this loose translation of one of my favorite lines from the film. my kids obviously have no idea what i'm talking about or who this Dufresne cat is, but they get the gist that i'm getting irritated and they best up the pace.

i wasn't too intimidated about getting the kids off to school. this is something i usually do on wednesdays so i have a sense for what is involved. but there was one variable i failed to consider. every time i've taken the kids to school on my wednesdays, marty was there, in the house and part of the morning. we'd really not gone through the drill without her. the problem stemmed from anthony's morning ritual, which goes like this. when anthony wakes up you will often here a stretch and a yawn. this gets followed by hearing the creaks of the slats in his upper bunk as he moves to the ladder. once down, you hear a quick patter of feet, and might see a flash in the hall, as he quick steps it to the bathroom. urination. more patters—this time to marty's side of the bed. then you hear one word in a very business like tone: cuddle. with this marty's arm raises the covers like batman might swoosh his cape and anthony lithely slides into the warmth of her space and the covers drop, engulfing him. this is followed by three to ten minutes of silence which is broken, always, by the same question: is it a computer morning. computer mornings are weekend mornings where the kids get a few hours of computer to start the day.

on the first day marty was away anthony woke, he went to the bathroom, then the empty bed, then came and found me.

ANTHONY
where's mom?

TROY
at work. remember she's going to be working for a few weeks.

ANTHONY
but what about my cuddle?

TROY
oh. i can do your cuddles while mom's away.

ANTHONY
but you don't know how.

TROY
i'm sure they won't be as good but maybe you can teach me.

ANTHONY
now i'm doing nuthin'! and i'm not going to school!

with this declaration anthony turned and ran back to his room, climbed his ladder and cried for the next ninety minutes. although to say he cried at the news is like saying i was merely disappointed when i re-injured my knee. what he really did was screamed for a full hour and a half that we wanted his mommy. bella, alex and i quietly ate breakfast to this upstairs tirade. as i told bella and alex to suit up to go, alex asked me what i was going to do about anthony. i answered honestly that i didn't know.

i climbed the stairs and entered his room. he repeated his missive that he wasn't going to school. i told him he had to. it was the only choice. no one was going to be home. he said he didn't care. i said i wished i could leave him but i just couldn't. it wasn't safe. he pleadingly said he'd lock the door and not answer it, no matter what. i told him i wished that was enough but it wasn't. he was just too young and he had to go to school. when he said no again i had to pull out the big gun, the one thing for which anthony seems to have no defense: 1-2-3. immediately after i said the single word "one" anthony yelled, "okay stupid head, i'm coming." and he did. he immediately came down the ladder descended the stairs, headed toward the kitchen but i stopped him saying he missed breakfast and now there was no time. without protest he sat down and i put his shoes on. he put his coat and backpack on and headed towards the car without breakfast and still in pajamas.

he sulked on the way to bella and alex's school. he sulked after their drop off and on the way to his school. when we pulled up he got out of the car still fully under protest and began a slow walk into the building. just as we started i saw anthony's best friend grady get out of his car. i called hello to him and when he saw us he yelled a gigantic, arms-in-the-air, ANTHONY!!! he then charged towards us and ripped his coat open showing a large scooby doo shirt. he said his mom let him get one just like the one he gave anthony for his birthday. astonished anthony unzipped his coat to show his scooby shirt and the boys happily marched into school arm-in-arm.

that proved to be the turning point for anthony and i had no more problems after that. in my second week i was heard to say things like "did you get your milk out of the freezer and put it in your lunchbag" and "don't put your shoes there because you won't remember them in the morning." which is really good news because after marty did her three week stint filling in, the school offered her the job, full-time, starting next year ... (pause) ... and, she accepted.

marty was away last weekend. in preparation i made sure i got proper sleep in the days before and spent some time in the week plotting out the weekend as to keep me on the offensive. i posted the day's schedule ¹ saturday morning, setting it on the kitchen counter. it looked like this:

SATURDAY 4/21
08.00 - 11.00 computer
11.00 - 12.00 lunch
12.00 - 01.00 watch softball (girls university team)
01.00 - 03.30 play at house
03.30 - 05.00 baya indoor soccer
05.00 - 07.00 dinner
07.00 - 09.00 movie
09.00 - 09.30 books/bed

this is what really happened.
08.00 - 11.00 computer
11.00 - 12.00 lunch
12.00 - 03.30 watch softball (i wished for an hour, we ended up staying for a double-header at bella's request)
03.30 - 04.15 petting zoo (surely an unexpected find a flash-mob of baby animals on our bike ride home)
04.30 - 05.00 baya soccer (we missed half the game so bella could sit with a miniature cow)
05.00 - 06.00 dinner (kabob house, alex got to bring his friend morgan since it was mostly a bella-day thus far)
06.00 - 07.00 ted drewes (also with alex's friend morgan who somehow had never been. remarkable.)
07.00 - 09.30 movie (morgan sent home after show)
09.30 - 10.00 books
10.00 - 10.30 bed

while the kids seem to have had a great day, at the end you can still get something like this. marty told me that anthony (age 5) needs lotion rubbed on his hands in the morning and before bed. she told me with a mild bit of trepidation because she knows i hate to touch lotion or anything oily in nature. but my son needed this to be healthy and i was the only one around to do it, so i would build up some resolve and jump in. after defiling my fingertips in the tub of lotion and applying it to anthony's hand, he, in the air of a wealthy lady having her nails done, said ...

you did a smear and a wipe. mom just does a dab and a rub. that's what you should do. a dab and a rub. not a smear.

i stopped doing my smears and wipes long enough to think how bad of parenting it would be to introduce my five year old to a toilet swirlie. then he could tell mom that when dad does it, it's more of a dunk and flush and not a flush and submerge like she was doing it. a dunk and flush.

¹ while on vacation last summer in colorado, i discovered the odd power a documented schedule had on our children. while before they might nudge and needle us for more of something, like computer, when we put it on the schedule, if a child would ask about it, another child would scold them saying, "it's not on the schedule." i thought to make one because on a mostly open day the kids and one of the adults (hint : her name starts with an m) were more restless and bickery than usual given the wandering and aimless nature of the day. while a free day is usually good and great, free days for multiple people with conflicting wishes seems to be rather un-relaxing. whatever the case, the schedule made the day after the listless day had a powerful influence on people's moods. fact is, it was one of the most surprising reactions to something i'd ever seen. and this last saturday was no exception.

a few notes about a family schedule. (1) like with all regiments, you, the parent, have to be flexible to change and overruns. (2) i've found it's tantalizing to put a mystery event or two on the list (so where are we going to dinner dad?). (3) i imagine, in this format, a family schedule is more powerful when used sparingly. (4) in the end, i knew i revered the power of a schedule. i'm just happily surprised at how much my kids revere the power of a schedule.

i walk to work. it takes me about ten minutes from closing one door to opening the other. one of the best perks of this situation—and there are many—has been my ability to walk home for lunch. it recently occurred to me that this is the last school semester i can walk home and enjoy one of my children being there. and, after this academic semester concludes, i will never experience that routine luxury again. not to mention when marty goes back to work i won't even have the ability to share in my wife's company over my egg sandwich or butter tossed pasta.

when i shared this with marty over yesterday's workday lunch she, in classic marta form, expressed surprise that i wouldn't be happy giddy to have a quiet house again like back in our pre-kid days. i thought on that for a long moment realizing i too was a bit surprised at not seeing the long fought for upside of this milestone. i conclude it to be just another notch on the stick that marks how kids change you. it turns out there are so many notches chipped into my stick, every one added seems like it might break the once rugged object.

while my inclination is to sigh and sag over this realization, some watchdog in my head gives my brain a slap and barks at me to see my fortune in experiencing my young-young children or wife during the workday over the last eight years. after this gruff pep-talk i do sit up a bit straighter and the gloom fades, mostly.

later, that epiphany caused one of my three daily thankfuls (more on that soon) to be, "I'm thankful marty chose to stay home with our kids as the lifestyle she has afforded us, by not working, is second to none, truly."

and if there are downsides to living so close to home—and there are—the biggest one would be not having enough time in my commute to switch from the monastery-like quiet of my office to the frontline-like cacophony that is my home.

yesterday was a wicked long day (on the tail end of a wicked long ten days). and then in the evening, marty had a meeting which put me in the barrel getting all three kids down. i read to alex and anfer and then hung out with anfer while he went to sleep. before moving in with alex i stopped in the bathroom. when i opened the door to exit, there was a piece of paper on the floor. it is shown below. if you subscribe to the bucket system (a paradigm that likens your emotional needs (e.g. esteem, energy) to buckets that can be filled and emptied by various actions), this modest token penned from a child's emotion is the equivalent of having a dump truck's worth of water deluged atop a small, tattered bucket. i post it here so down-the-road on another low-level day i can come back and ladle some of its pooled goodness into my wanting bucket.



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a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. totally awesome

three neighbor boys were over. they're all brothers, the oldest being alex's age. i was in my office and they were in bella and alex's room and making an astounding amount of noise, hysterical laughter mostly. i've been responsible for little humans long enough to know that such chaos, while good at the minute, can be short-lived for several reasons, many of which you'd never guess were even possible. having a few such debacles in my portfolio, i decided to look in on things.

in the middle of the room was a running fan. the protective grill on its face was missing (a casualty of anthony knocking it off a stool days earlier). in alex's raised hand was a peach-colored ball of goop, very similar to a product called 'slime' when i was a kid. this goop concoction makes orange marmalade seem like rock candy, and given its runny, sticky, gelatinous composition puts it in great contention to be the $800 answer to the question 'things troy would most hate to come into contact with'. that's all you need to know about the goop. well that and that at the moment i appeared in the doorway, alex's hand flung the nebulous mass directly into the spinning fan blades. upon contact, the goo jettisoned from the fan as if shot from a gun, flying straight towards the doorway i just darkened and hit me square in the junk.

the room went silent. all five boys gaped at me with frozen, open-mouthed expressions. after a moment of complete stillness, aside from the fan which was ramping back up to full speed, i grabbed my groin and doubled over in an exaggerated manner, dropping to my knees. the astonishment level in the boys faces heightened, if you can believe it. i looked up to alex and in a pained voice asked why he shot his father in his wieners. if you thought there were hysterics coming from the room before, my performance took these young men to an all new high. i'm glad to see that even in the age of the wii, a good sock in the crotch can still win a room over. it's hope-inducing.

there are dad HOURS and there are dad DAYS. dad HOURS happen every week, or are supposed to at least. dad DAYS happen once a year. a dad HOUR is when i and one of my children go out, just the two of us, and do something, something of their choosing for one hour in the week. for these bella usually picks rollerblading or ripsticking, aleo picks tennis or a sushi lunch, and anfer almost exclusively ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. onslaught

a few years back a friend of mine told me of a ritual that happened in her home when she was growing up. her family termed the ritual "father interviews" and they happened every sunday. the reason behind father interviews was the dad was tied up during the week with work and didn't get a lot of time to participate in his children's lives. so on sundays after church and breakfast he would receive e...

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.

a picture of anfer and i from our neighborhood's fourth of july party someone just recently passed on.