the dinner table question of the night asked what you would do if someone kept calling your house in the middle of the night. they are definitely dialing the wrong number. you tell them this but they keep calling. i asked the table how they would handle this. as we rounded the circle people had very curteous and patient responses they'd use on the person which in their scenario would solve the problem without difficulty (dreamers). when it got to anthony, he looked up from his plate as if he had only been only half-listening and said he would say, "shut up. it's 1 in the morning in my city." and hang up.

it was 6:27 in the morning. i was sitting at my desk writing (for you, for this). i heard marty's alarm go off twelve minutes earlier and then heard her shuffle to the bathroom. then at 6:31 i felt her hands on my shoulders. they slid down my chest as she leaned down to hug me from behind, my desk chair mildly in the way. i then turned and took my wife in, standing in nothing but a pair of cotton underwear and looking amazingly young and fit with her flat stomach (after 3 kids !!!) and tan skin. i stood up and stepped in to hug her.

TROY
you look amazing.

MARTY
you're not going to want to get fresh here.

TROY
what? me? ok. why not?

MARTY
i've got to go try to find the baby bunny we buried in the back yard last year.

TROY
uhh, like now?

MARTY
yes. i need it for school.

TROY
is that why there is a sheet of paper on the kitchen that says BUNNY BONES?

MARTY
yes. what did you think it was?

TROY
another one of your mother's recipes.

MARTY
nope. for real bunny. hopefully fully decomposed somewhere in the back yard.

ladies, for the record, there are few things, and i do mean few, that can de-rail the male libido in the early morning, but i can now attest, images of your potential partner digging holes in search of a tiny rabbit carcass definitely lives somewhere on the list.

last week marty's summer officially ended.

:-(

our last family act of the summer was to have a celebratory "sam-survived-cancer" (rel) dinner complete with porterhouse steaks, giant potatoes, fresh corn from sam's family farm in iowa all chased by cookies, ice cream and cup cakes. there's few things sweeter than appropriate decadence. at 9:30 (or at the end of the third hour of the dinner) and in the middle of a rich conversation about tips, tricks and lessons of growing up (mostly for bella's studious edification) but after her moving thankful about sam and diana, marty pushed her chair back, stood up and said, her final words 'best summer ever' came with oprah like fervor on free stuff day. i and the children repeated her calls of best summer ever and the kids came forward with big smiles, hugging her. en masse the group looked like a sporting team that just played their last game of the season and were ending their run together, never again to field the court in that exact complement. in many respects, this metaphor aptly describes us as we will never again enjoy a summer with a 13, 11, and 7 year old. given this magical age-set, we enjoyed a rare time together full of many things, such as:

• marty not working (a facet of life we will never again take for granted since her return in 2012).
• sleeping in (and it's counter-part, staying up late)
• roller-blading (at rollercade and on our neighborhood's newly paved streets)
• beach vacations with marty's mom and siblings (to celebrate mama nat's 80th)
• minecraft-marathons (other marathons include xmen, star trek and x-files)
• trampolining (a gift from our newly departed neighbors)
• sleeping on the trampoline (a stellar marty idea and which saw a 5-night run)
• watching blairwitch on the trampoline + sleeping the night on the trampoline (bella and i only)
• group reading (both from books, kindle and audio)
• monopoly (the real-one, no more of that monopoly junior bullshit - thanks to marty's brother mike)
• eating on the porch (we've evolved to setting a table out there)
• movie nights (one even at a drive-in, front playground included--which anthony came back soaking wet from)
• bike rides (my biking regimen is nearly back to pre-kid form)
• introducing my family to the great world of true, professional comedy (starting with bill cosby)
• walking to a vp fair concert in forest park (please move it to forest park every year)
• closeness
• calmness
• laughter
• smiles
• family
• health

marty commented that a big difference maker this year was the kids, all of the kids, are now old enough where they can mostly run their own games and we have fully entered that next phase of parenthood where we have more mutually interactive relationships. for me, it is the last six items on the list that make for the core ingredients of great times. marty's summers-off job is what allows for great quantities of this and her working the other nine months of the year, accentuates their importance. at the start of the summer anthony asked me why i didn't get summers off like mom. i told him that mom had a special sort of job that allowed for that but that also, when mom has summer break, so do i, given that she essentially takes all of my chores on (e.g. dishes!!!) during these months and making my time equally relaxing and special. but placing an active emphasis on those bottom six is key:

• by making attentive time for our kids.
• by trying to run a non-frenetic home.
• by ensuring everyone has laughed every day (tickling a human does wonders for that).
• by breaking a funk by forcing an agitated human to smile (fart jokes and actual farts can distract young boys from a foul mood).
• by that so often taken-for-granted human need, to know you are loved. it's one of those few, rare things you can never get enough of. so make sure you kiss and touch and wink and smile at someone you love today.
• and possibly most importantly, by acknowledging daily that there are only two kinds of health—there is the health you have before you are told you have a life-threatening illness and there is the health you have after you are told you have a life-threatening illness—and appreciating every day you and yours spend on light-minded side of the fence (because when you are placed on the other side of the fence, it is all consuming to you and those who care about you).

so while i'm sad to be writing about the end of the best summer ever, i'm thankful to be able to healthily say we just had the "best summer ever" and look forward to trying to top it is subsequent years.

as anthony passed marty and i on the porch, marty called him back, saying there was something on his nose and asking what it was. without reaching up to feel it or asking to consult a mirror, he flatly said, "scabs and dirt" and not waiting for a response, continued his march into the house.

the day before fourth of july, which kindly fell on a friday this year, served up the most spectacular day of weather i can ever recall seeing in a usually hot and humid st. louis. work that day proved quiet and productive given many people chose to take the day off. staff was released at noon but i took advantage of the silence to get a few more things done, leaving at 3:30. i strolled along my walking commute staring at the magically blue sky which had crisply lined clouds slowly floating by. they were so pristine they looked near-animated, like miyazaki himself sketched them above us.

between this weather and my early jump on the three day weekend and my walking commute i near floated home. as i turned the final corner towards my house bella and anthony came towards me on roller blades. upon seeing me, their already large smiles grew bigger and they spread their arms wide before them asking (shouting) why i was home already.

throwing my own arms wide, i proclaimed, "i'm naming this the most beautiful day of the year and in honor of that, i'm coming home early to enjoy it with my family."

with them riding a scooter was an adorably cute neighbor girl of about six or seven years old (imagine how cute a huge-grinning, near-toothless anthony is, but then make him even cuter and give him lopsided, pigtails). after my proclamation, all three kids looked up and around, not having seemingly noticed the magical mood of the temperature or the cloud-dotted sky or relaxed state of our community. they consented that it all did seem pretty nice. i introduced myself to their friend and we chatted about the day briefly. as we parted bella stopped and yelled back to me that my pants were very blue. the pants were my new light-weight summer pants from jCrew and were a pastel blue (they were my favorite cut (urban-slim) and summer-time fabric (oxford-cotton) AND were on sale for 50% off BUT only in this color AND were part of the very necessary post weight-loss wardrobe re-fresh). I yelled back my thanks and that they were my homage to this beautiful day. bella flashed me the smile she uses when i say silly, fatherish things and turned to catch up to the others.

later, when bella and anthony returned home from roller-blading, bella told me that after our exchange about my pants, when she caught up to anthony and the new girl, the new girl said to her, in an understanding tone, "it's ok bella, my parents aren't very classy either".

just when i thought the day couldn't possibly offer me more.

definitive evidence of where all of our kids kooky behavior emanates from.

marty not only can run with her boys when it comes to being goofy, they often are sprinting behind her in attempt to catch up. ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. sobbing

ok fellas. we gotta talk.

i was recently at a reception and sat down with a friend i hadn't talked to in awhile. i asked him what was up. what was new. during our catch-up he remembered something, lifted a finger in the air and said, "oh, get this". he proceeded to tell me a story about how he, needing a computer quick, raised the lid of his teen son's laptop and found something on the sc...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. humiliated

with marty now working nine months of the year again, getting summers off from morning duties is like shedding an early-morning, part-time job. the result is one of the best-ever weekly schedules.

anthony's briefcase used to be my mom's work briefcase. in one of the trips to my parents house, he laid claim to the item destined for good will. since he acquired it, he has taken it on every family vacation we've had, loading it with all his favorite possessions and distractions, that will fit into its rectangular space.

when the family is not traveling he stores his money in it (when ...

in the middle of one of my hourly updates in the family's second day of travel, the following exchange took place between alex and i.

ALEX
we're doing great here dad. we just got into the mountains and should be there in another three hours.

TROY
ok. great. tell mom to be extra careful on those small, twisty roads.

ALEX
ok. is everything going good for you?

TROY
yep. tell mom her ant guy just got done.

ALEX
mom. your aunt just died.

TROY
WHAT? NO! ALEX! that's not what i said!

ALEX
what dad? i can't hear you.

TROY
mom's aunt didn't die. the ant-guy just finished his work.

ALEX
oh. mom. your aunt didn't die someone else just did something.

TROY
the ant-killing guy was just ... oh never mind ... i'll tell her later.

ALEX
sorry about that dad. your words got a little blurry there when you were talking.

on saturday marty left for a six day trip with the kids. some happenings at work prevented me from joining them (this obviously was the core reason for getting the phone as they couldn't take my work-issued one with them). as they piled into the packed car i gave each one an enormous feet-off-the-ground hug and told them to be amazing listeners and helpers to their mother. i told alex to be extra frosty as co-pilot because he and his mother hadn't logged the hours behind the wheel together that he and i had. at the end of my embrace with marty i gave her an extra squeeze and said:

TROY
be careful.

MARTY
i will. i've done this before.

TROY
i know. it's just that you have my whole world barreling down the highway at 70 miles an hour in that van.

MARTY
got it. enjoy your peace and quiet.

TROY
peace and quiet? with all the parties i have planned. ain't gonna be much peace and quiet around here.

MARTY
well, i thank you for having your parade of women wait until we left before getting started.

TROY
of course. but i hope they don't wait too long. i feel a nap coming on.

they left. forty minutes later the phone rang. i answered it.

TROY
hello.

ALEX
hey dad. this is alex.

TROY
hey aleo. you ok?

ALEX
yeah, i just wanted to call you and let you know we got out of the city ok.

TROY
ok. i'm glad to hear that. thanks for the update.

ALEX
it's ok. and i'm going to call you every hour and let you know how it's going.

TROY
hourly updates. ok. that would be awesome.

and while they weren't consistently on the hour they did come. part of me was thankful for these drips of insight that my family was ok and sound. another part of me was wondering when my parade of women were gonna start showing up.

on the first morning with marty's new phone in the house, the low battery alert started chirping at 4:45 a.m. starting my day two hours and fifteen minutes earlier than i had planned.

i missed that perk in the marketing materials.

on june 5th at 12:55pm in an exchange that took a total of 35 seconds, marty walter made her very first phone call from her very first cell phone.

while marty was examining the cheapest flip-phone models the store had to offer, bella kept drifting towards the sexier, smart-phone options. seeing bella's longing glances, the young salesman sidled up next to her.

SALESMAN
you want a smartphone?

BELLA
oh my god. yes. they are so awesome.

SALESMAN
what is it specifically you need it for?

BELLA (stammering)
uhhh. well. uhhh.

SALESMAN (turning to marty)
that's what they all say to that question.

aleo, minutes into his summer break.

this time next year i will have one child (bella) moving to highschool, one child (alex) moving to junior high and one child (anthony) never attending school with a sibling again. while i'd like to celebrate the maturation of my children, there are certain things about our current life i like a lot and will forever miss, like seeing my boys walking in ...

anthony has been walking around with a stop-watch around his neck. a parent he walked by commented on the accoutrement asking if that is normal behavior in our house. i told them only when the library's summer reading competition fires up. the kid with the most reading minutes over the summer gets their picture hung in honor of their achievement. anthony has pointed to that section in the stands and due to this target now wears a stopwatch around his neck as to not miss a single minute of potential reading time.

marty works with a guy who is trying to lose weight. he happily reported losing five pounds the week before. marty said she was trying to gain weight. reasonably astonished he asked whatever for. her reply -- because all the cute clothes on ebay were larges.

first off, sorry for dropping out like that. i do believe it is the first time i have dissapeared for that long, sans explanation in the fourteen year existence of this site, but, well, you know, life.

the lapse began after i had one of my most tumultuous weeks i can remember. there were dramatically high highs which the universe followed up with unexpectedly low lows. by week's end i was a bit of a spent mess. everything is back to great though. it just took a minute to let my mind cut it all down into consumable, bite-sized chunks. minutes up. chunks swallowed. moving forward. trending upward.

if you're wanting examples, i won't bore you with the lows, as who wants to document or read about those, but will share a sample high. on may 25 i drove bella across town to attend a roller-skating party. whenever bella wants to get somewhere on time she taps her time-obsessed father who attempts to respect other peoples' time as much as his own. when we pulled into the lot i commented on how empty it appeared. after checking the invite in her lap bella smiled at me uncomfortably and confessed that she may have gotten the time wrong and we were an hour early. now this may seem minor to some but sixty mid-day, beautiful-weathered weekend minutes to a guy who likes distance bike riding and reading on the porch is like four hours any other time of the week. no stranger to my ticks, my daughter knew this was no minor mis-read. i breathed deeply and circled us out of the barren lot at a clip a police car would have noticed. wanting to avoid the busy avenue that brought us here i turned us deeper into the neighborhoods and we unhurriedly glided our way through the tree-lined streets pointing out houses and yards we found interesting.

after passing a sprawling church complex i made a u-turn and pulled into its lot. i drove to the dead-center of the large, carless, blacktop and turned off the car.

BELLA
what are you doing?

TROY
you said you wanted to learn how to drive.

BELLA
what? like now?

TROY
yeah, why not do something worthwhile with this unexpected free-time.

BELLA
oh my god! oh my god! yes. ok.

i then taught my thirteen year old (just turned) how to drive a stick-shift ... in seven minutes. the brief experience, twenty minutes end to end, culminated with bella driving figure eights in a church parking lot. my 91 bmw softly and slowly sailing across the smooth pavement, windows down, sunroof open and the biggest smile possible stretched across my fearless daughter's sunlit face. after we traded seats and headed back to the skating rink i told her that she, at thirteen, could do what a great number of adults could not, and she should feel like a bad-ass because of it. her beaming face and quaking frame revealed that she did.

so these are the sorts of things (e.g. the highs at least) i'm experiencing and as long as i'm the one charged with both having and documenting the happenings, the math will quickly show there are just not enough hours in the day. but i don't want to become that guy who just appears every now and again, and only when it is convenient for him and never for you (e.g. like that fair-weather college pal who is only hangs out between love interests) so i've given some thought to how i can continue to nurture this website (and our relationship) and still lead my new hurly-burly life. here's what i've come up with. if you look in on monday and there is no posting, there will be no content all week. but if you look in on monday and there is a post, then there will be a post every day of the week. i think in a relationship like this there needs to be some sort of understood expectation.

of course the thought of just stopping rolls off my mind's ticker-tape machine every now again but for personal reasons i wish to continue recording my family's moments and i have learned this vehicle is an imperative part of that commitment. for those of you that enjoy reading along, you incent me to pull my act together. without you, it's a very hard affair so i appreciate your on-going participation more than you understand.

my two core objectives with this site are:
1. to continue chronicling the funny, sad, curious, and note-worthy moments that occur in my home full of children.
2. to see that what i document is thoughtful, edited, and not being done for the wrong reasons (which has surely happened from time to time in the past).

most important to me is that i don't create an expectation that forces me to produce content against a schedule i can't maintain, well at least maintain and try to keep the content on point and thoughtful. because i find when we let such standards go, pride in the product being produced is not far behind.

on the kids birthdays marty hides slips of paper around the house that (1) number and (2) read the number they are turning (e.g. reference). the night before bella's birthday this year she said not only did her mother not need to do it but she shouldn't do it because she, bella, had outgrown that. marty sagely ignored this commandment and ...

friday night marty took alex and bella to an amen concert. amen is the acapella group our friend e-love operates. for not entirely clear reasons, anthony did not want to go this year so i agreed to hang back with him. just after the concert-crew left, i told anfer to saddle up and we were going on an adventure. wanting to assess if this second option held appeal to him he asked what we were doing. i told him it was a surprise. anthony is not a great fan of surprises and told me as much. i held my ground.

my palm V informed me that the bubble soccer courts were open tonight. i learned about bubble soccer some months back and after laughing till injury while watching their explanatory videos i entered the tournament dates into my palm. as i said that was many months ago and i recalled seeing it in my calendar and here i was with a young boy (who i thought would find bubble-soccer high-sterical) and some time on our hands. i planned to follow that up with a dam burger (the most amazing burger-fry combo in all of stl) which happened to be magically near the bubble soccer courts. and then we would swing by ted drewes which, once addicted, can always be rationalized as being close-by.

bubble soccer did not dissapoint and i found myself laughing till injury, again, while i watched a set of high school kids, male and female, sending each other awkwardly ricocheting off the walls, floors and other players. curiously, anthony found the sport "harsh", a description he repeated after every collision. his side of the dialogue included, most exclusively, the following lines repeated.

that was harsh dad.
why is this game so harsh?
why do you want me to see this kind of harshness dad?
do you want me to grow up to be this harsh?
that boy is the most harsh.
do these boys know they are harsh?

to picture the full dialogue you need to imagine the person he's talking to as resembling bobby deniro's character in cape fear cackling in the movie theater. and i'm not even a slap-stick comedy kinda guy but i found this inflated-gladiator warfare wickedly funny.

anthony's dislike turned into a full-on snit so i said we'd go. as we walked out his lecture about my choice continued. by the time i was pulling out of the rec center's lot i had cancelled our next two stops and was headed home (even though this injured me more that it did him but a good percentage of parenting needs to go that way).

as i closed in on our house i realized it was 8pm and i hadn't eaten since lunch. so i pulled up in front of our cheap chinese spot, told anthony i'd be right back (he was reading in the back seat). i ran in ordered my usual and then stepped back outside to wait for it to be ready. as i stood on the sidewalk i watched the people passing by got lost in my thoughts of work and the weekend. i was pulled out of my stupor by a loud-talking man. he appeared to be a college-student and was leaning into a police car. i heard him say to the officer, "maam. someone left that little boy alone in the car. they pulled up and ran into one of the stores here."

honestly, the first thougth through my head was "now what douchebag went and did that?" then the guy pointed at my car. my eyes went from my car, to his outstretched arm, to the police officer swiveling in her seat to get a better look, to my car, to the man's pointing finger to the officer to the pointing finger before my mind shook me from my daze enough to hear the words, "they're talking about you idiot".

i raised my own hand and said "excuse me sir. that is my car and i'm right here." he ignored me. i thought he didn't hear me so i repeated myself. this time i knew he heard me but still ignored me so he was fully caught up in some bizarre passive-aggressive move (like being left in the car alone too often as a child himself) so i just walked up to the policemen's window, leaned in and explained that the car and child were mine and i was standing there waiting for a food order. she nodded, smiled and drove on. i stood up and looked at the whistle-blower who was walking off self-importantly. my mind flashed an image of him wearing a huge clear bubble, then a bubble-wrapped me careening into him at full-speed sending him into a rolling ricochet off the plate-glass window of the storefront he passed. this mental movie may not have made me cackle, but it did make me smile.

to follow up marty's bit of life knowledge (here), the advice i always give to struggling folks who approach me: in the name of full disclosure, marty is the person who taught me this lesson. she taught it to me when i wasn't making our early dating years as easy as she believed they should oughta be. so in some regards i guess everyone who has ever benefitted from marty's advice has me to thank because if i didn't spend a part of our early relationship being a crotch-face, then she would have never come to this bit of inspiration.

so you're welcome.