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[totallyawesomedad-blog]

Three's company

Raising my children in a house with roommates has proven to be challenging. Let me first say that the people I live with are good people. They are a young married couple who have opened their home to myself and the two humans that I love. But they also have just enough experience in life and with kids to be... How shall I put it? Fucking obnoxious. My children are not cats, or dogs, or your cousin's toddler that you babysat one time during spring break 2016. At best, my kids are a novelty to them. At worst, they are an opportunity to flex their Advice Muscles. Oh yes. The truly sage advice of the childless. Have you ever heard a man give his hot take on the state of feminism today? I am guilty of being this douche canoe. And before I was a parent, I was guilty of having parenting plans/opinions. "When I have kids, they won't watch TV. Screen time is bad!" LOL. "When I have kids and they start crying at concert or a movie, I'll handle it immediately. Kids just need to know about expectations." How special. "When I have kids, I'll teach them to handle their anger calmly. No tantrums in the cereal aisle of the supermarket. No meltdowns in restaurants. Self-control is a skill that can be taught." Girl, please. And this is my roommate. Example: The husband (we'll call him Buster) was accompanying me and my gremlins on a little road trip to scout out future apartments. Buster is used to controlling the radio because DUH WHEN YOU HAVE NO KIDS YOU GET TO CONTROL THINGS. This doesn't work for my daughter. She has what they call "Leadership Skills". I put that in quotations because that's a euphemism for being bossy. My daughter is bossy. That's ok by me. Someday she will be a boss. And that's more than ok by me. My daughter (we'll call her Hillary): Turn on the Moana soundtrack, Dad. My son (we'll call him Chewie because he is fuzzy and the ultimate sidekick): Yeah! Moana, dad! Buster: We're already listening to music, kids. H: Excuse me. *Dad*. Can we put on the Moana soundtrack, please. Me: I'm just going to put it on. They love it, and they are so bored right now. B: You know, you can't always give them what they want. I change the playlist on my iPhone. I keep cool. I have a rage stroke that I keep to myself. We start the first song. H: *sings all the words perfectly, but mostly out of tune* C: *just makes the same noises that Hillary does, but 1 second behind* (The ultimate sidekick) B: How many songs does this thing have on it? Me: More than a few. *I start singing along* -Seemingly 100 songs later- B: Can we skip around? M: Not really. I think that Hillary is somewhere on the autism spectrum. She depends on consistency. She knows exactly what comes next and gets pretty upset if we skip steps, etc. Buster is clearly frustrated that this music is not Shostakovich and he, as the adult, is not in control. So, he drops The Knowledge Bomb on me: That's interesting. In my classroom, I have kids like that. I think that using firm expectations and being consistent helps to adjust their behavior. Oh REEEEEEALLY? Thanks, professor. But here's the problem. I don't see my kids every day. I like singing with them. I even like singing the same terrible songs for the millionth time with them. Because tomorrow they'll be gone and I won't hear their beautiful voices for another week. And consistent expectations. Oh, boy. Trust me, in a 50 minute class period you can win lose or draw and try again tomorrow. Fail enough times, you get to feel kind of bad about it over summer break and start totally fresh next September. But I have to play the long game. And the long game for Hillary and Chewie lasts the next 70 years of my life. But I don't say any of this. Instead, I smile and turn the music up. Me: Just relax and enjoy the scenery. It's the best advice I can offer to someone who is bad at advice. And, honestly, I mean it in all sincerity. Because learning to relax and making the best of what comes next is all I can do, sometimes. Most times.

[totallyawesomedad-blog]

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast time is fun. And by “fun”, I don’t mean “enjoyable”. But it is a dependable part of my parenting routine, and that is something to look forward to.

Cocoa puff cereal. Sometimes with milk. Sometimes without. If either of my kids ask for cereal without milk, you can bet the farm that the second I sit down to eat my own food, they will need milk. In fact, it’ll be a big damn milk emergency. You see, kids interpret the act of making yourself comfortable as a message that you are now ready to receive more commands.

And just as reliable as their request is my response. I can be counted on to grumble, tell them to get their own milk, take one more bite, and then get up to get it myself. Somehow they know that before I have coffee I am without the ability to put up a fight. No caffeine? I am Samson with a buzz cut.

Every morning, kids or not, I make myself two eggs for breakfast. This is a daily routine from which I never deviate. I am not the most interesting person you know.

This morning, however, I somehow cooked a spider into my egg. The children were equal parts thrilled and disgusted. I was mostly just curious. How did the spider get into the pan? Was he there the whole time? Did he climb in after I broke the eggs?

The kids were no help speculating at these possibilities. They mostly just wanted me to take our new breakfast companion and gross each other out with it.

They are good together, my kids. They are such good friends at this point in their lives, which I’m grateful for. I am an only child, which I have mixed feelings about. There are pros and cons, but I feel like lifelong companionship is such a powerful thing. Right now, they want to tease each other with a spider corpse. In 50 years, they’ll console each other when faced with mine.

That sounds like a heavy thought to have first thing in the morning, but it’s never far from my mind, these days. I have never been afraid of death, other than not wanting to be smooshed slowly under a bus or to fall off the side of the Grand Canyon. However, these gremlins of mine make me hyper aware of my mortality. Not in a negative way, mind you. But I’m aware now in a way that I never was before. The clock is ticking. Only so many days, years, birthdays, breakfasts.

Once, not long after Amelia had been born, we met up with some friends for lunch. As I cradled and fawned over Amelia as we waited for our food, one of our companions made a good natured joke about how this new behavior of mine was the product of biology and human evolution. For some reason, I got really fired up about that. Yes, being able to deny the impulse to eat my young is definitely a positive product of evolution. But what about the pride I will feel to see her graduate highschool? The desire that she fall in love with someone who can make her happy? The thought that someday she will come home from a hard day of work and want to call me to tell me about it…but won’t be able to. Because I’ll be gone. Dust to dust.

These feelings are more than science. If I have a soul, it has been set alight by the love I have for my children.

But pulling myself back to reality, I recognize that this revelation *is* a bit heavy for breakfast-time revelry, so I swallow my BIG FEELINGS and we keep having a good laugh, the three of us. Myself and my two favorite people.

[totallyawesomedad-blog]

Royale with Cheese

Before I begin, I think it’s important to inoculate my reader against certain assumptions about my attitude.

Most important to understand is that I love my kids. They are the center of my life, the essence of my soul. I love spending time with them, I love playing with them, I love every adventure their existence affords me.

That being said, sometimes things get real hairy as a parent, and being a single dad is a pretty unique experience. I was raised by a single mom and I recognize how hard it is for women, as well. But our society tells men a lot of things that run counter to the goal of being a Totally Awesome Dad. A lot of that has to do with emotional boundaries, self-expression, and how we celebrate the triumphs and cope with the travails of life.

When viewed through the lens of single dadhood, everyday experiences that might pass by you without a second thought take on intense notes of humor (gallows), and sometimes crisis (existential).

I feel like the ultimate single dad experience is taking your kids to dinner at McDonald’s.

The prologue to this story is that I don’t have pots and pans. I don’t have enough plates and silverware. I can’t boil water. My All-American upbringing has left me pretty much up shit creek without a paddle when it comes to “preparing a delicious and nutritious home cooked meal”

To begin the experience, as always, is going to the potty. Taking a 5 year old girl and a 3 year old boy into public bathrooms is often traumatic for everyone involved. I don’t know how many times I have held my daughter 3 inches off the seat as she took her time doing her business while my son shouted at me to “Go faster! Hurry! I’m hungry!”

After that, ordering food is the easiest part, believe it or not. McDonald’s has this covered for you. The Happy Meal is everything. Meat, potatoes, fruit, juice. Everything you need. And something you don’t: the toy.

The priorities your children have when opening a Happy Meal are as follows: 1) The toy 2) The juice 3) …

So, the bargaining begins. The pleading. The begging. If they want to go into the Play Park, they gotta eat some nuggets. How about some fries? One apple slice? Please stop kicking me under the table.

Sometimes, I win and they eat. More often, I lose and we go to the Play Park because lordhelpme.

There are only two types of adults in the McDonalds Play Park: grandparents and single parents. There are no happy couples reviewing their finances and revisiting plans to send their kids to Montessori school in the fall. This is not the place for people who have their shit figured out.

While kids run and scream, we all stare at our phones. But not me. I do my best to covertly uncover all their stories.

Single moms have things on lockdown. They are ultra-engaged in their Pinterest wall or Words with Friends. When they shout for their kid to slow down, quiet down, put that down, their kid always does. If a single mom has to get up and start walking towards the play toy, things get real. The earth moves.

Grandparents are mostly a wreck, but they don’t have anything to figure out. Just load these kids up with ice cream and let ‘em go wild. In 30 minutes, they get to drop the gremlins back off with mom and dad and then *boom* back to reruns of Matlock and bedtime at 7:45.

But single dads. Jesus, single dads. Shouting commands that no child will ever hear (Maybe it’s the frequency of our voices? Too low? Too frantic???), making promises of consequences that are beyond absurd (Oh really? You’re going to leave this instant if Johnny doesn’t put that shoe down? If so, my next call is going to be to the National Guard because we are going to have a RIOT ON OUR HANDS HERE, PEOPLE). Maybe they’re perusing Facebook, seeing what their high school sweetheart is up to these days. Probably married that lawyer. Definitely not on the McDonalds Play Park circuit, that’s for sure. Single dads make accidental eye contact. This is something single moms do NOT do (probably because eww gross single dads!). When our eyes lock for a fleeting moment in time, there is always a deep exchange, however brief the connection. I can’t tell you what the message is that I divine from these looks. If I did, you might die of heartache. Or laughter. Probably laughter.

When the food is done (thrown away), and the kids are finished playing (torn screaming from the climbing wall), we make our way back to my truck. Back to my new place. Back to the unfamiliar bed. And when I hear their gentle snores, I listen intently. I feel the weight of their sleeping bodies next to me. I drink it all in because they’ll be with their mom tomorrow night and I will be as alone as I have ever felt in the whole of my life. And dinner at McDonalds will be a memory I want to wrap myself up in until morning.