Park, the four letter word

(originally posted on May 21, 2015)

Despite my wife’s and my own potty-mouth, we have amazingly made it five years as parents without our daughter learning or repeating any of our favorite words. I think there was one time when she was just beginning to form words, she repeated the sounds that make up the word “crap” - but no harm no foul, it was gone the next moment never to be uttered again. 

At an NYC park/playground, there’s any number of colorful words being flung about by kids of all ages (up to and including adult-aged adults). Still K’s verbiage has remained mostly age appropriate. The other day while filling water balloons at the drinking fountain, a little boy- maybe a year older, if that, than K was asking for help filling his up- which he had picked up off the ground and I could see it was broken. I still tried and told him it was broken- at which point he insisted it work. 

He took over, was unsuccessful and sprayed water all over us the were standing by, and came out with, “Oh SHIIIIIT!! Oh shit man, we’re all wet.” 

Pretending it didn’t happen, I answered with, “Okay, our turn!”

Miss K climbs up and starts filling up her balloon, which of course slip and sprays water, prompting this exchange:

K: Oh Shit!!

Me: I don’t think we should say that, sweetie.

K: Say what??

Me: Nothing.

K: I said SHUT. Ohh shuuut…

Me: Ok.

K: I said… shot? 

Me: Ok.

K: Wait, what did I say again… the first time?

Me: I don’t remember.

And she hasn’t said it since, so one win for innocence!! I am more than positive it won’t last for much longer, but I’m not ready to be the swear-word police. Mostly, I’m not ready to hear these kinds of words come out of my little girl’s mouth. So many milestones already come and gone- many of which we couldn’t wait for. This one can wait. I’m not ready for this SHIT.

The littlest critic

(originally posted October 4, 2014)

Miss K has become quite fond of the Original Cast Recording of “What Could Be Better” from the musical Baby. My wife and I are currently working on the song for an upcoming performance, and she wanted to hear the song we are doing.

“Is that you, Mommy?…Daddy is that you singing?” No, we had to explain, those are other people singing the song.

Today it occurred to me that my wife might have a rough cut of the two of us singing the song at our last rehearsal. “You wanna hear Mommy & Daddy, singing the song?” She did.

About three-quarters of the way through it, she asks: “Can we listen to the REAL one now??” It’s a work in progress, kid. Thanks for the encouragement.

Curséd crust, and how I blame my wife

(originally posted May 22, 2013)

When my daughter began eating real people food (i.e. not goopy baby mess), she took a liking to a staple of my morning diet: toast. We’d cut it in fours, and she eat it from the center out- sometimes devouring the whole thing, sometimes leaving the crust. When having a bite of my toast, she’d take the first bite sometimes- and, not having cut my own piece of toast in fours, she’d get a mouthful of crust- and be fine with it.

I like the crust. The end of the loaf of french bread? Yes. A big, chewy and doughy end to my slice of pizza? Sign me up. The heel of a normal, store-bought loaf? Sure, sometimes it’s the best piece in the batch. You see, my love affair with bread does not end when the end begins. My wife on the other hand…

At some point, I became aware of the fact that my wife, when making Miss K some toast, would cut all the crusts off- stating that she didn’t like the crust. It had never been a problem, I thought, when she didn’t want the crust she wouldn’t eat it. Then I realized that when I made her toast- she wanted no crust. When asking for/demanding a bite of mine, I had to bite around the outside first, so as to remove the crust from her bite.

Pizza crust now had to be removed from the pizza, and often times the plate before eating commenced. Another trait taken from my wife– no she doesn’t remove it prior to eating, but it’s no secret she never eats the crust, leaving her plate littered with “pizza bones,” as I like to call them.

So it would seem as though my little girl, in the course of about a year, has gone from “crust-eater” to “crust-not-minder” to “completely-crust-adverse.” And I am not making any BONES about who’s to blame.

It’s come to a head recently, when taking a waffle out of the toaster (yes I feed my child frozen waffles, judge me if you must), K asks to me to remove the crust. After trying many times to explain to her that waffles don’t have crust- I now peel off any parts of the waffle that may be deemed by her majesty as crust. Not limited to the extreme edges- any overly brown/darker part of the waffle that could be construed as such is subject to removal. 

I don’t like to play the blame game, but I am looking squarely at you, wifey. So many things in this life can be blamed on me, but I am throwing my hands up with this one. When it comes to bread products, I’m in it til the ends.

The Game of [the] Throne (Win, Lose, or Poop)

(originally posted September 17, 2012)

WARNING: Gory potty-training details to follow. Stop reading now if you just don’t wanna know. (keep reading if you don’t wanna know, but can’t stop now… you have been warned.)

Yesterday was a banner day in the potty-training realm. Our little one, after having a tiny accident of the pee-pee variety in her undies, was sitting on the potty while I went into the other room to rinse them out. Then I heard: “Daaad, I’m pooping!” She had yet to perform said action in the potty, so I froze for second before bounding back to her- to find her sitting on her throne, proud as a pooping peacock (or peahen, as it were). A very proud moment, for all. This is working! Our little girl is getting it!

Fast forward to: bath time. We had her try and sit on the potty before getting in the bath. No luck. But, no worries - if she pees in the bath, she pees in the bath. She’s been doing that since she was a baby. Whatevs.

Well, after washing, she was playing in the tub. At one point she got up and squatted- then reached around and grabbed her bottom. “Are you pooping??” I said, worriedly. To which she replied, “Nooo,” as if that was the most ridiculous thing I could ask…

And then she pooped in the tub.

Much calamity ensues, I’m yanking her out of the tub at warp speed, my wife comes running into the bathroom, the poops take a little swim in the shallow end… all the while amidst the chaos, we’re trying to make it clear ‘we don’t do that’ but trying not to make too much of a big deal- because you don’t want her to be afraid to poop outside her diaper.

So yeah, call it a draw for me for the day. Had to toss her poop out of the potty- as would be expected. Then had to fish her poop out of the bathwater with a baby wipe- definitely not expected. I guess on one hand I should be glad it’s never happened before- despite one scare. On the other hand, handling water-logged poo is nothing to be glad about- whether it be the first time or tenth.

And so it continues. More adventures to come, I am sure. It’s like they say: Some days you’re the poop-er, and some days you’re- no. No, I am pretty sure they don’t say that.

Breakfast with my special K.

(originally posted on July 20, 2011) 

For much of my life, I wasn’t really a breakfast person. That’s not to say I didn’t like breakfast foods- I just didn’t have the need to eat in the morning, nor really the desire. When my life turned more nine to fivey, I started feeling the need to eat that first meal of the day, but usually waited til I got to work to have a bite. And now, thanks to our little miss K., my life is more 24 hours a day-ey, I am getting up much earlier (than I’d like, really), and so I feel the need to eat sooner.

I’m learning to love the joys of eating breakfast at home, even if it means missing out on that extra half hour of sleep. And how could I not when there’s someone there who wants to share my breakfast- whatever I’m eating, and whether I want to or not. No matter if a take a seat on the couch or at the kitchen table, I’ve soon got two little eyes peering up just over the rim of my bowl, and two little hands on my knees gaining leverage to try and see just what’s in that bowl. And as the spoon goes towards my mouth, hers opens up in that perfect little toothy circle, to beckon the spoon towards her. I explain to her she probably won’t like it, or it’s not for her- and yet I break up a little piece onto my spoon and acquiesce. Sometimes it’ll just be that bite, but usually she waits around for seconds… thirds… having a 15 month-old on the other side of your bowl can really help with portion control.

On mornings where we’re running a bit behind, or need to get out the door early, and there’s not enough time to eat before I leave- I’m bummed, as I so look forward to my usual breakfast date. So I try my best to make it happen. It only took having a baby to get me to sit down and enjoy the most important meal of the day. 

D(elivery) Day

(originally posted May 26, 2010)

After months of staring at ultra-sound images of the contents of my wife's uterus, I knew I would see the contents of what had been contained in the uterus- namely the baby- however I was unaware that, due to the c-section, I would see the uterus itself.

During the surgery, I was positioned at my wife's head- safely tucked behind a curtain. With the various sounds of surgery taking place, I was more than a little interested in what was taking place on the other side. "Am I allowed to peek?" I asked the anesthesiologist, after he peered over the curtain. To which he quickly responded, "No." Oh well.

Fast forward to-- our daughter's out, and I am fawning over her at the warming table- taking pictures and getting acquainted with her while they clean her up and such. I cut the umbilical cord- which surprises me how very like a nice thick piece of calamari it is in its consistency. Grilled, of course, but really high grade calamari- not the cheap stuff you'd just throw in the deep fat fryer- but I digress.

I happen to look back over toward the operating table where, apparently, all the kings horses and all the king's men (and women and doctors and nurses- as it were) are putting my wife back together again. I notice that in the doctor's hands were what looked like guts. You know, guts: Freddy Krueger slashes the guy open, and you see his guts? Guts- that's what it looked like. "Is that the placenta?" I ask, assuming that what has been taken out of my wife were only things that were staying out. "No, it's her uterus," replied the doctor casually, at which point I was told by the nurse to keep my eyes the other direction, lest I pass out on the OR floor. Show over, I obliged, although whilst I snapped more pics of the baby, I wondered what other interesting photo ops lay just a few feet behind me.

If only I had been quick enough on the shutter- perhaps I could have been able to post a picture of my wife's guts, er uterus, on Facebook or something. She could have used it as her profile picture, with the caption, "my guts" or something cleverer like, "me, on the inside." But again, I digress.

Fatherhood begins, and a long list of things I probably never thought I saw or say or do. It only took me 6 weeks to get this post completed- so hopefully I'll post again before she goes off to college.

Hockey, loyalty, and royalty

(originally posted May, 2012)

Indulge me a moment, if you will, my sports junkiness.

When I turned five years old all I wanted to do was go to a Los Angeles Kings hockey game. I had already fallen in love with the sport on TV, and my Dad was a former season-ticket holder so he would go to games from time to time with friends or my Mom. So my first game came at five on the nose, and it turned me into a fan for life.

Being a Kings fan has hardly been a walk in the park, in the ensuing 30 years. They were pretty uncompetitive for most of my youth, which kept tickets prices and availability reasonable- so we got to go a lot of games. Marcel Dionne was my guy, a small-framed centerman who scored goals with the best of him. #16 was it for me, along with guys like Charlie Simmer, Bernie Nicholls, Jay Wells, Dave Taylor, and along came a scrappy kid named Luc Robitaille who went on to become the greatest scoring left-winger in the history of the game (but I really liked him at first because he lived with Marcel and his family as a 20 year-old rookie)- and he also helped ease the burn when Dionne got traded to the Rangers in ‘86. It was those guys who taught me to love hockey, along with my Dad- who taught me all the ins and outs of the game. And at the end of every year, some team other than the Kings would hoist the Stanley Cup as champions of the NHL and then it was on to next year.

Then in August of 1988 my family and I came back from a cruise to Mexico, and we found out that Wayne Gretzky- the best player in the game, possibly ever- had been traded to the Kings. It changed everything. New uniforms and color-scheme, and Stanley Cup possibilities and expectations came to LA (it also changed that reasonable availability and ticket price). I had stars (well, Cups) in my eyes!! It took five years, but the Kings finally reached the Cup finals for the first time in franchise history after the 1992-93 season, and won game one against hockey’s most decorated franchise, the Montreal Canadiens. And then they proceeded to lose four games in a row, and the series. Another year, another team other than the Kings hoisting Lord Stanley’s hardware. Except this time, it was heartbreaking. But surely there would be another chance in the near future… after all, we have Wayne friggin Gretzky!

Fast forward 19 years, Gretzky long gone from game (he left LA a few years after the loss), Luc retired as well, Dionne of course too (their numbers 99, 20, 16 hang from the rafters, and they all sit in hockey’s hall of fame)- 18 times the Cup has been lifted at the end of the of the playoffs, not once by the Kings. Not once had they even reached the finals again- not even come close… until this year. A scrappy bunch of guys who have played up and down hockey all season, have gotten it together at that right time, and are on the precipice of NHL hockey’s pinnacle (not sure a precipice can actually lead to a pinnacle, but go with me on this one). The Stanley Cup finals start tonight, and my first sports love will be lacing them up against the New Jersey Devils. The Devs have won three Cups in their 37 years of existence, the last in 2003. The Kings are going on 44 here with a one.

This time I want the Cup. I want my guy to be holding the Con Smythe Trophy as the the playoffs’ MVP, whether it be Jonathan Quick, Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar, Mike Richards or whoever.

Really, I want to skate around the ice holding the Stanley Cup high above my head- and then pass it off to my Dad and watch him skate a lap. And then to Marcel, and Luc, and why not even Gretz (he won five cups with the Oilers, but we’ll let him in to this party too). While that scenario is all but impossible: for the first time in long time, the scenario in which these current bunch of Kings hoist the hardware is well within reach. And I can’t believe it. I’m a five year old kid watching a game, hoping for the best. GO. KINGS. GO.