So yesterday was the first really nice day we’ve had in a while so while Jen cooked an awesome turkey dinner with all the fixin’s inside, the girls and I decided to play “outside.” And by outside I mean our back deck since we don’t have a yard. So I hooked up the iPod and speakers and blasted some Disney classics for the girls while Arden set up her table and chairs to do some coloring in the sun (her suggestion). Meanwhile I kid-proofed the deck and by kid-proof I mean I moved some chairs in front of the stairs so Alex wouldn’t tumble down them. Anyway, the girls seemed to be having a good time. Alex was wandering about with the hot tub net trying to catch the air, Arden was coloring and I was blowing bubbles, which seemed to be only for my own amusement when Arden said, “You know you’re not out here just to entertain us.” I said, “I’m not?” And Arden said, “No. You can participate too,” and she handed me a piece of paper and a marker.
A few weeks ago we had an old high school friend of Jen’s staying with us for a couple of days who happened to be a Buddhist so we needed to pick vegetarian and vegan restaurants to hit while he was in town. With me being lactose intolerant I don’t mind vegan fare so we picked a supposedly fancy vegan place in Santa Monica. However, it took us forever to get down there and Alex was super cranky. And it didn’t help that we couldn’t find a parking space so I dropped everyone off while Alex and I headed off in search of an overpriced garage somewhere. When we finally made our way back to the restaurant there were two entrances to the joint. And I still have no idea why. But to make matters worse, both places had their dining rooms upstairs and didn’t have an elevator. Normally this is no big deal for me but Alex had just fallen asleep in the stroller and I really didn’t want to wake up cranky pants, especially not just to run upstairs and see if I was in the right place, so I asked the hostess to check for me. But apparently she was sporting some cranky pants or a cranky thong, of her own, and refused to help me. So I called Jen on her cell to find out which restaurant she was in and Jen having zero sense of direction told me the wrong one so I unstrapped Alex, woke her up and carried her flailing body up the stairs to find no Jen. The day was not going well, and it just kept going in that direction.
Right as I arrived at the table, Jen was pulling out some snacks for the girls and a snooty waitress came by and said, “We don’t allow outside food or drinks in this establishment.” “Not even baby food?” “I’m sorry, no.” And of course they didn’t have a children’s menu. But they did have highchairs. Between the long journey down, the cranky baby and the overall attitude of the restaurant, Jen was fed up so we left Jen’s friend there (he had another long lost friend meeting us there to keep him company) and went on the prowl for some real food. We ended up at a California Pizza Kitchen and we were all very happy. Jen and I split some Sonora Spring Rolls and the girls got to eat their snacks in peace. But this whole experience made me think of my own Parents Ask question: When are your kids too old to bring a lunch? When is it time for them to start ordering off of the kid’s menu?
Even though I was pissed at the vegan suck-fest it occurred to me that Arden, being almost 5, is way too old to be bringing peanut butter sandwiches and lunchables to the Olive Garden. But at the same time whenever we order her something at a restaurant she eats maybe one or two bites at best which means I just threw away seven bucks. I’m also starting to get embarrassed walking into a restaurant with four people and only ordering two meals. So I’m at a bit of a dining crossroads at the moment…excect maybe when we go to IHOP on a “Kid’s Eat Free” night. Then I don’t mind bringing the girls their snacks and ordering something on the menu. But it’s usually something like extra bacon that Jen and I will enjoy if the no one else wants to partake. Anyway, I’d love to know what other people are doing and when they think the sack lunch shut-off should be.
Early in my wife’s second pregnancy we made a mistake. We started telling our then 3-year-old daughter, Arden, that “Mommy is too tired to play with you tonight” or “Mommy can’t do that right now.” Granted Jen was having a tough pregnancy – her hormones were so low in the beginning that the ob/gyn said, “Don’t tell anyone you’re having a baby quite yet.” But when you’re 3-years-old the only thing you’re hearing is the voice inside your head saying, “Why did I ask for a baby for Christmas?”
It didn’t take us long to see the resentment growing in Arden so we quickly changed our tune to, “Daddy really wants to play with you tonight,” and “Daddy wants to take you to the movies.” Basically any time Jen couldn’t do something Arden got spoiled rotten. But no matter how many trips you take to Yogurt Land and no matter how many sugary breakfast cereals you put on top, the jealousy is eventually going to rear its ugly head.
For Arden the jealousy really started to show about two weeks after Alex was born. Arden started acting out in school. She would have massive meltdowns, she would talk back to her teachers, she would hit other preschoolers and there were one or two biting incidents. But when she was home she was a perfect angel. And when she was around the baby she glowed. She was genuinely excited to see her. Wanted to caress her and hold her. Unfortunately Arden’s jealousy had caused her to get some kind of rash on her legs and arms so she wasn’t allowed to touch the baby for a while, which we could see frustrated her to no end. But it was because she loved her new baby sister and it showed.
Arden’s jealousy lasted for several months, developing into a bit of an anger problem. I had to teach her to count to ten whenever she started to get mad. It worked to some extent, but she would still lash out at school from time to time. But eventually her jealousy phase passed (the anger we’re still working on)…until last week.
Our late bloomer Alex is finally starting to blossom, just days shy of turning 17 months. You tell her it’s time to go and she’ll grab her shoes and try and put them on (and by “try” I mean she’ll bang them against her shins) or when I tell her it’s time for a bath she’ll hightail it to the bathroom and try and climb in (and by “try” I mean she’ll lean so far over the edge of the tub she’d fall in ass-over-teakettle if I didn’t catch her) and she’s finally trying to sound out some words (and by “try” I mean we’re making ourselves believe that “ba” means book.) In other words, Alex is starting to get a lot of praise and a bit more of our attention and Arden is jealous again. Only this time it’s ten times worse than before….
This past weekend any toy that Alex picked up, Arden would immediately snatch out of her hands and say, “I was going to play with that.” It could be a teething ring and she’d want it. Arden could be talking about having ice cream for dessert all day, but if Alex had a Popsicle for dessert, Arden now wanted a Popsicle for dessert. On Sunday I decided to give the girls an afternoon bath and I put one of Arden’s old Spongebob shirts on Alex to use as basically a bib for dinner, but suddenly Arden, who had abandoned all things Spongebob long ago, wanted to wear that specific shirt and she was determined to get it. She tried to rip it off of Alex. When I stopped her she had a meltdown until Jen remembered she had an old Spongebob shirt of her own that Arden could wear. Arden was excited…for about a minute until she remembered Alex was wearing her shirt and she tried to yank it off Alex again. That night only Alex got a Popsicle.
The jealousy came in waves throughout the day, but the crest of that wave had to be Jen herself. If Alex was sitting on Jen’s lap Arden had to muscle her way in. She’d even go so far as to “accidentally” shove Alex off of Jen’s lap. If Jen was sitting on the recliner with Alex, Arden would climb right up there with them. If Jen was lying on the floor with Alex, Arden would roll Alex away and lie down next to Jen. It was like some kind of primal sibling rivalry. Arden could not allow Alex to have any physical contact with her mother. And even though I know Arden’s behavior is just another phase, the jealousy is not. We all know it’s something that many of us carry throughout our lives. But what really scares me is that Alex seems to be taking after her big sister. Last night Alex saw Arden sitting on Jen’s lap and started screaming like a freakin’ banshee. She rushed over to Arden and started pushing her and hitting her and trying to get her off her mother. And all Arden could do is laugh. And all I could do is wonder about the fun-filled years to come.
I’ve mentioned before how Jen won the Great Dishwashing War and how by default it’s been my job to bathe the kids while she gets some Palmolive Therapy. Usually if Jen and I have a date night or if I have a Guy’s Night Out we skip the bathing ritual. Well last week I was going out for burgers and beers with some friends and we had skipped the bath the night before so it had to be done so I said to Arden, “Mommy’s going to give you your bath tonight,” and Arden said, “Does she know how?”
While we’re on the topic of baths, on Saturday morning I decided to give the girl their baths in the morning because we were going out that night and wouldn’t have time to do it later. Arden said to me, “Can we have a bubble bath this morning?” I said, “Sure.” Arden’s eyes widened in complete and utter disbelief as she turned to Jen and said, “Daddy said ‘yes’ right away!” Apparently I’m hard sell and I didn’t even know it.
The title of this post isn’t necessarily about how on my father’s watch this past weekend the baby skinned her knee and another time landed on her face with a bloody splat, but rather about how when your parents live on the other side of the country and they come for a visit, it’s an event, of Woodstock proportions. Only without the music and drugs.
I love my parents and my in-laws but when either comes for a visit it’s all encompassing. They both stay with us and neither rents a car, not that it’s needed, since we tend to spend… Every. Last. Minute. Together. Sure we have fun – this past weekend we hit the Huntington Library where we saw early drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the girls got to splash around in some fountains in their botanical gardens. We also toured the Grammy Museum where we got to see a sweat-stained shirt worn by Neil Diamond and the girls got to dance on the lighted floor from Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean video – but still the 24/7 thing can be trying, especially when there’s kids involved.
Even before we had kids I was never a fan of having people stay over the house, even for a single night. If a friend had been drinking too much I started plying them with coffee early and offered to pay for a cab ride home. If that didn’t work, I just muscled them into the car and drove them home which ultimately backfired one night when I was driving home a drunk friend and we passed a police checkpoint and he mouthed, “F.U. Pig” to one of the cops while toasting him with a red plastic cup filled with Grey Goose.
Anyway, the reason I’m not the biggest fan of people staying at the house is because I’m a morning person and a creature habit. I like to get up early, head down to my office and write. And I do the same thing after Jen and the girls go to bed. But when we have visitors, of the grandparent variety or any kind for that matter, my office becomes the guest room. And I’m sure the last thing people want to do is roll over in the middle of the night and see me typing away to the light of a computer screen. So my writing ceases when we have guests staying over, which dooms me to snacks and reality TV upstairs.
Usually when we have friends staying with us from out of town they have other people to see and other things to do that don’t involve all of us, but when they do, and there’s kids involved, things get complicated. The kids get fussy when “the plans” don’t jibe with feeding and nap schedules and they’re usually not that excited about visiting the “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum.” At least with the grandparents they don’t mind working around the kids’ schedules and are happy to have the day’s big event be a trip to the park. But the trade off is you don’t get the built-in breaks that you get from friends. Granted the folks might babysit the kids one night, but we’re usually too tired to really enjoy it from all the running around we’ve been doing all day. This past visit Jen and I decided to leave the kids with my parents on Sunday afternoon while we grocery shopped in peace. It was the first time we had been grocery shopping together, sans kids, in five years and it was probably the best date we’d had in months. Which is pretty damn sad.
Another problem that Jen and I both have is that we feel obligated to entertain our parents 24/7. We need to have something planned every minute of every day while our parents are in town. Daytrips, tourist attractions and even restaurants are picked out in advance. If things go as planned, which they rarely do, we’re kinda happy, but we’re still wondering if our parents are enjoying themselves. But more often than not, when things don’t go as planned we both get stressed out and take it out on each other and sometimes our parents. I know what you’re saying, don’t plan anything; go with the flow. But that doesn’t work either because we find ourselves equally as stressed trying to figure out what our parents want to do and their pat answer of “Whatever you want to do,” makes us want to pull all the hair out of our heads. Or what’s left, in my case. So ultimately by the time we wave goodbye to our parents at the airport we’re completely exhausted, like we’ve just been to a weekend rock festival in the middle of nowhere, sans the drugs and music. Okay, maybe there is music, but it’s usually from the golden oldies station in the car.
Last week on the website Momversation (say that ten times fast) there was a video discussion about the “New Mom Excuse,” prompted by Parents Ask Managing Editor Jennifer Brandt. Basically she was wondering how long moms could get away with the excuse of being a new mom when it came to not losing the pregnancy weight, not going to the gym, not caring that their wardrobe now consisted entirely of sweats or that moms were using baby food as hair conditioner. The panelists realized that their kids were now one, two and even three years old and they’re still using the “New Mom Excuse” for just about everything under the sun. This started me thinking, is there a “New Dad Excuse?” And the answer is no. There’s just “The Dad Excuse.”
I touched on this to some extent in my piece on Flirting a couple weeks ago. How when I go into a Starbucks to grab a latte with the baby I’ll have three hot women quickly get the door for me while they let it slam shut in the face of the mother of two right behind me. Or how notoriously unfriendly flight attendants who sneer at moms entering a plane with children will go out of their way to help the “struggling” solo flying dad. Part of the reason this happens is because of “The Dad Excuse.” People just don’t think dads can do what moms have done for millennia. So essentially we get a pass. And when I do something completely normal, something that moms do on a daily basis, like picking my daughter up at school I’m dubbed “Super Dad” by the other moms because they don’t expect me to be able to do what they do.
But, like the moms on Momversation, I take full advantage of “The Dad Excuse.” I often dress like a bum (though I was never that snappy of a dresser to begin with), I won’t shave for a couple of weeks, I’ll eat like crap, and up until recently the elliptical machine in my office went untouched for five years. But even though Arden is only four-and-a-half, I don’t think there’s a time limit on the “The Dad Excuse.” I think I’ll get that pass for all my shortcomings until the day I ship the girls off to college. Except from my wife.
Sure, I try and use “The Dad Excuse” at home (see my piece on why men can’t multitask), but my wife isn’t buying it. If she can do laundry and wash a few dishes while watching the girls, I should be able to do that too. And I try. “Try” being the operative word. I don’t always succeed. This actually causes Jen to get so irritated at me that she ends up cleaning the bathrooms and doing a lot of the housework I neglect. So maybe “The Dad Excuse” does work for me at home. :)
This past weekend we were in the car a lot. We had two kid’s birthday parties to attend to. We took a trip down to Irvine to see my cousins. And we also hit the outlet mall in the City of Commerce (where I scored a sweet new pair of jeans from Banana Republic.) So while we were between stops, driving all over the city, Arden says to me, “Let me know if you see any pink cars.” I said, “There’s not a lot of pink cars out there, sweetie.” And her response was, “Then keep your eyes peeled.”
