THE LYING SMART-ASS

The proverbial “they” say that when a young child lies it’s a sign of intelligence. Well my kid must be a freakin’ genius because she’s not even four years old and she’s perfected the art. She’s a bald face liar. I’ve caught her standing in a pool of chocolate milk with the dripping, empty carton in her hand and she’ll flat out deny any involvement in the spill. In her mind this not only negates her culpability, but also her responsibility to help clean up. Now that's smart.

Every kid will run to the other parent after having a request shut down by the first parent, but mine will ask my wife for ice cream for breakfast and then patiently wait for Jen to leave for work and then come to me and say, “Mommy said I could have ice cream for breakfast.” Of course most of the time these days I’ve got “baby head” and I can’t tell if I’m coming or going so I end up giving her a mountain of mint chocolate chip ice cream in a cereal bowl with a Flintstone's Vitamin on top. The cornerstone of every nutritious breakfast.

So if lying is a sign of intelligence what does being a smart-ass mean? Arden’s gotten to be a real wisenheimer these days. Twice yesterday she hit Jen and me with some real zingers. First, I was driving her home from preschool and she asked me, “How do reindeer fly?” It took me a moment to try and formulate an answer. I eventually came up with, “Thanks to the magic of Santa Claus” and then I proceeded to sing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” hoping for a little sing-a-long, but instead Arden interrupted me and said, “What’s that song, Daddy?” I said, “It’s Rudolph. You know, the Christmas song.” And then she said with a complete straight face, “Then sing it at Christmas.” Zing!

Then last night Arden decided that the inside of the refrigerator would be a fun place to play while Jen and I were preparing for dinner. Jen asked her nicely to get out. Of course Arden didn't budge. Then Jen said a little more firmly, “Arden, get out of there.” Still nothing. So Jen got stern, “I’m not gonna repeat myself.” But Arden just ignored her. Out of options Jen had no choice but to raise her voice and say, “Get. Out. Of. There. Now.” Arden just looked at her and said with that straight face of hers, “You repeated yourself, Mommy.” Jen and I just looked at each other and then let her play in the fridge until dinner.

THE TV SITTER

A few months before Alex was born some friends were in a bind and needed a last minute babysitter for their three month old and asked if I could watch him. I said sure, why not? But when I got there they told me that they didn’t want the baby watching any TV, which meant that I couldn’t watch any TV. I was a little bummed because watching a baby is kind of boring and when Arden was that young I used to keep myself company watching the previous night’s episodes of Conan O’Brien and CSI on the DVR. Anyway, I agreed to their barbaric terms and they left. I lasted about five minutes before I turned on the TV. Wasn’t like the baby was gonna squeal on me. Anyway, I quickly noticed that the baby was entranced by the television, so I turned the baby towards me. I managed to keep the baby’s attention for about a minute before he started craning his neck to see the screen again. I then turned the baby completely away from the TV, but he kept trying to get a look. So then I muted the TV and the baby finally gave up. But then I realized I couldn’t hear the TV, which meant I had no idea what was going on so I was forced to just turn the damn thing off. Babies…



I’ve always been an early riser. When I was about 4 or 5, before I could tell time, I used to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and listen for the water to start running through the pipes. It meant my father was taking a shower and that TV would be starting in about fifteen minutes. Yeah, that’s right, I remember a time before cable where TV didn’t run 24 hours a day. But that doesn’t make me old. It makes me 36. Anyway, I’d hop out of bed, run downstairs, and find a cup filled with Cheerios waiting for me. I’d then turn on the TV and impatiently stare at an on-screen test pattern until the Star-Spangled Banner began at exactly 6:00 AM. And then the cartoons would begin. I can’t think of a more appropriate song than our National Anthem to start the day of a generation hooked on TV, one that would later be dubbed the “American Slacker.”

People have been blaming TV for the world’s problems since its inception. Personally I blame CNN for informing the terrorists about all the holes in our national security. People also think my generation is stupid and complacent because we watched too much TV. But I think I’m doing just fine and I was raised on a steady diet of Hong Kong Phooey and MTV. That’s why I’ve decided to let my kids watch as much TV as they want. I’m kidding. Sort of…

Arden’s at an age where if I need to get some stuff done around the house or if the baby needs my undivided attention, I can flip on some Spongebob or throw in a DVD of Toy Story and she’ll veg out. And I’m definitely guilty of doing this a bit too often, but then the guilt gets the best of me and the TV turns off and I’m on the floor playing Candyland by Arden’s rules (she gets to move to any space on the board she likes.) But I honestly believe that Arden is as smart as she is because of the amount of TV she watches.

Everyone thinks their kid is the smartest. I don’t know if Arden is the smartest, but she’s certainly the fastest study I’ve ever seen. She had a full vocabulary and perfect diction by age two. And when she started preschool at two and a couple of months the teachers kept telling me they had never encountered a child like Arden before. Instead of just going with the flow or crying because she didn’t get what she wanted, Arden would put her hands on her hips and start arguing with the teachers. But the most impressive part was that she actually made valid points. And she still does to this day, just shy of her fourth birthday.



If people don’t want to let their kids watch TV, that’s their prerogative. There’s plenty of terrible stuff out there that will rot their little brains, like ABC’s Wipeout, which also just happens to be the greatest show on television, brain rotting and all. Wipeout aside, I think Arden is smarter and faster thanks to Elmo and Dora and the other educational shows geared towards young children. Arden was picking up words and concepts that as a parent you don’t even think to teach your kids. And how else would Arden know to tell me last night that instead of chicken nuggets for dinner again that she wanted to “change it up a little”? Okay, maybe she got that from Conan instead of Elmo. But I’m just saying.


Photo: Arden after I had just taken TV away from her.

WHY I HATE THE PARK

I never really did the park until I had kids because where I grew up our whole town was a park. I lived in a wooded suburb of Boston where we had huge backyards and pastures and aqueducts. And everyone had a swing set and a sandbox so taking your kid to the actual park was considered suspect behavior. But Los Angeles is a city and in the neighborhood where I live no one has a backyard or a front yard for that matter. We don’t even have sidewalks on my street. So if I want the kids to get some fresh air we have to go out and find some. I actually live less than a mile from Griffith Park, which is one of the largest urban parks in North America and there’s a million things to do there, but they’re all outdoors, which is the first reason I don’t like parks.

I’m not a fan of the great outdoors. Mostly because I don’t like nature. Never have. Hated school nature walks, hated summer camp and I even managed to never take biology in high school or college. As Woody Allen once said, “I’m two with nature.” There’s just something about hanging out in the blistering sun all day with all the ants and bees and screaming kids that doesn’t really appeal to me. And it could also have something to do with the fact that I was attacked by a squirrel as a kid. But that’s another story.

When I first started taking Arden to the park she would just take off the second we arrived. By the time I popped a straw her juice box she was already a half a football field away. The only way to keep her near me was to let her play on the jungle gym or as I like to call it “the death trap.” I don’t know if this is just an L.A. thing, but all the jungle gyms here are friggin’ six feet off the ground. And have no guardrails. Little kids can just walk right off. And they do. I’ve seen it happen. So when Arden was a no-fear toddler, I would work up a sweat just trying to make sure she didn’t fall off the damn thing. And the adolescent emo kids with their skateboards barreling past her didn’t help my cause much.

There’s also a fifty-fifty chance Arden will get sick when I take her to the park because the park is where parents and nannies take kids when they’re too sick to go to school, but don’t want them cooped up in the house all day. There’s always a few snot-nosed kids running around. And of course my kid will undoubtedly want to play with the sick ones. New York City shouldn’t be closing schools in their quest to curb the Swing Flu, they should be closing the parks.

But the main reason I hate going to the park is the preparation. You go for what, an hour, maybe two, but unlike an afternoon of skee ball and cardboard pizza at Chuck E. Cheese, you have to bring water, snacks, blankets and specialized toys like pails and Dora the Explorer scooters and helmets for the bikes. And my kids are fair skinned so that means a repeated dousing of suntan lotion every hour or so. And then there’s the clean up. The minute you decided to bring the kids to the park is the same minute you decided you’re giving your kids a bath that night. If they’re not covered in suntan lotion like my kids, they’re covered in dirt and sweat and that unwanted gift that keeps on giving – sand. It gets in their shoes, the car and stuck in between every crevice on their bodies.

Taking the kids to the park is always a last resort for me. If I can’t get Jen to help me break up the day with a family lunch date I’m constantly thinking up new things to do with the girls. One day we’ll hit a movie, the next a museum, and the day after that a drop-in art class. Ironically my aversion to the park has turned me into the dad of a million ideas. And I’m probably doing my girls’ little lungs a favor by keeping them out of the fresh smoggy L.A. air. :)


Photo: Alex's first visit to the park last week.

THE LITTLE HUSTLER

I had a real piss and vinegar post planned for today about why I hate the park so much, but my current screenplay beckoned as did the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance. Yes, I actually like So You Think You Can Dance. So the park will have to wait until Monday. Though the sand from today's outing will surely remain with me until then. In the meantime, here's a little video I whipped up with Arden when she was about two and a half. Enjoy...

THE GREAT DISHWASHING WAR

I live in a house that was built in 1946 and it doesn’t have a dishwasher. The real estate agent who sold me the house called the kitchen “vintage” which translates into “no one ever bothered to update the damn thing.” Myself included. But to be fair, in the beginning, it was only Jen and me and I never thought we’d still be in this house 8 years later, let alone having a sink full of sippy cups and Hello Kitty spoons. But to be honest, doing the dishes doesn’t bother me one bit. In fact, I love doing the dishes. I find it cathartic after a long day with the girls. I literally wash away the stresses of the day.

Unfortunately Jen loves doing the dishes too. After a long day at the office and an immediate hour-plus watching the kids while I cook dinner, she’s champing at the bit for a little Palmolive therapy as well. As a matter of fact, we both enjoy doing the dishes so much we spend $13 a month to have Sirius/XM Radio in the kitchen. Not in the living room, not in our cars, just the kitchen.

The funny thing is we’ve never actually spoken about our mutual desire for washing the dishes because that would be admitting, to some degree, that we’d rather scrub some porcelain instead of spending quality time with our kids. So instead we both make “magnanimous” offers to do the dishes, “No, you go watch the kids while I clean up this huge mess,” or “You had a long day, why don’t you chill out with the girls while I take care of everything in here.” Yeah, like it’s possible to just “chill” with a 3-year-old and a 6-month-old. However, the unspoken rules of our silent dishwashing war dictate that once one of us makes an offer to do the dishes, that person gets to do the dishes. It’s kind of like calling “shotgun” when you’re about to hop in a car with a group of people.

I don’t know if there will ever be a resolution to our situation. Though we’ve occasionally talked about remodeling the kitchen so we can install one of those new super stealth dishwashers. But then we just laugh, to ourselves of course, because then who would do the dishes?

BABY HEAD

I’ve got a bad case of “baby head.” I don’t know what else to call it and I don’t know if other people get it, but ever since my life became completely consumed by raising two kids I’ve been in a perpetual fog. I’ll be at the supermarket picking up the pancetta and shallots I forgot (due to “baby head”) for my asparagus recipe and the checkout girl will say, “That’ll be two dollars and fifteen cents, Sir.” (By the way, I was never called “sir” or “mister” until I became a parent, but that’s another post.) Anyway, I’ll hand the cashier two bucks and just stare at her like an idiot, waiting for my change.

I’ve also lost my memory. My mother will call and ask what I did the day before and I’ll draw a complete blank. We could’ve just had an incredible day at Disneyland where Walt Disney himself was unthawed from his cryogenic chamber beneath the Magic Kingdom and cooked us all dinner, and I wouldn’t remember. If it’s not tattooed on some part of my body like Memento, it didn’t happen.

And if that’s not bad enough I’ve also become just plain stupid. I’ll be at my favorite store, Target, and bring my parking ticket to the pay station like I’ve done a million times before, but suddenly I have no idea how I’m supposed to insert the ticket into the machine. I’ll literally try it ten times before I figure it out.

I didn’t experience “baby head” when I was a part-time stay-at-home dad or even as an every-other-day stay-at-home dad. But with two kids, I’ve definitely got it. Part of me doesn’t mind; thanks to my babyzheimer’s I literally don’t have a care in the world, all my real world stresses have kind of disappeared, though most have been replaced by the stresses from the world of childrearing. I’m not sure if this is necessarily a good trade because occasionally I find myself forgetting to remind myself to pay the bills.

FLIRT FACTOR

I’m short, I’m bald and I’m hairy, but when I’ve got a baby in my arms the hot chicks are all over me like I’m Brad Freakin’ Pitt. I’ll be at a Starbucks with the baby in one hand and my grande decaf soy latte in the other and three hot chicks will literally pop up out of nowhere and get the door for me. Meanwhile they’ll let the door slam shut on the mother of two who’s right behind me. Probably because women are expected to be able to get a door while wrangling two kids, whereas a guy, not so much. This happens everywhere I go. The park, the supermarket, the movies. They’ll stop me, touch my arm, and laugh at things I say that aren’t even funny. I could literally say, “My mother just died,” and they’d laugh. Okay, maybe they wouldn’t laugh, but I’d get waaaaay too much sympathy from a perfect stranger. I haven’t been hit on this much since I started wearing a wedding ring. Perhaps it’s the more unavailable a man is the more attractive he is? I’d love to think these women are thinking, “Wow, great genes, how can I get me some?” Not that I’d actually act upon it. But the reality is it’s about the baby. Plus these hot chicks are probably hit on all day long by an endless sea of creeps and a stay-at-home dad with a cute baby is a safe bet for some light flirtation that isn’t going anywhere. Usually…



Last weekend I was out at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants with Jen and the girls and this semi-attractive woman, who was probably pushing 50, kept commenting on how cute my girls were. As well as complementing Jen and I on how well we’ve raised them. I always find that to be an odd comment when people have observed me with the kids for all of 30 minutes and because Alex is only 6 months old so there’s only been so much “raising” going on there. Anyway, Alex was getting a little fussy towards the end of the meal so Jen got up with the girls and took them outside while I waited for the check. Then Cougar Town turns to me again and says, “Your girls are beautiful.” I said, “Thank you.” And then she said, “And the father’s not too shabby either” which was followed by a suggestive smile and wink that said, “How can I get me some?” I got out of there fast.


Besides that incident, now that I have two kids with me most of the time, the flirting has primarily been relegated to the moms I pass on my way in and out of preschool. One of them has affectionately dubbed me “Super Dad,” not because I’m doing anything super, but because I’m just a guy who’s actually staying home with his kids…and because she’s forgotten my name. As a result of these little flirtations I don’t find myself invited on many playdates. Probably because these women think, “Gosh, I just flirted with him, if I invite him over will he get the wrong idea?” What if I did get the wrong idea, what are we gonna do? Make out in front of the kids? And on the rare occasion I have been invited on a playdate, ironically I always end up feeling like I’ve just been on a cheap one night stand - we laugh, have a good conversation, share some mixed nuts and then they never call me again. And when I bump into them at school the next morning it’s all awkward, like we actually did something tawdry. If I had to guess what happened in those mysterious hours between the end of our playdate and the next morning I’d say the woman told her husband that I ate all his nuts. And he told her that he wouldn’t be sharing them anymore.