Nearly Home Alone

Regina's plans were to take the kids to the Bay Area for the weekend.  My plans were to stay home, cut hay, put hygiene on hold, and eat hot dogs.  We'd both been planning for months.  Regina packed, I Googled "hot dogs + bourbon" and found several dinner ideas. I put Red Dawn and Uncommon Valor on my Netflix queue.  It was going to be a spectacular manly weekend.  But sometimes life gets in the way and Regina, instead, went to Bakersfield and left me with the kids.

As she was walking toward the car, getting ready to leave, I started to panic.  The stupid questions started flowing: Does Grady eat food?  What if Dylan starts the chainsaw?  Where are the hot dogs?  "You can figure it out. You're a big boy," she told me.  Exactly, I thought, the key word there being boy.  Who leaves their kids with a boy?

We are fortunate to live near family, and even more fortunate to live near family members who still like our kids.  So, while I worked, the monkeys spent time with their cousins, aunts, and grandparents.  My only directions were to make Grady walk as much as possible and to never, ever feed Dylan after midnight.

Our first day without Regina started rough.  Grady pooped his way through a pack of diapers and Dylan got in a MMA fight with a cat.  I thought, "You're a big boy, you can handle it," as I changed the ump-teenth diaper and cleaned up Dylan's wounds.  Luckily, it got better.  Each evening, I'd hustle home from work, pick up the kids, and get them ready for dinner and bed.  Grady would get his fraternity-shower (I'd rub a wet wash-cloth over him) and I'd put him down for bed.  Then I'd spend the next 2 or 3 hours listening to him reflecting on the highlights of the day.  Ah, hugging Nacho -- is there anything more fun?  Man, those cookies Julie made are going to go straight to my hips! and, I wonder if Gramma even knows I snagged her Lego-man?  He hollers, coos, sings, and yells until the party ends and he passes out.

I did the right thing and put the hot dogs back in the refrigerator and fed Dylan healthier dinners.  While we ate, she'd regale me with accounts of her day.  I usually didn't really understand who or what she was talking about and it took me until the fourth day to realize that she was telling me about episodes of cartoons that she watched that day.  She'd spend fifteen minutes watching "Olivia" somewhere, then spend the rest of the day playing outside, and all she wanted to talk about was Olivia's little brother who rode in a hot air balloon.

Currently, Regina is on a train heading north, and we can't wait to see her.  "I miss Mommy," Dylan keeps telling me.  And, instead of asking, "Really?" (which is what Regina said to me when I told her what Dylan said) I tell her that I miss her too.  Grady has some cool new walking moves that he's excited to show off, Dylan is going to recreate all the Shark Week episodes we watched together, and me -- I'm just proud that the house stayed reasonably clean, I didn't leave anyone in the truck, and there are still hot dogs in the fridge, just waiting for my next bachelor weekend.

Frankenbaby

As you may know, Grady spent last year in a funk.  No, he wasn't touring with George Clinton, he just wasn't himself.  Call it the winter-blues, or dark-times, but he wasn't too healthy (read: active).  Consequently, the hold button on his development didn't click "off" until last fall.  Since then, he's been progressing like a wild man and now, finally (big announcement music): he's walking.

I should say "walking."  Grady A) is the most cautious baby ever, and B) knows how to manipulate his parents.  We've received texts from daycare and family proclaiming, "Grady just walked across the living room!!!" "Grady's skipping rope!" and, "Grady just beat me in a foot race!" but when we get him home, he half-heartedly recreates his earlier feats.  Maybe he's worn out from all his showing-off, but I suspect he realizes if he fake-cries for long enough Mom and Dad will either leave him alone or pick him up.  We've caught him doing his Frankenbaby walk across our kitchen, but as soon as we acknowledge it, he drops to one knee.  Walking?  Me?  Nope.  Please hold me.  I may have pooped myself.


Last week, at Julie's, we were eating our cowboy lunch and Grady was playing in the other room.  As we were finishing up, we looked up from gorging ourselves and in strolled Grady.  He was turning corners like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and walking like a man on a mission.  Of course, we erupted in cheers and when he spotted me, a proud grin on his face, he tripped over a chair and took a header.  We hoorayed and whistled and someone at the table threw their chonies.  And from over the din, I heard one little voice -- Dylan's.  She was just as excited as the rest of us and in her exuberance she quoted one of today's wisest and most thoughtful poets: Ke$ha.  "Throw some glitter, make it rain," Dylan screamed.

I was so proud of them both.

Stretch Marks & Raisin Bran

I sometimes forget that, for Dylan, literally everything is new.  Child psychologists have compared young children to empty vessels who are waiting to be filled with knowledge; sponges, that absorb all that is around them; or, drunk, homeless men who shout at you for no reason.  Okay, that last one's mine, I admit.  But Dylan soaks up quite a bit.  Dylan has been interested in (her words) "all sortsakinda things" lately.  Here are a few examples:

Bones/dead things/the cemetery:
I have to blame my cousin Julie on this one, although it's not really her fault; she just happened to be in the car with Dylan when they drove past a cemetery.  Dylan asked about it and, in the explanation Julie told her that we'll all die someday.  "Julie?" Dylan asked, worried, "I kind of have a cold right now."  "I think you'll be alright," Julie reassured her.  Questions about dead people lead to questions about bones, and if you've ever been around a four-year old on a hot questioning streak, you'll understand that bone questions can last foreverrrrrrrrrrrrr.  "Daddy, what's this bone?" "Uh, tibia? no, fibula.  Maybe."  "And this one?" "Skull."  "This?" "Still skull." "How about this?"  "Uh.  Finger bone.  And that's your eyeball bone.  Go ask your mother."

Dreams:

For a few weeks, every morning Dylan would tell me about her dreams.  You think dream stories are boring?  Try made-up dream stories.  Most of Dylan's involved princesses, snakes, rock slides, deer, horses, and me, killing one or all of the above with a sword.  I'd get a full, detailed report on two or three of these dreams every morning.  They really made no sense -- like real dreams -- and it took me a while to realize they were a cross between the bedtime story we'd read the night before and the latest Dora episode.  So, for example, Ferdinand the bull might get covered by a rock slide and I'd have to come in -- with a sword, and maybe a princess -- to kill a deer that was trying to ... you get the picture.

Raisin Bran:

Every night, just after we read Dylan a story and say "I love you," Dylan wants to share a secret.  I usually forget the secret portion of the ritual, so she has to get out of bed and come find me.  The secret? It's always the same.  "I want Raisin Bram in the morning," she whispers.  Raisin Bram?  Not the most exciting of secrets, or cereals, for that matter, but if she needs a little bran in her diet we'll gladly give it to her.  She used to only eat Raisin Bread, and now I think she might be changing her cereal allegiance to strawberry mini-wheats.  Whatever it is, it's a secret.

Stretch Marks:    (*Names have been changed to protect the mothers)
Dylan came home from pre-school last week and announced, "Guess what, Peggy-Sue* has stretch marks.  Her mommy does, too.  Daddy, I wish I had stretch marks."  How in the hell do I respond to that?  Obviously, my first question was how does a kid in pre-school get stretch marks, and secondly, how does a kid in pre-school know about stretch marks?  Then, the very next morning, over cartoons and secret cereal, right after a Barbie commercial, an ad for stretch mark removing cream came on the television.  "Oh, I wish I had stretch marks," Dylan cried.  Let the child psychologists sponge that up, I say.

The Five Steps of Grady Teething

Have you ever been stuck at a railroad crossing as the world's longest train went by?  First come the engines, about seventeen of them, then the box cars, the flat cars, the graffitied cars, the hobo cars, the circus cars, more engines, and, finally, the caboose.  Done?  No.  After ten minutes of nothing except clanging warning bells and flashing lights, along comes the Bugs Bunny manual locomotion thing with the teeter totter handle.  Get the picture?  That's Grady teething.

Like most things Grady does, teething is a slow, multi-stepped process.  So far, it's served him well.  He has beautiful, straight, and nicely spaced teeth.  His molars are the size of Chicklets.  His eye teeth make Twilight fans jealous.  He has a terrific smile.  But, it's come at a price.

Step One:  Giant Poop.  A nurse finally told us that no one really knows why kids get the runs when they teethe, but one theory is that teething causes drooling, and when kids swallow drool, it gives 'em the looseys.  Grady must drink drool by the bucket-load because phase 1 has us doing several loads of stinky laundry every day.  Last fall, when Grady really started teething in earnest, we couldn't figure out the cause of his diaper-bursting bombs.  We asked allergists, nurses, strangers at the supermarket, pediatricians, and veterinarians and no one could figure it out.  We took him off dairy without any results and finally had a stool sample taken to test for Giardia.  The results were, of course, negative.  With hundreds of dollars invested into the poop-investigation, he mysteriously got better.  And a week later he popped out two teeth.

Step Two:  Drool.  Grady drools like a Saint Bernard when he's teething.  The upside is that Grady is also a flirt who likes to give kisses.  Nothing funnier that watching people ask for a kiss, then try to back out when they see the drool coming.  You're a bad person if you turn down kisses from a one-year old, even if they are disgusting drool-smooches.

Step Three:  Rash.  Constant drooling gives our G-man a rash around his lips.  It makes him look like a gas-huffer.  A small, baby huffer.  I'm surprised his chest doesn't break out as well as much as it gets drool soaked.

Step Four:  Fussy, Fussy, Fussy.  Grady turns into a bear, doubled by the fact that we've taken away his pacifier.  His angry yell is that of a drunk Yankees fan after Jeter gets called out on a close strike three.

And, Step Five:  Teeth!  Last fall and winter they came like animals on the ark: in twos.  He was popping out rows of teeth weekly.  We were on pace to have a full set by Valentines' Day.  But, things slowed and now these last few remaining stragglers, late to the party, come in one at a time.  The caboose is in sight as, by our best guess, he only has between one and five left to come (we'd make terrible dentists).  It's been a slow and painful process *puts on sunglasses* kind of like pulling teeth.

Mazatlan Mayhem

We went to Mazatlan last week and decided that renting a car would be a terrific way to scoot around.  We even lugged Grady's car-seat throne with us.  When I saw our rental, freshly washed, waiting for our arrival, the scratched bumper and smashed fender should have been an omen.  I should have read it as a glowing beacon screaming, "Don't drive, gringo.  Don't drive."  But, my Spanish sucks and I thought it said, "Cool, you look local," and burned off toward the city.

The first thing wrong was the map.  It was the standard freebie from the rental agency, and was drawn with all the accuracy and proportion of Columbus's map of the new world, if that map were drawn by a seven-year old.  I expected to find only an arrow pointing north from the airport with the warning, "There Be Dragons."  Our friendly agent penned in our route and drew in helpful landmarks that we'd pass along our way to the resort.  His stoplights, bridges, cemetery crosses, statues, and supermarkets all looked exactly alike.  "Do we go through three stoplights and turn left, or do we pass two cemeteries and loop around the third statue?" I asked my navigator.  We were also turned around by road construction, so we winged it, and amazingly, found our way.  The tally so far: one quick drive on a wrong way street ("Why is that car driving at me?" I think I asked just before Regina screamed), two drivers cut off (sorry, amigo), and one near side-swipe.  My motto was: when lost, drive fast.  It made no sense, but it got us there safely.

The next driving tour wasn't as fun.  Last week was semana santa (which, in Spanish, means, "All citizens of Mexico, please go to Mazatlan now).  We passed pickups with entire families --including first and second cousins -- crammed in the back.  We passed 4-wheelers carrying a dozen teenagers.  I passed one guy who was drinking a beer AND texting while he drove.  So why I got pulled over, I cannot say.  I was over my nervous speed-driving from the day before, and was obeying every law I understood.  The cop wasn't as intimidating as the roving assault-trucks full of shotgun and machine-gun toting, black mask wearing, federales, but still, any Mexican cop is intimidating.  He spoke to me so rapidly that halfway through his scolding, I stopped trying to concentrate on what he was saying and started thinking that he must be trying to show off on how awesome he is at really fast talking.  I shrugged and looked at Regina.  She got most of what he said and told him, sort-of politely, that we were going the speed limit.  I "played" dumb, and pretty soon, after this went back and forth a few times, he gave up, told us to watch our speed, and sent us on our way.  No bribe necessary.

I returned the car that day.  Goodbye blanco caballo.  The rest of our vacation was perfect (Except for the food poisoning I got.  That was perfect chaos.).  We did all the things we wanted to do ... walks on the beach (Dylan's officially terrified of crabs and Grady gets mesmerized by waves), yummy seafood (best shrimp taco ever at "El Fish Market."  Bad name, great food), mornings at the pool, and evenings listening to the crashing waves.  We took a taxi to the airport, thinking we'd shaken off our car demons.  "I guess we should have taken the bus," came to mind as we watched our luggage sail off the taxi's roof rack and crash onto a straight stretch of Mexico hard top.  We came home just in time for Dylan's birthday, and Easter, but that's another blog.  Regina's a little tanner, Dylan's a little crazier, Grady's a little chubbier (beans, mmmm), and my confidence is finally back and I'm ready to get behind the wheel again.

Mother Truckers

[Note: I'm only certain this blog has two readers: my mom and a high school sophomore, so I'll keep this as PG as possible.]  It's no secret that I love to swear.  Some argue that people swear because they can't think of any other, and possibly better, word to use, so they resort to blue-language.  Screw them.  I say that my background in English and my job as a rancher give me both the license and venue in which to curse.  But, of course, there is a drawback and I knew my day would come:  Dylan swearing.

I'm surprised Dylan swearing didn't come sooner, but, in my defense, I tried, sort of, not to swear in front of her.  Like a Mormon, or Cate Blanchett in Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, who used "F" instead of, well, you know what it's instead of, I tried creative ways to avoid swear words.  It didn't work so well.  I can't get my head around using "fudge," or "frick," or even "frig," but I have adopted plain old "F" (thanks, Cate), or "Mother Trucker" when things really get out of hand.

But those are all substitutes for just one word.  What about the others?  I tried the Scottish "shite," but that's not a very good cover.  And "darn" or "shoot"?  Boo, I say.  And there's really no way to hide my go to swear when I'm super-pissed off.  It rhymes with "pit trucker," but using that really decreases its punch.  For now, Dylan's swearing has been very tame and limited to "dammit."  Pretty innocuous, I know.  But dammit is a gateway swear word.  It leads to "crap," and from there, it's open the flood-gates and before you know it she's talking like an Alaskan logger.

I really would rather she learned where and when it's appropriate to swear.  School = No, Feeding Cows = Yes.  I have to give her credit, she's used "dammit" in the correct situation every time she's used it.  But this is also a three-year old with poor impulse control who still uses fifty squares of toilet paper to wipe with after she pees and only two squares after she poops, so learning proper swear-venues isn't something that's going to come naturally.

I know, in a couple of years I'll be having the same talks with Grady, and I'm hoping his big sister will be there by my side, helping me with that lecture.  Until then, if you see me out and about and are confused about my tame language, just remember, today is brought to you by the letter "F" and my mother is a trucker.

Sacramento Highlights

Last weekend, Regina had a conference in Sacramento and, like any good sugar-mama would do, she let her hillbilly hubby and rugrats tag along.  Aside from feeding Grady chicken satay (peanut sauce -- he's allergic) and letting Dylan hang out with panhandlers, I'd say I did an alright job of guiding a couple of country-kids around the capital.  The weekend was a blast, but each one of us had his or her own personal highlight.

We spent Saturday night with some friends in Folsom.  Martin and Anna have two kids approximately our kids' age, so our suffering is nearly equal, and it gave us plenty to drink talk about.  If I had been kidnapped by Russians (you know, when they were cool and kicked ass) and sent to the same facility where Ivan Drago trained in Rocky IV, I would, today, look a lot more like Martin.  He's the Uber-Judd, and Grady fell in love.  Grady would flee from my arms to go hang out with his BFF, Martin.  Better looking?  Check.  More fun?  Check.  Grady learned that having two dads was waaaay better than one, and Martin seemed to really like Grady.  Plus, they had a great bar, so neither of us wanted to leave.  I was content sipping Guiness and Grady just wanted to drool on his new dad.

For Dylan, the highlights never ended.  Just the fact that we got to stay in a "hotel-house" was pretty fun, but it also had an indoor pool.  Yes! and Yes!  Also, we stayed in Old Sac, which, in about three square blocks contains nothing but restaurants, tattoo parlors, and candy shops.  Dylan learned quickly that, because of the intense competition between "Candy Heaven," "Sugar High," and "Hey Kid, Want Some Candy?", the shopkeepers were pretty liberal with their free samples.  I retaliated every sample by leaving both kids unattended in their candy-packed stores until their highs wore off.

And Regina?  She kind of geeks-out at conferences, so I'd say that sitting in a convention center with other like-minded educators was, for her, loads of fun.  But, seeing friends and family, eating awesome Pho, and having a never-ending supply of dirty martinis made her weekend a long string of highlights.  And I think the rest of us were just good enough to get to tag along for her next conference.  Fallon, NV, look out 'cause here we come!