Beard Power

Oh hai. I know, it’s been a while. I was trying to grow a beard, which required all my concentration. Here’s the things that happened while small hairs were growing out of patchy areas of my face:

Ripley does not like you. Nixon loves you. It really doesn’t matter who you are, I’m confident this will hold up. Unless you’re Amy, in which case they both love you so much they will cry unless at least three of their limbs are wrapped around you at all times.

When people ask what I will remember about my second father’s day I will say it was the day the girls started leaning into each other, touching their foreheads, and laughing about it like maniacs. It is gut wrenchingly adorable. As you know, “What do you remember about your second father’s day?” is a question people get all the time.

I have completed the snail project. Will he win the big race? I’m sure we’ll find out around 2025. Animation takes a long time. By that time he will probably be a cat instead of a snail and the race will take place on another planet and all my brilliant words will have been changed by a screenwriting supercomputer. Until then, please don’t bring up snails. Or racing. Or my soul crushing battles with procrastination. Ask me about my second father’s day.

Did you know that talking beavers are really expensive? Like, they cost more than your house. I mean, your house might cost more than a talking beaver, but if it did I doubt you’d be reading this. You’d be skiing with a celebrity on imported snow and then rubbing your aching muscles with wads of cash. The point is, I think an inanimate object is going to make more money on this movie than me. On the upside, it seems as though there’s a good chance we’re actually going to make the movie in the near future. I mean, things can certainly still go horribly wrong, but, like I said, we’ve hired a beaver. And everyone knows the old Hollywood saying - ‘It’s all just speculation until someone hires a beaver.’

But before we make any beaver movies, we’re taking the girls on vacation. We’re driving. 18 hours. Which, if you’ve driven as far as the supermarket with our whole gang you’ll know is something that none of us is likely to survive. If you have brilliant suggestions for occupying children in the car or are willing to write an Ambien prescription for kids under two, please contact me ASAP.

Until then, I promise my days of intensely focusing on my facial hair to the exclusion of all else are behind me and I will post again before you can say sock puppet. Meanwhile, may I suggest touching foreheads with someone and laughing hysterically? It looks super fun.

How I'm Pretty Sure The Conversation Went

Nixie: Hey Ripples

Ripples: Yeah Nixie

Nixie: These diapers totally come off.

Ripples: The hell you say.

Nixie: Yeah. Just pulled those tabs and bingo.

Ripples: Well, I'll be.

Nixie: And look. There's this stuff inside. Like play-doh. Brown play-doh.

Ripples: Really spreading that around aren't you.

Nixie: Well, I was just kind of smearing it all over the bed, kind of an abstract art sort of thing, but then I thought, hey, if I smear it all over myself, then I'm the art! Sweet, eh?

Ripples: Uh... yeah.

Nixie: You want to be art? Lean over here.

Ripples: I'm good thanks.

Nixie: You know the sad part? When dad sees this I bet he's totally not going to appreciate either the ingenuity or the subtlety that went into it.

Ripples: Nixie-

Nixie: That guy wouldn't know art if it crapped on his bed.

Ripples: Nix-

Nixie: He's such a moron. And you know what? Frankly, I find him smelly. Just plain smelly.

Ripples:....

Nixie: Ripples? Don't you think dad smells?

Ripples....

(Long beat)

Nixie: He's right behind me isn't he?

(Ripples nodding)

Nixie: Well, Dad, I guess it's out now. I'm dropping out of pre-pre-pre school to be an artist, and I think you smell. Now pick me up. I want you to experience my work.

Happy 8760 Hours

Nipples,

8760 hours ago you cried incessantly, had dark splotchy hair, and pooped tar. Everyone said you reminded them of me. Now you are smiley blonds who poop rainbows. Everyone says you remind them of your mother.

8761 hours ago I was afraid that my track record with fish, turtles, and frogs meant that you would die in my care. Most likely in a jar or box with no air holes. You have successfully outlived Fins, Hoppy, Pokey, and FinsII. You're hot on the trail of Snowball. Kudos.

8762 hours ago I thought bringing you home would instantly make me incredibly lame, irrelevant, and exactly like everyone else. It turns out I have always been incredibly lame and that's what makes me special.

During your first 744 hours I strongly considered joining the military and requesting immediate deployment. The recruiter said, A) that wasn't how it worked and B) your mother had already been in asking these questions. He did give me some brochures to keep handy for when you turn two. Semper fi.

4 hours ago I woke up and tried to think of things to say to and about two girls who had endured a year with me as their father. Things no one had ever said or thought to say. Things I could have told the me from those 8760 hours ago that would have prepared him for everything in between. Then I realized how stupid it was to waste precious sleeping time thinking about blog entries and dozed off.

All those hours ago my least favorite thing in the world was people with kids who talked about how it changed their lives, how it completed them, thus implying that those of us without were not yet whole. I had studies and data about how people with kids were overall less happy, poorer, and more likely to know the words to Hannah Montana songs.

The truth is I was neither unhappy nor incomplete before you got here. But a mere 8760 hours later, if you tried to leave I don't how much of me would be left. A year ago that sentence would have disgusted me. I guess that means I'm a changed person, though I'm sure those who know me would assure you I'm no better.

What I can say is that I remain an incredibly impatient person, and I yet I can't ever remember so consciously wishing I could slow time down, savor ever second and squeeze every minute. There's still plenty of occasions when I look up and wonder, how is it not bedtime yet?, but if you told me that the next 8760 hours would take forever I'd be just fine with that.

So when you read this years from now, perhaps while wrestling with decisions of your own, accept the following not as a prescription but simply a fact, and take it for what you think it's worth: I am insanely in love with both of you and will be until there stops being such a thing.

Proper English

Stacey: No. You're using that word all wrong. Doo-doo means to have a sleep.

Me: In what language?

Stacey: English! We do speak English in South Africa you know.

Me: All I'm saying is that if an American child says he wants to doo doo and you put him in BED, you will regret it.

Brief Questions And Answers

Do your children walk yet?

Yes.  They also tend to accelerate as they approach solid objects.  The soundtrack to our lives: step.... step ....step ...step.. step .step step stepstepSMASH ........... CRY

Do they have new nicknames?

Walker Texas Nipples

Can they shake their head yes and no?

Ripley can say no to anything at anytime, and does.  However, at some point she got yes confused with sneezing.  So ask if she wants more peas, get a head shake.  Ask if she wants to take a bath, she makes one giant nod followed by the word "Acoo!".

Nixon smiles and does jazz hands no matter what you ask her.

What's the most disgusting thing you've pulled out of their mouths?

Yesterday I found Nixon trying to eat a cat claw.  How she got the claw off the cat remains a mystery, although we do have exceptionally lazy cats.

Is Stacey back?

Yes, and she saw the Jonas brothers in the lobby of a building in LA, so take that Grand Canyon.

Do you think she's becoming 'Americanized'?

Consider the following exchange-

Me: Stacey, did you hear what I just said? This is important.

Stacey: Kyle, I'm pretty sure if it were important I would have been listening.

Will you promise to blog more often in the near future and then not do it?

Consider it done.

Highway Lovesong

Dear America,

We are sending you a South African, a German, and a Chineese girl. They will be in the car filled with junk food and heavily accented sing alongs. Please be nice to them. Under no circumstances should you ask them to parallel park.

They are coming to you because when Stacy asked what she should do with her vacation I insisted that a full blown American road trip was the only option. And when I say American I really mean everything west of the Rocky Mountains. I still think of the eastern time zone as 'the colonies' and mentally associate it with smoke, lard, and staying up ridicilously late to watch baseball games. The midwest is also boring unless you like cornhole or creationism. The west has all our pointiest mountains and deepest holes, not to mention football games that start at 9am, so this is the direction I pointed them in.

I've tried to insert many of my favorite things into their itenerary so that while I sit here watching one baby beat the other over the head with an empty coke can I can dream of driving past the sand dunes, canyons, rocks, and pointy green trees that I now only see on Christmas or as scented simulcra hanging from my rearview mirror.

Of course, convincing three teenage girls that they should spend more time looking into deep rocky holes and less time trying to spot Hills characters shopping on Robertson is no easy feat. And so that is why I seek your help America. Please provide these girls with our very best. Deliver them brain halting slurpees and jaw dropping sunsets, sexually explicit mudflaps and heavenly vistas. Take a picture with them and autograph their mental guestbooks. Let them remember you the way that I do after a lifetime of my own roadtrips: a blur of awesome that smells vaguely like feet and Cheetos.

What Sleepy Horses Are Listening To These Days

A few days ago I read an article about a particular kind of music listened to by kids who recreationally take horse tranquilizers.  That led me to this song, which has since infected my mind and prevented me from doing anything productive except researching how to secure horse tranquilizers (turns out you have to know some pretty shady horses).  Hence, my elaborate excuse for not blogging sooner.

And lest you think horse tranquilizer music is not enough to derail cognitive function, I've recently come to the conclusion that every toy my children own teaches three things: colors, numbers, and how to honk a horn.  For some reason we seem to have concluded that the first three skills we need as humans are the ones that qualify you to be a NY cabbie.  

So to appreciate the nature of my week, imagine the following updates playing out against the auditory wallpaper of incessant honking and dazed horses:

Stacey has decided to stay with us for another year.  This is good not only for us as a family, but as Americans.  As the most prominent face of our country to this single foreign visitor it would have been devastating to feel like we didn't represent our land well enough to make it feel like an appealing destination for a second year.  Fortunately, we will not have to suffer that indignation.  However, the parents of other au pairs who are returning home after one year should be ashamed and possibly deported.  I should also point out that Stacey made her decision before the influx of horse tranquilizer music and that there are no take backs.

Ripples has learned to shake her head 'no' and thus refuses everything just for practice.  I don't think she's eaten since she picked up this skill.  Nixie has also learned to hake her head 'no' but doesn't seem to have associated it with any particular meaning.  When you offer her something she will emphatically shake her head no while anxiously smiling and opening her mouth.  And honking something.

When I got back to the airport the other night it was about 40 degrees and raining and I had no jacket and for 30 minutes I could not find my car.  I knew it was right next to the little bench with the trashcan, but it turns out there are LOTS of little benches with trashcans.  Every time I saw another bench next to a trashcan I thought, oh thank god, that's it.  And every time I was wrong.  I may or may not have yelled at some of these benches for toying with my emotions, and may or may not have urinated between parked cars out of desperation.  Even when I travel for business it would be hard to confuse me with a business traveler.

This week, seriously, less animal narcotics and more blogging.  The honking however is probably with us for the long haul.