Happy Father's Day: Just 17 Years 9 Months To Go

For my first Father's Day Amy got me a guitar. I used to have other guitars but we got rid of them. Something about me not listening to anythign she said while I was playing. I'm not sure exactly, I was only half paying attention. Since then she's apparently come to miss the sound of the same three chords assembled in various orders. That was a little song I call A minor G E. I'd like to finish up tonight with a new one I've been working on called E G Aminor.

The real prize of this, or any other holiday is the new swing. It's like baby crack. Up until now they've rejected anything that didn't require physical labor from us. They're the kind of people who would pass up a free cab to ride in a rickshaw if it meant that we would personally have to pull them. The other swing, the useless swing with like a hundred useless options was useless. But this one, courtesy of Craigslist (is there anythign Craigslist can't do?) has changed our lives. Honestly, I'm willing to discuss more children. I will have exactly as many as we can buy swings for. Rumor has it they're only good till the kids are 18 months. I'm hoping that's a misprint. I want the kids filling out college applications while swaying gently to the sounds of birds and rain.

The battle to decide which is really the 'evil' twin continues. Ripley has discovered her trump card is sleeping for 6 hours at a stretch and that I will forgive almost anything that happens in the daylight if you do not disturb me in the dark. Nixon really has no good counter for this. She just keeps pointing out that Ripley is going bald.

In the countless hours I've been pined to the couch with one or two babies I've been watching this true crime show. My chief observation is that people in the hood all have 'street names' and that no one else knows their real name which makes it difficult for the police to find them, even when everyone tells them who did it. I wanted our kids to have street names. We discussed a number of possibilities. It was just like naming the kids the first time only with options like Razor, Meaty Foot, and Wheeze up for consideration. At the moment we're leaning towards Mookie and Knockout. Can't wait till the first time we send Mook and KO to stay with Honey and Gigi. Soon we'll need decoder rings to understand the Christmas letter.

I find that we're running low on adjectives and superlatives with regard to diapers. We jumped the gun early on saying, wow, this diaper is a disaster. But it turned out we had not yet seen disaster. With every passing day the children show that they can do worse and we have to dig a little deeper in the thesaurus. This past week has seen three catastrophes, a debacle, two cataclysms, and one affront to God. If there's anything worse than that last one then I withdraw my earlier statement about more children. There aren't enough swings in the world.

The au pair gets here Thursday. Throwing her a welcome dinner on Sunday. Trying to find something South African to cook that doesn't require a fire pit or the slaughter of an entire lamb. It will probably end up like the scene from Better Off Dead where they cook for the French student. French Toast, French Fries, French dressing, and to drink - Peru! We don't really cook often, or well, or without the microwave, so there's at least a 50% chance that Sunday's effort will result in her packing her bags on Monday. I hope not, but if she goes I'm now convinced that all childcare can be done by swings.