Monday, August 24, 2009

The Deuce Lip Kiss

It was an unsolicited response to a question that was never asked. I was simply sitting in my chair, drinking coffee and praying that an asteroid would obliterate the satellite that was currently beaming the kid show Hi-5 into our TV, when Lucy announced a very odd statement… “Actually dad, I just have poop on my thumb.”

My eyebrow goes up and my coffee goes down, I grab the remote and mute the TV. I’m almost positive Lucy just yelled out that she had poop on her thumb. It was still pretty early in the morning and the two things I hate to hear before I finish breakfast are… “Daddy, Ruby is drinking out of the toilet again,” and the ever so pleasant, “Daddy! I have poop on (insert body part, appliance or Ruby here).” I don’t immediately move, I never do. What I once considered an emergency, has now become so frequent, it’ll take no less than a gunshot, to get me moving. I stare down the hall and wait for some sort of confirmation. After a few seconds, Lucy emerged from the bathroom butt naked with her thumb in the air, a gesture that unfortunately validates her ridiculous statement. Seriously? This is how we’re gonna start the day?

“Actually dad, I just have some poop on my thumb.” She repeated the absurd sounding words again, but then she followed it up with, “But don’t worry, I wiped it off.” I believe this was her attempt at defusing the situation. I think, she thinks, that she was taking responsibility for her actions, but let’s be honest here, she’s three! Unless she secretly had Mr. Belvedere in there wiping the “poop” off of her thumb, I was now a little bit more than worried.

“What do you mean ‘you wiped’ it off?”
“Well, that means that I took it off my thumb.” I wonder as she explains the word “wiped” to me, what it was that I must have done to make her think I’m an idiot? Of course she might just be patronizing me, in any case she’s stalling…. I still haven’t moved.
“I understand you took it off of your thumb. I want to know how?” This question was gonna be the meat and potatoes of the conversation. I was either gonna commend her on being such a responsible and intelligent little girl, or I was gonna have to get out of my chair. “I wiped it on the bath towel.” And I was up.

As I walked down the hallway I shook my head knowing full well that we have two different colored towels in our house. We have white, and we have off-white. I enter the bathroom. Lucy is standing on the yellow bath mat, her hands are clasped together in front of her…she seems pleased. After a quick survey of the situation, I came to the conclusion that either I must have just missed a C.S.I Team, or The Seven Dwarfs stopped here after mining excursion. There hanging behind the door was an off-white towel with 15-20 little brown fingerprints smudged all over it.

“I thought you said you had poop on your thumb?” I’m still not sure exactly how the poop came to rest upon little Lucy’s thumb. But based solely on the amount of fecal matter imbedded into the towel, I could only assume that she was unfortunately standing behind a buffalo when it sharted and sneezed at the same time.
“Lu, how in the world did you get poop on your thumb?”
“I was trying to be a big girl and wipe all by myself.” Trying was the key word here, as it appeared she gave it several attempts.
“Okay fine, but why did you wipe it on the towel?”
“Because I didn’t want the poopie on my thumb.” There wasn’t much I could fault her for there. I cleaned her up, got her dressed and then did a load of off-whites.

9 ½ hours later….

(ring….)
“Lu, finish your porkchop.”
(ring….)
“Lu! Don’t give that to Ruby, she doesn’t have teeth!”
(ring…)
I pick up the phone…“Yeah?”
“Errrr, how many times do I have to tell you, I hate when you answer the phone like that!”
“What? You’re calling to ask me something aren’t you? I’m just skipping over all of the unnecessary pleasantries and allowing you to get right to the heart of the call. If you think about it, I’m actually doing you a favor.” Although my argument makes perfect sense, she is not amused.
“It’s just rude, maybe I just want to talk, or hear about your day a little. Is that too much to ask?”
“Fine, I’ll try to say ‘hello’ and be more pleasant. Anyway… why did you call? What do you need?”
“Do you guys want to meet me at the train?” I take into consideration everything that has to be done before we leave the house in order for an event like this to happen. Both girls are fed and Ruby has been bathed, this shouldn’t be a problem.
“Okay, call us when you get to Addison, then we’ll start walking.”

20 minutes later…

(ring…)
“Daddy I gotta go poopie.”
(ring…)
“I’m changing Ruby, I’ll be there when I’m done.”
(ring…)
I pick up the phone, “Yeah?”
“You did it again!” I seriously can’t help it. “I just left Addison.”
“Okay” I hang up the phone, grab Ru and head to the bathroom. I walk in and Lucy is standing in front of the toilet.
“Did you go potty?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you wipe?”
“No.” Considering the days previous event, I could totally understand why she wouldn’t want to wipe. What I couldn’t understand was why she wouldn’t wait for help. She had her pants pulled up! I check to make sure… yup, there was definitely some deuce in her pants. We hurry up and do a quick change of clothes, before scurrying out the door.

We were one block into our walk when Lucy stopped me and said, “Daddy, I promise I will never have poopie on my lip again.” Clearly there is some confusion of body parts, there is no way she has poop on her lip. I bend down, and upon further examination, I spot a smear of poop right between her nose and her upper lip. I don’t ask how it got there, quite frankly, I don’t want to know. I grab a napkin that was on the bottom of the stroller and wipe the residue off of her lip. We weren’t about to turn around now, I have too much invested into this walk.

A block later we meet up with Cathy. Lucy runs at her full speed, jumps into her arms and kisses her all over the face. “Hello.” I say to Cathy, how was your day.” She seemed pleased by my greeting and began to tell us about her day. Cathy smiles as Lucy continued to snuggle and grace her with a bunch of excited wet kisses. We were the perfect family. Finally, Cathy asked Lucy how her day was. Lucy responded with the typical fare…park, playing, lunch, dinner, naps and cartoons. Then she said, “Mommy I promise I will never have poop on my lip again.” Cathy looks startled by this odd promise.
“When did she have poopie on her lip?” She asked.
“Ohhh, a few minutes ago. Don’t ask me how or why, I don’t know. We’ve had quite a day but she told me she will never have it on her lip again. I sorta wiped it off and that was that.”
“I kissed her on the lips!” She seemed pretty upset by this. “Why didn’t you tell me, she had poop on her lip before I let her kiss me?”
“Well I was gonna, but I didn’t want to be rude. I wanted to find out about all the pleasantries of your day.”
I spent that night on the couch. Cathy is currently seeking revenge.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The Worst Game Ever!

Seriously!? Ruby only has one diaper left? ARGHHHH! I hate going solo to the store with the girls; bad things always happen… very bad things. For a minute I try to mathematically figure out if this diaper will last the whole day. If it did, then I can go to Target when Cathy gets home. So let’s see, it’s 9:30 right now, and Cathy will get home around 6:30. SOOoooo, that’s 9 hours divided by an average of 5 diaper changes, times the amount of diapers in stock (1 on and 1 off) and that equals…. negligence. Oh wait, what if I carry the remainder of X and….. Damn, it still equals negligence. I quickly search over the house for spare diapers. For some reason I assume that Cathy has been stocking up on provisions for a possible nuclear war, and in a last ditch effort I check under the sink. Alas, there were none to be found. Crap! We’re going to Target.

After the realization sets in, I now have to actually prepare for the trip. Anytime I leave the house with the girls, there are 3 basic steps I have to follow. I have to get girls dressed, load the diaper bag and finally, get wallet, keys and coupons. All this now has to be done before Ruby goes through 2 diapers. From start to finish I’d say we have 2 hours…Shall we?

Step 1

“Lu get your shoes on. I don’t care which ones, we gotta get moving.” I learned that when you give her a choice, she’s more likely to do what she’s told.
“Frog boots okay DaDa?”
“Yup. Frog boot are good.” Perfect, one down one to go.
Ruby was a breeze, she’s at my mercy. Blue onesie, orange pants, green socks… I take a step back and look at my creation… good god, she looks like the Joker! ….. Ah well.
“How do I look Daddy?” Lucy enters the room. She’s wearing a tiara, a T-shirt so small I could see her heart beating, jean shorts which I’m sure were actually full length at one time, a brown corduroy skirt with knitted flowers around the waist, pink sunglasses and of course her green frog boots. For a split second I wondered if Tim Burton had dressed her, “You look like a princess, honey (a crazy princess!), let’s go.”

Step 2

Wipes
Extra onesie
Cheerios
Quarters
Bink
Bib
Flask
Squeaky toys
Jar of baby food in case of nuclear war
Little rubber tipped spoon and….
The last diaper in the house

Step 3

Coupons: Need it, need it, don’t need it, kinda wanna try it, we can always use toilet paper, no, no, no… good. Next I shove all these coupons in my pocket where they will stay for the duration of the trip. When I get back home, I’ll empty out my pockets and there they’ll be… the coupons. I don’t even know why I cut them out; I forget to use them every time. Next, I grab my wallet and my keys. My wallet and…. my keys. My wallet and my… where the hell are my keys? They’re almost always in the same place. I check the bowl by the coffee pot, the bowl by the phone, the bowl on the dresser. I check the kitchen table, yesterday’s pants pockets, today’s pants pockets and finally the key holes in both the front and back doors, nothing. I stop, scratch my head and then resign myself to make the forehead skin scrunching face of confusion. Where are they?

“Lu, have you seen my keys?”
“Umm yes.” Cool, for a minute I thought I lost them. Keys are the fourth scariest thing to lose, right behind your wallet, your car and your kids (We’ll get to this on a later date).
“Great, can you get them for me?”
“Actually.” Uh-oh. For the past two weeks the word “actually” has found its way into Lucy’s vocabulary, and it is usually a precursor to an ominous change in the conversation.
“Actually what?”
“Actually, I took them.” Immediately I knew where this was leading. Along with her knew found love of the word “actually,” she had also learned and became quite proficient at hiding things for the sport. She did this once with her beloved “Yucky Duck.” This little game took a week to play mainly because immediately after she hid it, she immediately forgot where she hid it. I stare straight into her beady little eyes. She matches my stare, then cocks an eyebrow and grins. No wait, it was more like an evil smile… yeah, an evil slimy little smile. I knew that if I spooked her in any way, I’d shock the location of those keys right out of her head. Time was not on my side. Ruby was in the corner chewing on a potato. Not a piece of potato, a whole potato. She physically opened the cabinet, grabbed a spud and was now gumming it like a savage animal. The air is still void of poo, but it won’t be long before the storm arrives… no it won’t be long at all.

“Lu, we need the keys to go to the store. I'm not mad. This was a fun game, and you’re the best hider in the world. Do you remember where you put my keys?” She’s silent. I offer her a cookie as a token of good faith. She never gets sweets at home, it’s eaten before it leaves my hand.
“Thanks Da.” I repeat the question again; she wipes the crumbs off her face and looks up at me with these big ole doe eyes. Oh no, no no no… don’t say it. Don’t!
“I think I can’t remember.” Son-of-a….. I knew it! It was the cookie. The sweet sugar of the cookie caused an influx in memory eating cells. The only thing she can think of is that stupid cookie.
“That was a good cookie.” Ahhhhh. Were never gonna find the keys. The “plan B” I had, was to trot down to Walgreens and spend 4x the fair market value for Pampers, but it is absolutely pouring out. Ruby has gnawed the potato into a wet sticky paste, as a matter of fact, I’m sure she has physically glued herself to the dining room floor. If I don’t move her before the potato paste dries, I’m gonna need a chisel. I start the questioning, “Where was the last place you had them?” She looks puzzled by this question. She also looks puzzled after several other questions, like: "Why did you take them?" "Are they in your room?" "Did Daddy Do Something Wrong?" And many many more…

I search the entire house. Lucy follows close behind just in case she gets a feeling. Ruby has now become a human fly trap, there are at least 12 things plastered to her, including a spoon to the back of her neck. Every time Lucy thinks she remembers where she hid them, we end up finding something we thought was lost forever. Treasures which include my phone charger, I-pod earphones and a Dido CD. After about 30 minutes, I give up. I grab Ruby who has been unwillingly motionless for the last 15 minutes, and change the diaper I’m sure she filled when she realized she couldn’t detach her ear from her shoulder. Crap! Now we're gonna have to go to Walgreens. I was not at all thrilled about this. It was still pouring, and now I’ll be in towing 2 kids through Chicago's first monsoon. I put in the Dido CD to take the edge off.

Ruby looked like a little frankfurter stuffed in her stroller which was covered by a clear vinyl tarp. Lucy was wearing all the same accoutrements, only they were now covered by a ladybug rain coat. Of course Cathy had taken my umbrella and I don’t have anything close to being appropriate for a category 3 storm. I'm wearing flip-flops that flipped and flopped mud streaks straight up my back, shorts that continue to get tighter as they get wetter and an ill fitting tan colored shirt, which when wet shows off my man nipples perfectly. We look like we just moved here from Mars!

We finally get to Walgreens, locate the gold plated diapers (they were $10 more than Target, and half the size) stuff them inside of Ruby’s vinyl sanctuary, which was completely fogged over and is dangerously close to becoming a rain forest on wheels. I unzip the air vent and a whoosh of steam fills the air and wilts everything on the magazine rack. We pay and head home. Unbelievably, it’s raining harder. My phone rings, I look down, it’s Cath. I pull the stroller over under a store front canopy.

“Yeah?”
“I hate when you answer the phone like that.” This little exchange happens every time she calls. “I just wanted to tell you that when I got to work I noticed that I had your keys in my purse.” I looked at Lucy who was stomping in a puddle.
“Lucy said she hid them. I spent half of the morning searching the house, all I found was a charger, some earphones and a Dido CD.”
“You found Dido?”
“Yeah!”
“Sweet!”
“I know right!” I finish the conversation and hang up the phone, at this point I’m sure I’m about to be struck by lightning. I pull Lu next to me.
“Lu, do you think you hid daddy’s keys in mommy’s purse?
“Oh yeah! You did it daddy, you found the keys, good job, give me five.” I gave her five, and watched as she jumps around singing “You did it, you did it, you’re the winner!” I wasn’t sure how to react, she was happy and hell,I was a “winner.”
“Lu, why did you put the keys in mommy’s purse?
“I think so you wouldn’t find them.”
“Well I didn’t find them, mommy did. She found them when she got to work.”
“Mommy found them?
“Yeah, I couldn't really find them, since they were at mommy’s work and not actually in the house.”
“Well you said you found them, did you fib?” Hmm…. where is this going?
“Technically, your mom found them, so I guess I fibbed.” I have no idea why I’m having this conversation.
“Well daddy… I think if mommy found them, then she is the winner.” Now I’m sure I know where this is going. “I guess you’re the loser, right?” I take a quick look around. I’m soaked to the bone, my nipples are chafed and my 3 year old has just got me to admit to a fib. I couldn’t find any fault in her assessment. After a second I give her what she needs…
“Yup, that appears to be the case.”

Thursday, August 13, 2009

From Lucy's Lips II

“DAD! DADDY! Come here, I need you to look at this.” Lucy was on the back porch, she had been there for about 20 minutes. She has demonstrated on many occasions that she can sit back there and occupy herself for hours, so when she woke up from her nap that afternoon and decided she needed to draw and color; I left her to do just that. I was in no hurry really. She yells for me all the time, I didn’t sense any abnormal inflections or patterns of speech that would cause me to jump up from my comfy chair and race to the back porch. It will take a lot more than that to get me moving.

Again she yells, “Daddy! Daddy! Come here. I really need you to look at this.” I am going to get up eventually to see what she drew; I’ll just do it at my leisure. And then she yelled again. This time she added a few words. One in particular, confused me.

“Daddy! Come here I really really need you to look at this. I drew a HUGE erection.” There was a brief pause in which I peeked my head around the corner and squinted my eyes the way people do when they are unclear of something. My initial thought was… Did she just say she had drawn an “erection?” I must have gone over the order of that particular strain of words 100 times, in less than a second. She was standing in front of her easel with her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. I waited for her to clarify herself… “Daddy look! My erection is so beautiful.” Okay, that did the trick. I was out of my comfy seat and in a very concerned and confused state; I rushed to the back porch.

My heart is pounding as I turn to look at this “beautiful erection” she has so proudly displayed on her easel. I open my eyes. I’m staring at this blue thing, with a bunch of red and orange lines coming out of the top.

“Isn’t my volcano great? Look at the pretty erection it has.”
I breathe a sigh of relief and relax… “It’s an eruption Lu. The volcano is having an eruption.”
“Oh, okay… eruption. Isn’t it beautiful?”
After I wiped the sweat off my forehead, I looked down and said,“Well, it is now.”

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

UPDATE!

Hey Everyone!
This is just a quick update about what’s going on here at LBN. Wednesday morning I was asked to come down to Vocalo 89.5FM and talk on air about….well about the blog, me, my life all that stuff I tell you about every week. It was awesome. Everyone was really cool and excited to have me there. As of right now they haven’t archived the interview so unfortunately if you missed it you’ll have to wait until I’ll be able to link it to LBN.

Overall, I think the interview went really well, in fact Lucy said I sounded like a robot, so that’s cool. There is a good chance that I will be working with Vocalo again in the near future, I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated. So, now that that’s all said, I really want to thank all of my friends, family, followers and readers for getting me this far. My stories would not be getting the exposure they’re getting if it weren’t for all of you. As I’ve said a million times before, if you know someone who you think might like my stories, please let them know about Life Between Naps. You can do this in any number of ways, such as… email, phone, reposting on FB, twitter, telegraph, Morse, smoke signal, indecipherable whale talking, Pig Latin, secret password w/ accompanying secret handshake, blinking lights, horn blowing, sky writing, courier pigeon (oooo..shutter), brail paper airplanes I can go on and on, but you got it.

Anyway thanks again, I think with all of your help something positive (perhaps a job writing) will materialize and that’s all I want.

Jim

p.s. I also want a bigger car, a house, a LBN board game and action figures(w/Kung-Fu grip), to be the King of Norway, a toboggan, an endless supply of Dr. Pepper, definitive answers at the end of Lost and last but not least a W for the Detroit Lions.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Dirty Bird

That particular Tuesday morning started like any other. We got up, went to the farmers market and purchased a sweet treat at our favorite Lincoln Square bakery, Café Selmarie. The similarities ended when a nice elderly woman asked which one of the kids playing in the Square was mine. I looked up gazed over the grounds and then pointed to the girl in the pink skirt running at me with a pigeon in her hand.

I stared in awe. Quite frankly, even when I’m completely convinced I’ll never be shocked by Lucy’s antics; there she is holding a flailing, terrified pigeon by its wing. I watch this situation unfold like some morbid slow-motion war scene. Women were grabbing their children and diving into bushes. Nannies were left screaming alone in horror as their over painted faces left black tears falling from their eyes. Coffee cups and quiches were overturned as restaurant patrons ducked under their tables. I half expected Lucy to pull out a flamethrower and char every last one of us. I look back to the kind old lady; there was nothing left but a plume of smoke and a trailing scent of junipers as she darted to safety.

This was all my fault... I forget that 99% of the time my sarcastically clever and whimsically eye rolling remarks are lost on my impressionable little girls. However, there is that 1% that she does get, it's moments like this, that I'm really scared of. This is a tale of that 1%. A few weeks ago, on a day very much like the one mentioned above, Lucy picked up a feather...

“Daddy look! A feather!” Before I continue, I must first emphasize how much I hate pigeons. They are in fact the vile, evil, cooing disciples of Satan. They are the homeless Hobo’s of flight, the winged white trash, the blue feathered menace to society. I can go on and on about my distain for that foul flying rat with wings, and how they’ve tortured me, but we don’t have the time. Before I continue some more, I also want to say something to Billy Wayne James and his litter of denim-wearing, mullet- sporting, tobacco-spitting, shotgun-toting, banjo-plucking offspring before they pull up to my house demanding an apology to the “white trash” people I may have offended. This is not a personal insult, I’m not saying that I detest you, or am I insinuating that the so-called “white trash” folk are directly connected to Satan in any way, as a matter of fact, I’d go as far as saying I’m 1/8 white trash and I have no problem with you whatsoever... but that all changes the day one of you decides it would be funny to defecate on my head. I hate pigeons!

“Lucy, put that feather down!” Just looking at it made my skin crawl.
“Why?” She screamed, “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s not beautiful it’s disgusting and full of germs. If you don’t drop it we’re gonna have to go home and shave your head.” She drops it immediately.
“Where was that feather from?”
“It’s a pigeon feather. We don’t pick up pigeon feathers. They are very dirty and very disgusting. We just don’t... Ugh, we just don’t go picking up feathers.” I stopped the stroller and began to forage through the diaper bag for some of that hand sanitizer paranoid people such as myself always have on them.
“I can’t pick up any feathers?” Awe, she seemed genuinely sad at this thought.
“Ummm... fine you can pick up eagle feathers.” Ohhh yeah, that’s right an eagle: A majestic creature born to bear the weight of a nation on its wings. A flying symbol of freedom, a guardian of independence, a bird of strength beckoned to soar over the land, circle the heavens, and protect us from terrorists. Man, what I wouldn’t give to make a coat lined with the feathers of freedom. Oh I can just imagine the adventures Lucy and I would have hunting this peacefully iconic creature. We would steal a harpoon made from the hands of a great Cherokee Chief, and spear the bird mid-flight. Then we’d take him home and stuff him with two dollar bills, run some wire through a hole I drilled in its head, screw a light bulb into its skull and top it with an amazing hand painted red, white and blue lamp shade that we bought on sale at Walmart. Now that’s a bird, that’s America! A pigeon ain’t got nuttin on that!

“Where are the eagles?” Lucy said this to me in a tone that implied that I don’t know what in the hell I’m talkin’ about.
“Colorado.” I said this even before she can finish her question. The quicker you answer, the smarter you sound, especially to a 3 year old.
“Are we going to Colorado?”
“Nope.”
“Hmmmm... Well then, what if we clean the pigeons, then they won’t be so dirty, then I can have a feather. Okay?” I like that she’s trying, she’s so naïve. She thinks that all you have to do is clean something as foul as a pigeon and viola, it’s suddenly acceptable. Well, that might have worked for Patrick Dempsey in the 1987 hit comedy Can’t Buy Me Love, but I have yet to find a pigeon that has anything on McDreamy. I’ll humor her anyway.
“Well Lucy, where are we gonna wash them?”
“In the tub. I’ll hold them by their wings, and you could wash them with soap.”
“Them?”
“Them? How many is ‘them?’” I looked down at her. She makes me smile. We are having this conversation, as absurd as it might be. She’s answering my questions, she’s thinking about her words, her next step. She really wants to clean the pigeons… it’s fascinating.
“I guess we can start with six.”
“Fine, how are you gonna catch them?” This stumps her; we walk the last block in silence.

I unloaded the fruit from the market onto the porch, as I go to unbuckle Ruby from the stroller Lucy yelled out, “With a net! I can catch them with a net! Daddy I can catch the pigeons with a net.” She’s so excited about this answer and in an odd way I’m proud of her determination. But alas, I’m the voice of reason and it is my duty to distribute the reality checks…. “You don’t have a net.”
“Oh.” She replied with her head drooped down. She was devastated; I thought this was the end. It took her a whole block to think of a net, and I took 2 seconds to crush her dreams of a pigeon spa. I almost felt bad for her.
“Will you buy me a net?” She knew what my answer was gonna be, how could she not? She’s out of ideas and this pigeon nonsense was finally coming to an end. I went for the kill.

“No.” It was done, I had broken her, and she was down for the count. The dirty birds would remain dirty. I would now focus my energy on a family trip to Colorado. Then just before the count reached 10 she was back on her feet and she was throwing her final punch. She said it like she knew I wouldn’t take her serious. Her exact words were, “If you won’t buy me a net, I’ll have to catch one with my own hands.” I scoffed at the audacity, so much so, I said, “Fine. I dare you to catch one with your bare hands. You won’t come close, they’re too elusive (I don’t define this for her, and she doesn’t care). You can try, but it won’t happen. It won’t happen….
Of course, we now know that it does happen. I don’t know how she did it, she said, she just went over and picked him up… I doubt it. I’m sure it involved some sort of ritualistic dance, a voodoo curse and witches potion. Or perhaps, this was a calculated mission strung together over the course of 3 weeks. She plotted, spotted and looked for the weakest one. She got closer and closer each week until finally she struck. Like a lion preying on the injured wildebeest, Lucy captured her victim… effectively calling me out.

“Daddy, look what I got? You said I…” She didn’t even finish her thought when this pigeon, her beautifully feathered hostage unloaded what appeared to be a weeks’ worth of black and white all over her pretty red Crocs. Her jaw dropped and she stood there silently screaming for the next couple seconds. Lucy released the bird and it hobbled toward a bench. The crowd that had dispersed so quickly was now slowly returning to the Square. I grabbed the sanitizer and wiped her foot. The sounds of laughter and the clinking of silverware began to fill the air and for most of the people, the day resumed.

We walked home in silence. A silence that suggested that pigeons and their feathers would no longer be a topic of discussion, a silence that confirmed the filth and debauchery of the beast, a silence that upheld the notion that I was absolutely right. For now, at least in Lucy’s case, reality is no longer the prospect of bathing a pigeon; reality is in fact the bath she had to take after that very same pigeon crapped on her foot. I think that says a lot.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

From Lucy's Lips

So I decided my blog needed some consistency. Something easy I could write about, you know nothing huge, just something I didn't have to think about. The list of ideas for this weekly post soon became overwhelming. How was I gonna narrow down a list that included such topics as: Food, The Auto Industry, Movies that would have been much better if Steve Guttenburg were cast as the lead (Demolition Man, The Fast and The Furious and Pearl Harbor to name a few), How to lose weight blogging and The Benefits of Bubble Baths "A Man's Escape." Yup, these were all worthy ideas, but it wasn't until 6:30 this morning that I finally came to a decision.

Cathy was getting ready for work, I was still lounging in the bed holding onto my last precious moment of sleep when Lucy crawled up next to me. She patted me on the head, said good morning and followed it up with this brutally honest exchange:

"Umm daddy, I have to get off the bed... fast."
"Why?"
"My belly is hurting, really bad."
"From what?"
"Ummm daddy, I think your breath is making my belly feel bad. It kinda smells like tooters."
"I doubt it smells like tooters." Although, I didn't doubt it had a tang to it.
"Daddy I don't want any hugs, I wanna get down. Your breath is hurting my feelings and my belly. How about you just stay in bed by yourself?" So there I laid alone in bed for the next 5 minutes breathing into my hand and smelling the return. I still didn't think it smelled like "tooters," but I did get a little bit dizzy.

There it was, my new weekly column, staring right into my tooter-smelling breath. It was honest, frequent and it simple. More importantly it was unpredictable, 'cause one can never tell what words will be said when they fly From Lucy's Lips.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

The Cool & Joey Fatone

This has been rewritten and edited for your viewing pleasure. It can be found in the soon to be released book Life Between Naps. Link and info coming November 2015.