These Two.

I was going to type this up last night but I started throwing up. How's that for a hook?

Before I move on, a quick word about the process of vomiting—and it is just that—a process. Very few of us spontaneously hurl, as usually we're provided warning signs anywhere from minutes to hours prior to the ultimate act of yelling yogurt. I'm here to tell you though, somebody paid for express delivery on this one. I went from enjoying a beer on a beautiful Thursday evening, preparing a nice black bean soup (with bacon, where you leave the grease in the soup and it's freaking delicious) to bedazzling the bedpan in less than two hours.

Sorry, I tend to trend graphically in this forum and I do want you to read on, so I'll stop there. It's just interesting how, when the human body encounters a breach of security, it goes through a sort of NORAD Defcon level progression. And not to worry, feeling much better today.

I was planning on featuring my two daughters in this post, since during April the older kid turns 21 and the younger, 16. It's a big milestone and they've been subjects, sometimes willing but usually not, of numerous posts over the past seven years, Accordingly, I've decided my gift to them is Seinfeldian in nature—the gift of nothing—no interviews or greatest hits. You're welcome, darling angels.

Alas, most of the cute stories, the mispronunciations and heart-tweaking sentiments, the naive perceptions of life on Earth, have slowly evaporated with each passing season. And like many of my friends also experiencing this, I've tried to embrace the evolving nature of parenthood, from hands-on to hands-off in fairly short order.

April fools! Here are the top five quips from each daughter since this blog started back in 2009:

Older daughter (I'll call her Hermione):

3) December 5, 2011 (age 16)

Hermione: "Hey, Dad, I can see your butt crack,"

Me (I'll call myself Ryan, either Reynolds or Gosling): "Okay, do you want me to put down this hammer and this really small nail and this huge string of lights that's teetering on collapse and get down from this stool and pull up my pants? Huh? Is that what you want?" No answer. "Just look the other way or something." I pounded. I taped. I failed. I pounded some more. I swore some more. I pounded. Finally, success.

Hermione: "Dad, guess what? We filmed you on my phone."

Ryan: "You filmed me? Are you serious?"

Hermione: "Yeah."

Ryan: "You filmed the whole butt crack conversation, too?"

Hermione: "Yeah."

2) January 12, 2011 (Age 15)

Ryan: "It looks really short."

Hermione:"Dad, don't worry. I'm wearing spandex underneath, so even if it gets hiked up, no one can see anything."

Ryan:"You only need to touch your nose to hike that thing up."

Hermione: "Dad, just wait until you see me with it on. You'll feel much better."

Ryan didn't.

1) March 30, 2010 (Age 14)

Ryan: "If you could change anything about your first ten years, what would you change?"

Hermione: "When I was four, I wouldn't have peed on the floor of my room and wiped it up with your towel and put it back, thereby forcing you to dry yourself with my urine.

Ryan: "I wish you could change that too."


And now for the younger child (let's call her Chrysanthemum)

3) February 29, 2012 (age 11)

Chrysanthemum: "I let Autumn borrow my deodorant in gym today. I know I probably shouldn't do that, but I sort of feel sorry for her because she smells like..."

Hermione, interrupting: "Seriously, you guys, I was looking at my stomach in the mirror this morning and my two-pack is looking so good..."

Chrysanthemum, interrupting: "You just interrupted me."

Hermione: "Sorry. But really, check this out (exposing her bare stomach). Is this not a highly-defined two-pack?"

Chrysanthemum: "I don't care about your stomach. Can I finish talking please? Thank you...I forgot what I was talking about. Anyway, Ashley and Jonah are dating now, so there making it Facebook official tonight and then they're...

Hermione, interrupting: "Ewww! There's something in my Au Jus!"

Chrysanthemum: "You just interrupted me again! And it's a piece of bread. Stuff gets in your Aus Jus all the time! Look at mine. It's got stuff in it, too. Now listen to what I'm saying!"

Older Daughter: "I think I need a bang trim."

2) August 21, 2009 (age 9)

Chrysanthemum: "You know what I want for dessert?"

Ryan: "What?"

Chrysanthemum: "Gilletto."

Ryan: "You mean gelato?"

Chrysanthemum: "No Dad, I mean gilletto. Come on. You've had it a lot."

1) July 13, 2009 (age 9)

Chrysanthemum: "Dad, tell mom to change her clothes. She listens to you."

Ryan: "What are you talking about?"

Chrysanthemum: "Dad, Mom has a doctor's appointment, and the doctors and nurses are going to be really embarrassed to see her in her brown sweater with huge buttons. She looks super ugly."

Ryan: "People in our family are allowed to dress any way they want, including you."

Chrysanthemum: "But I always wear really pretty things."

Ryan: "Just leave your mom alone."

Chrysanthemum: "Just tell her to change her sweater, then. She can leave her pants on."

Ryan "I have to get back to work. Just let it go."

Chrysanthemum: "Okay, but you have a really unattractive wife going out in public."


Happy birthdays, my beautiful girls.

Seeing the Ocean for the Macaroni.

What's a good term for my situation?

Existential crisis? Nah, too dramatic.

It could be more of a midlife malaise, only that would imply I'll live to be 104, which would be fantastic. Problem is, if I'm currently peeing every morning in five languid installments, by the century mark I'll need a tasteful prostate pram to wheel around that leathery gland that partially popped free of my body in 2038.

No, I'll just assess this situation using a system to which we grew accustomed back in the Bush years—Irrelevance Alert Level Orange, or more formally defined as "a high risk of becoming paternally insignificant."

When I started keeping this journal six years ago, my children were ages fourteen and nine. I was fully immersed in nuclear family Americana, rarely poking my head through the surface in an ocean of macaroni, cheese and hot dog pennies.

Year after year, the fatherly importance threat level hovered at its lowest stage—Green—and only occasionally would it elevate to Level Blue, or "guarded." This slightly higher risk of irrelevance occurred only when one of my daughters did something unusually independent, like replacing toilet paper.

I coached soccer, I went on field trips; Costco wasn't a place to hit up real quick for a few odds and ends, it was a destination rivaling only the IKEA ball pit in kid curb appeal. Nearly every visit, after watching my grubby cherubs stuff their rosy cheeks with enough fro-yo to illicit unfettered shivering, I'd wrap them in their pink or purple jackets as we cruised the aisles looking for enough Gogurt and Goldfish to make it through another week.

My younger daughter was a bubbling aquifer of verbal treasures:

"I'm sorry. I just feel fragile today."

"When can I drink coffee? I want to try a crappuccino."

"You don't know how I feel! You're not inside my heart!"

Sure, life had its routines back when I started writing this weblog, but with kids in the house, the mundane could explode into the insane in the blink of a pink eye. Ever had someone vomit in your slipper...while it's still on your foot? Ever pulled a Barbie out of your coat pocket on the bus and wondered if you should try to explain it to the lady next to you?

Anyway, I think you get my point. I'm obviously still a dad who does a lot of dad stuff, but now I'm more the key grip than the director. During those days of high energy and overwhelming fatigue, I yearned for a future that allowed for a bit more breathing room. It happened. And with it came an abundance of time, and a heightened fear of irrelevance.

The Mayo Clinic defines empty nest syndrome as "parental feelings of sadness and loss when the last child leaves home." I disagree, since it's still another three years until my younger daughter goes to college.

I'm feeling it now, maybe not as severely as I will, yet still I never could have imagined the meaty chunk of my personal identity that's permanently and irrevocably embedded in my dad self. And currently, while it does make me sad, this is not yet the time to step aside.

After all, while the nest may be half empty, it's also half full.

Merry Christmas! Or Else.

"...the second reason I love Christmas season is because it has amazing food. For example, cookies, hot cocoa (technically it's not a food), turkey, ham, peppermint bark, etc. And I love these foods especially because they are filled with butter, cream, fat and sugar. C'mon, let's not act like we are not in love with these ingredients."

-An excerpt from my twelve-year-old daughter's seventh grade expository essay about Christmas. For the record, she will receive each and every food item listed above.

And so, it's time to move on to the main event. Kind of like when you sat through Laverne and Shirley just as a warm up to Happy Days.

Yeah, there's some turkey still left, but it's mostly dark meat and the remaining white meat is either ribboned with brown streaks or hanging in limp strings from thick bands of cartilage. Someone has picked the sausage out of what's left of the stuffing. And one sliver of pumpkin pie has been sliding around in an oversized Tupperware container, absorbing its petroleum essence and rendering it inedible.

And for the the two citizens of my house under the age of forty-eight, Thanksgiving has been over since Thanksgiving.

You see, they've got these rules, and there are lots of them.

Christmas music is strictly prohibited prior to Thanksgiving Day. However, once the first Macy's balloon skims the toupee off the grand marshal's noggin, it's game on. Whether it's in the car or at home on the Pandora, Christmas tunes permeate every nook of our family's together space.

In our luxury Hyundai, the kids listen only to the twenty-four-hour holiday music station. And while most human beings can't physically endure back-to-back numbers by the Michaels (Bolton and Bublé) without presenting shingle-like symptoms, my girls bask in the milky glow of their croaky croons.

Oh, yeah, that reminds me, one positive lesson I've garnered from those two is that the name "Michael" is so much classier than "Mike." So if you don't mind, from here on out, please call me Timothy, maybe even Timothy Andrew. Hey, if it can mean the difference between an Oscar-nominated performer named Phillip Seymour Hoffman and just a chubby actor known as Phil Hoffman, I'd like to pursue this.

Anyway, back to the kids and their rules:

Peppermint hot chocolate can only be consumed during the Thanksgiving to Christmas Yuletide window. In their scientific view, doing otherwise would jinx the season with more fury than would using your brand new Hello Kitty backpack for camping two weeks before school starts.

It's okay to watch television specials with the exception of A Christmas Story, which can only be viewed on Christmas day at Grandma and Grandpa's. Doing otherwise could cause death or dismemberment to untold innocents.

Christmas Eve is the only occasion when shrimp cocktail, crab cakes and Oprah's cheesy mashed potatoes (also known as "Oprahtatoes)" can be eaten. Swarms of rabid locusts lie in wait for the violator.

The tree has to be real. I've been told that fake trees are cousins of fake boobs, and would I want fake boobs in the house?

I'll have to think about that.

Before I became a dad, I giddily anticipated an era where my family and I could create our own set of holiday activities and rituals. My challenge, now that it's come to fruition, is to view these rites as ever solidifying and blossoming traditions, not as mandatory exercises to stave off the screaming banshees of ill fortune.

Let me be the first to wish you a peaceful holiday season. Do what you must to keep it from violently derailing.

Youngest Child: Victim or Victor?

Since he was thirteen and six years my senior, he played on his knees while I was allowed to stand.

The living room was the stadium, our avocado carpet serving as the faux turf field and the fireplace mantel the glorious pay dirt of the end zone.

Clutching the football in the crook of my right elbow, I feigned left and nimbly juked right, my brother's awkward lunge embracing nothing but the stale living room air.

I slowed my sprint to a jog, confidant that he'd surrendered the touchdown to his overmatched little brother. Without audible warning, his fleshy talons hooked my shins from behind, chopping my balance and sending me airborne.

Cradling the pigskin to avoid fumbling, my face slapped the cold slate of the fireplace foreground like a seasoned spaghetti squash. A burst of crimson blinded me upon impact, the polished stone shattering my horn-rimmed glasses. I struggled to my knees, nauseous from shock and dripping thick pearls of blood onto the carpet and my favorite mustard-tinted turtleneck.

But goddammit, I had scored. Touchdown, little guy.

This tale from 1969 poked its way into my consciousness last night as my family attended my elder daughter's high school volleyball senior night. It was her final home game, prior to which she and her fellow seniors were regaled with flowers, praise and adulation from fans, teammates and families. By the end of the evening the only missing accolades were a beer-massaged calf for each player and a case of Turtlewax.

And there next to my wife and me, watching her sister...again...was my younger girl. She's been dragged to so many of these contests, someday she may pave the way for a new breed of humanoids who can sit comfortably without back support for hours on end.

Throughout these twelve years, she's packed water bottles and books, crayons and Barbies to pass the time huddling in drafty gyms and soaking on muddy soccer pitches. Through no fault of hers, she's hoisted that splintered wooden cross of being the younger sibling.

Can I relate? Why, yes I can.

As the youngest of three, I grew up sharing airtime with a brother and sister who weren't exactly excited to see my jaundiced little noggin show up in the baby carrier, the one that my dad had to dig out attic and try to bleach off the mildew spots. One boy and one girl already rounded out our Cold War family, so I'm pretty sure the bomb shelter wasn't really built with me in mind.

Nonetheless, I was allowed to stay, albeit with stipulations—I was entitled to a mere fraction of the photo ops to which my brother, a.k.a. "Prince William," or my sister, a.k.a. "Only Adorable Little Girl if the Family," were afforded. I never had the option of sleeping in the top bunk, and many of my t-shirts weren't exactly gently used. Never certain of the source of the stains, I was still confident that they contained my brother's DNA.

And of course, the youngest child gets lowest billing in all family marketing pieces. You know, like "Merry Christmas, from the Haywoods—Lionel, Peggy, Tom, Ann and...hang on...I know this...Shit...Oh, Tim, yeah, Tim."

Am I bitter? Hell, yes, but it's not all bad being the kid who comes along when his parents are so freaking worn out already, they don't care anymore. As a teenager, if my brother arrived home a minute past midnight, he'd activate an alarm which also scanned his pupils and searched his orifices.

When I reached my teenage years, I could cruise in at one-thirty, turn on the lights, build and chow down a bacon sandwich that Elvis could smell from his Graceland toilet perch.

All the while, my parents slept the sleep of the weary traveler.

So, yeah, I can understand the plight of my number two daughter. She isn't as sporty as her big sister, but few people are. In a pinch, that kid would play catch with a shovel.

But our twelve-year-old does have orchestra concerts and soccer games on the horizon.

And by God, her big sister will be attending.

I cry at weddings...so sue me!

Are you a crier?

Not a crybaby or a whiner, but someone who can’t slap those sandbags down fast enough to stave off a flash flood of salty, frothy rapids?

As kids, most of us cried frequently. Tears were our brains’ natural reaction to pain, both emotional and physical. As six-year-olds, when we fell off our sting rays and asphalt-raked our hip and knee after attempting to ride cross-armed, we sat awkwardly beneath our bikes, our heads slowly pointed to the skies, mouths gaping into a yawning grin of agony. Eye contact with Mom meant unbridled throes of anguish, while exposure only to peers resulted in a quiet and private pain management.

And naturally, as grown-ups, we also shed a tear from time to time. Ninety-nine percent of us cry when something is triggered within us which we really can’t control. It just happens.

But that one percent, that superminority of our adult citizenry, seems to tap their emotions to manipulate like a master baker utilizes fondant.

Before every Friday night game, my high school football coach’s lip would begin quivering, his baritone cracking, by the time he’d uttered that fourth cliché comparing a bunch of sixteen-year-olds to American World War II paratroopers. After he’d likened our undersized defensive tackle to some guy who’d swum the English Channel with no arms or legs, Coach had rendered himself incapable of communicating through his spastic, mucus gurgling sobs. Some of my teammates hopped right onto his express bus to Inspirationville, while others felt he probably should have practiced his talk in the bathroom mirror one last time.

And then, there’s Speaker John Boehner of the United States House of Representatives. This guy…wow.

Boehner claims he can’t even speak to a group of school kids without losing it. Whenever he describes his humble beginnings as one of twelve offspring of a bar owner in Ohio, he barely makes it to the third line of the speech before his face twitches, his orange skin reddens and he saltily barks his desire to duck behind the stage to smoke a Pall Mall and gather himself.

What an endearing man he is, no? He’s not afraid to put himself out there, to display his vulnerable side. Oh, except when he’s discussing denying healthcare to women, kids and old people. His face stays a healthy burnt ember for that topic.

But really, the reason I brought up the subject of crying is to talk about…well...me...again.

I consider myself a member of that other ninety-nine percent…the Criers of Noble Repute.

Oh, boy, did I cry this past weekend. It was at a wedding for someone whom I’d never met, among people I didn’t know.

Even before my daughters came along, my emotions had always bubbled quickly to the surface upon watching a bride dancing with her father. Then, after my girls were born, I could barely cope when witnessing this amazing transitional moment in the lives of those two people on the dance floor.

On Saturday night, the bride’s dad wasn’t around.

He lost a battle with pancreatic cancer two years ago, but the bride made sure that his contributions to her life and her affinity for him were incorporated throughout a beautiful ceremony.

As I gazed upon the newlyweds sharing the evening’s first dance, a small lump in my throat developed, and slowly creeped in size from a Russian tea cake to an avocado pit to a tennis ball. Uh oh. Here we go again.

I was ill-prepared for what came next, as the massive obstruction in my windpipe gave way to a gusher of tears.

The  groom beckoned his mother onto the floor for the second dance, as did the bride…

with her mom, as well.

Are women really the fairer sex? You decide.

I'm surrounded. By females. This isn't  completely by design, as I have two daughters, but on the voluntary side, I've worked in the retail fashion industry for 19 years, which is heavily inhabited by women (see The Devil Wears Prada.). With this type of long-term cred, I feel I'm qualified to offer some observations about the gender which supposedly sprung forth from Adam's rib.

I read an article this morning in The Seattle Times, illustrating the contributions made during World War II by the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or "WASPs." A lot of these women are now deceased or in their 80s or 90s, but they're finally being recognized with the Congressional Gold Medal. This award encompasses Congress' "highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions." Previous recipients include Dr. Jonas Salk, the Navajo Marine Corps Radio Operators, or "Code Talkers," and the poet, Robert Frost.

These women pilots were forbidden from engaging in combat operations, but they did just about everything else—they ferried planes across the country, hauled targets for shooting practice and trained scores of male combat aviators. They encountered intense prejudice from the male military establishment, and were paid a fraction of what the guys received. In addition, the WASPs were actually  denied veteran status until 1977.

I'm going to insist that my daughters read this piece. Today's girls still don't experience a completely level playing field visa vie our society's deference to male leadership, but things have improved substantially. My mom used to tell me about girls' high school basketball in the 1950s, where no one was allowed to dribble the ball more than three times, and the team was divided into front court players and back court players. I imagine sweating was just a little too unsightly and unfeminine when one is wearing her basketball skirt.

Well, here's the deal. We all need to come to grips with this tenet:
Women are tough. Come on...say it.

I've borne witness to two child births. It's not pleasant. Oh, sure, we guys experience pain and discomfort, especially as we age. It might take us three installments to pee every morning, or the old football knee may flare up when the weather turns cold. But I've seen my wife spring out of bed at three the morning, the barf bowl positioned under my kid's chin, long before I woke up and realized I hadn't actually attended that final exam naked.

Amelia Earhart—tough, Sacagawea—tough, Wilma Rudolph—tough, mothers across the globe—tough.

And the Women Airforce Service Pilots—toughness recognized at long last.