Laid-Off Dad

A Machiavellian little snotnose

Thank you all for weighing in on the Should We Stay Or Should We Go issue. It's unfortunate when desire butts heads with blunt reality, and the Internet has done well to present both sides of both sides with such informed passion. The truth is, we could stay here for a while if 1) I score a better-paying gig, and 2) we make every vertical surface in our apartment look like this. To stay in NYC, it might be worth it.

As Metro has written, New York can be a hard town, and if we hang around we want to make sure we raise kids who can hack it in the big city. Recent events suggest we are on the right track.

Robert continues to resist fervently the affront of having his fingernails clipped. And the thing about three-year-olds is that they're harder to manipulate, because they're beginning to catch on to your usual lines of bullshit. I spent about half an hour running all sorts of stuff up the flagpole:

• It's important not to slice Mama and Daddy to ribbons when you storm into our bed each morning.
• Howard Hughes's long fingernails were a window into his crippling depression and paranoia.
• People will think you're undead.

... but he wouldn't salute.

Finally, after all diplomatic options were exhausted, I did what had to be done: I pulled him into my lap, pinned his arms against his chest, and gently snipped off his three biggest talons. And oh, how the tears poured. I tried to comfort him and explain why I did what I did, and he calmed down after a few minutes. But then I let him down off the couch, and he started wailing again ("Daddy! I want to be in your lap!"), so I swooped him up. And as I began stroking his hair, he nestled down into my chest--and emphatically blew a huge loogie onto my shirt and spent the next five minutes laughing his ass off.

Esta indecision me molesta

Buy something in Manhattan? That's rich. (Literally.) Manhattan real estate is a luxury liner that  set sail long ago, and my family and I are furiously pedaling around the marina in our little paddleboat.

And please excuse my wife, who, in her fetching expandedness, has misrepresented me. I was a suburban kid, but I'm not devoted to manicuring my lawn. All I really want is to be the lord of my own free-standing structure. My in-laws are holding a piano for us, and I want to take lessons as soon as we have the space for it. We will not bring it here, because the Democrats will take Wyoming before I subject my neighbors to my atonal keyboard mauling.

It is written somewhere in the Constitution (somewhere in the back) that every male has the right to rock out to Moving Pictures with his son. Preferably on matching drum kits.

The best answer to the living arrangement, I think we can all agree, is a happy medium: a good-sized space with access to a vibrant, urban area. The problem with New York is that there's no slow fade into its outer neighborhoods. Instead, you have city, water, swamp, and then bang--a 45-minute commute.

This indecision's bugging me

I've been reading the reaction to Alice's dilemma with interest, since the Almost Four of us are in a similar situation. My wife and I decided to stay in Manhattan as long as it was monetarily and emotionally practical, but there's no circumventing the simple truth that you can't get far in this city unless you're single and/or rich. I've always lived by the axiom that life is a shit sandwich; the more bread you have, the less shit you taste. And New York is a mouthful, with a side of au jus dippin' sauce.

I just renewed our lease for a 15th year in this apartment, and I can't help but think that this will be it. But then I think of one of my favorite colleagues at work, who raised 8 kids in a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, and I am emboldened.

I'll be posting a lot about this in the coming weeks, but now my shoulders are a little sore from the weight of all these impending life decisions. So we're clearing out of town for a little perspective. And space.

On freaks and masterpieces

Yesterday was the sunniest and mildest day we've had in weeks, so Robert and I spent most of it on the playground. While there, we saw our neighbors and their 18-month-old, who happens to be my landlord's grandson. Extra care was taken to make sure Robert didn't maltreat the kid in any way, because I really don't need to be searching for a new job, caring for a newborn, and homeless.

After they went home for a nap, we were left to frolic among ourselves--and the four billion other kids running and climbing and hurling projectiles at each other. When he was younger, our playground time was all about us. Now, however, Robert ventures out and intermingles with the other kids a lot more, and Daddy sometimes gets to sit on the bench and let his brain fill with idle thoughts. Like these:

• The other day Robert decided he wanted to draw with some crayons because "I am the Masterpiece Boy!" My wife and I will swear on a stack of Larousse Gastronomiques that neither of us has ever called him that, but it does make us all the more intrigued by how the boy will adapt to siblinghood.

• I am completely sick of AOL's fear-based, "You Need Us On That Wall" ad campaign. Poor AOL has been expunged from the company name, and subscribers are bolting in droves. So they're getting desperate and resorting to scare tactics by telling techophobes that if they don't use AOL, viruses and spam and other strange beasties will melt their motherboards. It's a pretty pathetic tack, but it makes sense from AOL's perspective. After all, it worked for Bush.

• If anyone ever declared a fatwa on me, I would be alarmed. But I would also check to make sure the person didn't just say "fart war" in a thick Boston accent.

• A three-way with "incense, wine and candles" isn't really all that super freaky. If Rick James had gone with "llamas, X, and Cheez Wiz," he might've been on to something.

The Madness begins

It's that time of year again, so here's a little quiz to amp up your Madness Mojo:

Now that March Madness is finally upon us, which of the following is the most shocking development thus far?

1. Washington earned a No. 1 seed in the Albuquerque bracket.
2. The Crimson Tide were bounced in the first round by Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
3. I just dropped off a non-refundable deposit for a spot in a preschool whose annual cost is about 80% of the price tag for my first year of college.

Not really soccer, and not particularly super

I have reached a seminal moment in a parent's life.

Today, I am a Soccer Dad.

I know. I'm literally flushed with pride. Today, I strapped on my Sambas and took Robert to Super Soccer Stars, a kiddie soccer class at the local Y. The instructor is an exuberant Croat whose goofy demeanor is perfect for kids, but he tends to overdo it. There are only so many times you can count off 10 jumping jacks and end with " ...8 ... 9 ... 11!" Hey, you skipped 10 again. We get it. You know you should consider retooling your act when three-year-olds are rolling their eyes at you.

Before warm-ups, the kids must sing a song about never touching the ball with their hands. This confuses Robert, because he and I have watched lots of Premier League and Serie A and Bundesliga on Fox Sports World. He knows about goalies, and he knows about throw-ins. The way Bela tells it, all soccer balls are coated with weapons-grade anthrax that must never make contact with human skin. Dude, lighten up.

There's also the matter of the games themselves. I went in expecting at least a few minutes of free-form kicking at a goal, but most of the program involved complicated activities that required 5 minutes of explanation for 10 seconds of action. I can understand an underlying pedagogy of teaching youngsters how to follow directions, but these kids are three. They came to kick. So let 'em kick!

Therefore, I am starting my own Super-Duper Soccer Stars, during which all kids will be invited to run around kicking soccer balls until they pass out. I feel this will give them excellent preparation for high school soccer, when they'll run around kicking soccer balls until they throw up. When they cruise into college on a soccer scholarship and spend every night banging hot chicks, they'll know it was all worth it.

A long, strange trypanosomiasis

Where have I been? Well, there's the matter of this silly, silly job. It's a doggone shame that blogging about work is something that Is Not Done, because my workplace is quite a dysfunctional little tool shed. But the pathetic and eminently blogworthy details will have to wait. For now.

The real issue is this bout of sleeping sickness, which came about after a lapse in judgment. Normally, I am very possessive of my Me Time, even if it means staying up until the wee hours and staggering off to work on only a few hours' sleep (and the very real possibility of losing every pair of underpants I own.) But on Tuesday night, after Robert and I read the very dirty-sounding "There's a Wocket in My Pocket," he invited me to crash out with him in his car bed. Even though this meant wedging my 6-foot-2 body into a 4-foot-2 plastic box, I took him up on it. And despite waking up three hours later with a throbbing pain in my shins, I managed to crawl into my own bed and pass out right away.

I slept for 10 hours that night. And my body liked it. It liked it so much, it has staged a revolt, causing my pineal gland to put down the want-ads and unleash a flood of melatonin into my system. Now, I'm useless after 10pm. I feel the drowsiness coming on, and I'm powerless to stop it. I haven't seen "The Daily Show" for three days, and I'm re-reading A Confederacy of Dunces three paragraphs at a time. It's completely annoying.

The upside is, it's apparently transferable. The next night, Robert lay on the couch next to me while we watched The Simpsons, and he fell asleep on my chest at 7:15. After I carted him off to bed, my wife took his place in my armpit and also promptly zonked out. It's not a bad feeling, really. If this is to be my superpower, I could do a lot worse. I can definitely use it to score a lot more Me Time.

Muppet government

Cecily's comment on my last post got me thinking: I suddenly see Grover and Elmo as a compelling allegory for American politics. Blue Grover is big-hearted but maddeningly inept, has delusions of grandeur, and is now not much more than a marginalized relic. He's lost his spotlight to Red Elmo, the corporate superstar who remains unflaggingly upbeat in the face of adversity and is incomprehensibly beloved by all. (OK, just over half.)

That leaves the Green Party to Oscar, occasionally barking his displeasure from the depths of his trash can.

Sixes and sevens

You may have noticed I've been fidgeting with my layout a lot. It might be a little disorienting on your end, but it couldn't be helped. It's just me feeling all addle-pated and unable to string two coherent thoughts together. In times like this, when the keyboard is useless, it's best just to lean forward, chin in hand, and click-click-click through the hexadecimal permutations until my brain recalibrates to 33 RPM.

(That's a reference to the dominant music format of my youth, when my most crucial daily decision was whether to get up in the morning. My subconscious is running overtime.)

We had a birthday party over the weekend, and it came off just fine--ten kids, pizza, music, and heaps of chocolate cupcakes. The real comedy was in the preparation, which took place in a kitchen still recuperating from corrective surgery. Picture a lovely, big-bellied mama making frosting, a daddy ferreting through all the displaced detritus looking for Things Mama Needs, and a child aggressively slaloming through all the boxes on his trike. That sound you may have heard was my diastolic spiking.

Then came Sunday morning, and Sesame Street. Elmo was rending the peaceful early hour with another grating rendition of Jingle Bells in B Minor for Toy Piano, and it occurred to me: I need to make my peace with this. I can't stand to watch Elmo, but he's here to stay and it does no good to rant about it (especially since others have done so more eloquently). Besides, Robert seems genuinely entertained. These conflicting feelings aren't going to be resolved, I thought, so I might as well embrace them and move on.

That's when Robert looked at me and said, "Daddy, I hate this show. But I like watching it."

'Cause I'm three to do what I want any old time

One of these days, I will have to bore the collective pants off the Internets and regale you of how Robert clambered into our lives three years ago, on the third day of the third month, at 3:03am. (Seriously.) As his third birthday approached, we were expecting some serious End of Days-type mayhem when all the threes, being the symbol of the Holy Trinity, would click into place on the cosmic odometer and bring about the rapture. We sort of hoped all the Republicans would be sucked out of their clothes and up to heaven.

Robert won't get many gifts at his party this weekend, mostly because our tiny living space is at critical mass, and one more fake power tool could blow our guts out. So we got him the next best thing: the gift of destruction. For 8 hours today, Robert got to help a big Irish guy rip up and replace all the tiles in our kitchen. Talk about rapture: The kid writhed and squealed with ecstasy as each fetid old slab of linoleum was pried and pitched.

And suddenly, an idea for a new tradition is hatched: Every birthday, you get to destroy and rebuild a room in your home. I can get behind that.