Laid-Off Dad

If they'd asked about E.T., I'd have probably said "Steven Spielsomething"

For reasons too perplexing to elaborate, the gang at work put together a little morale-booster in the form of a trivia competition. Which means some poor slob was tasked to write, on his own time and for no additional pay, dozens of toss-up, bonus-round, and lightning-round questions for us to answer. But that's not the troubling part.

My team was beating the other team's brains out. Truly. The dais was beginning to reek from all the rotting brains spilled at our feet. And then came our team's lightning round subject: movie directors. In the old days, when I could afford to while away the hours seeing three or four movies a week, this would have been Game Over.

Then the questions came our way, and I confused James L. Brooks with Jim Burrows. I thought that Frank Capra directed Some Like It Hot (instead of Billy Wilder, obviously). And I completely blanked on John Landis as the director of Animal House. John Freakin' Landis! Who directed Britain's all-time favorite music video! It was appalling.

The human mind is a finite vessel, and parenting is slowly supplanting my vast accumulation of worthless minutiae in favor of inoculations, playgroups, 529 accounts, and figuring out when I can sleep next. You know, stuff that matters.

Adulthood blows.

Let us pause to celebrate the adorned, accessible crotch

We have reached the next stage in undergarment evolution.

For the first year of Robert's life, we used (and re-used) cloth diapers, partly for the environmental aspect, but mostly because my wife did piles of research and found lots of niche retailers who sell very effective little snappy things that saved us a bloody fortune. Next came disposables, which came into use about when Robert's effluent became just too nasty to store in the house for any length of time. Then, when the boy learned that life is a lot more fun when you can float little TP barges in the toilet and sink them with your stream, out came the little Gerber pants with the extra absorptive crotch panels.

Robert is now a proud flaunter of Novelty Big-Boy Underpants, which have two very important qualities. First, they can feature your favorite TV personality on the front, and everyone knows life is just that more secure when you know Bob the Builder is standing guard over your privates. But more importantly, these are Y-fronts, with a real "Y" that affords the wearer easy access without the indignity of walking around with your knickers around your ankles.

Robert discovered this the other day, during one of those rare times when he doesn't make me wait my turn, and he was incredulous. "Hey! These have a hole in them!" I explained that it was there on purpose (complete with a short demonstration of how a fly works), and he shot me a look that said, "You mean to tell me that all this time I've been suffering the indignity of walking around with my knickers around my ankles, when all I've had to do is reach in through here? What else haven't you told me?"

Well, for one thing, I haven't yet admitted that I'm enough of a dork Anglophile to use "bloody," "knickers", and "Y-fronts" all in the same post.

If I ever open a bar, I know what its name will be

I usually restrict Darling Anecdotes to those I see personally, but this one is too good to pass up. One morning this week, my wife walked into the living room and found Robert hopping around on several of his books, which he had arranged into a mostly perpendicular pattern. Understandably, she asked him what he was up to.

He replied, "I'm playing bookscotch!"

And somehow, they find a way to make it work

While I was waiting for a Lexington Avenue bus, I overheard a man talking into his cellphone:

"Babe, I gotta head out of the country for a few days."
. . .
"Now don't start with this again. You know I won't tell you that."
. . .
"We've been over this, babe. I gotta cool out for a while. I gotta find my head."
. . .
"No. No, I won't tell you where I'm goin'. I never tell you where I'm goin'."
. . .
NO. I WILL NOT TELL YOU! I WILL NOT TELL YOU! OK? YOU GOT THAT?"
. . .
"All right, baby. I'll call you soon. Kiss the kids for me."

Spring forward, fall down

Hoo-boy. It's been a week since I've written a word, because it's been that long since we've seen a cloud in the sky. And when the weather cooperates, it's easy to fall into a nice-and-easy pattern that makes the days fly by:

• 8:00am - 4:00pm: Fry the bacon

I'm happy to report that the Lords of the Gig came through with contractual terms I can live with, so I'm going to sign on for another year. One of the best benefits of being laid off twice in four years is learning to take my job a little less seriously, and therefore hating it far less.

• 5:00pm - 8:00pm: Wage the rumpus
  

We've been out on the ballfield for a few evenings now, and Robert has gotten the idea that his mitt doesn't belong on his throwing hand. But I wouldn't call what we do a "catch." Basically, I aim for his mitt for ten minutes until he leaps on the trike and tries to mow down pigeons.

• 9:00pm - 7:00am: Embrace the horizontal

You might assume that horizontality involves collapsing on our decrepit couch, and in most circumstances you might be right. But at the risk of indecorousness, I don't mind admitting that my smokin'-hot wife is even smokin'-hotter when she's this pregnant. I believe we've adapted well to accommodate the belly, so much so that Two-Bert might be born with the peculiar ability to measure earthquakes without a seismograph.

Throughout all this comes the unrelenting charm of preschooler logic. On Friday I brought home an Easter lily from the farmers' market, unaware that the leaves contain a substance that is highly toxic to cats. We mostly like our cat, so the lily is currently perched 10 feet in the air, on top of a bookshelf. Ever since we explained this to Robert, he's been packing his cars up in plastic containers each night so the cat won't eat them and die.

In case you've forgotten

Will they have juice boxes at the pitch meeting?

In case anyone's wondering, concentration is a bitch when your noggin is fighting a three-front war. Up top, my scalp is pulsating with the season's first sunburn, because Big Dumb Daddy thought, "Sunscreen? In April?" Amidships, two colossal canker sores have blossomed out of nowhere on my tongue. And then there's my lower jaw, which is throbbing from ear to ear and feels just about ready to fall into my lap.

We've done what we can to help prepare Robert for Two-Bert, but we can tell he's getting anxious. The child fidgets constantly. Yes, it's spring, and yes, slack must be cut for three-year-olds and their inalienable right to spaz out like X-addled club kids, but Robert carries on nonfuckingstop. This morning, he ran over to give me a hug, and as I rested my chin on his head, his sudden jumping fit gave me an upper-butt that left me seeing stars. It was all I could do to gingerly gum my Bagel With Butter^TM into submission.

On the brighter side, Robert has a new doll and is a very doting father/brother to his new son/brother, depending on the shifting narrative. He talks to it, dresses it (in the smallest onesie we own), and makes sure to tuck it in every night. Diaper changes are also a big deal, since in his mind the doll craps its pants every five minutes. The secret, he says, is to take off the diaper, roll it up, and wait until the poop "dissolves" before putting it back on.

Since dissolving poop is the primary plotline of ENVY, a film Barry Levinson probably wishes he never made, I have a question: If an infinite number of monkeys can write a sonnet, can a roomful of preschoolers write POLICE ACADEMY 9?

Probably not.

At the risk of morphing into "Laid-Off daddytypes"

categories: athletic gear | solipsistic prattle

This is Robert's new baseball mitt. We could have gotten a leather glove and a tee-ball for $6.99, but we sprang for the executive model because 1) the nylon is more pliable and weather-resistant, and 2) the vibrant blue is easy to locate at the playground. (It also comes in pink, a fact that made my wife throw up in her mouth.)

I admit I already covet this thing, and I am dismayed that my hand will not fit inside. When Robert is otherwise engaged, I loop my thumb and pinkie inside the strap and have catches with myself against concrete walls. So far, the Red Sox have won the World Series of LOD's Mind eight years in a row.

After a few days of fieldwork, the boy is convinced we need to get him a bat. I told him I won't even consider it until he learns to throw the ball at something else besides my nuts.

Blue child's baseball mitt, $9.99 at Target [not available at Target.com and still not being worn on the correct hand]

Forgive us, for we have sibbled

It's been a fun week:

• Tuesday saw the merciful end of Super Soccer Stars; Bela clearly likes kids, but his voice sounds like Ricky Ricardo swallowed a bugle, so I'm well rid of it.
• On Wednesday, the temperature cracked 60 and our sitter took Robert to a birthday party, so my wife and I had a picnic date and a hot lunch.
• Thursday took Robert and me to Park Slope and a playdate with Alice and Henry, who will spend his life wobbling people's knees with those steel-blue eyes of his.
• On Friday, Robert got his first baseball mitt, which he prefers to wear on his throwing hand because "I can't squeeze very well right now."

And yesterday, we christened the final month of Waiting For Two-Bert^TM by attending a seminar on what to expect when your darling, faultless first child has to learn to share the spotlight.

We've already read Siblings Without Rivalry, which is mostly transcripts of therapy sessions with multiple-child parents. It's been something of a mainstay for around 20 years, and it does offer some helpful insights. But it also imparts such pearls of wisdom as: "Don't say 'Why can't you be more like your brother?' and 'She's your sister, you have to love her.'" I think we knew that.

The seminar was at RealBirth, a tiny remnant of the much-mourned Elizabeth Seton Childbirth Center. Most of the discussion was for the kids, who sat raptly as our instructor explained--in intimate, visual detail--how babies are born. This was punctuated by a 15-minute film of actual babies and actual afterbirth flopping out of actual women who actually allowed the footage to be distributed commercially. (Robert was fascinated: "Can we see more of those, please?")

Then came some role-playing, when the kids were asked to cradle baby dolls in their arms. Robert was very gentle with his, but it was suggested that we have one on hand for when he needs to vent some inevitable pent-up aggression. Other bits of advice included:

• When Two-Bert arrives, we might get a 2-week grace period before Robert starts acting out and demanding that the new baby be re-stuffed from whence it came. This is expected to continue for around six months. (Great. We're basically screwed until Halloween.)
• When people arrive to meet Two-Bert, we should ask them to seek Robert out and ask him to introduce his new sibling. So he doesn't feel completely bypassed.
• If Robert wants to regress and be treated like a little baby, we should indulge it and make is as boring as possible. "You want to be an infant? Fine. Go sit motionless in your bed for five hours."

In sum, we're in for a shitload of work this summer. I know parents have managed it before, and I know we'll joke about it when the kids are grown and fighting like dogs over my prodigious estate. Still, all advice is appreciated.

Tomorrow I return to work, and I will have the meeting that determines whether I'll stay at this job next year. I can't decide if watching all those flopping fetuses has strengthened my ardor for negotiation, or weakened it.