Blog Archives
The Old Days
Every once in a while, my wife daydreams about what it would be like if we lived during a different time in history. However, her “creative” interpretation of which historical events actually happened when often prompts her to fact-check with me before launching into said daydream. For example:
Wife: When was World War I?
Me: The 1910s.
Wife: Okay, then I think I could live in the 1920s.
Me: You sure you could handle Prohibition?
Wife: Oh, that was then? Never mind. That’d be stupid.
.
And so this weekend, while savoring a slice of cheese from a Costco platter, she mused…
Wife: I think I could live in the Old Days. They at least had cheese, right?
Me: I guess that depends which “old days” you’re talking about. Like, what time period?
The Easter Visor
“You don’t have an Easter bonnet for her?” my mother gasped.
My wife had just unveiled the dress she’d bought our daughter to wear for Easter, but apparently it was an incomplete ensemble. “Um, no?” my wife replied, confused.
“But how can she go to church on Eater Sunday without an Easter bonnet?”
Something my wife did not learn until this Easter is the importance my mother places on the little girls in our family having bonnets to accompany their dresses on Easter Sunday. Growing up with two younger sisters, I remember it being the biggest effing deal every year for them to find the perfect hats for their outfits, because my dad and I would wait for my mom and sisters outside of every damn clothing store in the mall, wondering what the hell was taking them so long, often ditching them to buy me a couple of packs of baseball cards. (Thanks, Dad!)
“Well,” my mother smiled. ” Don’t worry. I’ll find her a bonnet.”
We weren’t worried, Mom.
With all that my wife and I have going on (and the knowledge that no hat stays on my daughter’s head for longer than five minutes anyway), our feeling was, Sure, if it will make your heart sing to get her a bonnet, knock yourself out.
Sure enough, a day or two later, when we were picking up the kids from her house, my mother presented us with a pinkish-purple bonnet she boasted to have found at our local “everything-costs-one-dollar” store, a place she now swears by as THE place to find fun toys, stickers, and holiday favors for the Twins without breaking the bank.
We had to admit, the bonnet was pretty darn adorable, so it was settled–our daughter now had an Easter bonnet and my mother would finally be able to sleep at night again.
Things I Did This Weekend: A Non-Exhaustive List
1. Woke up at 3am both mornings to rescue the Twins from drowning in a sea of their own mucus, caused by a recent onslaught of sickness.
2. Wiped tiny noses every thirty seconds, literally working through six boxes of tissues.
3. Wiped tiny squirts of child cold medicine defiantly spat at me off my face every four to six hours.
4. Listened to my washing machine suddenly start playing dubstep mid-cycle, culminating in a crash and sudsy water pooling below it.
I told it three times to let me know if it needed to go potty.
5. Helped my wife scour the Pseudonymous Family’s vast collection of receipts and instruction booklets for the washing machine’s warranty information, continually chasing down toddlers who took off running with unsearched piles, wiping their noses on them.
6. Worked during too-short naptimes and into the wee hours of the night on a National Science Foundation research grant proposal that is due Wednesday and nowhere near done.
7. Got my son to repeat “My Precious” several times after he woke up from a nap with a raspy, swollen-sinus voice that made him sound exactly like Gollum. Which made it all worth it.
Losing My Head
“Okaaaay, whooo’s readyyy?” sang my wife.
The Twins stared back with tiny brows furrowed, still working out why the hell there was now a tree in our living room.
“We’re going to decorate the tree for Christmas!” she beamed. This is a tradition my wife and I look forward to every year–one we absolutely could not wait to include the Twins in. Although last year was their first Christmas, they were still about a month away from walking and even further from the precise hand technology required for hooking an ornament onto a tree branch.
However, this year would be different, as they now demonstrate proficiency in not only walking, but also running, especially away from Daddy while stealing his iPhone, and verify their accurate hand-eye coordination as they unlock said iPhone in order to delete apps and contacts (if your name begins with “M” and and you never hear from me again, it was a pleasure knowing you).
“Oh, look!” my wife chimed, pulling out the Inaugural Ornament of the 2012 Pseudonymous Christmas Season. She sat on the floor as the Twins rushed over. “This is a very special ornament that Grandma got us when you were still in Mommy’s tummy. See, these snowmen are our family. There’s a daddy snowman like Daddy, a mommy snowman like Mommy, and then a little girl snowman and a little boy snowman, like you!”
