I Am Man

Just to show you that Michael's Daddy some times takes on the big, manly chores around here, I offer some photographic evidence.

This weekend was one of high accomplishment.

It's just the kind of guy I am, one who takes care of his home and family by tackling the hefty projects. This is how I earn time for relaxing in front of the game, Corona in hand, pretzels at the ready.

Observe, the following storage dilemma:



What to do? What on earth to do to solve this problem?

Let me show you:



Yes, that is correct. I applied my manly powers to solve this immense difficulty, and put a 3" deck screw into a shelf that exists between the garage door rails.

And here we have the result:



Oh yeah. I am the man. Hung the weed whacker up and off the floor. Yep, I accomplished something. I wish I could show you a picture of the adoring look my wife gave me upon seeing this incredible work, but I think you can use your imagination. Picture huge batting eyelashes and hands clasped under the chin, head tilted slightly to one side. Yeah, that's the one.

But wait! I am not done!

See, most guys would call it good at that, and rest on their laurels.

But not this guy. No, I have more laurels to gather before resting.

Out in the backyard, I started work on a step.

Yes, indeed! A step from the deck to the grassy lawn below. One that will, upon completion, split the difference between the safety of the lawn and the dizzying height that is the deck surface, more than 10 inches up.

And were that not enough, observe:



If you look closely, you can see the unmistakable greyish-green gloss of concrete.

Yes - I mixed and poured concrete. Into a form. And then put planks on top.

That, my friend, is man work.

I believe right now I'm going to rest on those laurels.

News - and a Note from Michael's Mommy

Big news! Jeremy over at Discovering Dad has some big news! Go check it out and see what I mean.

In a related story, my wife and I were discussing the blogosphere in general, and how obsessed I can get some of us can get about blogging, and all that it entails.

That is, I was moping about my rank according to various meters, and how I was not satisfied with the way things are.

"I can't believe my rank! It's pathetic! I'll have to post today. Hardly anyone posts on the weekends. If I post then their RSS feeds will buzz and everyone will zip over here and put my numbers up."

"Why?"

"Because I have to!"

"Why?"

"What, are you Michael? My numbers are down."

"So this is all about ego?"

Ouch. "No! It's about... well, okay, yes. It is. And it shouldn't be."

"No, it shouldn't."

"This is just about Michael and his sisters and the goofy stuff they do, and how I write it down so that we'll remember it later."

"Right."

"So I shouldn't be concerned about the numbers. But I want people to read it! I want everyone to know about it!"

"Why?"

"So I can feel like I did something great! Every man has to feel that he's made some big mark in the world, left some great impression, done some amazing deed that will be long remembered. I finally found something I think I can do pretty well. Don't you think I can write pretty well?"

She nods. I know that when she runs out of words and starts resorting purely to body gestures, that my point, though valid, is going in a very bad direction.

"I'm not doing so good with my argument, am I?"

She shakes her head no.

"I should just stop right where I am, huh?"

She nods.

"Okay. I'll just leave it then, and I won't mention my numbers or hits or anything any more. I'll be satisfied with whatever there is, and I'll post what I post when I post it. I'll just leave comments on other's blogs because I want to encourage them."

So I sit down to read some of my favorite blogs, and find out that one of them had to rush off because his wife is going to have a baby. I announce this fact to my wife, who has moved on to cleaning.

"You're all nuts! Do you have to write about everything? Do you write about what you're doing in the bathroom? 'I grabbed another square of TP to wipe my butt...'"

"Hey," I start. "I've read some blogs by women who were posting while having a baby!"

She stopped, and gave me that look. "That is beyond comprehension," she said. "I guess I'll just never understand this obsession with blogging you have."

I saw her point.

So naturally, I had to write about it.

And if she doesn't like this after I post it, and she gets mad enough at me for making her look like a curmudgeon, then I'll probably be taking a hiatus for a while to smooth things over. Because that is the kind of husband I am.

Finally, I have to relate that I've just now given Michael a second heaping bowl of Fruity Pebbles. We'll have to sit on an aisle seat at church today because I'm certain we'll be called out by the child care center after Michael performs a true Technicolor yawn in their presence. Such is life.

Day Off

Today, Michael decided he was going to be sick. That is, he got the sniffles, gagged on his phlegm, tossed his cookies in front of Ms K, so she called his mom to bring him home. She's training on a new job and can't miss work, so he and I are at home. He is currently playing with his computer recuperating.



Coincidentally, it is hot. Beastly hot. Hot beyond purpose for this part of the globe:



Which means we're going to be staying inside.

But the Wisteria is loving it:



So for a day, I'm a stay-at-home dad.

And that is fine with me.

Just Sittin'

I was running late to work again this morning.

I practically force-fed Michael his last three bites of sausage, gave him his morning dose of medication, got him dressed and we were out the door like a shot.

He was not pleased. He wanted to play with a new puzzle that he’d gotten for his birthday.

“Not right now, Michael. You’ve got to get to Ms K’s and daddy has to get to work.”

“But I wanna plaaaaaaay…” he whined as I rushed him to the car.

He wanted to climb up into the seat himself, so I let him. It seemed to take the better part of an hour for him to make the distance, scaling the car’s interior like a weekend rock climber, inch by precarious inch. Finally buckled in, we bade his sister goodbye and headed out.

He whined and whimpered wordlessly in the back seat, giving ample voice to his displeasure at being dragged away from his toys and his sister so rudely.

I began humming a happy tune.

“Staaaaaaahhhhp!” he griped.

“Michael, I’d like to hum my tune. Isn’t it okay for me to do that?”

“No! I don’t wanna,” he moaned.

We continued on in silence.

Upon arriving at Ms K’s, I detached this limp, listless little bag of four-year-old bones from his car seat and set him on his feet, then grabbed his lunch box. We walked toward the house while Michael continued his sorrowful protestations.

“Mehhhhhhhh…” he groaned, dragging his feet. “Unngh! I want these down!” he tugged at his shorts.

It was predicted to be a very warm day here in the Portland area, so his mom made me swear to remember to put shorts on him this morning. I tried to play dumb but she wasn’t buying it. “Don’t forget!” she said. So when time came to select his clothes, shorts were the first things on the list.

“Michael, those are shorts. They don’t go down any farther,” I explained.

“No! I want them down!” he griped, still tugging at them fruitlessly.

“It’s going to be hot today. You need to wear shorts.”

“I don’t like shorts. I don’t like hot.”

“I know,” I said, sighing.

As we made our way up the walk to the door, he stopped.

“Let’s sit,” he said, perking up suddenly.

“Sit?” I asked. Ho, boy. This is going to be a time sink. I don’t need that right now.

“Yes, right here,” he said, pointing to the step that separates the lower portion of the walkway with the part that goes by the side of the house.

“Okay,” I said, giving a mental sigh. I refrained from voicing my concern.

I sat down on one side, and he sat down next to me. “Michael, daddy has to get to work,” I said, hoping to impress upon him the urgency of the matter. He was unimpressed. Instead, he just smiled at me.

We sat there and looked at the grass. We looked at the blue sky as the low, puffy clouds made a hasty eastward retreat. We looked at the few remaining blossoms in the small tree of Ms K’s front yard as they fluttered in the breeze. We looked at the backpack-laden bigger kids across the street gathering at the bus stop and bantering with one another. We watched two ants crawl toward us following an unseen trail.

Michael chattered brightly about these little things, his mood vastly improved in the space of just a few minutes. He crawled on my lap and hugged my arm, obviously refreshed and recharged somehow.

Finally, I said “Okay, Michael. Time to go in.”

“Yep,” he said, and got up. He pressed the code on the keypad himself and we went inside.

After he put away his lunch and his shoes, he ran up to me for one last hug.

“Bye, Michael. Be good and learn things.”

“Okay. Bye, daddy!” he said, waved, and bounded off into the house to get a waffle and see his friends.

All in all, I tacked eight, maybe nine minutes onto my lateness. My work was still here when I arrived, and nobody was tapping their toes or glaring at me, fists on waist and elbows akimbo. Those extra minutes were of no consequence here.

But for Michael, those nine minutes were a whole morning’s worth of valuable sittin’ time, time to be with his dad, time to call the shots, time to spend his way.

It made all the difference to him. And sitting here, I see that it made all the difference to me too.

The Apple and the Tree

Saturday mornings I usually make some sort of breakfast-ish thing for the whole crew. This last weekend it was waffles and bacon.

Michael specifically told me he wanted waffles.

“I wanna waffle,” he whimpered, seeing me serve up his Papa G and Gramma M (my dad and step-mom, who were visiting last weekend).

“Okay, Michael. Sit in your spot please,” I said, put a little waffle on his plate, cut it up and set it down.

His sister S, sitting next to him, asked: “Do you want syrup on it?”

“Yes,” he said. She poured some syrup and mixed it all around.

“I wanna watch SpongeBob,” he announced.

“That’s nice,” I said. I made it clear several weeks ago that once he turns four I’m not going to prompt him about asking the proper way: phrasing the question correctly, and saying please.

“No, I wanna!” he whined.

“I’m sure you do,” I said, continuing with what I was doing.

“How do you ask, Michael?” said his sister.

“Please may I will you put in SpongeBob?”

“Close enough,” I said, and we started the DVD.

Sitting in his spot at the table and watching his favorite show, he drank his juice and ignored his grandparents and his food entirely.

Then at some point, true to his ADHD-stricken Dalmatian Puppy nature, he spontaneously clambered out of his chair and ran off in a random direction, his plate of waffle bits entirely undisturbed.

Minutes passed.

My dad and step-mom continued their breakfast, and I sat and ate and chatted with them about the day’s plans, including the delight that would be Michael’s birthday party.

We moved on to coffee, Michael still absent, his waffles inert.

I cleared up the breakfast dishes and coffee cups and sat back down to continue our conversation.

After forty-five minutes I decided enough was enough. Michael wasn’t going to eat his waffle. Fine, he can be an air plant if he wants to. It’s not my job to cram the food down his throat, just to provide the food and the opportunity to eat it.

I took his plate to the counter by the sink.

The plate had only barely made initial contact with the counter surface when Michael came rocketing back into the room and sat down at his seat.

“Where’s my waffle?” he said.

“What, now you want it? You ran off!”

“But I want it!” he whined.

“Well lucky you, I still have it here.”

I brought it back and set it in front of him.

He took his fork, stabbed a single chunk of waffle, stuck it in his mouth, chewed it and swallowed it.

“I’m done,” he said, then got down and ran off again.

Speechless, I gaped at my dad, slack-jawed in incredulity. He just smiled and shook his head sympathetically.

My dad never said so directly, but I think he was probably grateful to see me get a taste of my own medicine.

Manival 3

Over at Schaefer's Blog is the The Manival 3, where a number of manly bloggers, and we here at Being Michael's Daddy, have posted some advice/tutelage/punditry on various aspects of being fatherly, husbandly or just manly in general.

I highly recommend popping over there to read a bit.

I'll wait.

What's Important

Tonight I sat at the dinner and finished up my salad, while Michael goofed around with his orange play-doh and chattered loudly.

Meanwhile, I was trying to listen to the questions on Cash Cab.

I admit it: I'm a TV addict. I have to face this fact. I like it. Way too much.

And that particular show is cool because they ask a lot of bizarre, random questions, and I usually know the answers. And so that makes me feel smart.

But Michael kept going on and on about one thing or another, trying to get my attention.

"I wanna watch SpongeBob!" He said.

"Not right now, Michael. You got to watch SpongeBob when you came home from Ms K's," I retorted.

"Say 'aloooooooone', daddy!"

"Shhhhh"

"Let's play Cash Cab!" he said, meaning that he wanted me to ask him questions that he could answer. I pretend to be driving the cab and asking him questions, usually about his family or other things he's familiar with. We do that in the car some times to entertain him.

"Michael, I can't hear the TV! Please be quiet!"

"Dadddddeeeeeee! I wanna play Cash Cab!" he whined.

"Not right now! I am trying to watch it on TV right now!"

Then it hit me. What the heck was I doing? I was putting the TV ahead of spending precious time with my own child. I looked at my wife, even as I was finishing my last sentence. "I cannot believe the words that just came out of my mouth," I said.

I turned to Michael, who was still talking loudly, and pushing some orange play-doh through his fun factory. Then I looked at the infernal, relationship-destroying box, and turned the volume way down so that only his sister S could still hear it.

"Okay, let's make some cookies, Michael."

"Okay! Let's be Mr Cookie Baker!" he responded, happily.

We took turns rolling out the "dough" and using the cookie cutters in his set to make stars, diamonds, penguins, sharks, clovers and circles. He put them in the "oven" and I put on "sprinkles".

We had a great time making cookies, then snakes, then various odd extruded shapes using the fun factory. He smiled and laughed and behaved as well as I could ever hope for, for the 40 minutes we played there.

I quickly discovered that the TV held nothing for me at all, where the time I spent engaging Michael in some child-led play was golden.

I'm still learning. Michael is a great teacher.

A Mystery: Michael's Natures

For the last few nights Michael has had a last question before going to bed:

"Will you get my natures?" or "I need my natures."

Natures?

"What do you mean, Michael?"

"My natures, I need my natures."

"Is it this?" we ask, pointing to a particular toy with plastic trees on it.

"No, my natures!"

"This?" while touching his bookshelf.

"No."

"Michael, we'll get your natures tomorrow," I say, putting an end to it. "Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!" I say. He likes that.

The question has popped up in one form or another for about a week or so, right after Michael is put to bed and prayers have been said.

This afternoon, while having lunch, my wife said this:

"After we'd gotten back from the grocery store and I'm putting stuff away, Michael asked me to fix his natures."

"Natures! What the heck is he talking about?"

"I don't know. He isn't being very clear about it. I couldn't get him to explain what it was."

"It's a mystery."

"Well, maybe we can find out what it is tonight," she said, and we went on to other topics.

So there we have it: the mysterious item or collection of items known as "Natures"

Any ideas about what this might be? I don't know.

Hopefully we'll find out tonight. We're on a mission of discovery.

Happy Birthday

Michael turned four on Wednesday. On Saturday we had his party, at a local kid party place.

All in all, it was a successful party and a great time was had by all. The proof was that we literally hauled Michael out of there kicking and screaming. He did not want to leave.

As I promised, some pictures of the festivities.

First of all, there was climbing in the play structure. A great way to burn off energy.



And there was the ball pit. It was deep, and Michael was nearly engulfed. Some of the smaller kids disappeared entirely.



There were bubbles,



and a little roller-coaster car that Michael was on and off faster than the poor camera could keep up with.





Then came the real action.

They hauled out the pinata.

Poor old SpongeBob was hung in effigy, and beaten senseless. This wasn't the original plan; they had little pull strings for each kid to take a turn with. Unfortunately every string turned out to be a dud. So they brought out the bat. Michael gave it a good college try, smacking it as hard as he could. The other kids tried hard too. But when the little kids couldn't do the job, we turned to Michael's older sisters. B hit it so hard that it was nearly lost in the rafters. She actually bent the bat. Eventually old dad got a turn, and gave it the necessary beating to force it to yield its treasures.



The party table was nice.



And then, they brought in the special guest. "SpongeBob" made an appearance! Oh, the joy.



Now, I've watched the show a lot. A lot. But I never remember seeing SpongeBob wearing flip-flops. And doesn't he have arms? I felt embarrassed for Michael. He gave this impostor a gimlet eye, and tried to look underneath the tarp that was passing for his favorite character, knowing that this was definitely not the man.

But, they tried. Well... no, they really didn't. But... well, uh...

Anyway, there was cake too:



Happy Birthday, Michael.