Month: May 2016

Cornbread

Well shit.

We were working in the right direction. Only a cat left. A few rabbits but those are nature’s version of chicken nuggets so they wouldn’t be any trouble to turn loose and allow cats or owls or cars to finish the job. We were almost free and Supermom had to scroll on Facebook Friday afternoon and notice that the local Humane Society was holding a sidewalk sale the next morning. Little boxer-mix puppies that could be picked up and played with. Oh joy.

I made her swear a blood oath that it was “just to look” and that we would most definitely not be bringing one home. She pinkie-swore.

Then a strange thing happened.

I still don’t understand the chain of events. One minute we are looking at the cute little puppies and studying their personalities and the next I am holding this sweet snuggly dog. Her ears were soft just like Biscuit’s had been. The last thing I did when I said goodbye to Biscuit was to stroke her ears. I held them against my cheek and kissed her goodbye. They were so soft. These new ears were just as soft. Plus she was the same color brown and she rested her head on my hand the same exact way. If I were Hindu, there would be no doubt that this dog was my first diapered daughter, reincarnated.

So… I am holding this new dog and I got lost in the moment of thinking about my old dog. I got a little choked up and I hugged her like a teddy bear. Bad decision. I felt a tear run down my check. Dammit. Then Supermom noticed and asked me if I was okay. Anyone on the verge of an emotional come-apart knows that you should never attempt to talk. So of course I tried to talk. I tried to say, “I am fine. I just miss Biscuit.” Whatever the hell I said, it did not come out that way.

One of my manliest moments can now be described as standing in front of Pet Co, hugging a puppy and crying like a five year old who wants a toy that he can’t have. Did I mention the seven complete strangers who were innocent bystanders? Nothing is quite as uncomfortable as watching a grown man cry over a puppy.

Long story short. We bought the dog. I would say we rescued the dog but we bought her. We had to pay money before we could take her home so I file that under “bought a dog”. Buying a puppy at a flea market for $20 is more of a rescue really.

Such an innocent face.

Second step to puppy ownership is the agonizing process of naming. There were lots of good entries to our naming contest. Lots of good discussion. We settled on Cutie Judy Cornbread. Judy being the primary name for yelling across the backyard. Although I would like to yell, “Cornbread! You get your ass over here right now!” Just to keep rumors of our insanity alive in the neighborhood.

Turns out, Cornbread is an apt name because she has been leaking batter out of her anus for the last few days. Stress, new food, or something called coccidia bacteria. Who knows? I do know that this happened…

What the fuck Judy? My loafer? You have acres of dirty clothes, carpet, hardwood, and tile yet you back the trailer up to a loafer and unload. It was a weird consistency too. Imagine that the cheese industry was faced with hard times and needed to revive their brand so they tried to mix up flavors. Her poop was something like a peanut butter cottage cheese with the odor of dead fish in gym socks.

In my shoe.

No good deed goes unpunished.

If you had intentions of a normal Memorial Day weekend but ended up losing your man-card and three articles of business casual clothing, this post is for you. Me too.

You’re welcome. Let’s all take a nap.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

The Butthole Game

Keep your hands to yourself. It is the number one rule. One of many that they ignore constantly. I’m not entirely sure why I try to maintain any respectable behavior at all. It isn’t like I’m good at any kind of punishment or maintaining consistency.

The first time Jane said “shit” it was perfectly in context. I would have said shit in that scenario. She was walking along with a cup of cereal or juice or something and tripped, flinging it all over the floor. She might have been channeling my inner thoughts because I was thinking, “Great. Now I have to fix another one. Shit.”

In high school I used to play hacky sack. I would say I was casual and didn’t play religiously but we played at youth group so maybe I only played religiously? Anyway. One of the games was a variation of red dot. Basically, if you let the hacky sack drop then you stand against a wall and someone throws it at you. Duck your head and cover your junk and you will be fine. Maybe you will have a bruised kidney or something but what’s a little organ damage to a seventeen year old? So remember this game; Make a mistake = Get punished. Moving on.

There was another game called Corndog. The rules of this game were more random. If someone is standing around and oblivious to their surroundings and engaged in a discussion with someone else then using a hand in the karate chop style you would cram your victims pants into their butt crack with a vertical chopping motion and yell “CORNDOG!” This game was more about violation of physical boundaries by adolescents. I would blame this on guys but I was “introduced” to this game by a female in a group of people I had just met. Awkward. It is a strange bond to have with someone who has karate chopped a wedgie into your butt crack.

My children, whom I hoped to protect from both types of silly and unnecessary games, have nullified my efforts. Tonight I heard Threeto say out loud, “Let’s play the butthole game.” I thought to myself, sweet Jesus what sort of fresh hell is this? Naturally I rushed to investigate.

UD: Hey! What kind of game is this Butthole? It doesn’t sound like anything you should be playing.
Jane: Really dad? We have been playing for years.
UD: That doesn’t sound good.
Prima: We ask each other questions and if you get the answer wrong…
Threeto: (Forms a fist with the middle knuckle raised. Proceeds to punch herself in the butt.) BAM!
Jane: You get punched in the butthole!
UD: I… (I started to laugh because of how serious Threeto had punched herself. I felt laughing didn’t send the right message so I excused myself for a minute.) I’ll be right back. (Still laughing)

I retreated to the kitchen where Supermom was working on a cake.

Supermom: What?
UD: They are playing a game called butthole and punching each other in the butthole.
Supermom: Why are you laughing? That isn’t funny.
UD: I know right? I am so uncomfortable that I am just laughing. I will talk to them. I just need a minute.
Supermom: What is wrong with them? Good God.

I bravely walked back to the bedroom full of giggling children.

UD: Okay that’s it! No one punch anyone in the butthole!
Jane: But you were just laughing.
UD: Uuummm. Threeto had a booger. Butt punching is not funny. I wasn’t laughing at that. NO PUNCHING BUTTS!
All: Okay…

I hope my bluff holds. The last thing anyone needs is explaining any of that weirdness.

UPDATE – I finished the top part of this last night and went to bed.
Then at 4:00 AM. A loud knocking on my bedroom door.
UD: UUUGH. What?!?
Jane: Prima needs you. She won’t stop crying.
I got up and walked into the room.
UD: What is it Prima? Why are you crying?
Prima: *sniffle* Coffins…
UD: What?
Prima: I’m scared of coffins.
UD: You woke me up at 4 am because you are scared of coffins?
Prima: They are scary.
UD: You are campaigning for one. Go back to sleep. (I say really crappy things when I am tired)
Prima: Okay.
UD: I love you though, but stop obsessing over things and go to sleep.

Everyone went back to sleep. The next morning I talked with Jane to make sure they knew not to play any games that were awful. We all acted like nothing happened at 4am.

UD: So you girls aren’t playing the butt punching game right?
Jane: No, we are playing a better game.
UD: What is that?
Jane: Death tickles.
UD: You girls are really letting me down here. *sigh* What is death-tickles?
Jane: Threeto acts like she is tickling you but she pinches and scratches you.
UD: Don’t play that either.
Jane: Uuuugh. Can’t we do anything?
UD: Yes. Anything. Just not anything that causes physical harm.
Jane: I knew it. We can’t do anything.

I am just blaming public schools at this point.

If you think public schools are allowing your innocent angels to learn horrible games, this post is for you. You’re welcome.I agree. Surely my little angels wouldn’t come up with all this violent madness on their own.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

All the Little Things

This week is a special guest post from my awesome wife and sidekick, Supermom. I came home one day to her special exhausted/rage face and I knew she was cleaning the playroom. She had spent a lot of time stewing over the playroom disaster so we decided that she would take a chance to guest post and share a rant of her own. I’ll have her blogging in no time!

We have an upstairs “room”. This room was unfinished when we bought the house but as we started to grow we decided to finish it. Because we had three kids at the time Underdaddy and I decided to DIY it. During this DIY decision we didn’t factor in that we didn’t know how to finish the room. After a lot of fussing and cussing and a little help from family we finished it, it wasn’t pretty to say the least but it was functional so we turned it into a play room!

The rules would be:

1. Toys stay upstairs, no toys will travel down to the lower level.

2. You have to keep it clean;

Neither rule is enforced or followed!!

So about every 6 months I put on my mommy panties, grab my broom, garbage bags, and alcohol to tackle the shit storm of toys and god only knows what else. My six month cleaniversary was this past week and after six bags of garbage (not even broken toys, straight up nasty trash! Note: I found actual SHIT!) a pile of trash by the curb, and three giant boxes of giveaway shit, I decided to do a little math.

I know. WTF? Why math?

I had a good reason (mainly I needed a break before I lit a match and just walked away). I calculated just how many toys my children get at just one Christmas. Let me give you some back info before we get into the equations. Every year before Christmas I get the same few texts/emails/calls from grandparents, aunts, and friends “What do the kids want for Christmas?”, “Make a Christmas list for the kids.”, “What are the girls into now?” with the main goal of what can I buy the kids! Every year I get the messages and every year I answer the same way “They don’t really need anything” and “Please only 1 toy per child” (I know this makes me sounds like a total tight ass, because what young kid likes to open clothes/shoes for Christmas but I promise I have a reason beyond wanting to suck the joy out of my kids!). The grandparents always say “ok” but when the day comes there are always more than one toy per child!! The grandparents always say “well I just had to get “it” or I felt bad for not getting them more toys to open!”

I get it, I really do but OMG the amount of “things” in my already small house is taking over my life!

So let’s do the math: (I am only including the normal gifters in the equation)

My children are blessed with,
4 sets of grandparents
3 sets of Aunts/ Uncles
3 sets of Great grandparents
5 sets of Great Aunts/Uncles
3 Other category (could be family friends or school friends)
18 total gift givers X 4 kids = 72 total gifts (that is if each “set” gives only 1 gift)

That is a lot of potential gifts but I couldnt stop there. I broke it down even further because I really didn’t want to get back to cleaning!

Every toy has an average of 5 pieces X 4 kids, so that’s 360 pieces. If you are lucky enough to get a Lego set with 200 pieces X 4 kids, that’s up to 14,400 tiny pieces.

This calculation only includes one gift giving holiday. Birthdays, Easter, and random toy purchases throughout the year aren’t included. Also doesn’t include Santa and our gifts.

I am also going to take a minute to answer the question you have in your head right now (I have social anxiety so I judge myself to see what others are saying about me).

Question: If the room is so nasty in six months why not clean it sooner?

Answer: Six months is usually the time it takes for me to emotionally get over it!

Question: If they have so many toys why don’t you donate to goodwill or RIFA before Christmas.

Answer: The main problem with this idea is that in one month they will have broken a quarter of the toys and by six months they will have broken most of the rest. So the toys aren’t fit to give to anyone after my Godzilla children enjoy their toys. I would be donating toy scraps.

The good news is that with all my cleaning and throwing away we are well prepared for the next holiday and all of the “just one thing” toys that we expect to get. The kids love opening surprises and I don’t want to take that from them but wow it is a lot of stuff.

-Supermom

News From the Front

I am watching a nature show. Disney Jr is doing a short segment on how a troop of monkeys (troupe?) looks after the baby monkeys. I feel like I am looking in a mirror instead of a television. One child is climbing the side of the couch and jumping off into a pile of laundry. One child is pilfering through my hair. Lady Bug is sitting on my lap and alternating between poking my nipples and my bellybutton. I have no idea where her fascination with poking nipples comes from but she giggles every time. I silently remind myself why I always wear a shirt, because you can’t trust a kid around a nipple.

There was this other time when it was really late at night and Supermom was tired from rocking a crying baby. I rolled out of bed and took the baby and lay her gently against my chest. The next thing I know there was a rushing of air like the sound a vacuum makes when you stick the hose to someone’s face. Awkward. I plucked the lactic leech off the male mammary and began the wise habit of always wearing a T-shirt. You never can be too safe.

Speaking of false sense of security, our youngest had a random blowout diaper. The kind that bubbles up the front and onto the floor, her hands, and my bed sheet as she rushed to tell mommy she had pooped. Once again we were up until midnight waiting for dry blankets. I am ready for this potty training thing to begin. We are down to one excretory system that requires diapers in this house, which is nice. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I have friends with children who are making strides towards potty training. One such child reached the milestone of recognizing the urge to poop and removing her own pants to poop… directly in the center of the carpet. She was so proud. That is definitely a time to be a glass-half-full kind of guy. My kid calls me over before she shits and basically keeps me on standby to repair the damage she is about to do in her diaper. She doesn’t want to try the potty. She just wants a peasant nearby to wipe her royal ass to prevent chaffing.

This kid knows how to go and GI Joe says knowing is half the battle. It kind of looks like a prancing Irish Setter at a dog show.

Other big news this week…

Don Threeto practiced cutting hair and Supermom had to carry Lady Bug to get some minor shaping. She was combing the knots out of Lady Bug’s hair before leaving and she stopped to send me this text…

I remember going to the Children’s Museum and getting lice from trying on the fireman’s helmets. It is something like a rite of passage for children to have a lice scare at some point. But a flea? And a mystery flea at that. Where did it come from? The main culprit, our dog, has been reduced to ashes and crammed in a wooden box. She didn’t do it. Everyone else is in the clear. The house has been double sanitized and the cat was inspected better than a strange bag at an airport. The only thing we can figure is that she got it from playing with the outside dogs or rolling in the grass. Who knows?

Which brings me to my next question, what pest treatment have you found most effective for children? Flea collars? The squeeze on liquid that you put between their shoulder blades so they can’t scratch? Or should I alternate bath soaps from Johnson and Johnson to Hartz Flea and Tick Dip?

Leave me a vote in the comments.

If your kids poke nipples, crap in the floor, or have fleas, this post is for you. I promise our kids are well cared for and the appropriate amount of attention is given to all things hygienic. I made a promise a while ago to be open and honest to my readers and myself so here you go. This wasn’t the first disgusting week and it won’t be the last. Supermom is preparing a guest post about cleaning the playroom. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

Fifteen Days In May

There is a rumor around my line of work; If it rains on the first day of May then it will rain a total of fifteen days in May. A more specific version of “When It Rains It Pours”. So far it seems to be correct that dreariness begets more gloom and doom. It is hard to wake up ready to tackle the world when you go to bed feeling behind.

For example, on Saturday, Supermom decided to change out the summer/winter wardrobes. Along with the switch is the sizing up of each child who have all managed to grow over the past few months. Therefore, it was absolutely necessary to bring in eleven Tupperware boxes from the garage and sort though each piece of clothing. Plus we did shoes.

I feel like the picture doesn’t quite cover it.

I say “we” but I just carried the heavy stuff back and forth. The volume of clothes and shoes and gloves and hats and… just shit… that goes along with four kids. We have a bag of hats that could keep the neighborhood warm on a field trip to Alaska. We have enough gloves that each kid could wear one for the sole purpose of wiping their ass one time and we still wouldn’t need toilet paper for a week. The quantity of shoes is obscene but even worse if the fact that ninety percent of them are utterly destroyed by the fact that my club footed Orc children can’t stand vertically and end up walking on the sides of the shoes. And dragging the toes of the shoes. I couldn’t scrape the toes any more completely if I gave a monkey a fat rock of meth and fresh package of 80 grit sandpaper. Holy sheep shit on a sandwich. Give me a minute…

And they shed.

One pass with the vacuum.

People talk about pets being dirty or high maintenance (totally true) but I don’t think children are much better. Supermom vacuumed around the bedrooms and found enough hair for a fifth American Girl doll. We have enough stray toy parts and doll clothes to fashion a Frankenstein style doll. She would have to be a) homeless or b) a stripper for the hair to pass a reality check with all the glitter and shreds of colored paper. Man these kids have me frazzled today, I just suggested we make a Frankenstein American Girl Doll who is also a homeless stripper.

What else can I bitch about?

Did I share the picture of toothpaste on the stairs? At least it will match the toothpaste on the wall, light switch, carpet, most white shirts, sink, mirror, bathtub, and toilet. Notice I didn’t say toothbrush. That is because they avoid actually using the paste correctly. Speaking of finding the toothpaste in the toilet, here is a fun anecdote. I was in the middle of scrubbing out a toilet one day and one of the children walks up and looks quizzically at the stain in the toilet. She then says, “Try a toothbrush, they work really well for that.” We bought all new toothbrushes that night.

Yay for the Dora the Explorer Lou-fa hanger that is stuck on the column. (I don’t know if I spelled Lou-fa correctly but that is what auto-correct gave me so…)

So today we received the remains of our diapered dog biscuit. Things are better but it is still hard when you keep remembering the little things. I knock on the front door softly so that she won’t bark. Stuff like that. Also, I have never had a box of cremated remains. It is more comforting that I would have thought.

How cute. This is my favorite picture of her.

Then this afternoon I got a text with the following picture attached.

This is Lady Bug’s hair. She did not have a hair appointment scheduled today.

It seems that Don Threeto decided it was time to hand out a haircut. I had hoped we would miss this milestone. Everyone has a haircut story but we have been clean for the better part of nine years. There was that one time that I cut the bow out of Jane’s hair when she came home from the hospital but I was a new dad and I thought the glue would hurt her if I tugged it so I’m not counting that one. In hindsight, Threeto did a pretty good job and it isn’t really obvious that Lady Bug has been thinned out up front. Maybe she has a secret talent.

If you are bracing yourself for a rainy May, this post is for you. Stay low, life is swinging hard this month. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.