Toby

Big Dads Dont Cry

Tonight was a tough one. It started with Toby abandoning the will to live and convulsing in what is known as “death throes”. I was talking to Supermom on the phone on my drive home and she went into a blubbering panic about holding our dying pet in her arms. She pleaded for me to “hurry home” and “help me” but I was sitting in traffic. He died before I got there.

I know he was a pet. I know he belonged to a group of animals that seem to welcome death with open arms. Animals aren’t people. Those facts didn’t stop me from being upset. Sometimes animals feel like people. They have personality and give affection. They become a part of our lives. Then they die a violent death in the middle of your king sized bed.

I felt guilty about crying. Like it was silly for a dad to cry about a pet. Then my girls noticed and asked me a question.

“Daddy, Are you crying?”

“Yes honey. Daddy is sad.”

“Do boys cry?”

“Of course. Boys get sad just like girls and some cry…the strong ones do anyway. It is okay to cry.” Then they joined me in a hug and we worked through our sad moment together.

Our society works hard to project the image of the stoic male, holding his head high while his females sob at his feet. He is unaffected by their petty tears. He knows that life is hard. Rub some dirt in it. Shake it off. There is no crying in baseball.

I don’t want to ever be that guy. I don’t want to be that kind of dad.

I want to be strong when needed but I have learned to not fight my tears. Tears are how the soul waves at the things it loves. My soul loves lots of things.

I have decide to not feel guilty for loving things or showing that I do. It is a waste of time.

If you are a big boy or girl and you totally cry sometimes, this post is for you. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

Annual Bahumbug Convention

It seems like forever since I wrote something on here that I that was worth hitting publish. I guess it will be a few more weeks. Today I am just dumping an update on the ups and downs around our household.

The other night kicked off the week when in the course of one hour I discovered rabbit poop in my pocket, chased a naked two year old swinging a pirate sword, and was bitten by a wallaby. Just a normal start to a week I suppose. That was before Toby took a turn for the worse.

I have mentioned before that a wallaby desires nothing more than to die. They are almost indistinguishable from a gothic teen. More Emo than Goth actually because they aren’t angry just dark and suicidal. They even have black fingernails. Early this week Toby started to show signs of not feeling well. He stopped eating and slowly lost energy to the point where he didn’t want to stand up. Then he stopped talking his bottles and even refused to hump a stuffed animal. Truly dire straits.

First trip to a vet revealed cloudy lungs indicating pneumonia. Oral antibiotics. Next day he wouldn’t even lift his head. We searched several avenues for a cure and opted to go back to the vet. We tried an injectable antibiotic and were feeding him with a syringe. He improved slightly over the next day but still didn’t try to get up very much. He ate on a sweet potato for an evening but now he won’t even touch that. His breathing has improved but not his will to live.

Today he went back to the vet for another round of antibiotics and fluids. All I can say at this point is that he isn’t dead. We are on a mission of hourly hydration and force feeding. If he wants to die he will have to man-up and do it because I have other plans. Sometimes the cure for a hard set depression is persistent TLC. Stay tuned…

In other news, we attended the Christmas lunch and caroling for the oldest two children. I love seeing them in their element outside of the home. They have their own friends and routines and seeing their independence is a beautiful thing. A nice random conversation:

(I walked into the bathroom and a small boy in my oldest child’s class was leaving. He looked at me like he recognized me.)
Boy: Hey you.
Me: Hi.
Boy: My friend told me that your kid robbed the school.
Me: …Um…No?
Boy: Ok.

Then he left, apparently sufficiently satisfied that I didn’t raise a criminal. I am still curious if someone robbed our school and I didn’t know about it. Life is so random sometimes. Oh well, onward!

Reasons I felt like a loser this week include:
1) Forgetting to remind the family that there was a lunch/singing event.
2) Waiting until yesterday to actually purchase a Christmas tree. We had the joy of picking through the last eight trees that Lowes had but at least they were marked down 25%. Probably related to the amount of leaves that had fallen off already. No soaping the tree because our AIDS ridden wallaby might eat it and die.
3) We washed clothes for each coming day, the night before. This entire week. I vote for moving to a nudist colony. It would only be a change for myself and Supermom.
4) I am fluctuating between hoping Toby lives to hoping Toby dies. I hate the indecision. After a week of critical care he should have the decency to recover already. Or die. I don’t want that though. I am willing him to live. Somehow they become like children. Part of the family. He will spend thirty minutes staring at his reflection and I will wonder, “What is he thinking?” only to realize that he probably isn’t thinking. He is a stupid selfish, dying jerk. And he smells like maple syrup from peeing on himself but in thirty minutes I will feed him again and try to talk him into surviving. Is anger the first stage of grief? I think so. It is what you do…
5) I stayed up too late every night this week and twice our Elf on the Shelf wasn’t able to move to a new place. The kids love that thing.

Oh yeah I almost forgot. Prima, our resident ballerina, fell face first into the bleacher at school while sitting on it and she bit a hole in her lip, knocked out a bottom tooth, and had to go to the doctor’s office to check it all out. The PE teacher was really concerned and assured us that she was sitting and talking with her friends when she absentmindedly leaned to the wrong side. I believe him because I watched her do the same thing off the couch about a year ago and she broke her wrist. Only to Prima is watching TV a dangerous sport.

So to recap… some sort of doctor’s office, bodily injury, and impending emotional loss every day this week.

Merry Fucking Christmas.

-Underdaddy

ps. 88% of my survey respondents rarely or never shower with a significant other. 12% of you are awesome. The other 88% either stink or need to work on your relationships. Just saying.

Frisky Business

We have a teenager living in the house and he is learning about hormones and physical urges. I don’t know how to talk with him. I mean that quite literally, I have zero idea how to actually talk with him in a way that he will understand. It is getting a little uncomfortable because he is being inappropriate with family and I have even caught him with a couple of “friends”.

Take this afternoon for instance. I woke up from a really awesome nap and as I was leaving my room I see him standing up really fast from something he was doing in the floor. The young lady next to him was looking a little disheveled and her skirt was entirely too short. I’m not saying she was asking for it but she wasn’t helping the situation. Hello Kitty indeed.

I never considered this kind of behavior out of Ms Kitty.

We talked about what is appropriate and the fact that his mother “is in the next room” and that she would be disappointing in his behavior. He scratched his stomach and hopped right past me into the hallway. He was ignoring me but I played it cool. I remember my teenage years and chasing something in a short pink skirt is not a glass house that I could throw rocks at.

Fast forward to this evening and I couldn’t believe that he pulled the same stunt again. This time the young lady was a little brasher. Her skirt was just window dressing and her bare backside was out in broad daylight. There was also no denying the activity that they were involved in; he was laid out in a full horizontal mambo. He was stuffing Poly-Fill like nobody’s business. I know what needs to be done.

Look at that hussy. Flying around seducing marsupials.

Look at that hussy. Flying around seducing innocent marsupials.

I talked with a doctor on Friday and she agreed to help me cut off his balls. I feel bad because I know what he is in for but we have all the animals, stuffed and real, that we ever need. God help us if either start to breed.

I guess I will just have to deal with the excess bravado for the next week or so until we can complete the snip. I was surprised at the amount of trepidation that most veterinarians had when I asked them to try the procedure. I was to the point where I was going to feed him whiskey and use the garden shears. No need to worry though, I found someone to help and she even suggested that we remove the scrotum. I told her that as long as he wasn’t banging Hello Kitty in front of three slack jawed girls then I would be happy. I don’t care if she makes a coin purse to sell at a craft fair. Snip. Snip. Clock is ticking lady.

We did consider buying a stuffed T-Rex for some “stress relief”.

If you are dealing with strange hormones then this post is for you. I’m not ready for the real struggle of actual children with teenage hormones in a few years. I can barely discuss the scrotum of a pet with a straight face. Oh well. No turning back now.

-Underdaddy

Edge of the Cliff Notes

Fun Conversations

Jane: Can we have a balloon?
Underdaddy: No. You will pop it in two seconds and then you will leave the plastic in the floor. Toby will eat the plastic and die. Then I will have to bury him in the backyard and I don’t feel like digging a hole right now.
Jane: You could bury him tomorrow.
Underdaddy: I think you missed my point.

Still looking like a smug asshole. Fetch me a soda water peasant.

Still looking like a Caesar of the household. Fetch me a soda water peasant.

Underdaddy: Supermom… What do you know about this little plastic pony?
Supermom: (from the bedroom) What pony?
Underdaddy: The one with the turd on it. In the cat’s water bowl.
Supermom: That isn’t the cat’s water bowl.
Underdaddy: So you know about the pony?
Supermom: No. I just know the cat uses Biscuit’s bowl for water.
Underdaddy: Nevermind.

Underdaddy: Threeto! Stop licking everything. Jesus.
Threeto: What can I lick?
Underdaddy: Nothing! Maybe a lollipop but even that is sort of frivolous… (Looks at Prima digging at her wedgie) Prima! Get your hand out of your pants.
Supermom: *giggles and posts to Facebook*

Prima: Daddy can we paint?

Underdaddy: No you never clean up the mess.
Prima: We will this time.
Underdaddy: You never do. You can’t go backwards, you have to do good first.
Prima: Not if you let us…

Fun Discoveries

There are worse things to step on than Legos. We have a battery powered Tea Light that could double as a road spike for law enforcement. I could run a rope through my foot and audition as Pinocchio on broadway. “OOOOOHHHH, I got no strings to hold me down, to lift me up, to make me frown, I had strings but you can see, I got no strings on me.” Nice right?

Kids are total suckers for magician-style misdirection. They are still confused how I can make balloons change colors. Basically I hold one balloon way up in the air while doing whatever I want with my other hand. I could thumb wrestle, play piano, or grab another color of balloon and stick it in my back pocket.

My oldest child can fly. More on that later…

Oh yeah. Cat vomit is super slippery. I wonder if NASA knows about the lubricant properties of cat vomit. It might be useful in zero gravity space tools.

While I do plan to write the story of how Jane learned to fly, I haven’t exactly had time to write much lately. If life bogs you down and you only have time to put together the Cliff Notes, this post is for you. You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.

Rabbit Habit

I got an interesting phone call.

“Hey, where are you guys?” Mamaw politely asks.

“We are driving into town to pick something up.”

“Are you going to be back this way soon?” she inquires. “The store closes at 4:00 and we need some rabbit food.”

“Maybe. I will let you know when we are leaving.” I did the calculations of travel distance and time of day. It would be around 3:45 before we could make it to the store and that was cutting it close. Maybe was the best I could do.

“Okay.” She answered.

“Okay.” And I hung up the phone.

Then I realized the true problem. My mother doesn’t own a rabbit. Why would they need rabbit food? Has she forgotten the trauma that rabbit ownership can cause? I quickly sent a follow-up text message.

I couldn’t wait for a reply and so Facebook came to the rescue.

Look what we got!

Sure enough, good old Grandpa caved-in, like a cheap shed in a snowstorm. In fact, he was so completely soft that he imagined the temporary distress that merely asking for a rabbit might cause and that was too much for him to bear. He made a preemptive strike and told Prima to decide if she wanted a rabbit and pick one out. She selected a red eyed albino.

I introduce you to Bun-Bun.

Bun-Bun is the lump under the sheep.

You might notice a white animal on the couch that I haven’t mentioned before, that is a lamb. Jane accompanied Grandpa to the goat sale about a week ago and I got a similar Facebook notification that a purchase of a baby sheep had been made. This was a pity purchase as well because one of the pet goats died the week before.

Buddy was a good goat. Lets take a moment of silence to remember our fallen four legged brothers. At least boobfreckles is still alive. And Toby. He is doing good too.

That’s my boy! Getting big.

Although, once he gains another half pound or so, he will be losing his manhood. I caught him humping a stuffed yellow dog but I didn’t intervene. Enjoy it while you can little buddy. No judging.

If you have a life that always has room for one more kid, or animal, or whatever, this post is for you. You’re welcome. We should probably be doing something more productive with our time and resources but really I can’t imagine what that might be. Because if you can watch people open mystery packs of My Little Pony on YouTube without a lamb to share it with, is life worth living?

You notice the torture and pain that my girls put these poor animals through.

Kids get more life lessons out of social interactions and baby farm animals are a good analog for some of the bright minds they will come across in society. I’ve met a few sheep and goats along the way.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.