Readers; a guest post by Phenomenal Dad and guess what? It is phenomenal! Who knew, eh?
Ok, It is a bit long...Brevity, not really my strongest suit unless it is academic writing. Enjoy!
Awkward Mom may have her doubts, but I am confident in her. I am especially confident in her gardening skills. She has planted the seeds of guest bloggership and they are their way to becoming a full on garden of guests. That seed brings me here for this post. As I am dad to Phenomenal Baby, I guess that makes us the Phenomenal Family. A little background as this is my first post. For the past two years I have been a man of many hats; stay at home dad, doctoral student, part time faculty, and hero for hire. Having just recently defended my dissertation and taken on a FT temporary job.. things are certainly interesting around our house. My wife works FT and co-manages the Phenomenal Herd along with a bazillion other side projects.
In general I pride myself on being a pretty prepared dad. Phenom mom ( did anyone else read that and instantly hear do do do dodo menomenon in their head?) and I make an excellent team and balance each other out well. We of course have our moments, days, weeks etc. but overall we have a knack for falling into our child checklist as we head out the door. Like any team, we do have our specialty areas though. Early prep, budget and planning, are all typically Phenomenal Mom. I tend to do the on the fly, crisis intervention, improvisation stuff. This bit of info is particularly relevant for my post today as Phenomenal Mom is in Ireland with her Mother for the next 8 days (3 days have already passed).
Now with the planner in the house gone some things are just more…interesting. Phenomenal Mom left me an envelope of pre written checks for childcare and such and reminders to get me through (did I mention she does our budgeting and finances…yeah some days I wonder what I do too). This is awesome, but it still left me with Candy and Poo which is what I am focusing on today.
Ok, so this morning the big bet was, “Will I make it to church without Phenomenal Mom there to ride herd?” The answer as it turns out, is yes. We even got there before mass started! I am not exactly sure when a Phenomenal Baby becomes a Phenomenal Toddler, but if walking and getting into everything in creation, and climbing the walls, literally, are signs of toddlerhood, she is in the early stages. So anyway I had my coffee we all had breakfast, and Church went well. Phenomenal Boy drew on the backs of the offering envelope as usual. After Church I took Phenomenal Boy and Phenomenal Baby Toddler to the park where they romped and explored without incident for a little over an hour. They day started so well…until the nap. While Phenomenal Baby Toddler was napping Phenomenal Boy asked if he could have a piece of Halloween Candy. I gave him one piece. That is all he gets in a given day as too much sugar turns Phenomenal Boy into Dear Lord Stop Me From Swatting Your Arrogant Cranky Behind Boy. Though he knows the answer, Phenomenal Boy has the mistaken belief that I will cave to further candy requests if Phenomenal Baby is keeping me occupied. So for the rest of the evening after Phenomenal Baby woke up from her nap, every time Phenomenal Baby got a little fussy Phenomenal Boy asked for candy, ice cream or some random sweet we do not have. He then proceeded to pull out his candy bucket and “just look at it” while I was fixing dinner. “Get away Phenomenal Baby it’s mine!!” comes growling from the other room. I poke my head into the living room from the kitchen to see Phenomenal Baby with a fist full of Phenomenal Boy’s candy and a unopened airhead sticking out of her mouth as Phenomenal Boy pulls at the candy. Phenomenal Boy sounds very Hulk like as he yell. “My Candy! Not For YOU!” Now Phenomenal Hulkling …er..Boy is normally a very articulate 1stgrader. This confirms that a) maybe he needs real food in his body b) maybe he snuck some candy and c) he is fed up with kid sister. As I pry candy away from Phenomenal Baby, mini Hulk goes all Bruce banner and says “now can I have a piece of candy?” I lose it a little. “Really?!? This is when you feel it is appropriate to ask for candy yet again?!?!? Every time you say the word candy or ask for any food or drink that is not what I am making for dinner I will throw away a piece of candy.” Dead silence. Miraculously we all set together for dinner.
After dinner, Phenomenal Boy’s blood sugar is back to normal and he is chill playing legos. It all looks good until the poosplosion. Phenomenal Boy and I notice a stink and both look at Phenomenal Baby, who is standing there grunting…yup. Then she grins and walks a few steps before letting one rip and saying “uh Oh”. I grab the stink bomb that is my daughter and change her, The minute I open the diaper her hands go for the butt and she rolls. I stop the one hand and hold her on the changing table but the other hand grabs a fist full and she plants her heel in the diaper and shoves. I employ some tai jitsu and lock her in place while I use wipes to clean her off. I then strip off the now poo covered clothes and declare it bath time. I put naked Phenomenal Baby on the floor of her room (which is across from the bathroom). Phenomenal Baby does a cute little naked dance the way naked babies always do and runs to the boom box and points. I push play and she begins naked baby dancing to Mary Poppins while I quickly whisk away poo clothes and changing pad cover to be rinsed and scrubbed in the sink. I return 10 seconds later to Phenomenal Baby, in downward dog position watching herself pee on the floor. I pick her up and place her in the bath. Phenomenal Boy walks in laughs, looks at me and says “Hey dad can I ….watch a little Einstein?” I do not know if he intended to ask about the show or if my face reveled a message of “say candy and die!!” Phenomenal Boy got ready for bed without incident or hassle and Phenomenal Baby was bathed and snuggled into her sleeper (though it was the one with more snaps than a beatnik coffee house, because I am behind in the long war with my nemesis Laundry, but that is another post) and I decided that this was perfect to Share with Awkward Mom. So what is the point in this…Into all life there is balance and perfectly bland will never be as well remembered as perfectly chaotic or awkward. It is the goofy and strange that truly guides us and often defines the tales we tell and the memories we hold most dear. I will not soon forget my naked baby dancing to Mary Poppins, or maybe in this case Merry Poopins.
Poo, naked dancing, and enough comic references to fill numerous candy buckets. Thank you, Phenomenal Dad; we all loved it. Of course, you have ruined Mary Poppins for all time, but it was totally worth it. Hopefully, this is only the first of many guest posts from Phenomenal Dad! And don't worry that you aren't into the whole brevity thing; he is one of Awkward Mom's biggest foes, so no worries there. Our readers aren't super for nothing!
No comments:
Post a Comment