Somehow it's only day 2

I'd like to take much of the blame for Sarah's absence seeming much, much longer. I get giddy, and as soon as she was on the plane, the boys and I hit the town. We went to a sports bar to watch the Bronco game, then we went to a park, and then Ikea. We even got pulled over for having a headlight out. Of all the things Remember, police officers help people. Your father just needs help.we did, and money I spent, the police officer asking daddy questions is still the biggest story. But that was just Sunday night. I woke up the next day thinking we'd already knocked out a big chunk of the week. No, it just felt that way, and now it's only Tuesday and the boys are so tired that there's been some emotional issues.

The first full day was another big, sprawling achievement. I dropped them off at both of their schools, went to work, then to my school, then picked them up before taking them back to my work, all of which included the heightened bickering of two senile old men in the back of the car.

Otto: So I'm going to have a party at Chuck E. Cheese and there will be 100 games and pizza...

Quin: Yah, I'm going to have a robot party and--

Otto: STOP IT I WAS TALKING YOU CAN'T TALK I WAS TALKING

Dad guy: Boys....

Otto: BEFORE YOU WERE TALKING SO I'M TALKING AND YOU'RE NOT MY BEST FRIEND

Dad guy: Otto...you've been talking so it's Quin's turn.

Quin: IT'S MY TURN OTTO DAD SAID SO I'M GOING TO HAVE A ROBOT PARTY AND BUILD C3PO AND R2D2 AND HAVE ROBOTS AT MY

Otto: KELLEN IS MY BEST FRIEND, MERRICK IS MY BEST FRIEND

Quin: ROBOT PARTY AND YOU'RE NOT INVITED OTTO

Otto: AT CHUCKIE CHEESE!

Quin: A MILLION HAS SIX ZEROES!

Otto: I'M TALKING!

Can I add here that I'm someone who since the 80s has been concerned about global warming. It's really haunted me and I think we need to do something. I'm disclaiming that now because my lifestyle doesn't reflect it. We live in Englewood, Sarah works in Lakewood, I work in Denver and our kids go to school in Littleton. My Subaru Forester boxes its way around town with the efficiency of a coal train, and this specific one has a leak in the exhaust, which is why I have to leave the doors open when I warm it up. And this morning I was half tempted to pull it into the garage put us all down.

Today featured the most tantrums I've ever experienced in one day. Many of them the children. Here they are, titled by the first really dumb and unhelpful observation I made during each one.

1. "Otto, I don't think screaming will bring us any more grapes."
2. "Then you should tie your shoes yourself."
3. "All I did was offer to help you with your bow tie."
4. "It would have been a good idea to tell me that before we left the house."
5. "I think you're hungry."

To look good even when the world doesn't understand you.The bow tie (or "tie bow" as Quin calls it) has been a major issue. Quin needs help, but doesn't want help, until it's clear it's mostly mental help. So with the shrieking, pantless madman crawling around the house and shouting mean things about his father, I did my best to comfort Otto, who'd tried to hug is ailing brother and was punched instead. And it just kept spiraling. Otto needed a sack lunch, so Quin wanted one too...as we pulled up to his school. Which, as I've stated before, IS IN A DIFFERENT FRICKEN CITY, SON! So I managed to carry the boys into Quin's school, and just outside of his classroom (which was already in session...and today's kindergarten isn't like my kindergarten where you napped and ate graham crackers...it's the real deal where the teacher will even scold the father of one of her students for not following protocol) we sat and practiced meditational breathing: "Smell the flower, blow out the candle." Or at least I did while Otto stared into space and Quin waited for me to open the door.

Tonight, after work and lots of traffic and a bout of nausea, I barely made it home. I picked up Quin and he charmed me into a grinning oblivion as he shared how his teacher didn't say anything about the bow tie, but "she looked at me and smiled which means I'm good looking." I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned to him that I had a relationship with a teacher and it has kind of messed me up to this day.

Otto's school is always a tiny bit more fun (no teacher has ever scolded me there) as I have a tradition of giving all the kids high fives. I did that and then he showed me his paper airplane, something like a wad of newspaper, and how it could fly. Wonderful. And then it was early to bed after we cleaned out most of the leftovers in the fridge.

Watching the iPad from the bathtub has been wonderful for all of us.This morning I dropped off the boys, and as I left Otto's school, I thought about all I had to do, and how I didn't have time to complete any of it. It began to weigh on me pretty heavy. But as I walked to the car I was taken by the blinking "School Zone" light. It's rhythmic and uniform and predictable and it reminds us to slow down. When I got closer I saw it wasn't actually one light, but about fifty little lights all working together. And then I remembered, oh, that's how that's done.

Quin has been very proud of his bow tie, but Otto's reactions have varied.

But this is the kind of thing we've been sending to mom.

Everything is good! Have fun in California!

Tubular hugs

I might be loving the boys too much. Actually, WE, the mom and dad, love on those boys so much that I'm trying to impose a limit on hugs and kisses. Sarah will get a hold of them and just bathe them in smooches, and I don't want them becoming too soft. We all see those moms hugging on their kids too much and it could lead to a life of weakness, or worse, dependency. I have no social or scientific evidence for this, but it's just my immediate concern. I think we need to have a third kid just to spread the love out a little. Or maybe get a puppy. And that brings me to the source of my concern: our dog. There's not a softer animal on the planet, and although it's nice to be loved by another species, Paco is a moping love addict who isn't happy unless he can sit on you. He's 70 pounds. Which goes to show you the importance of getting a pet before kids. If we hadn’t, our boys would share our bed and lie across the bathroom door whenever we used the toilet.

Yesterday, when I was hugging Otto for the tenth time, I became somewhat repulsed by myself. I never was going to be one of those dads that hugged and kissed their kids. I didn't grow up that way, and when I saw kids that did, I could sense their weakness. Somehow I'm going to have to drop a proclamation, a decree I guess, on the family: less love.

Although I’m off to a poor start. First off, I shaved Otto's head before our Thanksgiving trip to Houston. His hair is short, cancer short. I put on the wrong clipper attachment and all it took was one strafing and it was over. There was no fixing the missing swath in the back of his head. So I took it all off, and when Quin shouted, "Mom, you should see Otto's head!" she had a hard time suppressing her "are you freaking kidding me" look. I can't blame her. For one we were rushing to get to the airport and that's really not the time to give anyone a haircut, and two, she doesn't see her family often and so she wants her boys looking their best. Now I think it's grown on us, as cancer kids are apt to do, and it kind of fits Otto. But now his little fuzzy bean is the most kissable landscape on the planet.

Yes, I just said that. WTF has happened to me. I once punched a hole in the wall.

However, I should give credit to Quin for doing his best to repel closeness. He has become fascinated with farting--a phenomena that elicits the most intense kid laughter I’ve ever heard--and he has a new-found curiosity for all things childbirth. It is those kind of questions that make you want to run the other way. But he caught me off guard the other day, and I'm still running my answer over in my head to make sure I didn't lead him astray.

He'd brought me a picture he drew of him inside his mom's belly, and his question was, "how did I get out?" The stork was of really no help here, at least not the vision I had of giant bird getting at a fetus, so I had to let him lead conversation.

"Do they just cut open the belly?" he pantomimed with a slicing motion and big eyes. I thought maybe I could leave it there. Because that does happen, and more and more according to the Cesarean surveys, but his vision seemed a little more violent than I think most obstetricians would recommend.

"Um," I opened strongly with a pause (yes, pregnant.) "Quin, the baby gets to a certain point, and then it..." And my inner Google was busy searching images and terms. I'm sensitive to the topic because the truth of how babies get out is pretty damn horrifying. As a matter of fact, the first thing Quin ever heard was his father saying, "I'm going to pass out." So I chose carefully. I sanitized it a bit and found the perfect word: "Tubes." Tubes can be both biological and sterile so I went with, "At a certain point the baby comes out of a tube."

He looked up at me waiting for more. Like that there had to be more to it than a tubes.

"So..." he began locking his eyes for any nuance of confirmation or denial, "do you suck it out like with a straw?"

That's not where I wanted to go with this. In my head I had the uterus, in his there was a vacuum. I can't think of a worse way for him to share the facts about childbirth. With thoughts of snipers, I took the conversation a little more internal.

"No...not quite." Not at all. "Quin there's a tube already inside your mom and that’s where you came out of."

I paused and hoped that was sufficient. There are so many questions--so many questions that I still have about how this happens.

"Where is the tube?" Damn. He probably imagined a curly slide. I could see in his curious excitement that his mom was something like a Playplace where you had to be a certain height and you couldn’t go in until you took off your shoes. So I set to end any further investigation.

"The tube is inside your mom, Quin." I sautered the case near closed and finished the job with, "When there's a baby ready to be born, they use the tube."

He watched me, like we were about to lay down our cards. I didn't want him to be disappointed, but I could tell he was hoping there was more. His cutting open the belly option had really excited him, but I was pretty happy when I overheard him explaining it to his little brother: "Otto, when you're born in mom's belly you come out of a tube."

Not sexy, but not brutal. I was pretty proud. And dammit it kind of makes me want to hug him.