EIGHT

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This post is way late. But our little Luca officially turned Eight on the 25^th.  God, I love that kid.

As with every Thanksgiving weekend, Diana had to fight off the onslaught of wine lovers who dared want to purchase things on the day of Luca’s birth.

I asked Luca how he wanted to spend the day. Movie? Children’s Museum? Sitting at home all day in our PJs?

In the cutest move ever, Luca suggested we go visit Chicago. What do you mean? I asked. What do you want to see? Chicago. What do you want to do? See Chicago.

“It’s the third largest city. I want to see it.”

Elijah came along because he had no choice and sensed he would be able to draft off any birthday related treats.

We parked in my spot downtown and the boys said, “Whoa! Look at how big those buildings are!” I started to make fun of them for thinking the cruddy condos around my office were cool. But then I realized they were, in fact, cool if you weren’t a total cynic.

I decided to lock my inner cynic in the trunk of the Prius (With the windows cracked. I’m not a monster.) and we held hands and visited Maggie Daley park, pretending to be tourists. We looked at the big silver Bean at Millennium Park. We spent over and hour at the big candy store and I let them buy whatever they wanted. We looked at the Christmas lights on Michigan Ave and tried to figure out what to do for the homeless man with the thing on his leg.

We then capped it off with a trip to the Disney Store. I’m glad I left my inner cynic in the car because he would’ve hated it. But the cynic-less Rick loved it. It was packed and sweaty with Black Friday holdovers. But the staff was well trained in burying their feelings deep.

I told Luca to pick out one thing he wanted. The “within reason” was silent. Knowing his audience, he picked out a big Star Wars helmet. I immediately bought two because Eli.

We then held hands and walked back to my car. Luca asked which office was mine and I said, “That ugly brownish black one over there.”

Luca said, “I think it looks cool.”

Weird Dad

Luca had a pre-birthday party last Saturday with a few school chums.  Luca kept it pretty simple. Hibachi grill restaurant, sleep over, Nerf gun war, two kinds of Oreo cookies.

In the weeks leading up to the party, I’d been putting in some serious neglectful hours at the office. So much so, that Luca actually had to ask if I was planning on attending his party. Ouch.

Stress at work tends to shorten one’s fuse, so I was coming into Saturday with a few unreasonable yellings and snappy “get off the screens” in the minus column. I made an agreement with myself that once the party guests arrived I was going to be to be the nicest, coolest, most helpful dad in the universe.

Apparently, this meant delivering any and all communication in the loudest, weirdest way ever.

“HEY GANG! WELCOME TO LUCA’S PARTY! I’M LUCA’S DAD AND WE’RE GOING TO HAVE SOOOOO MUCH FUN TODAY!”

Luca’s friends reacted as if I threw a glass of ice water into their faces. They flinched averted their eyes and tried to get anywhere but my foyer.

To make things even creepier, I pulled each boy aside one by one and said, “Hey man. I’m the Fixit Guy for this sleep over. If you need anything, or you get scared or you go pee pee in your pants, just come to me and I’ll fix it.”

During my little speech, Luca’s friends would assume a defensive position, ready to race off in case I came in for a hug.

After we drove to the restaurant, I went back to the shouting. “WHOA! LOOK AT THIS COOL RESTAURANT, GUYS! REAL CHINESE LETTERS!”

Diana laughed at me and said, “Who are you supposed to be?”

Dinner was great and fun and the birthday crew loved it. Well, they loved everything but the actual food. We left the restaurant with 7 pounds of leftovers that I couldn’t eat because sodium hurts my blood pressure.

We got home and the boys ate cookies and opened presents and chased each other around. Eventually it was time for bed.

Which was when I turned from the nicest, coolest, most helpful dad in the universe to a guy who said, “If I even hear one of you so much as blink your eyes, I am going to pull you out of this room and make you sleep in the yard.”

But then I got donuts in the morning.

CLICK!

Toward the end of the evening, we Hamanns all acknowledge our sincere and passionate love for each other, and then move to parts of the house farthest away from any other member of the family.

For Diana and I, this is time to watch 80’s horror homages on our local streaming service. Or watch Rachel Maddow spend 17 minutes getting to the point.

For Eli, it’s watching “Friends” reruns. I recommended the show to him as an alternative to the horrifyingly awful Disney tween shows. This resulted in a, “Dad, what’s V.D.?” conversation.

Luca prefers to sit in our living room and make the loudest tongue clicking noise in the history of man. Remember “Luca Land?” Luca Land is the little imagination place Luca goes to for adventures involving Iron Man and Anthony Rizzo. He likes to make these little sound effects. He beeps and bops and makes shooting sounds. But over the last few months, he makes his super loud “CLICK” with his tongue. Try it right now. Luca’s is a thousand times louder than the sound you just made.

CLICK!

You can hear it all over the house. It’s the soundtrack to our lives.

CLICK!

It’s pretty annoying.

CLICK!

I looked up “Tourette’s” on Wikipedia just to make sure.

CLICK!

Kunal Jain (Canada) generated a sound level reading of 114.2 dBA by clicking his tongue at Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada on 6 August 2003. As a comparison, a lawnmower is on average 90dBA and a car horn is 110 dBA.

CLICK!

We asked Luca if he made the clicking sound at school and he said, “Oh yeah. All the time.” We said maybe he should cool it at school. He said, “My teacher doesn’t seem to mind.”

CLICK!

Wall Crawler

A few Saturdays ago, I was vaguely jetlagged. Which meant I was vaguely grouchy. Diana asked me to give her a ride to work (she left her car at work so as not to DUI after a wine thing), so I grumbled and groused and, um, graduated as we walked out to my garage. Oh, and it was raining.

Now, the previous owners of our house had split the garage into two. One section is a normal garage where cars and bikes and rakes and lawn mowers go.

The other section must have been for the previous owners’ special prized sports car. Or their meth making. It’s barely wide enough for my little Prius. And my meth. I have these little fantasies of really doing the place up one day. You know, vintage Porshce ads and bikini calendars and one of those big metal boxes with all my tools. But for now it’s just wood and dust and cobwebs.

We tiptoed around the 37 Grover poops in our yard and reached the Rick garage entrance. I turned the doorknob and, oddly, it was locked. I never lock that door. Have never locked that door. Will never lock that door.

As rain beat down on our heads, I did a little math. No key to the door + only garage door opener in car locked in garage = throwing a huge fit.

While Diana quietly ordered a Lyft, I yelled at any child in hearing distance. It must have been your friends who locked the door! Yes! It was your friends! The ones who eat all my chips when they come over! It’s their fault. And therefore your fault! Well, I guess we are calling a locksmith. And it’s coming out of your college funds!

Elijah, who is used to my idiotic tantrums, said, “Dad, there is a hole in the wall between your garage and Mommy’s garage. Do you think we could crawl through?”

I could kiss that beautiful face, if it wasn’t covered in egg sandwich.

Luca, Eli and I walked to Diana’s garage and, yes, behind the kyak Diana bought to explore the wilds of the North Shore Canal, there was a little hole in the plywood. Probably created by a friendly woodland creature and not a disgusting rat.

I shoved at the wood a little bit and expanded the hole to be Luca sized. I said, “Get in there, Luca!”

Luca looked at the cobweb ridden, filthy, jagged hole and said, “No way.”

I told him he was being a big baby and it was perfectly fine. As I bent down to brush away some filth, a spider jumped on me. That’s not a HamannEggs fib for comedic affect. A spider lept from the wall and onto me. Presumably to act as official guide to hell.

I screamed and ran around the garage.

It look a little while to convince Luca to crawl through the hole. And a bribe of a new Cubs hat purchased from Target. But eventually he did get through and opened up the door. But he came out covered in gunk and crying. Much like the day of his birth.

As we drove through the rain, I happily offered to buy Luca whatever lunch he wanted. He just silently stared out the window, a changed man.