Wake Up

The last couple of weeks I’ve had a hard time waking up in the morning. Mostly because Grover and I have been really nailing our spooning game. Also, I’m exhausted.

As a result, my morning routine has been overlapping with the rest of the family.

Luca always wakes up early. His first order of business is to hug me. His second order of business is to try to get in a few rounds of video games before Diana busts him. I allow him to play video games because of his first order of business. He’ll then eat a bowl of cereal while watching videos of other people playing video games. After that it’s off to put on clothes and a daily refusal to brush his teeth. All in all, he’s incredibly manageable and adorable.

Elijah has to be out the door at 8am sharp. So, he sets his alarm for 7:40. Leaving him zero time to do anything but get yelled at by Diana. She’s usually 99% asleep for these battles, so they often sound like two drunks fighting over a half empty bottle of gin.

“Whyyy don you evr wake up when I ax?”

“I don wanna get uuuup.”

“You git uuup.”

“No, you git uuup.”

My anxiety skyrockets when Eli refuses to wake up. WHAT IF HE IS LATE FOR SCHOOL? He could get (pause for dramatic effect) yelled at! I would simply die if I ever got yelled at for being late for school.

I’ve taken it upon myself to wake Eli up in the am. My old technique was to simply yank his blankets off like a magician removing a table cloth from a full setting for six. But I could tell from his rage that this would most likely result in some terrible form of rebellion down the road like a nose ring or Alex P. Keaton style Republicanism.

I now have a new technique. I stand in the middle of his room and sing my Wake Up Song. It goes like this:

Get up, get up, get out of your bed.

Drag a comb across your rat’s nest head.

You’ve got to brush your teeth because you’ve got b-b.

But first of all you’ve got to go pee pee.

It’s not so much the lyrics that get him moving. It’s my atonal, tuneless melody. I don’t actually hit any notes. My melody lives in between notes. For a child with a near perfect singing voice, this is too much to stand. He runs from the room with his hands over his ears and occasionally leaps into Diana’s bed to hide.

At which point I serenade both of them. Which doesn’t do great things for my marriage, but she needs to get up too, dang it.

After I’ve irritated everyone, I head out for commute.

Raccoon

While we drove up to the cabin last weekend, Luca was bored. The cabin is boring. Driving is boring. We are boring. McDonald’s is boring. Boredom is boring.

I told him I read a New York Times article about how kids should be bored more. He asked me about the details, and I admitted I hadn’t made it past the headline. But rest assured a major publication wanted him to pipe down.

Once we got to the cabin, I was immediately put to work putting together a thing whose sole purpose was to make me angry. Luca spent that time walking from room to room, announcing how bored he was. I asked him to help me and then refused to let him do anything more than hand me screws.

I had a massive fit after realizing I made a critical and irreversible mistake on the thing, so Diana suggested I go outside with the other grouch.

Luca and I immediately entered a silent, beautiful wintry Michigan wonderland. Snow fell on our shoulders and we crunched through the forest, following the little creek that borders our property. We followed tracks obviously left by bears and tigers. We cracked huge chunks of ice. We squished our boots in frigid mud.

Occasionally, we’d look at each other and say, “This is the most fun I’ve ever had.” And we’d mean it.

My feet got a little cold from mud squishing, so I suggested we head back. On our walk back, Luca pointed out rusted wagon parts and old liquor bottles. Suddenly, we saw a dead raccoon. I was super excited to poke it with a stick. Poke poke poke.

I held out my poking stick to Luca and said, “You wanna get in on this poking?”

Luca said I was being disrespectful and suggested I pray for it. A child who had been to church three times in his life was suggesting I administer last rites to a rotting rodent. Nevertheless, I was touched and asked God to protect the raccoon and help guide him to raccoon heaven.

Satisfied, Luca and I crawled up the ravine to our house and told Elijah and Diana about our adventure.

Eli said, “Remember when we went to your office and saw that dead rat with the blood dripping out?

Schuyler

On the occasional Friday, I would drive home from work early and literally sneak into my house. Tip toe style. My purpose? A vain attempt to catch Schuyler yelling at our kids. Not because I thought she was a bad person. I just couldn’t believe that a human being could deal with our kids for 5 years without ever raising their voice.

Never once did she yell at them. Oh, she would sing to them. Like a bird. I’d hear her laugh, and giggle and tease them. But never yell. Sometimes I would yell at the kids in front of her to see if she would join in. But no. Always kind. Always cheerful. Always happy. It drove me nuts.

So it is with great sadness that I announce Schuyler is moving on from HamannEggs. She is headed to Los Angeles to become an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner).

I have two favorite Schuyler stories that I’m 99.9% sure have already been covered in the blog, but too bad.

The first? Schuyler wrote and recorded the cutest song in the history of the world about Eli and Luca. It has everything a hit song needs. Cheese, dogs, orange juice, and friends. It’s still online, here: https://clyp.it/0egkyjsi. I dare you to listen to it and not melt with adorable adorableness.

The second? When we spent a billion dollars renovating our house, we put in a bunch of new appliances in our kitchen. On the day they were installed, the electrician didn't install the overhead lights. Schuyler wanted to cook a frozen pizza for the boys, but couldn’t see what she was doing. And proceeded to cook a pizza cheese side down. You can imagine the mess. I forgave her because I thought it was so hilarious.

Last night was her final time with the boys. They hugged and promised to text each other and exchanged gifts. I gave her my patented awkward hug.

A half hour after she left, I couldn’t find Luca. He wasn’t in his usual screen watching posts. After a short search, I found him in the basement crying real tears. His little red eyes broke my heart. I gathered him up on the couch and held him. I was proud that he was feeling actual human emotions. Emotions that I had done a marvelous job of smashing down over the course of 46 years.

I told him he was welcome to cry for as long as he wanted. And then I went into a big, long dad dissertation about feeling your feelings and how his emotions are coming from a place of love and love is great, man. And men should be proud of their tears.

I basically ruined it.

We’ll miss you Schuyler. There will never be a babysitter like you.  When you win your first Grammy, you don’t have to thank us on stage. But it would be cool.

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