Scat

Sorry for the lack of posts, gang. It’s kind of hard to write stuff about the kids when I’m, uh, nowhere near them. So I’m going to have to use my memory for HamannEggs hilariousness for the next week or so.

Until recently, Luca had two distinct types of poop. The first? “The Neat And Tidy.” That’s the poo I hope for whenever I remove his D. It’s, as the name suggests, self contained and pleasant. It doesn’t get all over Luca’s hands when he aggressively grabs his genitals and I can get through the process with little or no vomiting.

Then there’s the “The Poopsplosion.” That’s the bad one. I don’t like to talk about it. We keep a fire going in a barrel out back so I can throw clothes, diapers, beds, dishes and Goldendoodles into it in case of Poopsplosion.

Well, over the last week or so Luca has added a new kind of poo to his repertoire. “The Scat.” The Scat is when Luca poops a handful of little pellets, like a deer. At first, I put The Scat into the “Neat and Tidy” category. They’re usually fairly firm. They come in a little pile. And don’t stink like an oil refinery.

But after a few events, I’ve come to hate The Scat. Why? Because they roll. They roll everywhere.

Here are some non-joke places I’ve found Luca’s Scatt:

-In Luca’s Sleepsack.
-In Luca’s PJs.
-In Luca’s fists.
-On the floor under the changing table.

Here are some joke places I’ve found Luca’s Scatt:

-In my coffee.
-In my breast pocket.
-Between my toes.
-In Grover’s ear.
-In Elijah’s butt.

Well, I’m going to try to keep HamannEggs going while I’m in another state. But the boys will join me in just a week or so. The trip out here will be worth about thirty blog entries.

Beep

I love Luca. There. I said it. Now I can’t take it back. It’s in the internets forever. The kid is such an easygoing joy. It makes me want to give him everything he wants all the time. Luckily, all he wants is to eat, sleep, play and have the occasional clean diaper. Oh, and he wants to murder me.

Huh? Oh, the murder part. Yeah, I don’t think he is calculating in his murderous ways. But sometimes his version of playing results in some serious pain on my part.

For instance, he really loves jumping on my stomach. Which isn’t that terrible in and of itself. It’s a great ab workout. But occasionally, he’ll take a flying leap onto my stomach when I’m not looking and I’ll actually feel his knee connect with my spine.

And yesterday, we created the “Beep” game. The Beep game involves Luca touching my nose and saying, “Beep.” I then shout, “Beep!” which, to a one year old, is the funniest thing on the face of the Earth. We spent a good hour Beeping. Which I think says more about my ability to be entertained than his.

Where does the injury part come in on such an innocuous game? Talons. Luca has incredibly sharp fingernails. No matter how often we (Diana) clips them, in 3 hours they are so sharp they’d make Wolverine proud (Man, it’s been a while since I’ve made a serious nerd reference on the blog).

So, Luca would occasionally miss my nose when he Beeped. Which resulted in some serious lacerations. He all put lanced the little skin bump I have under my nose. The good news is he didn’t charge a deductable. He also jammed his finger into my nose so far, I forgot my address for half an hour. And I have yet to get used to the giant, floating crease in my eyesight.

Now, why would I continue a game that involved me bleeding from the ear? Because it made Luca laugh. Laugh real hard. And if I can make that kid happy with a small amount of pain, I’ll do it every day.

Vocabulary

Luca is up to 6 official words: Up (“Uppie”) Bottle (“Baba”) Elijah (“Eee eye”) Baby (“Baby”) Bye (“Bye”) and Grover (“Grover”). Fairly good for a kid who is barely a year old. And whatever words he doesn’t command, he takes care of with pointing and grunting.

The other boy, on the other hand, seems to be headed in the other direction, communication-wise. Elijah has started making up his own language, “Elijish.”

Elijish is a fairly unique language. Because there is only one person in the world who understands it. And that person revises the rules of the language every time he speaks.

For example, Elijah will point to a fork and say, “Daddy, can I have a gleepglop?”

“Oh, this is a ‘Gleepglop’ in your language?”

“No, it’s a ‘Florblech.’”

“Wait, you just said it was a ‘Gleepglop.’ Now it’s a ” ‘Florblech.’?”

“No, daddy. It’s a ‘Blorgblorg.’”

At which point I stick my head in the oven. The other night, Elijah was speaking exclusively in Elijish. I decided to up the ante by speaking in Rickish.

So when he said, “Smorbutt gerflunkle boof,” I responded, “Blaffle herckle jerkle.”

Elijah laughed his head off and we began a mock argument in our respective languages. It sounded like a UN conference mixed with a taxicab ride.

Traveling

Attention inventors. If you can create a machine that allows you to snap your fingers and move across the country, I will personally give you $100. But don’t spend it all in one place.

Man, this whole uprooting your family thing is stressful and complicated. Here is today’s version of the plan: This weekend Diana goes to Denver and finds a kick ass house for us to rent. The 13th, I fly to Denver to start my job. The 14th, I’m discovered as a fraud. The 18th, I fly home to do Christmas with my dad, Connie and brothers and wives and everybody. The 19th or 20th, Diana, Grover and I drive our car to Denver with a trailer holding all of my Star Wars guys. The 22rd, I fly back to Peoria to gather up the boys. The 23rd, I fly with the boys to Denver. Then we begin our lives. Whew.

Now, which do you think is the craziest part of this already crazy plan? Yep, the me flying across the country with Elijah and Luca part. We’ve done the math and it makes the slightly most sense. But my blood runs cold every time I think of it.

So I decided to do a trial run last weekend. I drove the three hours to my dad’s house, alone, with both boys. How did it go? Well, I am currently typing his entry with a pen clutched in my teeth. You see, the straight jacket isn’t very forgiving.

Let me back up. The beginning of the trip was fine. Elijah had his movies. Luca had his pacifier. I had a slight hangover. Everyone was having a great time. But around the time I actually entered the freeway (roughly 14 minutes into the trip), Eli got bored.

“Dad! I have ta pee!”

Elijah figured out that those 5 words would instantly trigger a mini adventure. An adventure including disgusting bathrooms, swearing dads and vigorous hand washing.

So he kept saying it, and saying it, and saying it. And we kept stopping and stopping and stopping.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “Why didn’t he put a diaper on Eli?” I. Have. No. Idea.

After 10 hours, we made it to the Chicago city limits. Of course, Eli shouted the 5 words. I pulled off, yelled, washed and got them back in their seats and attempted to get back on the highway.

“Dad?”

“No! You just peed! We are NOT pulling over!”

“Dad?”

“WHAT?”

“You didn’t put on my seatbelt.” I looked back and sure enough, he wasn’t belted in. Now, if this was 1970, that would be ok. But here in 2010, that’s an emergency. I shouted a swear, hit the gas and swung the car across traffic, desperately trying to find an off ramp.

Elijah shouted, “Dad! Mom said you have to drive slow. We’re precious cargo!”

I pulled over in a terrifically sketchy Chicago neighborhood and belted Eli. Of course, there was no way to get back on the highway. So I took my sons on a brief tour of “Places You Should Never Visit In Chicago.”

Eventually, we made it back onto the highway. I calculated that, at our current pace, we’d arrive at my dad’s in roughly 30 hours.

p.s. Diana gave Luca his first haircut yesterday. I can’t decide if he looks more like Jim Carrey in “Dumb and Dumber” or Moe from “The Three Stooges.” Either way, he looks awesome.

A Word From The Dog

Man, I am the worst second son blogger on the face of the Earth. There wasn’t a single ounce of fluid that dripped from Elijah that I didn’t obsessively document. And now I let giant evolutionary leaps just fly right by. On the bright side, Luca can simply print out this entry when he heads to the psychiatrist to explain why he hates his father.

So I’m going to let Grover the dog take over the blog today. He’s much better at reporting, apparently. Take it away Grover!


Heyyyyyy everybody! It’s me! Your loveable pal Grover. I know, it’s been a while since I’ve written. You see, I’ve been a little depressed for the last year or so. The Man and the Woman went and had another hairless puppy. Almost immediately I lost another rank in the pack. Just as I was getting used to being number 4. And I didn’t even get to fight him for it. He would’ve been no match for my dog kung fu skills.

But enough about me. I have some exciting news to report about puppy number 2. He says things now! He has four official words.

His first word is “Car.” He points to that giant metal dinosaur that occasionally consumes the family in the front of the house and says, “Caarrrrr.” The Man and the Woman get very excited when he says this. Something about him being a real boy. But that’s not why I’m excited. I’ll get to that in a minute.

His second word is “Bottle.” Although he pronounces it, “Baba.” For those of you who don’t know, a “bottle” is a detached teat that puppy number 2 drinks from. It’s usually filled with delicious fluid that tastes a bit like milk. Oh, but heaven forbid I drink from it. The Man and the Woman get that deep voice when they catch me and, bam, my tail goes right between my legs.

Third word? “Up.” He says, “Uppie uppie uppie,” all day long. And then the Woman picks him up. At which point she tries to eat his face. If he really wants someone to eat him, talk to old Grover, silly. I’ll never understand humans.

Why am I excited? Because he says “Grover!” Granted, he mispronounces it. He says, “Go! Go!” It’s so adorable I want to vomit and eat it. It makes my heart swell every time he points at me and says, “Go!”

Does he say “Mommy?” Nope. “Daddy?” Not yet. “Puppy Number 1?” Not on your life, mister. Yeah, eat it, puppy number 1.

Go! Go!

ONE

I was running Grover at the church yesterday morning when our cigar chomping neighbor approached. We had that “how quickly can we end this conversation” conversation when, for lack of really anything else to day, I blurted, “It’s Luca’s birthday today.”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “It hasn’t been a year yet,” he matter of factly said and then blew smoke in my face. How on earth did this beautiful child get to be a year old? It’s as if he didn’t want to bother us with the difficulties of a newborn and just leapt to being one.

Luca woke up yesterday, like all Hamanns on their birthday, grouchy and pissy. I felt a tiny pang of joy because he was actually being kind of a jerk. I feel like he needs to jerk it up more.

I proudly exclaimed this to Diana. She said, “Have you fed him?” Oh yeah. Food. After he ate he went back to his usual good natured self. Pushing cars and saying, “Ca.”

Eventually, the obligations of Thanksgiving took over and I busied myself with making my world famous stuffing. Or rather, my co-opted from my great friend Patrick’s world famous stuffing-stuffing. Diana tried to keep us on point by making birthday cupcakes and shouting, “It’s your birthday!” every five minutes.

We carted the family to the in-laws for dinner and presents.

Here’s what I love about Luca. He’s a boy. Through and through. Which means buying him presents is incredibly easy. Cars. Cars cars cars. If it has wheels, he’ll play with it.

So we gave him a fire truck (and a ball toy which he ignored) and then we didn’t see him again for 2 hours. Why would he want to disturb our Thanksgiving meal? We tried to give him some mushed up turkey and potatoes, but he wanted to get back to his truck.

Luca made it through the ceremonial First birthday cake in typical Luca style. He carefully pushed a finger into the icing and then said, “Ca.” No matter how we tried to get him to smear the contents on himself, he refused. That would be too much trouble.

So happy birthday, Luca. I love you. I love your big, blue eyes. I love your crooked smile. I love your monkey chatter. I love your daredevil streak. I love your hatred of fuzzy clothes. I love your chuck roast feet. I love your insistence on playing in Grover’s food. I love your complete lack of need of attention. I love your ticklish belly. I love your vaguely Russian gangster appearance.

I love you, son.

Circus Peanut

Yesterday, I came to the office and started feeling a little…meh. I chalked it up to the post quitting letdown. Or possibly the intense amount of crap that has to happen before we move to Colorado was weighing on my brain.

Then I started feeling ill. Really ill. I thought, “Panic attack!” Having experienced a million panic attacks in my life, I knew the only way to get past it was to completely freak out and let it dominate my life.

But then it started to feel like an actual physical illness. Not my usual mental illness. I tried drinking water. I tried keeping my mind off it. I ate soup for lunch. Then I barfed in my office trashcan.

After hiding the vomity trash can in my neighbor’s office, I took a cab home. I found Diana splayed out on our bathroom floor. She had the same flu I did. But worse.

For the next 8 hours we took turns destroying our bathroom and generally neglecting our sons. Right around bath time I suggested we split up, so we could neglect our sons one on one. Diana took pity on me and let me have Luca duty.

I plopped him down in the boy’s room right next to my barf bucket. I moaned, “Do whatever you want…just don’t jostle daddy. Or his barf bucket.”

Luca responded, “Ca,” and began his new circus routine.

We have this bright red little art table in the center of the boy’s room. Its purpose is to mock Diana and I with its oversized white paper while Elijah covers the walls with crayon.

It has this little red chair with a big star cut out of the back that’s perfect for sitting. Luca will simply not leave it alone. For some reason, he loves to climb on the chair, stand on it and practice his balancing. Now, keep in mind Luca cannot keep his balance when he is standing on planet Earth. He can stand on his own for about .25 seconds before crashing to the ground. Why does he insist on adding the eight degrees of difficulty by standing, unaided, on a bright red chair? He even holds his arms outstretched in a “tada” pantomime. He then falls from the chair, cries, and climbs back up on top.

Last night, as he ascended the chair, I begged him, “Please don’t do your circus routine. I’m too weak to catch you.”

But no, he insisted on climbing, standing, tada-ing and falling. Over. And over.

After his fifth or sixth tada-topple, I rolled over and positioned myself under the chair. That way when he fell off, he simply landed on me, laughed at my groans and climbed back up on the chair.

Why not remove the chair? Why not throw the chair out the window? Why not burn the chair? I have no idea. Becoming a human trampoline was the only solution my fever addled brain could think of.

This weekend I’m going to rig the chair on top of a flagpole so Luca can really wow us.