Drive

Luca and I were playing Transformers a little while ago.  This involves little plastic robots and Luca explaining in great detail what I am doing wrong at any given moment.

“No, Dada!  That Transformer does not say, ‘I sure could go for a beer right now.’”

After being chastised again for breaking rules only Luca knows, I conveniently remembered needing to move our car for street cleaning.  This involved going down the alley to our garage with the big barn doors that are too much of a pain in the butt to park the car full time. 

I suggested Luca join me.

“No!  No!  Dada!  You said you would play with me!  I want you to play with me!  I don’t want you to move the car!  I don’t want to.”

“Well, what if I let you drive?”

“Yes.  Let’s go move the car right now.”

I positioned Luca in my lap to steer and considered for a moment this was not the safest thing I’ve ever done.  Don’t most auto accidents happen within a block of your house?  If I got hit with a three year old in the front seat, awful things could happen. 

Luca then looked back at me and said, “This is the best day of my life.”

We drove slow.  Very slow.  Slow enough that I thought we were actually more of a danger than if we were going over the speed limit.  We entered our alley we share with US Representative Jan Schakowsky and I thought, “Man, I hope she isn’t currently hosting the Policeman’s Ball in her backyard.”

I stopped the car and swung open our garage doors.  I then attempted to drive our boat of a car into the spot.  I quickly realized our car was half a foot too wide for our garage. 

With a three year old gleefully screaming in my lap, I found myself in a position where I couldn’t drive forward without scraping the left side of my car and I couldn’t drive backwards without scraping the right side of my car.  I was fairly certain I was also in jeopardy of scraping the top and bottom of the car as well.

“Quiet, Luca.  I have to think!”

I figured I had three options:

1)   Carve a chunk out of the car and say Luca did it. 

2)   Abandon the vehicle and say it was stolen.

3)   Inch back and forth for the next half hour and pray Option 1 and 2 didn’t come into play.

Luckily, we made it out of the garage, drove back around the block and parked out front again.  Safe.  I gladly paid the ticket from the city.

Basement

On Monday, I came across two very young women in our company’s break room.  Like 22 years old.  After some small talk that only emphasized our age difference, they asked me if I had watched the Bears game on Sunday.

“Oh yeah.  My wife was out of town.  So I got to sit the whole day in front of the TV and drink beer.  It was glorious.”

“Wait.  You drank beer the whole day?  Don’t you have young sons?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t make them watch football. I stuck them in the basement.”

The women’s eyes widened.  “You forced your kids to sit in your damp, dark basement?”

“It wasn’t that damp.  Besides, I let them watch as many cartoons as they wanted.”

By this point, the grave I was digging was only a couple feet deep.  They said, “Wait.  You stuck your sons in the basement all day watching cartoons with no food or water?”

I felt a single bead of sweat drip down my back.  I considered lying, but I figured what was the point now?  I continued, “Well.  No.  I would occasionally send them down a plate of pizza snacks.  And my neighbor brought over a pie.  They ate that.  And there was this 3 pound bag of tortilla chips.”

“How old are your sons?”

“Six.  And Three.”

“You allowed your three year old son to sit in your basement, unsupervised, while you drank beer and watched football all day?”

I began to back out of the room.  “No.  Not unsupervised.  He had his…um…six year old brother to watch him.  And there was the bag of chips.”

The women seemed to be taking mental pictures of what never, ever to get married to.

I decided right then and there to change my life.  I would never again speak with 22 year olds again.

Fish

A big Amazon.com box arrived at our front door.  And like all Amazon.com boxes, I assumed it was a Diana purchase to make our home more distinctive.  A shell collection perhaps?  Or maybe a stuffed peacock.  Ohh.  A shelf.  I bet it was a shelf.  The kind that only mechanical engineers can build.

To my surprise, it was a fish tank. 

Now, a fish tank is a symbol of just how much Diana loves Elijah and Luca.  Because a fish tank goes against everything Diana believes in in regards to home décor.  They’re dirty.  They’re wet.  They only add to the vaguely urine-y smell that permeates a home with two small boys.

But she did it.  And it was no ordinary fish tank.  It was a “Glow In The Dark” fish tank.  The whole thing revolves around a black light that attaches to the top, giving all the fish and rocks and castles a trippy, glowy effect.  All the more enhanced after a massive bong load, if you are currently attending Colorado State University.

Diana’s job was finished the minute the Amazon.com box was opened.  Suddenly, and inexplicably, I became the official fish monger of the house.  I assumed my weekend dad expression of squinted eyes/downturned mouth and got to work. 

Mostly, it involved going to Petsmart three times a day to purchase official “Glow In The Dark” fish stuff.  Which is exactly like every other fish thing with the added bonus of being three times the cost. 

The boys instantly fell in love with the four brightly colored trippy fish who made their home in the Magical Mystery Tour Tank.  I suggested they name them Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey, Trey Anastasio and Cary Grant (He took LCD. Look it up.). 

But they decided on Lord Voldemort, Sweet Cheeks and The Red One and The Orange One.

Now, aside from the complete and utter laziness of the second two names, I was impressed with Lord Voldemort and Sweet Cheeks.  Way more creative than those easy drug jokes. 

A few days later I discovered the girls next door had named their terrified hamsters Lord Voldemort and Sweet Cheeks weeks earlier.  So my sons had simply ripped them off.  Nice.

I know this story should end with all four fish belly up.  That would be a great end to the blog post, huh?  But no.  They are all alive and kicking.  The boys are very responsible and don’t shake the tank or anything.

But for the sake of good blog posts, let’s just say Grover ate all of them.

Trains

At the beginning of summer, I promised Elijah and Luca that I would take them on a real, live train trip to their uncle Dave’s place in central Illinois.  It was April and I broadly proclaimed the trip would happen before school started or I was the worst dad in the world.  A promise is a promise, right?

Wait, when does school start?  Damnit!

It was a week late, but I made good on my promise last weekend.  The boys and I got up super early and took the metra from Evanston to Union Station in Chicago for a short trip to Bloomington.

As we walked into the massive building carrying our carefully packed luggage crammed with our favorite blankies and stuffed animals, I was positively giddy.  Riding the rails.  Like hobos of yore.  I felt like I was creating one of those quintessential childhood memories that would hopefully beat out some of my less pleasant fatherly mistakes. 

And when we crossed the threshold of Union Station, I instantly remembered.  Riding the train is awful.  Oh, urine smell.  Will you ever not be a character in a HamannEggs post?

I latched onto the boys in dual vice grips and dragged them through the sea of people I was convinced all had razor blades in their boots.  As a nerd, I wouldn’t even enjoy the fact we were clearly in the middle of the Star Wars Cantina scene.

We eventually made our way to the information desk.  I asked about our train’s status.

“Delayed.  Indefinitely.  Gotta replace the engine.”

I knelt down to boy level.  “Guys.  The train is really late.  I think we should go home and drive to uncle Dave’s.”

“NOOOOOOOOO!” Luca shouted, loud enough to awaken a nearby C.H.U. D.  “I want to ride the train!”

“Well, what if we get McDonald’s on the road?  And I stop at Target to buy you toys?  What if I let you drive?”

No go.  They were both determined to take the train.  We went into the holding cell, I mean waiting area.  We were greeted by a man spanking his son.  I whispered, “At least I don’t beat you.”

Mercifully, the delay was only an hour and we entertained ourselves by playing the game “What things not to touch.” 

We got on the train and were off.  The boys loved it for 7 whole minutes before asking to play on the Kindle.

  

Mud Mischief

A week or so ago, I was enjoying the delightful freedom that comes from having your boys play outside with the neighbor girls.  I can enjoy uninterrupted fantasy football nerdome just so long as they all obey the rule of only playing in the backyard.

I should have added more rules.

I heard the telltale silence that means something naughty was afoot.  I walked to our side door, equipped with my standard threat that no one would ever be able to play with anyone ever again if they kept doing what they were doing.

I found three of the four of them standing in the doorway, shivering.  They had been at the sprinklers again. 

“Okay.  Guys.  What did I say about abusing…wait.  El, why are you covered in mud?”

Elijah was head to toe in mud.  Not just a little dirty, he looked as though he had been dipped in chocolate and decorated with grass.

Callie is my favorite informant.  She has no problem rolling over on her sister and best friends because I keep her supplied with a steady stream of popsicles.  I believe that’s how we won the Cold War.

“Eli and Liddie were tearing up the grass and rubbing mud all over everything…”

I stopped hearing what she was chatting about because rage had clogged my ear holes.  In a desperate attempt to drain our bank account, Diana and I had paid some nice gentlemen to plant grass in our backyard.  A yard that previously looked like the vacant lot in an after school special.  Dirt, broken bottles, a corpse, I think. 

Newly laid sod is fragile at best.  Diana and I have been treating the grass with more care than our newborn children.  Definitely Luca.  I raced around the house moaning “No no no no no no no no no no…” followed closely by Elijah who was trying to deflect blame onto Liddie, who was conveniently not there. 

No, truth be told, the destruction was minimal.  They had ripped up only a few feet of grass.  But in my mind, our yard was on fire, ablaze with disobedience.

Instead of yelling, I went cold and quiet.  “Callie.  I think it’s time to go home.”  She raced away and I turned my gaze on Eli, who had already begun crying.

I launched into a diatribe about why we can’t have nice things and how much it costs to clothe and feed them.  I then hit Eli with the ultimate punishment: no playing with the neighbor girls for one whole day.

It was baby’s first grounding.