Baby’s First Hang Ten

Years ago, I took a surfing lesson in Australia on a commercial day off. I arrived out of shape, addicted to cigarettes and nursing a hangover. After twenty minutes of thrashing by Aussie waves and taking on more water than The Orca at the end of “Jaws,” my instructor gently recommended I do the rest of my lesson from the safety of my hotel room.

Since then, I’ve had an aversion to the surfing arts. To paraphrase Robert Duvall, “Hamann don’t surf.”

As with most hard and fast rules of my life, Diana had other plans. We are currently on our make-up vacation in Mexico with the lovely Murphy/Green family (See my New Year’s Eve post for the gory details). Diana could sense this was her opportunity to finally turn our kids into characters from “Point Break.”

In the past, the kids have been satisfied with kiddie activities. Your basic sandcastle building and minor splashing/salt water tasting. But now, as Testosterone and Estrogen surge through their bodies, they yearn for more danger and less clothes. 

When Diana suggested the kids take a surf lesson, I initially scoffed. Hamann don’t surf. But the kids were totally into it. So I did my best to ruin the fun by warning them that the chances they’d actually stand on the board was less than zero. Take it from my experience 16 years ago, kids. Surfing is brutal and you’ll hate it. Plus, don’t smoke.

Their instructor was a hilarious local who “pretended” to be tough, but no amount of order barking could hide the delight in his eyes. The kids participated in the on-land instructions with the appropriate teen sarcasm. Then it was off to the water. 

They lined up in the surf and the instructor found the most perfect wave in the history of waves. The shoved Luca, who popped up. The sun broke through the clouds and the heavens sang “Good Vibrations.” Diana burst into tears.

The girls quickly followed suit. Each riding a wave and splitting their faces with gigantic smiles. 

Then it was Eli’s turn. Surely, he’d prove me right. Hamann don’t surf. I was already preparing my Dad speech about the merits of quitting when he popped right up. His glorious mane floating in the Atlantic (Pacific?) air. 

The kids rode wave after wave and made Hang Loose gestures and Diana cried her eyes out, saying this was the greatest day of her life. 

I even emerged from the safety of my umbrella to shout and clap. I shouted and clapped so much that I got a bad sunburn. Which serves me right. 

p.s. As you can see from the Elijah photo, a bottom exposing interloper named “Prancy Nancy” seemed determined to be decapitated by rookie surfers. The professional photographer managed to include her in almost every shot. 

New Years Eve 2021

 I was sitting on the couch making out with Tutu. I was well on my way to the proper buzz to sleep the night before a big Mexico trip. Our bags were packed. My brother’s dog watching bribe was set out like Santa’s cookies. The boys were mainlining videogames in anticipation of 8 nights away. 

Life was, dare I say, perfect?

Diana walked in. “Did you happen to renew your passport this year?”

Rewhat? 

Apparently there is a little date on your passport that indicates when you have to get a new one. Something like every ten years. It’s easy to miss. Especially when you don’t leave your house for two years. 

I searched my brain for evidence that I had actually renewed my passport and simply forgot. All I could find was Simpsons trivia.

Diana burst into tears and the boys simply said, “What?” over and over. 

I began to repeat, “Go!” over and over. Go. Don’t let my stupidity keep you from the vacation you planned a year ago. Go. My fragile emotional state can’t handle ruining 2021. Go. Go. Go!

Diana and the boys and our neighbors (oh, did I forget to tell you I ruined our neighbors’ vacation too?) decided to postpone. It was a sign from God. 

God wasn’t done.

Diana and Lexa scrambled to book someplace in the US. They found outrageously expensive tickets and accommodations in Puerto Rico. Yes. This is still salvageable. Let’s do this.

Just to be double sure, I looked at the COVID numbers online. There was a 3,000% increase in COVID over the last 5 days. Three. Thousand. Thanks for checking Rick. 

Our neighbors decided to get as far away from us as possible and just started driving west. We opted to head to the cabin. Yeah. The cabin. That’s right. We own a cabin. With toilets and a fireplace and everything. We can salvage this vacation. No one can stop us from our own darned place.

The next morning I ran to Starbucks to get us travel coffee. As I drove home, snow started dumping. I looked up into the sky and heard a booming voice say, “I don’t think so.” By the time I got home the weather folks had issued a “Don’t leave the house ever again” warning.

That pretty much sums up the year for us Hamanns. But you know what? We’ve never been happier. We’re closer than ever. We love each other more than ever. We’ve made it through another scary year together. Together.

As is tradition on HamannEggs, I like to leave a little note for each member of the family.

Diana, you are the love of my life. You still amaze me with every eye shot, COVID scare, and ruined vacation. You manage to see the good in everyone and everything. You keep us together. You are everything. I love you.

Eli, I am so proud of you. You are a wonderful, hilarious caring teenager. You’re the coolest kid ever. I am zero percent surprised you are doing so well in high school. There is no one in the world like you. I will also destroy you in Magic The Gathering later today. You make me so happy. I love you.

Luca, you’ve grown leaps and bounds this year. You are an awesome little sport-o. Your enthusiasm is contagious and hilarious. You make me laugh every day. You make my heart break every day. You are my special guy. I love you.

Jerry, you are a good boy. Stop eating shoes.

Tutu, don’t die. 

The. Worst.

 

A week ago, Elijah got exposed to COVID. One of his pals breathed their evil funk breath on him at lunch. Better safe than sorry, we kept him home for a few days. His symptoms included videogame addiction and making a huge mess in the kitchen. 

It quickly morphed from safely quarantining to just skipping school. So we forced him kicking and screaming back to high school. 

We had a few hours of peace and quiet and then we got a text:

ELI: What is happening? We are on lockdown.

DIANA: I have no idea. Is it because of COVID?

ELI: I’m really scared.

DIANA: Are classes still going on?

ELI: No we are huddled in the corner…If anything happens, I love you.

What the ever loving FUCK??? The worst text exchange a parent can possibly have. A living nightmare. Is this the world we exist in now? Our beautiful, smart, funny, caring baby hiding in the corner of a geometry classroom because of a gun in the goddamn school? Sorry for the swears. But if there was ever a time to introduce swearing into HamannEggs this is it.

We quickly found out that Evanston police had swarmed the school. There was a gun “incident” but it didn’t look like an active shooter. Thank the lord. But neither we nor Eli could be 100% sure it wasn’t turning into hell on earth. 

We kept texting him. Telling him we loved him. Asking him if there was people in the room he could hold hands with. Yeah, is there someone you can hold hands with in case this is your last moment on earth? We told him to do whatever the police said and under no circumstances should he put himself in any danger. 

He kept his sense of humor in his personal nightmare, texting us about his feet falling asleep and making (in hindsight some not great 9/11) jokes. I assured him when he got home he could have his first glass of wine. 

Luca eventually joined the text exchange, as he was on a soft lockdown because of the mess. He showed us a picture of a robot he drew with rectangular nipples. We discussed the benefits of rectangular robot nipples for a while.

Things eventually calmed down and we got the details. Apparently some idiots were smoking weed in the boys’ bathroom and got busted. When searched, a few guns were found. Morons. Jackasses. Blockheads. Fuckwits. 

Can you imagine the avalanche of excrement that is going to rain down on those kids’ heads? Just because they wanted to be cool weed dealers? Not to mention the army of Karens who will descend on the school administration. 

They sent everyone home for the rest of the year. Our last text on the subject was:

ELI: I think we should go see the new Spider-Man movie tonight.

You bet your ass we went. 

Magic

When Elijah came home from camp last summer, he regaled us with stories of defeating rival Camp Mohawk in the annual camp Olympics and getting lost in the woods and learning to love and watching his friends get picked off by Jason Voorhees’ mom.

Naw, he doesn’t tell us squat. 

He did, however, tell us about a game he played constantly: Magic The Gathering. Diana and I simultaneously gave him a wedgie and swirly.

Despite being a fashionable nerd, I missed Magic The Gathering (MTG). It always felt more like a theater dork game than a band nerd game. But in a desperate attempt to cling to my son in any way shape or form before he leaves for college, I asked him to teach me.

The game is based around collecting little cards with dragons or elves or spells on them. You use them to fight someone else’s dragons or elves. There are tens of thousands of cards in existence, so it is physically impossible for someone to try to buy them all. 

But I was determined to try.

Egged on by Eli, I started buying up cards. Cards that ended up on the floor, in huge piles around the dining room table, under the couch, in my pockets. Diana hates this game with every fiber of her being.

Pretty quickly, we learned the best place to waste our money was at Evanston Games. THE place for Evanston nerds. Eli and I immediately found our home. Eli loves it because EGames is a wonderful, welcoming place that attracts kids who don’t really fit in anywhere else. Lots of gender fluidity, awkwardness, and dorky hairdos. 

EGames loves Eli because he is a naturally charming kid who wants to help anyone and everyone. Plus he is bankrolled by a dad with more money than sense (remind me to tell you about the Simpsons toy collection I just purchased). 

They love me because I like to burst through the door and shout, “I would like to purchase your most expensive card, good people!”

We’ve become so invested in the game that we attend Friday night “drafts.” Which is basically me, plus 12 kids half my age tearing open card wrappers and playing a little round robin tournament.

I am not joking when I say the kids are half my age. The other week I was playing against a ten year old person who identified as “they/them” and they stopped playing to stare at me for a moment.

“Are you a DAD?” they asked.

“Uh, yeah. I’m a dad.”

“Whose dad are you?”

I pointed out Eli. “I’m his dad.”

They stared at me for another beat. Then asked, “Can I have a dollar?”

Yes. Evanston Games kid. You can always have a dollar. 

Janet

I spend 23.5 hours a day in the same spot in my office. Staring at a computer screen, surrounded by my special ukulele, my toys, my legos and a slowly vanishing collection of wine stuff from when Diana actually stepped foot in here. 

Oh and there is always a filthy little dog at my feet who would love nothing better than to sit on me.

My command center and hibernation chamber is great and serves its purpose, but does mean I’m trapped from the outside world. An outside world that occasionally need to interact with my world. 

Inevitably, when I am just about to present an amazing advertising idea to a person who could fire me with a snap of their fingers, someone knocks at the door. One of the 3,000 Amazon deliveries we get a day. Or a Luca friend. Or a nice young and not totally scary man who wants to sell me some magazines.

We tried to give Luca his own key, but it’s nearly impossible for him to remember something so important. Plus, our front lock sticks, so he is usually forces to pound on the door or repeatedly ring the doorbell until I excuse myself from a high powered meeting to let him in.

I’ve taken to leaving the door unlocked so I no longer have to move from my chair. Or move at all. I look forward to the day when I am so obese I get to wash myself with a rag on a stick.

Yeah, it’s not the safest thing in the world, but we live in Whitey Whiteville. We don’t get much crime in these parts. 

Moving on. A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my bedsores and Luca was watching his phone on our blue couch when we heard the door open and a woman’s voice said, “Helloooooo?”

We both figured it was Eli, and thus ignored the greeting.

“Helloooo? Hellooooo? Janet?”

Janet? That’s a new one. Must be a Tiktok trend. 

Luca then shouted, “Daaaaaaaaaaaaad!”

I strolled into our living room where a young woman had just broken into our house. Luca stood at a safe distance.

As I looked at the woman, I thought, “Am I within in my rights to kill this person?” Now, this woman was zero threat. She was a good hundred pounds lighter than me and had the look of a cat enthusiast. 

But still. What am I supposed to do here? Yell? Brandish a steak knife? Get a nerf gun?

Luca and I just started laughing. No, Janet doesn’t life here. Just two idiots who couldn’t stop laughing. Janet’s friend began apologizing profusely and wanted nothing more than to go back to her cats.  

She let herself out and quickly walked down our sidewalk, where she encountered Elijah, who was just arriving home from school.

The woman tried to explain why she was in Eli’s house and he burst out laughing as well. I hope she found Janet eventually.

80's Summer

A few weeks ago, one of Luca’s buddies was laying on my couch, eating my chips, watching my TV, and breathing my air. In my most dad voice, I asked, “Don’t you have anywhere to…be?”

He barely looked up from his phone (drinking my Wifi) and said, “I’m having an 80’s Summer.” Do tell.  In reaction to being cooped up for a year and a half, his folks just shove him out the door in the morning and let him make his own plans. 

Wait, what? Aren’t we responsible for scheduling our kids 24/7? I thought our social agreement was to shove as many camps, clubs, playdates, sleep overs and sleep unders as humanly possible into their lives so they won’t have a single second to suffer that greatest enemy ever: boredom. WHAT IF MY CHILD IS BORED?

I suddenly loved this chip eating couch farter. We decided to lay off the scheduling and just let Luca hang with his pals. His 80’s summer has slid into an 80’s fall. Luca and his 4 neighborhood pals jump on their bikes and terrorize the local convenience store owners, play endless games of baseball and football, and map out their sleepovers in that classic kid way to maximize time away from your own bed.

This is 2021, so Luca’s 80’s life has more electronic tracking than the NSA. I don’t abuse his privacy too much, but I do occasionally check to make sure Luca and his pals don’t hang out at Ye Olde Drug Dealer’s Emporium or follow the commuter train tracks to see a dead body in Winnetka. 

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t break my heart a bit. More than once, I’ve offered to play catch or let him spend my money and he sheepishly admits he already has plans to track mud into a friend’s house. 

Luca is such an empathetic kid, I try not to make him feel guilty about spending so much time away. But he senses my pathetic-ness. It may be because I stare out our front window so much. I love when he doles out a little of his time like alms. “Father, would you like three farthings of my attention?” Heavens yes.

If I’m really good, Luca will let me watch him play video games. 

Later today, Luca set aside 3 hours to watch the Bears game with me. Now, I’m not a Bears fan. I haven’t given a crap about them in 20 years. But you better believe I am going to dig out my old Rex Grossman jersey and savor some real Luca time.

I may even try to hold his hand. 

Tutu!

 

A few weeks ago, Diana took a much needed break at the cabin while the boys and I slowly but surely destroyed the house. 

I was doing my best to pay attention to a Teams meeting while Spotify, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube and Simpsons trivia tried their best to lure me away. I got a little text alert from Diana that included a link to the Evanston animal shelter. Hmm. Must have been a mistake a slip of the finger. Moving on…

Ding. “We should totally foster her!”

Uh-oh.

I clicked on the link. “We have this INCREDIBLY sweet senior girl that really needs out of our kennel. She came to us from a less than ideal situation and deserves to live in a warm and loving home. Her name is Tutu and she’s probably about 13 years old. She’s mostly blind and deaf but has so much pep in her step. When she’s not sleeping like an angel, she wants to snuggle and get loved on. Can anyone take her in? She could probably go with calm dogs and kids that will give her space and time to settle in.”

What? Blind? Deaf? Situation? Loved on? I went into panic mode. We can’t afford another dog. Jerry is a jerk to other dogs. We just got used to our schedule with one idiot dog. Didn’t I swear we’d never have two dogs at the same time?

But her picture was just so cute. She looked like a Muppet. Or an Ewok. Or a Mewok. Plus, when the deaf, almost blind lady wants to take in a deaf, totally blind dog you kinda have to say yes. 

I went to the shelter to meet Tutu. I was a little worried about the whole “less than ideal situation” talk. What did that mean? Was she a pickpocket on the streets of London? Was she being used in a tiny circus? Was her previous owner The Situation from MTV’s “Jersey Shore?” 

The nice lady put Tutu into my arms and just started throwing her stuff into my trunk, convinced we’d fall madly in love. She was right. This fragile little old dame just snuggled into my arms and looked in my general direction with her adorable vacant eyes. If you shouted, “Tutu!” like a cuckoo clock, she would also cock her head as if to say, “Is there a cuckoo clock in this room?”

She’s settled in nicely. Jerry explained in great detail that his stuff was his stuff and she should not, under any circumstances touch his stuff or else he will bark very loudly. Whenever he barks at her she cocks her head as if to say, “Is there a cuckoo clock in this room?”

The only catch, besides her need to poop in our workout room, is an intense need to be held 24/7. To Tutu, the floor is lava. When she is not in our arms, she wanders the house, crying for someone to hold her. But, she’s blind so I get it. 

It gets a little embarrassing when I am presenting to big wigs, but I just pretend I am Dr. Evil and Tutu is my Mr. Bigglesworth, “You WILL buy this commercial…for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!” We even bought a little dog carrying bag like a 60 year old rich woman. Which makes me feel like a pretty 60 year old rich woman. 

The Evanston shelter hasn’t really checked in on Tutu, so I assume she’s already moved from the “Foster” category to the “Forever ours” category.