How You Do It*

How you do it* is this: you start off by getting one of those big-ass inflatable bouncy castles--no wait, strike that. Even better, you let somebody else get one of those big-ass inflatable bouncy castles that all the kids love so much. You let ‘em blow that fucker up in their yard, and then (and only then!) you and a bunch of other parental types head over there, kiddos in tow. Upon arrival, you all point your kiddos at the big-ass inflatable bouncy castle and say “GO! GO! GO!” They’ll do exactly as you say. Relish it.

I know all this to be true because this is exactly what we did one weekend not too long ago when we went to a birthday party for our friends Tim and Julie’s four year old. Tim and Julie being the aforementioned acquirers of the aforementioned big-ass inflatable bouncy castle.

With the kids safely ensconced in their bouncy paradise, gather the parents around for adult conversation. Not adult as in XXX, though if the topic comes up, feel free. The ears of the children are too full of joy and laughter to pick up any naughty bits.

Then cake, then presents, then more bouncing. It helps if there are robots. It helps  even more if the robots are princesses. Robot-princesses, people. All of these factors contribute. This is how you do it*.

Don’t be too afraid to let the kids have at it whole-heartedly on the cake. Keeping the bounce alive will suck their energy like a hospital stay on a bank account. Like the hip-hop kids say, belee-dat.

Then home and naps and maybe some boring stuff like yard work that’s not really worth writing about other than as an explanation for why you weren’t doing non-boring stuff. Count down the minutes until you can escape on the date you have planned with your beloved. Grandma is in town, which equals night out. That’s how it’s* done.

Count down to date night in T-minus three, two, one....

DO go to a sushi place that looks like a total hole in the wall, but gets excellent reviews.

DO gorge yourself on sushi and realize that those reviewers were right.

DO enjoy the company and conversation of your beautiful beloved.

DO enjoy the special pieces of sushi sent compliments of the chef.

DO pay for your meal with a debit card, which is how, I’m guessing a high percentage of people are doing it these days.

DO find it strange when the receipt that they ask you to sign has no line to include a tip. In hindsight, I realize that I should perhaps have waited for the dude to come back and asked him to re-ring it with tip included, but what can I say? I got hit with a bad case of proper restaurant etiquette anxiety and panicked. Yeah, don’t do that.

DO not go back there again for a while.

DO make a note to bring cash next time, even though you shouldn’t have to because fuck carrying cash.

This next part gets complicated, so stay with me. Because for the rest of the evening, everywhere you go, you need to keep running into friends, both those you expect to see and those that you don’t. Like when you’re driving down the road to the theater and you spot some friends of yours sitting outside at the taco joint? And when you join them for a beer and you spot another friend from college that you haven’t seen in fucking years? This isn’t amateur stuff, folks. Say hello. Gush about how glad you are to see each other.

From there, head to the theater where you’ll watch a show that consists of improvised comedy about the end of the world.

 If at all possible, have your wife be the one selected from the audience to spin the big wheel that will decide how the world ends. Flesh-eating virus? World war? Ice age? No, don’t let the wheel land on any of those. Have it land on the wild card so that she, and only she may choose the form in which the destroyer shall come. She can choose anything she likes, but if she’s doing it right, she’ll choose killer comet. From this point forward, your wife and Ray Stantz will share a bizarre understanding that the rest of us can only guess about. I tried to think of the most harmless thing...

After a hilarious show, chat with the director. He will bring you the baby-walker toy that he and his wife were borrowing from you but don’t need anymore because their kid is walking now. You don’t have to be the oldest person there, but be sure that you’re the only person there with baby-related paraphernalia on your person. Laugh about it.

FOR PROFESSIONALS ONLY: Go to a bar. Go to a good bar with good beer. Go to a good bar with good beer where a bunch of your friends are gathered for a birthday celebration. Go to a good bar with good beer where a bunch of your friends are gathered for a birthday celebration only to find that a whole other group of friends that you haven’t seen in ages are also gathered. Enjoy hugs and handshakes all around. Enjoy multiple beers, but wake up without a hangover.

“Wow, that seemed really cheap.” your wife will say upon reflection of the bar tab.

To which you respond, “That’s because the waitress totally wanted me.”

“Oh really?” your wife will say.

“Totally.” you tell her. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice. Every time I ordered a beer, she looked directly at me.” Make your aw-yeah face.

That is how you do it*.




*Any given Saturday.

Wanderer

Shaolin shadowboxing,

“Hmm?”

and the Wu-Tang sword style.

“Whazz?”

If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu-Tang could be dangerous.

“The hell?”

Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me?

That’s the kind of question that pulls you out of your sleep, especially when you haven’t the faintest idea who’s asking it. It was then that I rolled over to find the almost-two year old, my almost-two year old, sitting on the floor next to the bed holding my swiss army phone. He had pulled up the iPod and found his way to the Wu-Tang Clan’s 36 Chambers album, and hit play on track 1, “Bring Da Ruckus,” which opens with the dialogue sample above. He smiled up at me, overjoyed either by his own cleverness or by the fact that I was awake.

This was how I started that day.

We only just switched the little guy from his elevated cage of a crib to a toddler bed that he can easily climb in and out of. Actually, it had gotten to the point where climbing in and out of his crib was only a slightly greater challenge for him. We had this silly notion that when he woke up in the morning, he would enjoy being able to climb out of bed and play with his toys while we slept soundly. This vision has not yet manifested itself in our reality. Instead, he’s developed this pattern where he toddles downstairs to our room, walks his little self all the way around the bed to my side, and climbs in with me. He brings Cookie Monster too. He wiggles and talks and makes with all manner of the cuteness, which is nifty and all, but it brings the sleeping part of bed occupancy to an end. Apparently, he likes his parents better than his toys. Which is just goddamn inconvenient.

Protective helicopter parent that I am, I snatched the phone out of his little hands before The RZA began shouting for somebody to bring the mothafuckin ruckus. Not sure who he’s talking to, but he really wants them to get on with this ruckus bringing business.

The second night he was in the new bed, The Ash awoke to the sound of a repetitive clicking noise somewhere in the house. Just imagine that. Dark house, middle of the night. All is quiet save the hum of the baby monitor, and somewhere across the house, click.......click.........click. She followed it out of our bedroom, past eldest’s room, through the living and the dining where she found the little guy standing at the door that leads out to the garage, locking and unlocking the knob-lock. Had the deadbolt not been set, he’d have wandered into the garage where we would still be searching for him in all the accumulated debris.

I wonder what he thought about as he wandered through the house in the dark, unmonitored. I’m free! Free! I have vague memories of being little and wandering around the house at night. I remember doing that at my grandparent’s enormous house and feeling like I was really up to something dangerous, even though I never set foot outside. Freedom is relative, I guess. And the little guy just acquired a wee bit more.

When that evening sun's setting low

The cosmos must have fallen into some bizarre celestial alignment because Ash was in the mood for Mexican food when she and The GooGoo picked me up from work today. She's never in the mood for Mexican food, so I took advantage and we dropped into a place down the street that we haven't tried yet. We're still having fun learning about all the places that our new-to-us area of town has to offer.

When the waiter took our order, he asked us if we wanted an extra little plate for Henry. Ash said yeah, but then asked if they were breakable, to which the waiter says, "yeah, they're breakable, but so are our hearts, and we still give those out." Maybe some other time I wouldn't have been in the mood to hear such a romantic notion in such an unexpected setting, or had his tone of voice been different I might have rolled my eyes or scowled, but it's one of those cool spring evenings that we get so few of right before summer comes a'raging down o'er our heads, so it made me smile and I tipped him extra, even if I was peeved at the restaurant for making me have to dig through six high chairs before I found one that didn't have a broken buckle.

After dinner and ice cream, we went for a family walk. We even brought the dog along with us to make it an official family trip. We took The GooGoo to the nearby playground to let him burn off some energy. It's been fun to watch him grow gradually more confident with climbing up and down on the playground equipment, though he hasn't quite mastered the concept of the slide. On the way back, we waved hi to one of our neighbors who was standing out on her front porch enjoying the evening. "Now that is a happy family" she said. Yeah, I have to admit, I think we are.