Shotgun Daddy

Honey, We're Out of Honey

As a husband and father, there are lots of things that I do well. Sadly, none of those things make for entertaining reading. Fortunately for me (and my loyal readers), I’ve got a lot of material on the other side of the coin.

In most cases, my memory is flawless. Need a quote from Seinfeld? Give me a ring. Wonder how many home runs Mickey Mantle hit? I’m your man. And if that’s not enough, birthdays and anniversaries seem to stick in my head like post-it notes.

All that being said, my mind sometimes wanders in crucial situations. Just last week, for example, we packed all the kids into the Odyssey to ready for a trip to grandma and grandpa’s. Realizing I had forgotten Baby Kate’s bottle, I got out of the car, unlocked the house, turned off the alarm, went in the house, closed the door behind me, reset the alarm, went back outside, locked the door, got in the car, and drove the family to Culver City. It wasn’t until we had driven about twenty miles that I remembered why I had gone back in the house -- I had forgotten the baby’s bottle.

Ah, but we’re just scratching the surface here. Perhaps the biggest hole in my Swiss cheese brain reveals itself when we’re shopping. When I cross the threshold into Costco, it’s as if I leave all sense at the door. Do we need toilet paper? Laundry detergent? Napkins? I have no idea.

I hear what you’re saying. Everyone has these issues, right? We’re all lost without a grocery list, aren’t we? Maybe. But let me tell you about our honey situation; I’ll let you decide.

I love honey. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Honey on a biscuit is nice, but if you’ve never had a peanut butter and honey sandwich, you’re missing out on the sweetest lunch imaginable. (Here’s a story about bees and the best PB and H sandwich I’ve ever had.)

But back to our story. As we walked down the condiments aisle in Costco a few weeks ago, I assured Leslie that we were out of honey. We needed more. The problem with Costco, of course, is that you can’t buy just one of anything, and so it is with honey. I set a three-pack into the cart and we turned into the next aisle.

When we got home with our honey and the rest of our groceries, guess what? Three more bottles of honey waiting in the cupboard. Like any loving wife, Leslie was incredibly understanding. Or at least she seemed so while she was mocking me mercilessly. “We need honey,” she mocked. And when we passed the honey on subsequent Costco trips, she never failed to ask me if we needed any more. If I heard it once, I heard it 536 times. She’s thoughtful like that.

Cut to this morning. I’m getting breakfast for the kids when I look into a deep corner of the cupboard in search of some syrup for Henry’s waffles. And what do you suppose I find? Two more bottles of honey! Obviously, I need to be stopped. Or at the very least, I need to start making grocery lists.

(Click the picture for the full-sized image.)

I Once Was Lost, But Now I'm Found

TiVo Warning: Details of Wednesday night's Lost season finale will be discussed. Proceed at your own risk.. I have to admit that there were moments this season when Lost seemed to be lost. When the show was at it's best, it seemed like each episode ended the same way: the closing title would plunk onto the screen, and my mind would immediately begin racing. What did we just learn? What does that mean? How can this twist possibly be resolved? Is that character really dead?? And the next seven days couldn't pass quickly enough as I waited for my next dose. There were times, though, when the end of the show was just the end of the show. Instead of sitting deep in thought for a few minutes, maybe zipping the TiVo back to watch a few key scenes or review the flashbacks, I'd just click over to SportsCenter. The show seemed stagnant, and there were those who felt it had lost its way. On Wednesday night, though, the geniuses came out swinging and delivered the best two hours of television I've watched in a long, long time. In case you've forgotten, Lost is the best show on TV. (Alright, people tell me that the Sopranos is a decent watch, but I'm one of the few holdouts. Forgive me.) But back to the Island. Even if you've only watched a little of this show, you know that the flashbacks are what pull everything -- and everyone together. For a while now, as I've become more attached to the characters, I've started to realize that we've gotten to know Jack and Kate, Hurley and Sawyer, Jin and Locke, and all the rest in just the same way that we get to know our real-life friends. At first all you have is the present tense -- all that you observe -- but little by little you learn the history. You get stories about prom dates and high school hangovers; triumphs and disappointments; secrets and dreams. Eventually the line between past and present begins to blur and all that's left is one continuous history. And so it is that all of these people, or at least most of them, have secured a place in our lives. This week's season finale offered a perfect example. I was puzzled by the first flashback almost immediately. Jack's cell phone wasn't right. It looked suspiciously like my RAZR, a model which was certainly not available three years ago. This error -- for that was how I saw it -- bothered me. And even though we eventually learned that these flashbacks were actually flash forwards, explaining the modern phone, that's not really the interesting thing. As I viewed the flash forwards throughout the night, I was struck by how much Jack's suffering was bothering me. When he stood on the bridge preparing to jump to the concrete below, I wondered what could have driven him to such a point. Later, as he seemed to hit rock bottom in the pharmacy, it was actually hard for me to watch. Thankfully, though, as these scenes dissolved back into the reality of the island, with Jack heroically leading our tribe to the radio tower and eventual rescue, I was comforted by the reminder that he was okay. Everything was okay. And then came the bombshell at the end, which made everything worse. Suddenly the entire episode was turned on its head as I realized that Jack wasn't the hero anymore. The flashbacks which I had thought were showing me all he had overcome were instead previews of what he would become. As soon as I worked through the shock of this and understood that it meant that they really would get off the island someday, my attention shifted to Jack. As the moral center of Lost -- sure, he strays from time to time, but he's still pretty much true north -- he's the one we've been following since the camera first pulled back from his blinking eye in the opening scene of season one. We want them all to be saved, but more than anything else we want Jack to be the one who leads them home. All of this explains why my reaction to Jack's downward spiral was so strong, and probably why Kate looked at him with such sadness and pity as she left him at the airport. We care about Jack. It's difficult to watch as he contemplates suicide and wallows in drug addiction because he has become much more than just a character on a television show. He is -- along with Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, and all the rest -- a part of our lives. Like any good story, whether it's Hamlet or The Cat in the Hat or Seinfeld, it's the characters that enter our hearts and minds and keep us coming back for more. With Lost, it's no different.

The Best Show on Television

The best show on television? Easy. It's Lost. Wednesday night's season finale was phenomenal. Here's my take:

There were times, though, when the end of the show was just the end of the show. Instead of sitting deep in thought for a few minutes, maybe zipping the TiVo back to watch a few key scenes or review the flashbacks, I'd just click over to SportsCenter. The show seemed stagnant, and there were those who felt it had lost its way.

On Wednesday night, though, the geniuses came out swinging and delivered the best two hours of television I've watched in a long, long time. In case you've forgotten, Lost is the best show on TV.

Follow this link for the entire piece.

Odds and Ends

I've got a new post up over at the BlogFathers. Here's a quick taste:

The first thing you should know, just so you don’t start a letter-writing campaign to have me removed from the family, is that I love being a dad and I love all three of my kids. Love ‘em like crazy. Tonight, though, when my son asked me to read a Bob the Builder story before bed, this entire post was revealed to me. (I’m not sure you can call it divine inspiration; the truth probably lies somewhere between Muhammad’s visit from the Angel Gabriel and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s opium induced dreaming of “Kubla Kahn”.)

Too often parents smile vacuously, just like the characters in the Twilight Zone episode in which Billy Mummy plays the monstrous little boy whose mysterious abilities terrify the entire town. As great as things are, as much as I love doing what I’m doing, there’s still room for improvement.

Here's a link to the entire post. Enjoy.

Also, in case you're interested in my feelings on Grey's Anatomy, chew on this:

I came to Grey’s Anatomy in much the same way that I imagine most men across the country have: I was infected by my wife. She jumped on the train early on, no doubt lured by the biting banter of Christina, the vulnerability of George, the tragedy of Izzy and Denny, and the drama of Meredith and McDreamy, all played out to the tune of a different Snow Patrol tune each week.

Follow this link over to the Mellow Hut for the whole piece. (But shhh! -- I haven't watched the finale yet.)

A Party of Five

It's hard to believe that I've left this space sitting lonely for so long... What better (and easier) way to clear the dust than to bang out a quick update? Starting from the top, here goes...

Alison
It's always been surprizing to me how much Alison is like me. People say that we look alike, but I don't see the physical resemblance too often. In many ways, though, her personality is a carbon copy of my own -- for better or for worse. Just like her father, Alison tends to do things painfully slowly, whether it's cleaning up her room, brushing her teeth, or finishing an assignment in class. She seems to make an effort to keep her excitement inside, only offering the slightest hints to those who know her best, and she is painfully shy. When I watch the way that she responds to different people and situations, I sometimes feel like I'm looking in a mirror. Lately, though, there's been a change. I've noticed that she looks adults in the eye and speaks clearly in response to their questions. Tonight at dinner, for example, we were even able to convince her to ask our waiter for more lemonade -- in Spanish. She's growing in many ways.

But she can still be sassy when she wants to be. As we were driving home, with thoughts of bedtime dancing in our heads, Alison called from the back of the van, asking the question that comes at three or four times a day: "Can we ride bikes when we get home?"

Me: Are you crazy? It's almost bedtime.
Alison: No it isn't!
Me: Yes, it is. It's after 6:30.
Alison: But it's not even dark yet!
Me: It doesn't matter if it's dark yet. It's almost late.
Alison: Well, if it's late, there must be something wrong with the sun, because it's not dark.

How, I ask, do you argue with that?

Henry
Sometimes it seems like Henry is our own little Chang and Eng -- one boy with two distinctly different personalities. There are moments when he can be an absolute knucklehead, like when he locks the door and shakes the baby powder bottle until his bedroom resembles the inside of a cloud. Or when he accidentally hits his mother in the head with a baseball bat. Or when he uses a marker to draw on the kitchen table. Or when he kicks his baby sister in the head.

Thankfully, though, Henry has a sweeter side. He loves nothing more than giving flowers to his mama, and he worries whenever a relative, teacher, or friend is sick. He loves helping me with the laundry, and he tells me that he loves me several times a day. He'll be starting kindergarten in September, and although we thought for a while about holding him back for a year, we're proud of all the progress he's made over the last six months or so, and we look forward to watching him continue to grow next year.

So what might be Henry's greatest skill? Simple. Regurgitation. The main problem, I guess, is that he eats like puppy, shoving food into his mouth at least as fast as he can chew. A normal person takes a bit of his food, chews it up, swallows, then takes another bite. Henry combines the chewing with the biting, which means that he's constantly putting more food into his mouth, making the swallowing part rather difficult. If we don't watch him carefully, the food begins to pile up, triggering an undesirable gastro-intestinal response.

And so it was at El Torito this week. After stuffing himself with chips and tacos and who knows what else, Henry reached his limit. First his eyes glaze over a bit, then he suddenly wants to snuggle with the nearest parent, next he whimpers a bit, then he releases a guttural burp, a sure sign that he's reached the point of no return. This particular "event" marked the fourth time he has thrown up in a El Torito (here's a link to a previous post referencing this El Torito Phenomenon.) I don't think we'll ever be able to go back.

Baby Kate
Ah, sweet Baby Kate. When Alison was a baby, we never called her by her given name. She was simply "Baby" until just a few months before her brother was born. Realizing that we'd soon have another "Baby" in the house, we forced ourselves to start calling her Alison, even though the syllables felt strange as they were spoken aloud. I worry that Kate, having no younger siblings coming behind her to steal her name, just might be Baby for the rest of her life -- or at least until we take her to a resort in the Catskills and she falls in love with Patrick Swayze.

Baby Kate turns two next month, and her first twenty-three months have been amazing to watch. Her growing vocabulary is matched in volume only by her temper, and she seems to have inherited all of her mother's determination. She also shows signs of becoming quite the fashionista. Lately she's taken pulling her sleeves down so that they cover the backs of her hands, just like Jennifer Love Hewitt used to do a decade ago in Party of Five.

So that's about it from our party of five. I promise to be back soon...