A Little Chaos

Kudos to our industrial wonders

I'd like to thank the diaper industry. Truly. This is a miracle of modern invention, and sliced bread proportions. I mean c'mon, think about it, how long ago was it when we were gape-jawed apes hunkered around a water pit, wondering why our little baby-ape children kept pooping in the drinking water.

Then came cotton (I imaging a dark-ages run were burlap was the diaper of choice, but the thought just chafes, so I'll move on). Cotton stayed around a long time. And a tip of the hat to my friend Brian, who went enviro and stayed w/ the reusable wonder until his kiddo developed a rash. "A rash." Sure. Or perhaps he developed an aversion to finding himself covered in his kid's crap six out of seven days a week. (OK, he's for real, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was the rash).

So today, there is a vast R&D arm at Procter and Gamble that I imagine must look like the Kennedy Space Center. Huge clean rooms with white-clad scientists pouring beakers of blue liquid on an endless series of substances to find that miracle material that will hold one more drop.

They're missing the point, badly.

While it's true that diapers will hold the equivalent of a small swimming pool of liquid, what they fail to account for is, well, the crap. It's not a leakage due to weak elastic bands. It's all about VOLUME.

Seriously, Kylen saves himself up for about three days, then, mid-meal one fine workmorning, while daddy sits with him, about to head out the door, the little eyes go crossed, the mouth sets, his gaze fixes over my shoulder and wham...

Now, you expect a bit of leakage from time to time. But this kid explodes out through both leg holes, and all the way up his back to his shoulder blades. His diaper goes Jiffy-Pop but it never really stood a chance. Neither do I, as I sit with two handfuls and a rapidly soaking pair of dress pants.

That's the moment I get the first squeal of joy for the day, and I smile back, suppressing my gag reflex.

"Feel better?"

Note to diaper industry scientists: the condom industry came up with the "reservoir tip." Consider something similar.

I always wondered what Kurt

I always wondered what Kurt Vonnegut's view of the world was. His books, some of which are my favorites, strip bare every speck of shiny varnish from life, and leave it standing naked and exposed to show the lunacy of what's around us.

And yet there's so much humor and humanity in them.

I read back through some of what I've written, and I see a thread appear. I think it's to do the opposite of Vonnegut; put the veneer back onto life, shine it up, make it sane and manageable. And to always find the humor and humanity in it. But of course that's a silly notion, as my youngest screams in his crib and my oldest collapses in a fit at having to get off the potty (yes, off the potty).

And I'll be honest here, I'm not always sure I'm the man for the job. Normally I'd insert my snarky take on life right about now, the big Lesson of The Day. How I've grown and what I've learned about the universal truths. Those are never insincere thoughts, it's just that I wonder tonight about a life lived one step behind, all the time. Running every minute to get to the next moment and feeling like I'm sliding backwards at the same time. About getting home exhausted for a shiny little hour with my family before beginning the two hour preparation for the next day and off to bed.

Weird life, this.

It's no sympathy plea. Mostly I live in awe of those souls who seem to have it all figured out (or maybe they don't, and that's the point, and I'm just externalizing what everyone already deals with). My true hero, and she won't believe it but it's true, is Traci. She'll be the first to admit she doesn't have it figured out, either. But to see how Riley and Kylen can charge her batteries so full of love and joy, to hear her laugh the spontaneous belly laugh I fell in love with 12 years ago, to see her put our children to bed, then lay on the ground and share the love with our dogs, and do it all at 10pm after getting up at 6am and never slowing down, even though she's so exhausted she can't see straight. There's a power in that that simply defies my understanding.

All I've got is my little slice, my limited view of life seen through my own blinders. But what I see is a world for my children that will always have its own shine, always make some degree of sense, always have a safe little nook in it that is her hug and her laugh.

I drive her crazy. I never speak my mind. All she knows how to do is speak hers. She swears she won't the next time. She always does. She's quick to lay blame on herself when in fact she's often the blameless one. She's, quite simply, what I should hope to be, emotional, passionate, dedicated and willing to do whatever it takes to keep her family on track.

Anyway, she doesn't always believe it when I say it, so I say it to the world so the world may know it whether she believes it or not. And so much of the writing I throw on here is about everything but her, she should know that without her, there's not a word that would exist, or be worth reading on this little blog.

Progress?

So, four weeks, three pulled muscles (including an elbow that swelled up like a balloon), one slightly offended client (we don't have showers), and 12 workouts later, I've managed to put on five pounds using the gym upstairs in my building.

For reference, I've spent the past two years trying to put on weight through a routine of sedentary living and power eating. That resulting in losing two pounds, at who knows what cost to my cholesterol level. So in reality, I'm pretty damn proud of these five meager pounds.

I actually had a client ask if I'd been working out. Let me tell you, for a 145 pound guy who wears T-shirts under everything for the added bulk it brings, that was a moment of joy. I think I benched an extra 3 pounds just from the emotional lift it gave me. I'm an animal.

To keep it all in perspective, the world need not fear another Narcissus. For all the work, I'm up to a whopping 150 pounds. But I'll keep going...feels good to feel good.

My father, on the other hand, needs to lay off the laying off of the carbs. He's South Beached his way down to 160 pounds, his fighting weight when he was, I don't know, perhaps prepubescent. When he gets up a head of steam he doesn't slow down. I think he's trying to get rid of those last couple of vanity pounds, but it will have to come from his elbow fat or excess gray matter, there's nowhere else left. He and my mom leave for Italy tomorrow, and the land of pasta and cannoli will perhaps bring them both back to their senses before they go all Karen Carpenter on us.

When I start benching my own weight, I'm uploading those before/after pictures where I suddenly flex, lose all my chest hair and gain a wicked tan.

"Mommy, I'm on the 'puter!"

A little something for mommy, while her kiddo is away. I got to play with iMovie on my dad's Mac for awhile and threw this together. Pretty slick program, but I can't figure out how to save files that aren't obscenely huge.Download file

Up and away

Riley is VERY excited this week. We're going to visit grandma and grampa in Chicago, and he gets to ride on an airplane. As if that weren't enough, we're leaving on Thursday (in reality we're leaving on Friday, but just like four is his favorite number, and therefore the answer for all math problems, Thursday is his favorite day, and therefore the only actual day of the week).

With the warm weather has come the Playing In The Dirt. I showed up at daycare on Friday to find him literally sitting in a pile of dirt, rubbing it on his arms. This would be more noteworthy if all the other kids weren't doing the same thing. When you're almost 3, what else in life is better? But he makes pigpen look like a rank amateur. It falls out of his hair, there's so much on him. Impressive.

Unmitigated joy

Occasionally, one must step back and assess one's place in the world. Find perspective, balance, and if one is lucky, some harmony.

Personally, I just didn't expect to do it while sanding my deck.

Deck sanding is surprisingly meditative if you open yourself up to it. On a nice day, hands and knees, head down and sanding back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Inch forward, repeat. There's a rhythm that's quite nice.

The second fifteen minutes can start to drag, however. But I put myself to it, determined to rescue the cedar from its spotty coat of stain, and dedicated a day of my life to the effort. The following weekend, I rolled on a coat of stain, that thanks to the always flagging accuracy of the pittsburgh weather forecast (Storm Alert!), was left to dry a mere six hours before a thunderous storm. But I digress.

That takes care of the deck floor. The second round involves (present tense) the fairly intricate railings, and my enthusiasm for the task has run dry. So on Sunday, an hour before I had to run to work for a weekend meeting, and under threatening skies, I was frantically scrubbing away, trying to make some headway.

Enter the Irish Devil himself. Wearing just shorts, thumping his little feet around and around in circles on the deck, clucking his arms like a chicken. "What doing daddy?"

"I'm sanding."

"You sanding? You sanding daddy? You sanding?"

And so on.

It was at the point when I felt a raindrop plink on my head that I knew it was time to speed it up. And I turned at that exact moment to see Riley grab the sanding pad (my only one) and fling it gleefully off the deck.

"RILEY!"

"I throwed it daddy!"

Grumble mumble down the steps, around the wall, into the yard, across the yard, back back back and up the steps. And I'm telling you, the second I grabbed the electric sander (OK, I'm no boyscout, this story of purity and effort has an electric sander. YOU sand for a whole weekend), I turn to see Riley fling the sanding pad up, over my head in a gentle, graceful arc, and once more into the yard.

We stop dead and stare at each other. Moments pass. If a tumbleweed had been available, it would have bounced by in the freshening wind.

And as I melt him with my gaze, so full of You don't understand life and the pressures and the little bit of time I have on this precious weekend that I am now spending sanding a stupid deck so I can run to a meeting, he arches his little eyebrows, curls up the side of his mouth and scrunches his nose. And holds that pose looking directly at his one and only daddy. So full of his own joy, he now extends his arms above his head as if full of electricity and begins to jump in circles.

And the power of that joy shook free all of the anger, and once again, for the hundredth time, I was reminded, and I understood. And I let the rain drops start to fall, and the wind blow, and the stupid deck just be a stupid deck, not a referendum on my sanity, or my place in the world.

And I understood--I understand--truly, that I owe this child everything.

Let it rain.