Recently, Sheepdog had an appointment at the dentist for his 6-month cleaning. I always encourage him to give out his own email and phone number for those kinds of things because I do not keep his schedule during the week and I have enough people to coordinate without adding him to the mix. For whatever reason, I was receiving all of the text, email, phone, and voice mail messages with regard to this particular appointment, and to make for even more notifications, Sheepdog has apparently maxed out his dental benefits for the calendar year and they wanted to confirm that he knew this cleaning would be out-of-pocket.
October 19, 11:10 AM – TEXT MESSAGE (incoming) “Joshua has an appointment with the dentist on 11/9/21 at 8:00 AM. Questions? Call phone number. Please note, all patients are asked to wear a mask/face covering when in the office. Txt STOP to opt-out from automated msgs”
November 3, 1:11 PM – TEXT MESSAGE (incoming) “Text C to confirm appt for Joshua on 11/9/21 at 8 AM with the dentist. Text R to reschedule. Questions? Call phone number. Please note, all patients are asked to wear a mask/face covering when in the office. Txt STOP to opt-out from automated msgs”
November 4, 11:54 AM – MISSED CALL Dentist
November 4, 11:55 AM – VOICEMAIL Transcription “Good morning this is the dentist giving you a call um Joshua has an appointment with us at 8 AM on November 9 next Tuesday un this appointment will be out of pocket you still get a discounted rate with your insurance but I was calling to let you know please give me a call back at phone number thank you”
November 4, 11:55 AM – TEXT MESSAGE (outgoing) to Sheepdog:
And, yes, Sheepdog has a black eye in that picture. It is from jujitsu, not from me.
I am still bored, but I am clearly not ready to get a real job yet.
I was recently reminded by Kid C of a statement I made about a year ago at a December 2019 family birthday party for one of my youngest nieces. Until she mentioned it, I had completely forgotten that it happened. Now I feel like Lucy Ricardo and I’ve got some ‘splaining to do. But first, a flashback…
It was the fall of 1985 in southern, coastal New Jersey. I was just about to turn 15 years old and one of my birthday presents was the privilege of tagging along on a weekend sailing trip with my dad, my uncle, and each of their best friends. I was naive enough to go out on a 27′ sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean and have little to no idea of how to actually sail a boat, how to navigate, or what safety procedures to follow in a crisis. Ah, the joys of teenage invincibility. The five of us left port out of Toms River and headed out of the bay into the big, blue sea.
Except for may dad, my house at the time was occupied by all women – my mom and three little sisters, as well as my grandmother and my aunt and their female dog, so I was really excited to spend the weekend with dudes who were doing dude things… smoking cigars and drinking alcohol and then the inevitable imparting of their wisdom and life lessons. To this teenage girl who was floundering around and trying to figure things out, I could think of no better, drama-free way to spend a weekend.
I don’t recall many specifics from the bulk of the trip, but I have great memories of watching these influential men in my life sail the boat, prepare and serve meals and drinks, and interact with one another. I felt so much support from them as they gave advice on how to navigate friendships, family, boys, and life in general. On our final Sunday afternoon leg back toward the marina, I recall feeling really grounded and so very loved and protected. I was confident and ready to take on the world!
Suddenly, and practically without any warning, a huge squall popped up in the middle of the ocean. Driving rain, swirling winds, and very rough seas prevented any of us onboard from seeing beyond our own extended arms. It was all hands on deck to batten down the hatches, or whatever real sailors do to keep their passengers, crew, and boat safe in that situation. I ended up on the bow of the boat, my hands gripping the pulpit tightly as I stared this monster storm right in the face, and I smiled right at her. I didn’t have any actual sailing skills and I figured I’d just be in the way, so I went where I thought I’d be the least underfoot. It was so loud and wet and incredibly scary but also invigorating as the boat rose and then fell upon the waves over and over and over again. I felt like I was at one with the upheaval and the feeling was powerful. Those moments of pure adrenaline coursing through me while still relishing in the safety cocoon that had been established over the past few days will stick with me forever. I felt so alive!
Then, as quickly as it showed up, the storm disappeared. I found out immediately that my instinct to get out of the way was not well-received by any of the sailors. Because there was such limited visibility in the thick of it and I was not below deck, where the “normal” people apparently go in such a situation, they actually thought I was a (wo)man overboard throughout most of the chaos and they were not happy with me. They all hugged me tightly while simultaneously scolding me the rest of the trip in for being an absolute effing moron. But I was still grinning because of my life-altering experience up on that bow.
Fast forward more than three decades to 2019… I have now been married to Sheepdog for 26 years and together we have five incredible kids. My life is amazing by every standard, but I am definitely the boring one on the team. Sheepdog has jumped out of an airplane, flies downhill on a mountain bike while navigating stumps and jumps, is an actual boxer in a ring with punches to the head and body, commutes to work on a bicycle in crazy Atlanta traffic, and who knows what death-defying X-Game he’ll attempt to make part of his daily life next? This has been an integral part of his personality his entire life, so it is not my place to challenge him for behaving like that. As yin to his yang, I have a personal need to be the steady and dependable one in the duo. That, in conjunction with the reprimand for my sailboat antics, has curbed me from doing anything too dangerous over the years. Now I plan meals, make sure the kids have school supplies and toiletries, and I do laundry. That’s about it. Cue the adrenaline rush.
As our kids become more independent and head off to college and move out and get married and get older in general, my role is changing. They need me less and less (although part of me hopes they’ll always need their mama just a little bit) and I started having more time to myself, as well as the ability to branch out and do more exciting things than pick up the dry cleaning.
In the fall of 2019, Kid C left for college, so it was just me, Sheepdog, and the two boys at home. While Kid D is a high schooler and Kid E is still in middle school, they are pretty self-reliant and I started to taste the freedom. I got excited about dipping my toe back into a life that was a smidge more about me than about my husband and kids. After years of almost exclusively doing my mom job, I was ready to think about things that brought me joy and excitement… things that brought back that feeling of being in the middle of an unpredicted squall on the bow of a sailboat and make my soul feel truly alive.
So at this family birthday party at the very end of 2019, I wanted to gauge reactions of those closest to me to my plan and I started announcing that 2020 was going to be the YEAR OF ME. My 50th birthday was coming up in October and I just knew that this was the right time for a change. At some point, Sheepdog heard my declarations (in all fairness he had been encouraging me to do something along these lines for a while, but my justification for not doing anything was that someone should still be the reliable parent while the kids are young and he certainly wasn’t changing any of his behaviors). Later on during the party, I overheard Sheepdog telling another guest that 2020 was going to be OUR year of travel and time together and lots of new stuff. He was so proud and excited as he started naming exotic locations and adventures.
Right then, something inside me snapped. How dare he hone in on my year? I understand and appreciate that he loves me and wants to spend time together and wants the excitement for us both, but the plan – MY PLAN – was to be selfish and I wanted Sheepdog to be the yang to my yin and maybe sit still safely in the corner playing the role of the dependable one for a few minutes while I did my thing, whatever it may be.
So I stood up in the middle of the party and I said loudly to Sheepdog, “NO!” and then to everyone else I over-dramatically raised my hands and voice and proclaimed, “2020 is going to be the YEAR OF ME, or it will be the YEAR OF NOBODY!”
…and that is my confession and while I am humble enough to realize I can not affect an entire planet, there’s the whole thing about the power of words and what if another person said the exact same thing at the exact same time and it was like a Jinx situation? I have knocked on wood and thrown salt and thrown a ball far, far away and all of the things you’re supposed to do to undo bad fortune. I am so very truly sorry that I yelled what I yelled and 2020 has been such an upside down and sideways debacle and I’m sorry that I was being selfish and I hope that by writing this post I can undo whatever wrinkle I put out into the universe and we can all just go back to boring and regular and normal next year. The End.
Wish me luck for tomorrow and I wish you all a healthy and happy new year and may you all make 2021 your BEST YEAR EVER!
Last night was a perfect storm of parental fandom. Kid D had a baseball game, Kid B had a soccer game, and Kid E went out for a bike ride… all at the same time. With Sheepdog out of town (attending said soccer game with both sets of grandparents), it fell on me to cheer for everyone simultaneously.
I sat in the bleachers at the local baseball park. We just came off a 13-day break in practices and games due to the long Columbus Day holiday weekend, so everybody was rusty, including the fans. The weather during our last game had crept into the 90’s, but we live in Atlanta where the weather is manic, so the forecast called for lows in the 50’s before the game would be over. The mom next to me was wearing shorts (“I refuse to put on pants when I still have a tan!”) but she was prepared with two blankets and her PTA Mafia friends sharing body heat around her.
Kid E joined me at the baseball game, but he doesn’t like to sit still for long. We brought his bike and helmet for entertainment and distraction, and after his nutritious dinner of a soft pretzel and Reese’s cups from the concession stand, he took off to ride like the lead in Breaking Away. But also with instructions to check back in with me after every couple of laps around the track. The park was packed and he is super cute and I will not have anybody stealing my baby.
About a half hour into the baseball game, the soccer game of the season for Kid B’s team began at Glenn Warner Stadium in Annapolis. I’m talking Army vs. Navy and at the service academies that match is no joke. Go Navy! Beat Army!
Like I said, Sheepdog was there in person, but I was home with the others and had to watch online. I tethered my laptop to my cell phone and proceeded to do the 10-second whiplash dance. That’s 10 seconds of watching Kid D’s baseball game, 10 seconds of scanning the park/ bike path for Kid E, and 10 seconds of screen time watching Navy Women’s Soccer.
I think I held down the fort pretty well. It can be tricky, and it was more luck than skill that I was able to see most of the great plays as they happened. Add in a request from Sheepdog to periodically brief him on the status of the baseball game, as well as receiving other notifications from an awesome team dad who lives near the Naval Academy and live texts game updates to a group of us who normally can’t be there in person, a phone call to check-in and let me know what her plans were for the evening from Kid C, as well as a mayday search for Kid E after a no-see for too long (found him, or rather he found me) and a relatively minor bike crash right in front of the concession stand… it was a pretty busy two hours. I had developed an eye twitch, but I got to see it all!
Kid D has a stellar squat game
Fast-forward to 8-something p.m. Kid E was done riding and had joined me watching both games from the bleachers. The Blue Rocks, Kid D’s team, were up 5-3. Rules in the 13-15 year-old league are that you have to play at least one hour and forty-five minutes, so we started the 5th inning. The home team kind of fell apart (it was cold, it was getting late, and they also had the past two weeks off…) and the Blue Rocks ended up scoring 12 runs. The score was 17-3. The third out against us took FOREVER to happen, but it finally did. All we had to do was get three outs against them and we could all go home.
There exists a kind of surreal, slow-motion recollection of this next part for me. The Army/Navy game was getting wild. Navy tied it 1-1, after having trailed for the whole first half and a good part of the second. The crowd got rowdy after the tying goal was scored, and the play on the field was getting heated. Army got a yellow card. With just minutes left, Navy almost scored, but the goal stayed empty. The Blue Rocks got 2 outs against the other team. We needed JUST ONE MORE. Fans were standing in the bleachers at both games. We were all on edge. The excitement was palpable. I was still doing the 10-second drill back-and-forth, screen-to-field. I kept forgetting to breathe.
Then it happened… I gave the baseball game 10 seconds of my attention (that third and final out was still elusive) and then I switched to watching online as a beautiful, sweet kick went perfectly into Army’s goal. I’m not sure at first if it was live or a replay but I quickly realized that Navy had just scored on Army with 0:44 left in the game!
I jumped up from the baseball bleachers and screamed out, “GOAL!” as loud as humanly possible while the other fans and parents looked at me like, “Does she even know anything about sports?”
Sheepdog worked from home yesterday because he had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. He has a quiet office in the basement, surrounded by his bicycles, camping gear, and things that go pew-pew-pew. It is one of his happy places.
I went to the gym in the morning and came home to take a shower afterwards. Of course it was right at that moment that my phone rang. Even with soap in my eyes I could see that it was school calling. I turned off the running water and answered in my most official “no, I’m not naked” mom voice.
“Hi, Stacy. This is Tracy from the clinic.”
She had Kid D with her. He had a low-grade fever and felt miserable. I had noticed The Crud coming on with him earlier and I had actually made a doctor’s appointment for after school so they could diagnose his sinus infection and we could move on. But he wasn’t going to make it until after school and he needed to be picked up ASAP.
So I texted Sheepdog in the basement: “Any chance you can go get <Kid D> from school? I’m showering.”
His response: “Right now?”
I’m literally in the middle of a shower. I’m wet. And cold. I have soap in my hair and my eyes. For cripe’s sake: “Come up please.”
So he does and I explain that Kid D says he can not wait, so would he please go get him now. It will take me much longer, what with my in-the-middle-of-showering dilemma. Then I ask if he remembers where to go (coincidentally, we had picked Kid D up early on Tuesday to go to Kid A’s Capstone Expo at Georgia Tech so it was fresh in his mind) and he said of course he knew. So off goes Sheepdog. I very happily finish showering in peace.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, when I’m dressed again, I get a text.
Sheepdog showed up at the school. They buzzed him in at the front desk. He announced he was there to pick up his kid. The front desk lady asks for his teacher’s name.
Sheepdog: “Really? Are you asking just to make fun of me?” Hats off to her because the likelihood is very high that I would have done the same exact thing.
It turns out the kid was at lunch, so she sent Sheepdog off to the cafeteria to find him.
Kid: “Dad!”
Sheepdog: “Are you ready to go?”
Kid: “(Hell) YES!” (packs up lunchbox and basically runs out of the room, forcing Sheepdog to keep up)
Sheepdog: “How are you feeling, bud?”
Kid: “Great, dad! I feel great.”
Sheepdog: “Wait. What? Didn’t you go to the clinic because you didn’t feel well, and the clinic lady called mom and asked her to come pick you up…”
Kid: “No. No clinic for me. I feel just fine. Where are we going dad?”
Sheepdog: “…”
Shit. He then has to explain his mistake and take Kid E back to the cafeteria. Fortunately, he was a pretty good sport about the whole thing.
So that’s when I get the text from Sheepdog.
“Don’t know why I thought you said <Kid E>. Not him. Off to get <Kid D>.”
Sheepdog literally picked up the wrong kid from school and had to return him. Then he had to go to a totally different school across town to pick up the right kid.
I’m thinking that five kids in five different schools might be a little much.
Your kid texts you shortly after leaving for middle school in the morning, “Mom I left my project on the bus what can I do?”
Do you (A) give him some tough love and reinforce his independence by telling him to go to the front office and ask for help, and when they are not able to offer anything other than “you’ll just have to wait until you ride the bus home after school” you explain that he has to be responsible for his mistakes (although everybody is human and everybody makes them); or
(B) call the county school bus company, get transferred to dispatch, explain the situation, hold while he radios the bus driver on the walkie-talkie, says she looked but found nothing, text your kid back with the bad news, talk your kid off the ledge because he worked on the project for days and will get a late grade if he doesn’t turn it in today, continue periodically trying to calm him down via text, an hour later decide to call the county school bus company again (wonder should you disguise your voice this time… but decide no, that’s weird and not believable because your British accent tends to fall off mid-sentence) and ask if you can personally locate and search the bus because the kid knows down to the row, seat, and exact coordinates where he left it, profess your undying love for the understanding dispatcher who goes out to the bus, looks for and locates the project himself, drive to the bus depot two towns over (thus missing the last group workout of the morning and you know you’re not going to the afternoon one now) to pick up the project, drive it to your kid’s school, and text him to let him know it is there for pick up, then come home and take a nap?
Yeah, me too. I went with (A). I definitely went with that one. Oh, who am I kidding? That nap was awesome.
And he had a quiz in the middle of all of this! You know it’s serious when juvenile humor doesn’t get a smile out of him. Try saying ‘Boobie Washington’ a few times without giggling. You can’t.
I told Sheepdog back at the very end of February that I was bored. Bored of using my mad Tetris skills to load the dishwasher, bored with devising creative punishments for kids who do stupid things, bored by folding laundry (yes, even fitted sheets). Bored of driving all around this overpopulated suburban utopia. Bored by Netflix (gasp!). Bored with writing, even. Bored, bored, bored. Just bored. Pffft.
Sheepdog, being a manly man, went into problem solver mode and sent me away. In March he put me on a plane to Key West and attempted to curtail my ennui with balmy weather, college roommates, and cocktails. I had a good time. I don’t do things half-assed, so Nate the Great and the Boring Beach Bag (that’s me being bored with reading children’s literature) just kept keeping on. I came back from my long weekend happy, hungover, tired, and sick, … but still bored.
Speaking of beach bags, I even tried shaking things up with an impromptu break in spring by taking a (partial) family trip. Kids C, D, E, and I road tripped on down to the white sand paradise of Cape San Blas, where we roasted s’mores, dug holes to China with the cousins, and avoided sharks. A great time was had by all (except maybe the shark), but afterwards I was still eh.
I spent April managing schedules, cooking and washing, and – of course – driving. Why is there so much driving? I decided to rally and crush my job hand-on-the-plow style. In the life game of Rock, Paper, Scissors of Behavioral Traits, I supposed that tenacity would beat boredom every time, but it seems I was incorrect.
So by the beginning of May I was bored and wrong. Even wearing my hair up in a high ponytail wasn’t helping.
And then I got excited. About the possibility of a short-term, full-time job.
I know, right? Who AM I right now?
You may be wondering what kind of insanity pool I would even consider dipping my pinky toe into, given that I am currently in the midst of actively raising and parenting five children and running a house while my husband holds down a very demanding and stressful career, complete with out-of-state travel and various coaching/ volunteering jobs. I assure you, this job would be awesome. And it would be hard, but we could make it work because it is only for a few weeks. But I am sworn to secrecy about it and I can not tell you anything else about it while I await a hiring decision. As I told the kids, “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”
Now they all think I’m going to work for the CIA.
Just thinking about the possibility of something different has breathed new life into my soul. I wasn’t even looking. It simply presented itself and now I want it more than anything. Even though I laughed until I almost peed while I updated and edited my resume. It took a whole lot of Bondo to fill that 14-year hole in my work experience. What’s another term for “overqualified ass-wiper?”
In the meantime, I am still a SAHM, and this week is the week of all things Mother’s Day. I had a tea to attend on Monday, where Kid E recited a poem he wrote entitled “I Love You More Than…” He included lots of homemade food items and our neighborhood water slide, for which I was very grateful, but Minecraft was suspiciously left off the list. At least I know exactly where I stand with that kid.
Also this week, Kid D came home with a new repertoire of ‘Yo’ Mama’ jokes:
Yo’ mama is so stupid, she got locked in a mattress store overnight and she slept on the floor.
Yo’ mama is so short, you can see her feet on her driver’s license.
Yo’ mama is so ugly, Bob the Builder looked at her and said “I CAN’T FIX THAT!”
Yo’ mama is so dumb, she played ‘Got Your Nose’ with Voldemort. Then he killed her.
The kids and I roared with laughter as he told each new joke. The other kids joined in and added their favorites as well. Then somebody started machine gun farting or something like that, so I put an end to the stand up routines.
That night as I was tucking Kid E into bed, I was feeling nostalgic about him still being little and sweet and I felt the need to explain to him that Yo’ Mama jokes are actually people making fun of moms and he shouldn’t be mean. And since Kid E is the sweetest kid ever, he said he understood and then he made up his own joke and then he grabbed my face and said, “Yo’ mama is so fast that she wins every race that she runs. Like that, Mom?”
Exactly like that, kid. I guess am totally winning, even if I don’t get that other job for the CIA. Happy Mother’s Day!
It is no secret that I think most holidays are contrived by the powers that be to boost the economy through the sale of needless crap that does not actually mean that a person loves you. There is most likely a Kay Jewelers in every mall in hell. Gifts do not equal love.
Say that in your head one more time because it is important. Gifts do not equal love.
Loving behavior equals love. Lots of loving behaviors. Over time. And rocky terrain. And loving behaviors on sunny days and during the fun stuff and in the middle of all of the excitement too. Lots and lots of loving behavior equals love. Gifts do not equal love.
I will, however, make an exception to my rant to allow sarcastic valentines to squeak in. I can definitely get on board with these. I might even go so far as to say that these valentines would count as a little bit of love. May I suggest a few that should be sent from my family?
From Kid E:
From Kid D:
From Kid C:
From Kid B:
From Kid A:
From Sheepdog:
Now that’s what I call love, folks. Lots and lots and lots of love.
*****
A few weeks back I went online and purchased tickets to a predicted train wreck of a movie for Sheepdog and I to see this Valentine’s weekend. The very popular book series that inspired said film had proven to be a key ingredient to a very memorable vacation for us a few years back in Cabo San Lucas. Given that we are not going on that trip to Mexico this year, and the fact that Sheepdog tethers himself to the thought of that week as if it were an actual life source, I figured I would throw him a bone(r). Mr. Grey will see you now.
And then I thought it would be nice to invite my sisters and their husbands to the theater as well. So I texted them about it.
Between happily married, consenting adults, that is.
Wish me luck for tomorrow. Sheepdog’s not going to need any. He’s got 50 Shades of Lucky coming his way.
She is okay now. She is okay now. She is okay now.
I have to keep reminding myself of this. I catch myself taking a lot of deep, cleansing breaths. My left eye has started to twitch every once in a while. Nausea comes and goes in waves, and it feels like something is pushing on my chest, forcing all of the air out of my lungs. My nerves are raw and exposed, but I am eerily calm. I may or may not look it on the outside, but my head is a mess.
You see, yesterday, for almost one full hour, I believed that my oldest child was dead.
On Saturday morning, just after 3 a.m., Sheepdog and I got the phone call that no parent ever wants to get. The voice on the other end said that Kid A had been found, unresponsive, in her dorm hallway and she had been taken by ambulance to the hospital. She said we should get there as quickly as possible, but could offer no additional information.
We woke Kid B and asked her to sleep in our bed in case the boys got up in the middle of the night, and we assured her that we would call as soon as we had news. We drove down silently to Grady Memorial in Atlanta. Sheepdog and I held hands. Phone calls to the hospital during the cold, long trip resulted in the confirmation that she was there, but they would tell us nothing else.
Nothing at all.
My imagination went to all of the very bad places. I thought of all of the risky choices I had made in college. All of the insane, dumb, moronic stuff I had done. All of the times I sat around with my friends, recounting the bits and pieces from the night before, wondering how we managed to survive the night. It was crazy. We were so stupid. We were so lucky. How did we get so lucky? How did we get out, relatively unscathed?
I felt I was getting my answer now. In my mind I heard a nagging whisper, “Pay up. Nobody rides for free.” Was Kid A going to be my price?
Unresponsive. Unresponsive. Unresponsive.
We found the emergency department, cleared security, and went straight to the front desk. We were quickly directed to ambulance triage. I rounded the corner and saw Kid A sitting up on a gurney. I went from zero to sixty, or sixty to zero (I’m not quite sure which) in an instant. Thankfully, my worst-case-scenario had only happened in my head.
I have never hugged someone so vehemently in my life.
The doctor reassured us that she would be fine, and later she was discharged. We drove her back to school and tucked her in with instructions to sleep and hydrate, even though my first instinct was to bring her back home with us and smother her with love and over-parenting. But I am learning that I can not protect my kids from all of the things. Sometimes they need to feel a pinch.
“A hard lesson to learn! I’m sure it will be something you will work out with her and a good lesson was learned without tragic results,” said my mother-in-law.
“Is the lesson ‘Don’t Have Kids?'” I replied. “I seem to have learned that one a little too late. They’re likely going to be the death of me.”
“Hopefully the gravity of it will scare her,” is what one sister said. Hopefully.
And, hopefully, this experience will encourage her make better choices. I hope that she tells her friends about it, too, and that they realize that none of them are invincible. I realize the hypocrisy of this advice coming from me, but my job as a parent is to advise and guide my kids to be better than me. Do better. Behave better. Make the world a better place.
Pretty please with sugar on top, because Sheepdog and I don’t think we can take another wake up call like that one, and we still have four more kids to go after this one.
Today is Kid A’s NINETEENTH birthday, but I’ve been incorrectly telling people for about six months now that she was going to turn 20 this year, and who can believe where the time has gone, and I’m too young to have a kid that old, and wasn’t she just a little baby a minute ago, and …(insert Charlie Brown teacher voice). But I stand corrected, as she is not 20 yet. And I can totally believe that she is 19. Just not 20. So, we’re good.
She was born in a blizzard. Well, not actually in a blizzard, but in a hospital during a blizzard. Although, the wife of a co-worker delivered one day before and she almost did have her baby in the snow as she was being taken to the hospital on a snowmobile (I am a little bit jealous of that super cool birth story).
I was overdue by five days and I was ready to evict my tenant. When the oxytocin kicked in, I tried to rip the side rails off of my hospital bed. Sheepdog hung out with me early on during the slow part of labor, but he seemed kind of bored, so I sent him home to have lunch and a beer and to shovel the driveway. It’s what I wanted to be doing if I hadn’t been otherwise occupied. Then he almost missed her actual birth. He literally ran into the delivery room while nurses were putting his paper hospital costume on him. He rounded the corner and burst into the room and BAM! he got a full frontal view of leg spread with a side of crowning baby head and extra sauce. Welcome to fatherhood, pal. That’s probably gonna leave a mark.
Kid A was, of course, perfect in every way. She was the first grandchild on both sides of the family, so she had no shortage of doting fans. And I was extremely enthusiastic to try my luck at parenting a human being, so I was very excited that she let me practice with her. If she was a boy, I wanted to name her Speed McCoy. Fortunately, that did not happen.
Hi there. I’m your mommy. It’s very nice to meet you. I truly thought you were going to be a boy, so I’m sorry about all of the blue sailboats on your nursery wall.
Thus began almost two decades of me coming up with crazy ideas and theories and names and opinions, and (usually and very luckily) fate intervening when I’ve gone too far. Kid A was my introduction to this insane, exhausting, fulfilling, scary, take-your-breath-away experience called parenthood. She is smart and beautiful and funny and makes me so very proud, even when she is giving me gray hair and making me talk to myself. She is driven and passionate and so very strong. I am very proud and lucky that she is my firstborn.
Happy 19th Birthday, Kid A. Sorry for all of the bad haircuts.
Sheepdog has a hard time sitting still. I feel that he was born with some horrific “can’t relax” gene. He still complains of being tired all of the time and that he feels run down and exhausted, yet he rarely listens when I wisely advise, “take a nap, dummy.” Naps are the best part of parenting as far as I’m concerned. They are the diamonds of Minecraft. My precious.
But, back to Sheepdog. The man is unable to just be. I tease him all the time about his lack of quietude, yet I secretly find his buzz intoxicating. I don’t want to be him, mind you. But I am thrilled that he is on my team. And he’s fun to watch.
This summer, my mom and dad gave Sheepdog a GoPro helmet camera. I do not think in the history of things created that there could be a more appropriate gift. Sheepdog is even more excitable than usual because of it.
He has already begun filling his dance card with mountain and road bike races throughout 2015. His first mountain bike race was the Snake Creek Gap 34-miler, which he completed last Saturday, January 3, in the cold and pouring rain in just over five hours. He was so muddy at the end that the ladies who give out chili to the riders afterwards asked him to pose for pictures because they had never seen anyone so filthy and caked in mud.*
And because he can’t sit still, Sheepdog came home from the race and promptly made a movie about it.
I told you he is fun to watch. How about those thighs, huh?
Wish me luck for tomorrow…
* Reminder to have Sheepdog build an outdoor shower in his spare time
This is How I Do It... 