Left of the Dial

A Little Too Late

So because I am the very epitome of the patriotic American, I took the Rose to Target this President's Day, since nothing expresses my admiration for GeoWash and Honest Abe like handing over many many many pieces of paper plastered with their visages.

(I exaggerate, of course: I am American, so I put it on the credit card.) 

I have one purchase in mind: some jeans for my extraordinarily petite 10-year-old. The only pants she has that fit in the waist are Size 5s which, not surprisingly, only come to about mid-calf. But thanks to the wonders of the adjustable bands they've got inside waists these days, we find some new Size 7s which are only a little too long for her. 

Naturally, having scored sartorially in about ten minutes, we spend another hour stocking up on everything we could possibly imagine needing at some point in the next decade. Including new cucumber and green tea-sented baby wipes. Good try, folks. But if there's one area that you just can't make seem yummy or healthy? Yeah, that's the one. 

Anyhoo, the Rose is unbelievably delightful company on these sorts of trips, chattering along oh so pleasantly, remarking on everything, skipping occasionally, and mainly conveying with every cell in her body how much she truly wishes she were an only child. 

So we get to the checkout just as the person in front of us is pushing her cart away, lucky ducks that we are. I start unloading our copious treasures onto the conveyor belt, and see the cashier sigh heavily and push her hair off her forehead. "Tired?" I smile understandingly.

"No," she says, taking another deep breath and letting it out in our direction. "I just don't feel very good." 

As she says this she grabs the first of my things and starts scanning it. I look at my now mostly but not entirely empty cart, and back at her. She does one of those sorta kinda inside burps and clears her throat, scanning and bagging my goods (although I'm no longer thinking of them in nearly as positive a light as that term would tend to convey) all the while. Too late to grab the stuff and shove it back in the cart and find another lane open, one whose guardian is not infected with the bubonic plague. 

But hey, maybe she's just hung over, says the ever optimistic part of me. So she finishes up and I swipe my card and sign my name (well, sorta: these days I almost always actually draw a little smiley face or, if the occasion seems to call for it, as today's clearly does, a sad face) on the keypad. And then I push my cart past and start grabbing the bags and loading them into the cart. 

And that's when the smell of vomit hits me. 

I look up at her, but she's just leaning against the register, waiting for another hapless victim to show up. I look at the floor, the cart, around. No sign of any regurgitated material. Yet the odor lingers, to put it mildly. Pizza Hut Express is a dozen feet away; perhaps someone has gone insane with the parmesan, a substance which is, in my opinion, identical to your garden-variety spew. 

Who can say? Despite, or perhaps because of, any clear evidence, I rush the Rose out the door, and she's delighted to have to sprint for the car through the pouring rain. Before we're a dozen steps from the cashier, however, I hiss at her that if she so much as gets a fingertip near her eyes, nose or mouth, she's out of the will. She points out that the likelihood of any of my brood inheriting anything is roughly on par with my winning the Nobel prize for physics. I concede the point, and raise the stakes: touch a mucus membrane and I will force her to watch me eat the entire cherry cobbler her mother made this day. She is persuaded. 

We get home and both scrub our hands like we're prepping for surgery. Will it be enough? Only the oracle knows. Lacking a Magic 8-Ball, I turn to the next best thing.

Thanks, George, for helping create a nation where such creatures can serenade us all so sweetly, and to you, Abe, for holding it together. 

Favorite Time of Day

Usually I only get it on Saturday and Sunday, but thanks to the glory of Paternity Leave...

I pick up Senator Smoosh—or, as she demands to be called this day, Ladybug—and we go in search of today's naptime book to read. We choose How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight, which The Bean heard maybe 40 times but Her Ladybugness has not yet (oh, how different the life of a fifth child) but is clearly instantly intrigued by and how could she not be? 

We go back to The Boy's room and shut the door. I ask her what we're going to watch today and she says, "Hmmm...Day'd Bow. Ee?" No, I explain, we finished watching the David Bowie DVD yesterday. I spot my birthday present, The Who at Kilburn: 1977 and spend 90 seconds peeling the rassafrassin' safety tape off it, then pop it in the iMac. 

As it's loading, I put her in my lap so she's facing away and we read the book, and although I'm not generally much of a Jane Yolen fan—the brilliant Owl Moon aside—it's mighty good, and goes over like gangbusters. Book finished, I turn my little coccinellid back around, so now she's facing me. She leans forward and puts her head on my chest and we begin watching The Who. 

It's widescreen, so there are black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. I angle the monitor so her eyes are perfectly centered in the black bar at the bottom. I observe as she takes in "Can't Explain" and then starts to blink heavily during "Substitute." She doesn't even make it through the synthesizer intro to "Baba O'Riley" before they're closed for good. I feel her small body get heavier and heavier as it relaxes completely. I kiss the top of her head softly; her tousled hair smells like Baby Magic and toddler sweat, the combination a result of last night's tubby and this morning's hard work in the garden, which mainly consisted of her chasing birds in a heartfelt yet futile attempt to make friends with her fellow wingéd creatures. 

I wait until the song's over, then turn the volume down and pause. I stand up and take one step forward, then lay her down on the bed. I am not as gentle as her Ladybugship demands, or at least deserves. Her eyes flutter then close again as a small smile forms briefly, then evaporates. "Wha we gun wash?" she murmurs before sinking back deeper. 

I wait a half dozen deep breaths, making sure she's not going to rouse, thinking, "What are we going to watch? You, the inside of your eyelids. Me...you." 

Without You

So Top Management and The Baby spent the night in the hoffel last night. Which, given that she'd, you know, pumped out the equivalent of a small bowling ball a few hours before, made sense. I suppose. But did she stop to think of how that'd effect me? Did she? Did she? Did she? 

She did not. No one ever does. Including me. Because I am the damn epitome of selflessness. 

[Full disclosure: she totally thought about how it would effect me. Because she is revoltingly caring. Even after dropping the equivalent of a large Easter ham.]

Which, of course, leads you to wonder just how this DID effect me. Because, really, I am an endlessly fascinating subject. Why, just ask me. [Yes, how astute of you, you're quite right, I am endlessly fascinating.]

'cuz the thing is, after a half-dozen of these puppies, we've got most of it down pretty well. What's that? Water broke? No biggie. Contractions three minutes apart and we need to get to the hospital twenty minutes away in the middle of the night over dark, snowy, curvy, hilly roads? Whatevs. Baby's going to be born in the car? Not a chance—I brought duct tape for just such an eventuality. 

But when it comes time to say goodnight and leave her in the hospital and go home by myself...well, that I'm still not used to, not at all. Watching an enormous alien—Top Management had been calling him this because of the copious number of chins he's sporting, but tonight pointed out that his skull is shaped more like this and yes she's incredibly sentimental and downright dewey-eyed when it comes to her offspring —emerge from my petite good lady wife I have somehow gotten somewhat sorta kinda inured to. Having to leave her for the night...not so much. That's really...well, it's just wrong. 

Words fail me. I think this says it far better than I ever could. 

H/T to ever-considerate Left o' the Dialian Krissy for this here intense Cyrano o' mine.

New Release

So Top Management did one of the things she does best, and done popped out another kid. Because, as her mother always told her, find what you do best and do your best at it. Some take that sort of advice and become Nobel prize laureates for chemistry, others become Oscar-winning directors, or perhaps long-distance truck drivers. Top Management finds her gift and becomes a brilliant writer...and popper-outer of chillens. In ginormous quantities. 

Hence our newest acquisition, cleverly named The Baby. Weighing in at a hefty damn 9 pounds and 12 ounces, we cannot quite figure out how that was physically possible. The nurses were stunned that my petite good lady wife delivered such a chunk of babby au natural: our main nurse, in fact, had never in her five year on the job assisted in a delivery where drugs weren't involved. (As pertains to the mother, that is: I was totally out of my mind on crack. I don't do well in the delivery room.) 

The kid might have been even heavier, but the very first thing he did upon entering this world was to pee. A truly amazing amount. All over the nurse. In fact, he peed so much that it was agreed he might have tipped 10 pounds had he waited a bit to void. I worry about his impulse control, and cannot imagine where he could have gotten that. Then I recall that I now have six children and the fog begins to clear the teeniest bit.

In answer to one of the first questions (answer to the very first: yes, ten fingers and ten toes), no, he is not adorable. Nor is he gorgeous. Nor is he beautiful. He is a newborn. Newborns are ugly. Ugly ugly ugly. It's not their fault. It's just the fact. Caucasian babies, at least, either look like little pink raisins or little pink frogs, or some unholy combination of the two. 

And although Top Management and I produce kids which are, frankly, undeserving of their parents in terms of appearance—as my brother Ler Pete once said, "Hey, man, no offense, but your kids are way, way better looking than either of you guys"—we do not do so well with the newborns. 

So. Although I assume he'll turn out one day to be as fine-lookin' a specimen as his older siblings: 

for now, he looks more like this, only with less hair.

Welcome to the world, kid.

I'm your dad. 

I am Mangle Blue Palin

Okay, this is pretty groovy—the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. 

I am Mangle Blue Palin. 

I find this disturbingly accurate. 

Interestingly, if I only use my first name? 

I am Beretta Hockey Palin.

I feel badass.  

Loudon Wainwright III's "Daughter"

This is a man who has very clearly had female offspring. 

Round about these here parts, we refer to this piece as "Senator Smoosh's Theme Song." 

Plausible Deniability

"Hi, Daddy. You come outside?"

Why, yes, Senator, I did come outside. Have you been playing with dirt?

"No."

The Mighty Zep

I'm channelsurfing just now as The Bean walks through the room. I land upon VH1Classic which happens to be showing Led Zeppelin Live for only the forty-seventh time this month and The Bean is stopped dead in her tracks.

"Whoa," she says, listening to Jimmy Page's wailing slide. "That sounds GOOD."

I am surprised by this. I listen for a moment and have to admit that, despite my reservations about the sloppiness of live Zeppelin, and the accompanying preening, it kinda does.

"Say, 'Is that the mighty Zep, Dad?'" I coach.

She grins. "Is that the mighty Zep, Dad?" she dutifully repeats.

"As a matter of fact, it is!" I reply. "Good ears!"

She beams. I think she has an appreciation for Robert Plant's hair few can understand, seeing as how it's almost exactly hers, only longer and not actually pretty.

I go back to check on The Boy and when I return I find that Senator Smoosh is still in her chair but has reached further than I'd have thought possible to grab the bowl of cereal I'd been feeding her and is now feeding herself, or so the cereal all over her chin and cheeks would indicate. She's not actually feeding herself at this very moment, however; she's banging her spoon on the bottom of the bowl in something remarkably approaching Bonzo's own bizarre sense of time and as she does—I kid you not—she is nodding her head in the unmistakable manner of a headbanger. She looks up at me and smiles, continuing to headbang.

"Oooh, yeah!" Robert croons, and I have to agree.

Another two saved from the abomination that is the showtune.

I Love Tax Day

I loves me tax day.

Well, okay, not really. I hate it just like everyone else, only even more so because, well, I’m me and I feel things more passionately than anyone else alive.

(Just like everyone else.)

I’m disorganized and hate details (unless they pertain to who played what on which song on this or that precise date). And, of course, I’m poor. But not quite poor enough (and clearly not nearly rich enough) to avoid paying taxes.

But paying taxes is simply how we invest in this great nation of ours. So when I pay my taxes, I feel good(ish) because I know I’m paying for some poor kid somewhere to have a decent breakfast and then maybe I’m the one who bought him the biology book he’s going to be using. And maybe he’ll grow up and cure cancer.

If you’re to the right of me—and there aren’t many who aren’t—be happy: when you pay your taxes today (provided you aren’t like our vice president and too rich to ever actually pay taxes, having your accounts off-shore and all), you’re buying body armor for our brave men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well, strike that: no one apparently pays for that except their families. But your taxes are what built our newest aircraft carrier, which keeps these here United States of America safe from them who plot day and night to do ‘em harm. And how cool is that?

I don’t exactly like shelling out a lot of money to buy my kids shoes, as happens every other month it seems. But it needs to be done because, well, it turns out after careful examination, children need to wear things on their feet so’s they can run and jump and be let into stores and it seems socks alone aren’t always quite enough. So you buy the shoes. Because you need to. And because you love your kids enough to want them to do well, and children without shoes, studies have proven conclusively, don’t do as well as children with shoes. Also? After a while? Their feets get kinda bloody and raw. Or so I've heard. And you do it because appropriately shod with a good pair of shoes, who knows where or what those kids’ll be able to do? You do it because you love them and it's the right thing to do. Still not a lot of fun, maybe, but more more than worth it in the end.

So. Thanks to all of you out there for buying my country a pair of shoes today.

(Metaphorically speaking, of course. As far as I know.)

Busted

So Max, the Rose and the Boy are all sick, to varying degrees; he’s just got a bit of a cough, but the two oldest both have pretty high fevers, and Max decides to make things inneresting by investing in both a cough and the high fever.

It’s a bit after eight of the clock in the evening, Top Management is off at the brand-spankin’-new piano class she's trying on for size, bein’ all Wynton Kelly and whatnot, and the oldest three girls are sprawled on the couch, Max and the Bean reading, the Rose just staring off into space, still as still can be.

I walk towards the back to check on the Boy, who’d wisely conked out a few minutes earlier, still with his glasses on, of course. As I pass the Blue Room I see, out of the corner of my eye, Senator Smoosh on the floor, playing.

I take a few more steps and stop. I’m not sure what she’s playing with, but there’s a large number of objects, and all the objects are pretty small. And even a quick glance has given my brain enough information to realize that the objects probably weren’t toys. And of course the fact that the Blue Room is currently deserted, its regular occupants all sequestered on the couch in the living room, makes this a most convenient time to raid drawers belonging to big sisters.

All this goes through my peabrain in a matter of milliseconds. I back up and peek in and the good senator’s head shoots up instantly. “No,” she breathes.

Her expression is sincere, plaintive, mayhap a tad guilty, impossibly fetching, the timbre of her voice as she mews her plea irresistible, all the more so because I have no doubt she didn’t mean to say it, she didn’t plan to say it, it came out of her instantly, busted as she was.

By now I’ve seen that what she’s playing with indeed belongs to her big sister and, indeed, are not toys: she has gotten into a small box of hair supplies, rubber bands, barrettes, other follicle-related doodads of which I, as the male of the species, am incapable of learning the names. With the training acquired osmotically from being a parent for 37 years in the aggregate, I can see there’s nothing there obviously life-threatening, unless, of course, the Rose were to find out. But the Rose is incapacitated at present. And besides, she’s putty in the good senator’s hands, like the rest of us.

But just as Senator Smoosh has protested automatically and not of her own volition, so do I assume a reproving facial expression all unwilling. It’s only later that I realize I’ve done it, as her reaction causes my nervous system to run a brief systems analysis. And when it does, I realize that my eyebrows have raised inquiringly and that I’ve got a quite small, somewhat amused smile. I can feel these things. And although I don’t know for sure, I suspect that what I’m doing is unconsciously aping the expression Top Management gets when, for example, I arrive home on a Friday night and tell her that I’m planning on spending 98% of the next 60 hours in a horizontal position, never attaining verticality for more than a few minutes at a time.

At which point Top Management gets that same somewhat amused, distinctly superior but patiently and lovingly so expression on her face. Sometimes it’s accompanied by a “well, that does sound pleasant,” or something along those lines.

Top Management, of course, has every right to assume a superior expression. I have no such right, certainly not with her, and assuredly not with her youngest, given that as a female she’s already automatically my better, and in this precise case, being the Next Step in Human Evolution, considerably more advanced than I.

And yet assume the expression I do. Which I realize only when she follows her mewled demurral with a breathy, heartfelt and heartrendingly tender, “please.”

I steel myself. I nod, smile gently, step away from the door, and melt. Sometime later, Top Management comes home, and as she opens the front door, a brisk winter wind whips in with her, chilling the house as only a San Diego breeze in the low 60s can, reviving me and causing me to regain my status as a solid rather than a liquid.

I test out my resolidified muscles and stand. Poking my head back into the Blue Room, I see that she has cleaned up all her ill-gotten non-toys. The skeptical would say it’s so she wouldn’t get busted by her big sisters.

But I know it’s simply another sign of her advanced nature.

Who, me? Do something I’m not supposed to? The very notion. Why, just one look at the hair falling fetchingly over my eyes should indicate I’m incapable of being less than perfect...

[Editor’s note: this is a recreation for illustrative purposes only and not from the actual event in question.]