I'm getting this goddamned Butterscotch Pony for Christmas -- and other thoughts I never thought I'd have

Christmas in 2008 was easy from a gift perspective. The kids were a month old and rarely slept at the same time so what did they care about gifts or Santa or whatnot? Christmas in 2009 was easy. The grandparents took care of the "big" gift and they didn't really know what was going on anyway. Christmas in 2010 was easy, but it was obviously a turning point. Again, the grandparents took care of the heavy lifting, but they "got it". They understood that a tree and colder weather and Santa and sweaters and family meant presents.



This year is a whole new ball of string. For starters, the kids aren't toddlers anymore. They're kids. They have their own thoughts and understanding about the world. And they talk about it. A whole bunch. They also socialize with other children. Some older, some younger. But these interactions melted into their brains the concept of Christmas. The gift concept, not the whole Jesus being born thing. We're remembering the reason for the season as blatant capitalism and marketing at this point.

I leave most of the gift buying in our family to my wife. It's a shameful thing, I feel awful about my lack of participation in the process. I just don't get too involved in what we get the children at this point, except maybe to just inquire about what "we" got them.

I've never understood the parental gift surge of adrenaline that makes people crazy. I remember parents fighting over Cabbage Patch Kids when I was a child, and I thought they were all pretty stupid. Come to think of it....my sister had a Cabbage Patch Kid one Christmas. I wonder if dad ever threw a punch to get a doll.

This all changed last Sunday night. We were at a friend's parents house. They have a granddaughter younger than our kids. They had this horse-thing that the kids can ride on. Plus, it makes noises. AND it'll "eat" out of your hand. It also swishes its tail and makes little horse noises. Our kids loved this thing. It's name is Butterscotch. Well...at least that's it's commercial name. The particular horse at this party was named Buttermilk. The kids acted like it was a part of the family.

At this moment, I snapped. Something in my head went haywire. My brain decided at that point that my baby girl would have herself a Butterscotch/milk for Christmas. (Yes, the boy loved it too, but I see this as a gift for my baby girl. Don't mess with me. I'm all jacked up on gifting adrenaline).

When we got home, I hit the internet. Turns out that this particular toy isn't available anywhere. Toys R Us had it marked way down, but the website indicated that availability was limited. Undaunted, I drove to Toys R Us the next day during lunch to find Butterscotch! I was going to get that horse for my girl!

This brings me to my next detour on this story. Holy shit ladies, are you fucking serious? Toys R Us reminds me of a zoo. Not figuratively. It's literally a human zoo where people's worst primal actions are realized in a consumerish petri dish. From the fighting over parking spaces to the crowding out of customers in the aisles by other customers, it's just a nightmare! I was waiting for one of the alpha moms to fling poo at another alpha mom. I think somebody got bitten by another "adult". If you've never been to Toys R Us in December, just don't go. It sticks with you. Like the first time you learned what a Cleveland Steamer is. It's something you don't forget soon.

So there I was in Toys R Us, throwing elbows looking for this fucking horse that almost certainly wasn't there (short supply, remember). Finally, I found a very nice young man who helped me look this horse up. I kept calling it "Buttercup" instead of "Butterscotch", which harmed the searching process. It also hurt my man status. I mean come on folks, there's a reason men don't do most of the shopping. Here I am, 35 years old, gray hairs, professional beer belly asking another grown man about a goddamned robotic horse I'm calling "Buttercup". It's emasculating. Although the repetition of the word "Buttercup" reminded me of a happy time from my youth.

Eventually the search corrected itself. Turns out that not only were there no Butterscotches in this Toys R Us store, there was none in any Toys R Us store in Dallas. The computer system showed that there were four in Tyler.

Tyler.

From the stats I receive on this blog, I know that many of the people who read this aren't "from around here".









It's not close.

So I'm left with a Sophie's Choice of sorts. Either drive for over three hours to Tyler and back for something I'm not guaranteed will even be there, or don't get my baby girl her Butterscotch for Christmas.

You see where this is going, no?

So there I was, heading east down I-20. I tried calling the Tyler Toys R Us to confirm they had Butterscotch, but the phone network in Tyler is apparently run by squirrels, tobacco juice, homophobia, twine and tin cans. I couldn't get through to a live person to explain my plight. Nevermind the conversation that would entail. "Yeah, I need to know about a horse. Named Butterscotch." How on God's green Earth do you have that conversation with another human being and not explode from the shame? Why couldn't the horse be named "Bullet" or "Flying Death" or something awesome?

On the way I called the wife. She expressed reservation. But I was undaunted. "This is what Christmas legends are made of!" I exclaimed in my proudest Clark Griswold moment. The computer said they had FOUR of them!

I rolled into the Tyler Toys R Us as the sun was setting. I went inside and began scouring the place for Butterscotch. No luck. Eventually I asked another grown man where I could find Butterscotch. This was becoming too routine. He directed me to the rocking horse area. I wanted to kill him. I don't need a fucking rocking horse, I need Butterscotch! At this point what I really needed was 18 year old Scotch.

I detached from this salesperson and got hooked up with a younger guy. Maybe 19 or 20 years old, with one of those ear piercings that is more like a hole in your ear to hang other jewelry. Yes, I know how old this makes me sound. I think his name was Donald. I only mention that because if the manager of the Tyler Texas Toys R Us happens to read this story and he recognizes this young man with the short black hair and the hole-in-his-ear for an earring with a name sounding sorta like Donald, you should keep him around. He's a good guy.

I explained my plight to "Donald" and he was dumbfounded. I think he was either impressed that I drove from Dallas to Tyler for a horse, or he thought I had lost my shit. In any event, he helped me look for Butterscotch. Then he showed me how to search the upstock above the inventory. I looked in the upstock on one half of the store, he looked on the other half of the store. I'd see him from time to time gazing up at the boxes. It made it look like he was daydreaming, but I knew he was searching for my baby girl's butterscotch. It really meant a lot to me, especially considering how busy the store was. I also think he was scared to come back to me and tell me they didn't have it, seeing how I told him I couldn't go back to Dallas without it.

This search lasted about half a hour. It turned up nothing. Donald agreed to go into the warehouse and look. According to him, the warehouse is nothing more than a random collection of shipping boxes. There's no organization to it at all. He stayed back there for another 20 minutes or so. I was losing my hope. Eventually, he emerged and broke the bad news. There was no Butterscotch. He walked me through the Babies R Us side to look to see if it might have been misplaced in the upstock there, but it wasn't to be. He could not have been more helpful.

But in the end, I lost. It was not to be. We were not going to have Butterscotch for Christmas.

I filled the truck up with gas and headed back to Dallas. I got home after the kids were asleep. I explained to the wife the events of the evening and settled in to feel the shame of bad parenting. The wife suggested that I look on Craigslist for Butterscotch. I already looked on eBay, saw a few (but the shipping was crazy and not guaranteed for xmas), but I neglected to check Craigslist. I was not hopeful.

Well miracle of Christmas miracles, it turns out that a nice lady in East Dallas was selling Butterscotch. I immediately e-mailed her and made arrangements to pick it up. Her price wasn't cheap, but it was reasonable and at this point I would have sold a kidney to get this stupid fucking horse.

I e-mailed her and explained my ridiculous situation. She said that she had two other potential buyers and to let her know if I changed my mind. I replied as calmly as possible that I just got back from driving to fucking Tyler for this horse and that I wasn't going to change my mind.

I met with her this afternoon. Lovely lady. She sold it because she didn't feel it was "fair" for her to have it when it was just for her granddaughter, who only occasionaly visits. She felt it belonged in a home where it'd get used every day. You don't meet people like this every day.

Did I mention she lives less than 100 miles from where I do. I should know by now that Craigslist is a savior.

So now I have a horse in the back of my truck. A robotic horse that "eats" plastic carrots. And I have my first truly proud parental "gift moment" for my kids this Christmas.



Look at this girl. Do you really think I was going to leave her without her horse for Christmas?

Why won't they just shut up?

Good things must be taken in moderation.

I remember when I first started drinking socially. It was in high school, and it was awesome! Drinking was a form of social door-opening, it introduced me to a new group of people my parents warned me about. It also taught me about the joys of tossing inhabitions to the wind.

Then I got all big-headed about it and started thinking of myself as the 17 to 18 year old division drinking champion of the world. And I ended up meeting a toilet in some Corpus Christi hotel room for the evening. Photos exist of this event. I'm not proud.

I had lessons to learn from my behavior. I learned that when drinking tequila, you don't have to drink all the tequila in order to have a good time. A keg of beer is not a "serving size" (college taught me that one -- thanks Texas A&M!). Our bodies have this defense mechanism that kicks our ass once we start pushing the boundaries. It saves us from ourselves.

Unfortunately, there is no built-in ass-kicker for toddler talking.

From the moment our kids were born, we hoped for the day when they'd talk. We analyzed every single coo and goo to decipher if the kid just said "momma" or "daddy" or "transcendentalism". Eventually that day arrived. And it was a special and beautiful thing. So special that I don't exactly recall what their first words were. I'm sure my wife wrote it down. She's good about that.

As time went by, we watched our kiddos learn to communicate. One word turns into two. This turns into phrases. Phrases turn into butchered sentences. These become responsive to questioning. Eventually, marginal subject-verb agreements started occurring. And then the questions started. And the chatter. And the random thoughts of the day. And the questions. Did I mention the questions? And then the interrupting. And the questions! Jesus fucking christ are you kidding me? Are they still fucking talking?

The arc from the sweet flower of learning to talk to please just shut the fuck up already is profoundly short. They go from their first beer of speech to hanging their heads in the toilet in no time flat. Unfortunately for us, there's no physical safeguard against this incessant chatter.

Lilly and Nolan went from calm speech to talking all.the.time over the last few months. All the time. They're always talking. With the one exception of when Dora is on TV. Other than that, if they're conscious, they're yapping. And they're not exactly reciting War and Peace, or providing insight into how to best cook low-fat food that is also delicious and nutritious. Nope. They're busy chattering about their baby jaguars, or their toy cars, or the fact that Diego has a penis, and that's what makes him a boy, or talking about how we can go to Tiki Beach, or blabbering about how they'd really like to watch the Dora episode with the robots except that theres a volcano in that episode and that's scary and we can't watch that, to talking again about Diego's anatomical setup and how that makes him different than Dora.....

I'd really like it if they'd just shut the fuck up for a bit. Just a couple hours. Please. Just shut the fuck up already!

We spent this weekend at my mother's house. My sister, through some cosmic joke, had twin boys in February of this year. She and her husband were spending their first childless time out of town together since their twins were born. Having survived this myself, I was all too happy to help out with the childcare.

But we had to take our kids with us. And they never shut the fuck up!

The car ride from my house to my mother's house is about 10-15 minutes. It's only 15 miles away. We're not talking about the kind of trip we need to pack a lunch for. As soon as we hit the road, Nolan began asking about the "cop car". "Mommy, did you see that cop car?" "Hey Daddy, is that a cop car?" Over and over and over again. Nevermind the fact that there was no fucking cop car anywhere around. Where the boy got this line from is unknown to me. As is his other current favorite, "hey, it's the police!" I don't know where this is coming from, but I'm beginning to wonder about what happens at the house while I'm gone.

OK, so this "cop car" bit started about a sidewalk crack after we got past the end of our alley. It didn't stop. I want you to think of the "cop car" bit as the bass line to this opus of speech. It's the pulse. The opening bars to Gustav Holst's "Mars" if you will.

Of course, the greatness of Holst is that there are a ton of other parts going on over the droning "cop car" bass line. Mixed in with this was Lilly asking a series of random questions. Inquiring about the location of her Witch doll, for example. So now it's "did you see the cop car?" with "hey mommy, where did my witch doll go?" Over and over. Occasionally, we'd get lucky and they'd change it up with "Hey, I dropped my drink" or something similarly charming. Of course, while this is happening, the wife and I are trying to have a conversation about actual events that need to be discussed.

That last part was a big mistake.

We've noticed that we can't actually talk to each other in the car anymore, because the children will get jealous and start talking over us. Jesus, this is aggravating. Think about driving the drunk guy home after a long night. Eventually he'll just randomly string a sentence together just to interrupt the conversation and keep people talking to him? Yeah, my daughter does that. Probably shouldn't have given her that beer.

So in the midst of "did you see that cop car" and "where's my witch" and "Hey, get my drink" we're now met with Lilly's "Ideas". Lilly started doing this about two months ago. She'll say "Hey (mommy/daddy), I have an idea!" We'll respond "what's your idea, honey" and she'll say (literally), "Hmmm, why don't we alldalala and then speckalala, and then Tiki Beach, but we can't go to Tiki Beach because we falffalalala, and plaaa, but then we could sllalalda and then maybe we could aligasha." She couches a series of gibberish as her "idea". Sometimes there will be random words mixed into it to make it interesting. It's just a sham so we'll pay attention to her. Unfortunately, it's also fucking adorable, which is why we tolerated it for so long. It's not adorable anymore.

"Hey, did you see that cop car"
"where's my witch"
"get my drink!"
"what are we doing for dinner tonight?"
"Hey, I have an idea"
"What's you're idea"
"Hmmm, flalafa and beach and allgasholyppiads and Julio Franco was a butcher at second base"

Spin, Rinse, Repeat.

By the time we were about two miles from my mother's house, I realized that our once quiet Honda had become a chattering box of noise. I couldn't talk because my ears were trying to process the sounds of at least three other voices, one of which very well could have been mine. Nothing was making sense. It was just noise! Like the sounds movie actor extras make during large crowd dinner scenes to create an authentic environment. It was at this point that I became my father.

"ENOUGH!" I said. Not quite yelling, not quite not yelling. Enough to get some attention. Suddenly, the car was quiet. "Daddy is going to talk to mommy for a little bit, and you're going to be quiet!" Shit hell if this didn't work! I think I scared them. For the next thirty seconds, I didn't hear anything about a cop car, any witches, ideas, Dora, or Diego's penis. I thought I won. I ignored the fact that I just did the classic dad move of complaining about "those kids" and "all that damn noise". I started feeling a twinge of pride. Then I heard

"Hey Daddy, did you see that cop car?"

and I'm right back to regretting the day they learned to speak.

God, can't they just shut the fuck up?

Updates, Memories, and things I don't want to forget

This blog was always intended to be a humorous look at parenting. Something washed free of the bubbly varnish that parents understandably assign to their children's early years. Over the course of the last two and a half years, I've tried to write about things in a manner that reflected my personal view of events at the time they were happening. From early adventures with poop disasters to learning how to sleep through the night to having the audacity to call my little brilliant angel "tarded", I've tried to make light of the process of raising children.

This post is not written to humorously recount tales of parental tragedy. Nope, this post is written to remember the things they do now that I hope to never forget.

Let's start with Nolan

Nolan says certain words wrong. He calls "olives" "owibes". He says the words "There" and "Here" with an unusually strong Texas accent. "Thay-re" and "Hay-re". I find this so damn cute that I honestly hope he never learns how to say these words the right way. He used to call his sister "Lolly". Speaking of lolly, he used to eat the sticks on his lollypops. Nolan is a curious boy who loves his puzzles like his Russian nesting dolls. If he understands something, he wants to explain it to people. He gets loud when he gets frustrated, as he doesn't understand how to express himself in those situations. If he's anything like his daddy, he won't figure that out until his mid-20s. Maybe not even then.

Nolan's memory is striking, and a little frightening. He will randomly bring up details of an event that occurred a year ago. Literally. He remembers specific details of when he was just 18 months old, and talks about them at random times when something in his brain triggers that memory. I remember memorizing the Dallas Cowboys roster from a McDonald's poster when I was 4 years old. I memorized every name, number and position, including the coaches. I don't know why I did this, I just did. I think Nolan got that. It's strange to watch on the other end of it.

Nolan is beautiful. Sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of him smiling or laughing or something and I'm just dumbfounded at how cute that kid is. I don't mean this as some sort of annoying parent-bragging thing. The boy has a happiness about him that makes me wish I could tell him how special this part of his life is. I wish we could all have some retroactive appreciation of the innocence of youth.

And Lilly

Lilly is brilliant, despite her appearance in this photo. I think she's smarter than I am now. And she's not yet three. Lilly possesses a powerful sense of empathy. She's legitimately concerned about the feelings and well being of other people. My mother has been dealing with a family issue that's been very hard for her lately. One afternoon about a month ago, we took the kids to see grandma. Lilly, knowing almost nothing of the situation went up to her grandma and held her hands out palms up and asked "Grandma, are you having a bad day"? What two year old does that?

Lilly is a chatterbox. And she's bossy as hell. But she's bossy in a really sweet way. She'll tell Nolan to "be careful" or "don't do that", but she's doing it so Nolan doesn't do something he'll regret later. And Lilly is my little angel. If she bumps her knee or gets a boo-boo and starts pouting about it, it makes me crush a little on the inside. Honestly, if she seriously asked me for a pony tomorrow, I'd probably make that happen. Lilly has a smile and a humor about her that makes others around her want to be near her. It's magnetic. The thing she does that makes me laugh like crazy is when she comments on Nolan when Nolan is acting bad. She'll say, "Nolan is being....a butt." But she'll run the words "a butt" together so it sounds like one word... "abutt". She doesn't know what it means, she just knows it makes her daddy laugh under his breath, knowing that's not the sort of thing Lilly should be saying about her brother. Lilly is the most beautiful, smart little girl I've ever seen or known. I often have to pinch myself when I have one of those moments where I think that she's my daughter. I'm a lucky person.

Honestly, I could go on for hours about the things both Lilly and Nolan do that amaze me every day. After a while, it'd just sound like proud poppa stuff. Nobody wants to read that.

The early days of raising twins is awful. I really don't have much of a memory of the details of the first 18 months or so of the kids lives. I'd hate to develop that sort of amnesia about the last 14 months. Their role in my life is something I'd never thought I'd have. Every day I learn something about them as they learn something new about their world. It's a gift. And without any sarcasm or attempt at humor, it's been the greatest thing I've ever had a chance to experience.

We probably should have turned around when they were shitting water by the time we got to Waxahachie

Next week we're heading out to the coast for our second "vacation" with the kids. Regular readers of my bi-yearly-updated blog will remember how our vacation went last year with the kids. It got me thinking about all the stories I've been filing away to write "later" on this site. Since next week will undoubtedly produce something I'll want to share with the rest of the world, I need to purge.

The title of this story comes from an adventurous trip to Austin last October for my sister's wedding. One, or both, of the kids had a raging episode of diarrhea. Frankly I don't recall if they both had it, I seem to remember that Nolan's issues were clearing up while Lilly's was getting worse. What I do remember are the diaper changes by the Grandy's in Italy, Texas. Memorable because it's just south of Dallas and it was our second diaper-poopexplosion of the trip. We were being told things by the parental gods. We just didn't care to listen.

When we arrived in Austin, things went downhill in a hurry. The first evening we were there was the night of the rehearsal dinner. It was a lovely affair. My sister, the bride, hadn't seen the kids in a long time and was thrilled to get to spend time with them. Lilly, feeling a little bit drained from her.....well......draining, just wanted to be held. My sister was more than willing to accommodate. Lilly then thanked my sister by barfing on her. All.over.the.bride. There's one most of you didn't get to experience at your rehearsal dinner! The sis took it in stride, but Lilly, Nolan and momma had to cut short their party before the food even arrived. Me? I stayed, of course! Somebody had to represent the family.

Later that night, Lilly threw up some sort of vile milk product all over her bed and pajamas. If you haven't had the pleasure of experience curdled toddler-milkvomit, then you've missed something in life. I really can't explain it to you. This occurred while my dad was visiting with me at the house we rented. Keep in mind that this is one of those familial times in life that often involves the consumption of wine, beer, and other such goodly things. So I was in the middle of indulgence when we had to go fight through milkpuke. Not fun.

The next day started with a wild hangover. Not a good start to wedding day. I should take this time to mention to anyone who will listen that Dogfish Head Brewing's 90 Minute Imperial IPA is a crushing 9.0% ABV, something you should know before drinking three of them in an hour after a rehearsal dinner. But I had no other choice but to fight through it. I had to. After all, we had to meet my out-of-town family for a nice brunch at a local Austin restaurant. Meeting your family for a hangover brunch is often a welcome relief. However, meeting them with a milkvomit-stained daughter and a son who was shitting liquid poo not 24 hours earlier makes for a more interesting challenge. Lilly was clearly not feeling well. Her mood was what you'd expect of a child who had a rough night. But both her and her brother were sucking down apple juice at brunch. Apple juice...that's good, right? I mean, it's got "apple" right there in the title. And apples are good. Right? This will hydrate their poor bodies!

More on this later.

About halfway through lunch, Lilly had a poopie that needed attention. So momma took her outside to change her diaper in the back of our car. After about 20 minutes went by, even my hungover brain began to realize something might not be right. So I braved the bright sun and walked outside. Keep in mind that at this point, the sun to me is vampire-esque. I'm not a fan. So I get to the car conveniently at the time where the diaper is going back onto our daughter. But Lilly still seemed sad or something. It was about this point that I noticed some reddish booger in my daughter's nose. The only reason I noticed it at all was because of the way she was laying down with her head back. So I went digging. Started pulling... and pulling... and started feeling like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall.

Her nose literally started expanding to the point that I thought we were going to split it open. And out popped an enormous bloody booger. Or at least what I thought was a bloody booger. Upon further review, it wasn't a booger at all. It was a raisin. All swollen up like it would be if you left a raisin in a bowl of water overnight. Immediately we started thinking about the last time the girl had raisins. Sadly, we concluded it was on the drive down from Dallas almost 24 hours earlier. Parents.Of.The.Year. Anyway, after de-shitting and de-boogering the girl, she and her brother finished brunch without incident.

Then we got home.

Something happened at the house. Something awful. Something that even 9 months later still makes me clench a little bit. Lilly "let go" of something holding her insides on the inside. The noise and subsequent smell let us know something was going on. Momma took Lilly to the back room to take care of the problem. But then I heard my darling wife call for help. My wife doesn't call for help. Seriously. This woman blew out her MCL in a swimming pool holding one of our children during their first 4th of July in 2009 and didn't tell anybody for days. So hearing her yell for me to help her was not a sign that things are going swimmingly.

So I come into the bedroom. Hungover. Into a room still reeking of milkvomit. And I see a pool of some brownish-yellow something. The word "pool" gets overused in reference to children's BM's. This was a fucking pool. Like the one you have in your backyard. If Michael Phelps were there, he could have swum laps in it faster than anyone else in the world. A pool. So we put the diaper that was already stressed beyond its operational safety factor back onto the girl and carefully carry her to the bathroom to "drain". This is when the dry heaving started. Mine, not hers. Remember....9% ABV. This was, without question, the most disgusting moment of our parenting careers.

After a half a box of wipes and some deep breathing outside, a phone call to the pediatrician revealed that pedialyte is good for this. Apple juice, which the kids were drinking like 9% ABV Imperial IPA earlier in the day, turns out to be a powerful laxative. Who knew? So now the quest in life is to locate a pharmacy in Austin open on a Sunday afternoon. That was a whole other story.

Did I mention that my sister was getting married?

So the whole purpose of this trip was to be a part of my sister's blessed nuptials. The kids had a starring role in the whole affair, they were responsible for bringing the rings up to the bride and groom. Seeing how they were not yet two when this happened, this was a moment to remember and cherish. Our hopes were slight that this was going to happen at all. Not after all the barfing and pooping and raisins over the previous 48 hours.

However, we were surprised that not three hours after Lilly's watery event, the children made a mighty comeback. They did great at their aunt's wedding. They carried rings, and danced the night away with their mom and dad. Later that night, they had a vomit-free evening and we had a nice drive back to Dallas the next morning. The first road trip weekend started fairly awful, but ended up rebounding strong. Lessons were learned, and prices were paid. Shouldn't all weekends be like that?

Our little babies turned into little people

Somewhere over the last 10 months or so, our little babies grew into little people. This is really strange. Sure, there are still a ton of similarities. They still poop and whine and do entirely irrational things. But they're not helpless dependent sacks of crying and pooping. Now they're only marginally helpless still-dependent walking, running, jumping, talking little people set on destroying our house.

OK, the last comment really applies more to Nolan than Lilly, although she has her moments too.

It's difficult to do a day-to-day update of the new and terrible things your children do when they're not infants anymore. When they're really little, everything is worth writing about. Oh, your kids crapped goo up their backs for the fourth time in three days? Write about it. Your kids took four steps in a row? Write about it. Your kid(s) slept for six consecutive hours? Write about it. Your kid put a dead rodent in his mouth? Write about it.

You get the idea.

But as they get older, they absolutely get easier. Not less challenging, mind you, but easier. The challenges aren't so much like a twisted Lord of the Flies reality show where you're starved of sleep and sanity to the point of maniacal laughter. No, that only accounts for about the first 18 months of twins' lives. As the children learn to sleep, nap, eat and poop on semi-regular schedules, they get easier in the sense that you're no longer one of the zombie people. You do get to return to a little bit of normalcy as the kids stop torturing you. Plus, as they learn to talk they become an absolute riot to be around.

The challenges as they get older are much more parental. For example, the other day we were having dinner at my mother's house. Some food dropped off the table onto the floor. Nolan, doing what he learned through some poor role model, exclaimed, "God........DAMNIT!" And I won't even mention how many times a child reflexively said "shit" when something fell out of the fridge....as if they heard it before....somewhere.....

This was a learning experience for us. When they're infants, you can basically carry on with whatever foul language you're accustomed to. Why the fuck not? It's not like the infants are going to repeat it. That is....until they do.

So the challenges now are more along the lines of teaching them now to be social creatures. Teaching them that there are ways to behave and ways not to and that there are consequences for behaving badly. One of our children seem to get this. The other one does not. Wanna guess which is which? Let's just say that if any bookworm academic ever tries to tell me that boys act like boys and girls act like girls because of their social cues alone, I believe I'll be justified in performing some fairly violent acts on that person.

We started to notice major distinctions in their budding personalities late last year. Sure they had brief moments of "personality" before this, but it wasn't until closer to their second birthday that we started seeing what they really had in the bag for us. For Lilly, it was a touch of bossiness. This "touch" of bossiness only comes in every now and again. Most of the time, she's super-compassionate and caring. A giver of the highest order. She's a lot like her momma in that sense. Come to think of it, the bossiness is also sorta like her momma, but don't tell her I said that.

I really noticed this one afternoon while we were walking our dog Maggie. Maggie is a big sack of lazy. A 120 pound brown mutt with a sweet disposition, but no drive to do anything but sit in her chair, look out the window and bark at people.

This is Maggie

We took Maggie for a walk last September with the kids, and were fairly surprised to see Lilly bossing the 120 pound dog around as if that dog couldn't snap that kid's neck if she so chose.

She'd pull the dog around a little and then yell at her, "Come on Maggie, get on the sidewalk Maggie!" It was freaking hilarious. I recorded it on my iphone -- here's the video. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to get my video software to display this right, so look at it sideways
Maggie, of course, could not give two craps that Lilly was bossing her around. That didn't stop our Lilly! She had a head full of determination, and she was going to tell that dog what was what! Right up until the point she discovered an acorn on the ground. Then her interests were diverted!

All bossiness aside, Lilly is sweet. I don't mean that in the all-children-are-sweet way. I mean there's something really abnormally sweet about her. If Nolan is upset, she will go hug him. If you ask her how she's feeling, she'll ask you how you're feeling. She is an emotional bank with an unlimited balance. She'll give and give and rarely express any need for emotional support for herself. It's quite odd for such a young child.

We recently had some work done in the back yard of our house. Maggie turned our backyard into her personal toilet shortly after we moved into the house. With newborn twins and everything else, we basically didn't do a thing to keep the yard from turning into a dead grass zone. You hear about old World War I battlefields that are still uninhabitable because of the gas used during the war. That's the way we felt about our backyard. So we changed some fencing, giving Maggie her own toilet area (which is now totally dead, two weeks later), and re-sodded the yard. It's great. Maggie is segregated by a fence, which drives her nuts, but she's a dog.

I mention this because Lilly seems to be the only one in the family concerned about Maggie's desire to come back out into the yard. The other day, she walked over to the gate holding Maggie back, unlocked it, and said "come on, Maggie!" She was trying to spring that dog loose in the yard because she knew Maggie felt bad. Maggie was, of course, too lazy to get off her ass to take Lilly up on the offer, but it was sweet nonetheless. It's emblematic of the kind of caring, sensitive person Lilly is becoming.

Today when she went down for her nap, she managed to get her hairbands holding her pigtails wrapped around her wrists. When her momma went to wake her, she complained that her wrists hurt. My wife tells me that her hands were purple, like your finger would get if you left a rubber band on it (she's fine, which is why I feel OK telling this story). When my wife took the bands off her wrists, Lilly apologized to her. "I'm sorry, momma". The innocence and the sweet is almost too much to bear. Seriously, I'm not a sap. I don't think of myself as some big softie, but that little girl just melts my heart away. I think I'm gonna get in front of the game and just buy her a pony now. Maybe a Porsche too.

Nolan, on the other hand, has developed quite an ornery personality. He likes to get in trouble. More accurately, he likes to get away with things and he likes you to know he got away with things. He's also nice when he wants to be, but for the most part, he just likes to break stuff.

Today, for example, I got a report from my wife that Nolan -- our dear baby boy -- decided it'd be simply awesome to climb up on our buffet table and draw on it.

Some details are missing here.

This buffet table is an antique. We purchased it for a song a couple years ago when we barely had two nickles to rub together. It's an art deco buffet table that needs some restoration, but is in really good shape. We were very proud to have purchased it and given it a good home where it could stay in the family for years. It broke my heart when I had to drill tiny holes into the doors to secure the child safety latches.

Yeah, Nolan thought it'd be super fuckin sweet to take a marker to it.

The phone call I received at work today can only be described as "interesting". From what I could gather, my wife retired herself to the garage so as to not murder a child (this is all figurative, put the phone down, do-gooders!). Frustrated and angry are two words that come to mind for how she was feeling, but I don't believe either of those words are adequate to convey how a little troublemaker can make you feel. I don't think those words exist.

But don't get me wrong. Nolan is an ornery kid, but he's not a bad kid. In fact, he's really social. And funny. My god that kid makes me laugh! When I come home from work, it's Nolan that will come RUNNING from wherever he is, and it's always the same routine...
"DADDDDYYYYYY!!!!!!"
"Daddy's home!"
"Hi Daddy!"
"Hey....Daddy"
"Yes" I'll reply
"I have an idea"
"What's your idea, Nolan?"
"Let's watch Dora!"

Every single time. It's funny as hell. There are slight variations, but for the most part, that's it.

The other day we were at a park and there was a dog. Nolan went up to the dog and patted the dog on the head and then said (in all seriousness), "Hi Dog. What's up? What's up, dog?" It hurts my face from smiling just thinking about it.

The boy loves to laugh and wrestle and basically roughhouse. He's a boy. He's developed this awesome legdrop maneuver where we'll wrestle and he'll smile and line you up and then drop a total Hulk Hogan Atomic Legdrop finishing move on you. It's funny for now. Put a few dozen pounds on him and it'll just hurt. But for now, it's pretty awesome.

They're both doing things I think are advanced. They say their ABC's, count in english and spanish (thanks, Dora), and Lilly puts her own shoes on. Often with her right shoe on the left foot, but her daddy still does that too.

The issues we're facing now with our children are totally opposite from the issues we faced when I first started this blog. I know it should be obvious, but it still baffles me how far we've come and how far we have to go. I say that as if there is a stopping point. It's a wild journey.

My sister recently had twins of her own. The wife and I went down to Austin to visit and to take the night shift for a night to give her a break. Holy fucking hell, I totally forgot what twins are like at that age. It's not pretty. One night and I was ready to send those kids back to the stork they came from. One...night. I have no idea in retrospect how we managed with our kids. Those days seem a million years ago.