Gas Ambush

My son’s interests have taken a certain scatological turn. This is typical for pre-adolescent boys and it is a phase that will last, according to my mom, until death. He comes by it honestly. When I was eleven I was editor of a publication entitled Constipated Illustrated - it was a journal of the movement.

Before sending him to pre-school I tutored in my son in the armpit flatulence thing that all boys must do. My highly skilled son is a natural leader, at least in this regard. Surprisingly it has not moved his school to track him into a gifted course.

This morning, Mother Goof had left for work early and I was tasked with rousing the children. They are still recovering from our recent travels so I understood that they weren’t moving that quickly. I crawled into my son’s bed and began shaking him gently. He still didn’t move, his eyes were shut, his breathing was soft and regular.
Then, suddenly from under the sheets came blaaat!

The sheets blew off and he sat up laughing at me. I really can’t believe the school hasn’t seen his talents.

Themes for Toilet Training

My daughter is learning to use the potty. This is a momentous occasion, and like all denouements requires dramatic theme music. After much discussion, in which both my son and daughter had votes, we selected Take it Easy by the Eagles.

My daughter ascends to her throne and tenses up as she tries to impress us (and earn a pez). But going potty shouldn't be a source of tension (in fact for many of us as we age it becomes a comfort.)

"Remember your song," I gently instruct and her little voice begins to warble:

Well I running down a road
to loosen my load
I got seventeen in my mind...

"Good job sweetheart, now..." I encourage and join in until she yells, stop daddy no singing.

Take it easy, take it easy
Don't let the sound of the big wheels
Drive you crazy
Lighten up while you can
Don’t try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand
And take it easy

It's the perfect song. All the right themes. I just hope I haven't set off anything Pavlovian where as an adult this song will give her such an uncontrollable urge to loosen her load that it may just drive her crazy.

I on the other hand will never again be smitten by a girl in a flatbed Ford.

Father's Day I: Revelations from the Muck

Many dads remember the first time they gazed upon or held their child as a transformative moment.

For me, changing my son's diaper was that moment. I suddenly understood my own father. My father fancies himself a leftist radical (although his day job is as a real estate attorney – small practice specializing in condominiums – and he gets twitchy about increased regulation of the homebuilding industry).* I have moved away – nay fled – his worldview. He took my heated arguments with a placid magnanimity. Now that I’ve changed my son’s diapers I see why. No matter what I do or say, he will always remember picking poop out of my tuchus. Whatever I say or accomplish, my father sees it as just more of the same.

When my children decide to reject everything I believe (perhaps by becoming evangelical Christians who belong to PETA) I will remember changing their diapers and think of their fads of the moment as more of the same.

*Also, he never had radical hair. That may have been prudence, but I believe it was really genetics.