Greyhouse

You know all those internet videos of fathers coming back from Afghanistan to their overjoyed children? I get that twice a week, every time I pick up the boys. It is easily the best part of co-parenting. Inevitably though, once the hugging, dancing, and tears have subsided, Liam gets straight to the point. He lifts his head off my shoulder, holds my face firmly in his little hands, stares at me way too seriously for a four year old, and says "greyhouse."

What is greyhouse? Greyhouse is my shitty little apartment. Liam and Finn LOVE my shitty little apartment. I don't get it.

I always pick them up right after work so I never get to go directly home, there are always errands to run along the way. The boys must know this by now, but it doesn't prevent them from completely losing their minds when I deviate at all from the straight shot to greyhouse. Liam gets all Shakespearean screaming "GREYHOOUUUUSE!!!!!" while Finn just screams "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!"

Is it because it's like their little club house? Who knows, I'm just so grateful. I'm grateful because their love of the place helps assuage the crippling guilt I feel for my failed marriage that forced them out of a luxurious three-bedroom home with a pool, into a crappy second floor shanty. Maybe when they were sleeping soundly in their well-appointed private rooms they were actually dreaming of someday sharing a living room/kitchen instead. Perhaps they always wished that the pool was a puddle in the parking lot, that the garden was a concrete stairwell, and that the birds chirping in the maple tree were the downstairs couple screaming obscenities at 1am.  Well, dream of it no more my loves! Your wishes are granted!!  

Cohabitation

If you haven't already heard (like, maybe you've been hanging out under rocks for a while? Or you just don't pay much attention, perhaps?) Paulie and I moved in together in December. December 15th, to be exact. For all of our fans who pretend not to care about the majorness of major holidays, that is ten days before Christmas. This was a dumb time to move and it was a bit of a whirlwind, but because we and our friends are incredibly amazing and talented people, we totally rocked it. Big time.

Paulie and I make a great team. This is basically due to the fact that I don't nag him about stuff, because I am a patient and loving woman. Also, he just...does stuff that needs to be done, without being asked - what the whaaaaaat?! Yeah, I know. It's kind of incredible.

As for me, I do the dishes. And, I make a concerted effort to not lose my shit when, say, a lone upside-down slipper lays askew near the top step of our front porch for several days, without anyone seeming to notice or care. Or a wadded-up piece of paper towel lays in front of the garbage (as opposed to in it, for my less tidy readers who might not see what the problem is there). We're all still learning about each other's comfort zones and habits, so there's some space for total and complete error in there.

There are obvious advantages to living together. The biggest one so far is knowing where we'll be sleeping on any given night. Knowing where we'll be hosting when we invite people over is handy, too. Gone are the constant emails, texts and phone calls confirming first the plans, then the 'your place or mine', then the 'can you bring over your big pan?' then the 'oh shit I forgot my big pan, I'll have to go back for it, gaaaah!'

Then there's the whole 'oh, things are different now that we're living together' thing. For example, keeping up any level of mystery has gone to complete handbasketed hell. I've seen homeboy pee so many times - not because we're in the bathroom together a whole lot, but because he often forgets to close the door because...doors. I've grown fond of the sound of his sleeping after he's applied his snore-b-gone nose strip - it's adorable! And unfortunately he now knows that sometimes when I'm kind of grumpy, it's not because I'm just tired or PMSing, which were my go-to excuses when we lived separately. Sometimes it's because I'm off my game and haven't pooped in more than a day.

See, this was taken before we lived together.

All in all, living together has been pretty magical. I mean sure, there are many more bonks in the head of that ever-sneaky reality to deal with, but having a really, really great sense of humor, a natural ability to look at the world through uninhibited rosy glasses, and an inherent ability to look the other way just in the nick of time makes it all seem a lot more manageable. And, we're loving it.

"I swear to god if I don't poop soon SOMEONE DIES!"

Peace of Cake

People always warn you against giving your kids cake because they'll be bouncing off the walls, but I've found the opposite to be the case. I went to my friend Sarah's birthday party last night with the boys. I'd taken the boys there once before and vowed never to do it again. They have a marketable talent when it comes to testing a house for "child-proofness." I swear I could charge new parents $50 a pop to have my kids test their homes out for just 3 minutes and make a quick fortune. It would probably pay for college. Sarah's house has scalable furniture, thousands of dollars worth of fragile things within reach, and even one of those wrought iron fireplace tool sets. It is the wrong place to set the boys free.

But they're not to be blamed. Being a little kid is very confusing. There's a lot of inner turmoil. Little ones are plagued with such conflicting desires: wanting freedom and independence but also needing security and safety, seeking parental approval but needing to head butt daddy in the crotch when he's texting, not wanting daddy to get evicted from his upstairs one-bedroom apartment but jumping off the bed at 6am is a blast, it's nuts! This inner battle fuels destructive behavior and the need to smash glass figurines with a wireless keyboard.

Fortunately, last night there were balloons. Sarah's daughter had littered the floor with dozens of balloons which was a perfect means to sublimate Finn and Liam's rampage long enough for me to say a quick happy birthday and down a glass of wine. I figured that would be it for my visit, but…

Lo'…there was cake. 

Plop a little cake down in front of a small child and suddenly their confusing world becomes very simple. The entire universe around them, and the conflict raging within, becomes hazy, out of focus, and very quiet. Nothing exists but them and a piece of cake.

Nirvana

I had a second glass of wine.

My Month of Attempted Congee

When I was approached by Lorelle over at Year of Congee about doing a guest post for her blog, I thought "Perfect! I'll get to hear Lorelle say 'congee' in person and will finally know how to pronounce it!"

Then I thought "oooooh, and I'll get to try a new kind of food! Then write about it! Yay!"

As you can see, I was optimistic

At that point I started to notice some things about congee. Namely, some of the ingredients. Oy, so many ingredients! Sometimes ingredients make me weary.

But when I agree to do something I almost always follow through - most of the time...eventually...when I feel like it - and so I decided to make congee and see what the big deal was. I chose an easy, crock-pot-friendly recipe, since I was also trying to learn to love crock-pot cooking and, incidentally, had just been gifted one by Lorelle herself (and her mega-talented chef of a husband - hi Adam!).

First Attempt: January 15th

I started with some rice, water, fresh ginger (you guys, I totally peeled and shaved some fresh ginger!) and some shitaake mushrooms. I threw it all in the crockpot and pranced off to work, thrilled that I'd have a delicious meal to come home to!

Paulie arrived home before I did and called me to ask what the hell was going on in the crockpot. "Looks like...porridge," he said. "It's supposed to," I informed him. I heard a little slurp and then he said "can I, uh, am I allowed to doctor this up at all? Kind of tastes like air. But, you know, gingery air, so that's good!"

Jeez. 

I gave him permission to do with it whatever he liked, and when I got home it was still fairly bleh. We put it into the freezer to use as a soup base in the future. Or, several soup bases, given the fact that I'd made enough to feed my household three times over.

Since then I've done little more than grumble at the bulging frozen tupperware every time I open the freezer for ice. Paul, ever the master of utilizing leftovers, did make some soup (bless his heart) but I didn't eat it because it was too spicy for my delicate princess palate.

Between me and my cocktail ice: congee

Then Paulie got sick, eureka! I thought that surely this would be an opportunity for me to Cure him with Congee - but no, he made himself a black bean/salsa/cheese thing to dip his chips in before I had a chance to thaw one of those mothers and turn it into something great. And it would have been great, I just know it.

I'm not giving up. Mark my words!

For the love of god can we PLEASE do something with all this congee?!

Semper Feet

I'm kind of put off by most feet, but Liam's are cute.

An Early Selfie

One of the jobs you really can not neglect as a parent is "manicurist," because the other parents will notice. Bathing you can skip for days, feeding can be hit or miss, but if you let your kids' hands and feet go ignored for too long, prepare to be judged.

Finn is not a problem. He dons his laurel crown, wraps himself in a purple tunic, and is more than happy to let me groom the royal extremities.

Liam screams like he's on fire. Sometimes he'll let me do the fingers, but forget the toes. Recently things were starting to get out of hand so it was time for extreme measures.

Any attempt to attack the problem during daylight hours was going to land him in an institution, so it had to be a night op; 0400 hours to be precise.

Target in Sight

Holding clippers in one hand and a flashlight in the other while trying to remain inconspicuous under your son's blanket is awkward enough, but to make matters worse, Liam's a belly sleeper. I started slowly, and carefully, but with ten little piggies to take down and dawn looming on the horizon I had to pick up the pace. Things got a little rough. The end result wasn't pretty, but I managed to take care of all the real problem areas. I had to abort the mission prematurely as it became clear that my clipping away at his tender little toes was inducing some kind of elaborate nightmare.

Every mission has it's collateral damage. The important thing is I got out of there with my son's adoration and my "good dad" reputation in tact. Ooh-rah!

In the Kitchen with Amanda and Paulie

Since we moved in together, Paulie and I have had fun in the unexpected anthropological study of food and eating habits that our new household offers.

We've been trying new recipes in an effort to get or keep our entire brood healthy all at the same time. I think it's working - throw enough kale and garlic into literally every meal and eventually something good will happen.

No one knows I sneak this into their food

When the kids are all with their other parents, we try not to buy groceries because, you know, we can make do. Often this means we raid the freezer and come up with some creative new foods. For example, the other night we had Thainese food for dinner. That's when you mix a frozen Thai noodly saucy thing with some frozen Chinese pork buns. It wasn't particularly good but the name is pretty catchy, you have to admit.

I see feta...I see pickles...and prunes. Hm. Should be good.

Lately we've been working diligently on a project I like to call Operation: Eat All of the Leftovers. We recently had a couple of events which required more shopping than usual. One required cheeses and snacks and sandwich supplies; the other required steak and mashed potatoes.


Paulie is really good at getting creative with food on its way to spoiling. We've had goat cheese and cabbage potato pancakes every morning this week.I'm not kidding.We've also had sandwiches using the various deli meats and cheeses, steak and cabbage tacos, turkey and cream cheese rolls made with tortillas because when we looked in the fridge that morning we realized we were out of bread...one day I bit into the burrito Paulie sent to work with me and I shit you not, it was filled with eggs, cheese, leftover beans, leftover potatoes, and leftover pasta. Fucking pasta salad, to be exact. I'm all about mixing worlds and stuff but this guy takes it to a whole new level.

What we don't end up finishing we feed to the chickens, who are all too happy to finish the 'almost made it!' last bit of cabbage in exchange for the faint hope of seeing an actual egg. Mostly they just follow us around bawking for more softening grapes and scraps of toast crust, then openly laughing at us when we check for eggs. They're like "ha ha, it's winter bitches! Maybe between the three of us we'll give you one in a couple of days, but probably not. Keep checking though, suckers!"

It's a good system.

So good, I'm not even worried about what I might find in today's burrito. Not even a little bit. Even though I know what we had for dinner last night...no, you know what? It'll be fine. Bring on the leftover pho soup burrito - I'm ready.

Anger Management

Of the seven deadlies I'd say 'wrath' is my least favorite. I'm more of a 'gluttony' and 'sloth' type of guy. In fact, few of my friends have ever even seen me mad, though it does happen. Anger is perfectly normal. I'd like to say that my rare moments of fury are brought on by noble and worthy causes, like the protection of human rights, but that's never the case. The same level of blood-boiling rage usually witnessed when a mother is fighting to protect her child, or an innocent victim is served injustice, is sparked in me when I stub my toe while searching for my keys.

It's pathetic.

Yesterday was one of those 'perfect storm' type of days. The only real tragedy was I didn't get a job I was going for. A rare opportunity had opened up at work, a position that I was perfect for with a salary that was going to solve all of my problems, but it went to the other guy. That laid the foundation of my mood, but what really set me off was just your usual petty irritations.

After a full work day of outwardly being a good sport and inwardly wishing for terrible things to happen to good people, I headed out to pick the boys up on my way home. I needed groceries so I checked my bank balance to see if I'd won this month's round of overdraft roulette. You know that game where rent is due on the fifth and payday is on the seventh. I'd lost again and was $302 dollars overdrawn. You know what, FUCK YOU bank. No need to publish my balance in such a violent shade of crimson. I can see it's negative. Save the drama.

So dinner was on Discovercard. I picked the boys up from daycare and learned that, due to some missing keys, Liam stayed home from school and spent the entire rainy day inside, and Finn has decided that his new found ability to climb out of his crib was way more fun than napping. They were both completely nuts, and inexplicably covered in yogurt.

I took them home and stripped them (after waking Finn up from his ten minute car nap) and I made them three different dinners they didn't want. I took a little time to check my email and apply for an offer from my bank for a low interest credit card balance transfer. Unfortunately, the kind of bank that would offer me a balance transfer is the kind of slap dash organization that forgets to include a "SUBMIT" button on their lengthy application. As I was turning red, trying to snap my keyboard in half, and feeling the kind of rage that would have no hope of subsiding until morning, I hear Liam's voice.

"Daddy! Shoes!!"

And just like that I was all better. Completely restored.

It wasn't that it was his funniest bit (though it wasn't bad), it was the look of anticipation on his face. That "I'm wearing your size 14 shoes and it's hilarious, right?" look. You know, like eels have.

I think he knew I was having a rough time and he wanted to fix me. I picked him up and gave him hugs and kisses and told him he was hilarious. Meanwhile Finn was off in the corner contemplating a fist full of butt mud he'd just pulled off of his back after having the most catastrophic diaper blow out to date. Of course.