The Joys of Homeownership: Cleaning the Garage

I spent one recent Sunday doing something I'm really good at. I cleaned and organized the garage:

This is my new "fun and games" section.

I don't know what a lot of those tools are for,
but I sure can hang 'em, can't I?

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Cutting Corners: Confession of a Hurried Dad

Dear Peanut,

I don't write you letters nearly as often as I'd like. This time, however, extenuating circumstances have forced me to come clean. Those circumstances mainly being my guilty conscience and... well, not much else. But before I come clean, I need to give you a warning: Be careful what you wish for.

Recently you switched your daily lunch request from chicken nuggets to peanut butter and jelly. You did so despite my mild protests. You see, my princess, it is a lot easier for me to make you a week's worth of nuggets on Sunday night, store them in the fridge, and gather four of them at a time every morning along with some peas and blueberries for a balanced and delicious lunch.

That's the special spreader.

On the other hand, making a fresh PB&J every morning while I'm rushing off to work is a mess and a hassle. The bread, the ingredients, the special PB&J spreader. (Yes, there is such a thing and we have one.) The crumbs on the counter. Not to mention the biggest hassle of them all: the removal of the crust. (Quickly followed by the subsequent ingestion of the crust because daddy doesn't like to waste food.) On top of all of that, add to the equation a spoiled dog who believes she is entitled to peanut butter any time the jar is taken out of the pantry.

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THE PEANUT GALLERY: Snap, Crackle, What the Hell Is THIS?

Just when I think I'm not giving myself a fair enough shake with the whole Daddy Knows Less thing, I go and do something like this:

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The Joys of Homeownership: Order from Chaos

Behold, what I am calling my greatest contribution as a homeowner, dad, and husband. (Hyperbole is a friend of mine.) Peanut's playroom was out of control and I couldn't take it anymore. The mess. The clutter. The disorganization. I was living my own little version of hoarders, and Peanut was the problem. The playroom was so nauseating to look at I couldn't even stomach being in there. I was physically incapable of sitting down and playing with her in there. It would give me a panic attack. This is just a small glimpse of how bad it was:

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I Can't Get Used To This

"My brain is like oatmeal. I yelled at Kenny today for coloring outside the lines. Megan and I are starting to watch the same TV shows, and I'm liking them. I'm losing it." -Jack Butler, Mr. Mom

I don't know why stay-at-home dads complain so much. Complain about their kids not eating. Complain about them not listening. Complain about all of the housework. If you ask me, stay-at-home dads have it pretty darn good.

Or so I thought after I took two days off just for myself in mid-July. My Director was at work. Peanut was at daycare. I had the house to myself. I went for a run, I got errands done, I completed some projects around the house. And those were just the mornings. In the afternoon, I made Starbucks my hangout and I got a lot of writing done. "This is the life," I thought to myself.

My Director thought the same thing, even though she was working. As I dropped her off at the train station for a second straight morning, she said, "I can get used to this."

"Don't," I replied.

I bet she can. But in reality, we both need to work. We both want to work. And even if I were a stay-at-home dad, Peanut wouldn't be in full-time daycare. Half day? Sure. I look back on those two days fondly. I was busy. I got a lot done. And I still cooked fresh meals both days. And it was relaxing.

That was not the case two other days later in the month. When it was just me and Peanut. We try to keep her out of daycare enough to save a month's worth of tuition during summer. And if we're not on vacation, I take off from work to be with her.

On the first day, we were leaving for a quick family vacation as soon as My Director got home from work. I remember looking at the clock at one point in the morning. It read just 8:30am. I was knee deep in laundry. (I needed it for the trip). Peanut hadn't eaten anything. (She "wasn't hungry.") Hell the dog hadn't even peed. (She's high maintenance.)

Some enjoy laundry. I don't

Serenity now.

I quickly tweeted my angst and almost immediately, John, stay-at-home dad extraordinaire from Daddy's in Charge? answered. "Run errands," he suggested. Oh, I've got errands. We're going to IKEA. Big mistake. The whole IKEA experience with Peanut got its own blog post.

Two things I learned in my two days as a stay-at-home dad: First, there's a lot of watching the clock. Stay-at-home dads are like football coaches running a two-minute offense at the end of the half. Budgeting their time and their time outs. Second, you need a game plan. You need activities for pretty much every minute of the day. We did this when she was a baby. How come we don't do this anymore? When did we lose control?

On my second stay-at-home day, I did have a plan. We ate breakfast and went to the playground. I followed Peanut on each piece of equipment. I noticed a little boy who couldn't have been more than eighteen months old was all by himself on one of the slides. I said out loud, "I bet your parents are paying someone a lot of money not to watch you on the playground." Then I noticed another little boy knock over a girl whose mother was busy talking on her cell phone. Mortified, the boy's mother quickly apologized. I said, "That may not have happened if she wasn't talking on the phone."

I realized then I would make very few friends at the playground if I were a stay-at-home dad. But I would discover her doing new and exciting things I'd never seen her do before. Like this:

You can see annoying, unattended little boy
invading Peanut's personal space

We came back for lunch, and I was going to take the Peanut to see the Jets at training camp. (She is a Giants fan, much to my chagrin. I'm doing what I can to subtly influence her opinion.) But they moved practice inside because of thunderstorms. Crap.

I had no backup plan. So we played princesses. We made a train out of her little chairs and I was the conductor. We watched Cinderella. We watched the same freakin' episode of Strawberry Shortcake on Netflix three times. I was going a little insane.

The train thing is kind of my specialty

At 4pm I called My Director at work. "Any chance you're coming home early?" Nope.

She then told me if I didn't let her off the phone she wouldn't get her work done in time to leave.

"Well, is your assistant there? Does she want to talk to me?" (Often when I call, My Director's assistant will pick up and we will strike up a conversation. She's very friendly.)

"No, she's not at her desk," my wife told me. "You're really struggling for some adult conversation, aren't you?"

Yes. Yes I am.

"You'd never make it as a stay-at-home dad."

No... I wouldn't. This is why I think my friend John is himself slowly going insane. And why I enjoy reading his blog.

This is also why I couldn't wait to go back to my high-pressure, deadline-filled, demanding job in television news. So I can relax.

This post originally appeared on Daddy's in Charge? last summer. Thanks to John for posting it on his site. Please check out his blog. He does awesome videos starring Legos and even did one featuring me and the Peanut right here on DKL. You can also follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

And if you want to know what happened when me and Peanut went to IKEA, click here.

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The Junk in My Trunk

My phone rang on an otherwise routine Tuesday. As they once joked on Seinfeld, Tuesdays have no feeling. But that was all about to change drastically. On the other line, My Director hit me smack in the face with a pungent problem:

"The car smells really bad. Are you sure you cleaned all of the milk that spilled?"

When I came home from grocery shopping on Sunday, I opened the trunk only to find a grocery bag filled with milk. The plastic gallon jug had cracked open somehow. I performed what I thought was a thorough cleaning. Apparently not.

"I think I know what happened. I probably missed some of the milk that got into the crevices of the molding." 

"Can you COME HOME EARLY to clean it?" (Mind you, she's home.) 

"Are you serious?" (When did I become Mr. Belevdere?) 

"It smells really bad. Peanut says it smells like garbage. And it really does."

I was later informed that upon pickup from camp, the swagger wagon smelled so bad that Peanut actually cried when she got back into the car. Regardless, I arrived home at normal time. After getting dinner started (Reminder: I'm a catch, ladies), I checked out the car. This is what I found:

Quoting Shawshank:
"Smelling Foulness That I Can't Even Imagine."

This is why doctors don't like to make a diagnosis over the phone. Because once I saw it for myself, I could see and smell that my initial assessment was WAY off. The milk had seeped under all of the beach chairs and toys I had stored back there for summer. (You see, I always like to be prepared in case a spontaneous beach emergency pops up. Who needs to waste time carrying all of that stuff fifteen feet from the garage to the car?) But here, my readiness backfired because I had no idea of the real mess the milk had caused. On Sunday, I just  cleaned what I saw, ignoring the principal law of spilled-fluid dynamics stating that milk goes anywhere it damn well pleases, especially where you can't see or reach it.

My Director hosing off the emergency beach supplies.

Since I do not have the capital to install smell-o-vision technology for you here on the DKL site, let me describe it the best way I can. Disgusting, rotting, fermenting death. Or, as I stated on the DKL Facebook page at the time, I officially knew what Henry Hill felt like after moving the body of Billy Batts in Goodfellas:


Cue tons of Resolve, baking soda, hours of vacuuming, and then an overnight fabric softener mask:

Thanks to my my friend Dave at
Musings of Munch for the suggestion.

The next morning the swagger wagon smelled considerably better... until it got hot out. More baking soda, more vacuuming. There was still a smell, but it wasn't nearly as foul as the day before. And those dryer sheets did help big time.

As My Director and I drove to an appointment later that day, I said:

"I kind of feel like this is what it's like to drive in a dryer."

"Or a garbage truck." 

"Yeah. Or a garbage truck IN a dryer."

Every morning, My Director and I have a quick phone conversation as she's starting her day and I'm putting together my show. My first question is always some form of, "How's Peanut?" Now? My first question is, "How does the car smell?" Suffice it to say, as we approach its second birthday our beloved swagger wagon has forever lost its new car smell.

(Please take some time to catch up some DKL you might have missed. I've been doing this on summer Mondays, telling a new story and following it with links to previous posts about that subject. Today's story allows me to reintroduce a topic I don't often bring up: our swagger wagon. Enjoy:) 

Inquiring minds wanted to know how we survive as two working parents with one car. So I answered with Dude, Where's My Car?. (This post is nostalgic now, since My Director took a new job in our town and now does pickup herself.)

I do have what some might describe as an unhealthy love for my swagger wagon. It's all because I sometimes wish the rest of life could be as easy as my minivan makes things, with The Push of a Button

We almost lost our beloved swagger wagon during a destructive autumn snow storm last year. See how close we came in The Joys of Homeownership: Jersey Chainsaw Miracle

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Keeping Your Promise

"If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders." ~Abigail Van Buren

We definitely need a plan. As in, on weekends when we don't have anything planned, my wife and I need a plan. Because then we wake up in the morning, stare blankly at each other, and find ourselves allowing the Peanut to watch an hour and a half of Strawberry Shortcake cartoons.

Not good.

Or, what happened this past Saturday morning happens. My wife will decide, out of the blue, that we need to do something. Something we've been putting off. And that we need to do it immediately. Right. Now.

So she decided to drop a bomb on the Peanut and tell her we're going to go through the playroom, and get rid of some toys. Three piles: garbage, donate, baby (as in, still-yet-to-be-conceived second child).

As you could imagine, this did not go over well. The Peanut needs to be warned. Prepared. We can't just hit her with the unexpected. Even if it's a good thing like watching a new movie or going out to breakfast. She needs at least 24 hours notice, and she'd like it in writing whenever possible.

Crying started almost instantaneously, and continued throughout the process. And because the Peanut resisted my wife's every move, somehow I was getting in trouble. "I could really use your help in here, daddy."

To which I would have liked to have answered, "Listen lady, you're the one who shattered the peace of our otherwise uneventful weekend morning by deciding to discard part of our daughter's childhood and disassemble a corner of her world. Now that she's mad at you, you're mad at me?"

But I just said, "ok." And went into the playroom. I pick my battles. And I agreed that, like a forgotten library book, this exercise was long overdue.

The Peanut fought for every toy. "But I love that toy," she'd say. She protested when my wife called something junk. "No it's nooooot," she'd whine.

She cried. Over. Every. Single. Little. Toy. We didn't even get to the big stuff. It's hard to rationally argue with a 4 year-old who insists the Happy Meal toys that my mother-in-law bought her two years ago were "her favorite."

And the ones she didn't love, or that weren't her favorite, were conveniently, "Giada's." As in, her Lammie's. "That's Giada's toy. She plays with it all of the time." Cunning.

My daughter has the makings of a shrewd negotiator. Perhaps an attorney. Possibly a criminal mastermind.

This is what she's giving up...

...and what she still has

Finally, I volunteered my only useful bit of parenting to this whole charade. I reminded my daughter about her New Year's resolution. The one that inspired her teachers, other parents, and many of the readers of this blog. The one that filled our hearts with pride and our eyes with tears. The one where she said she wants to share her toys with kids who don't have them. I wrote it about here.

Her response? "I don't want to give my toys away anymore."

Now it's up to us to make her keep her promise.

How soon we forget.

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The Push of a Button

"Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy." ~Cynthia Nelms

I always seem to be getting the same message on my dashboard. A warning light. Yet, there really is no reason for me to worry. I'm talking about the "low washer fluid" light.

Why does it come on so much? I'm constantly pushing the button and washing my windshield. I find it therapeutic. It calms me. I also find it necessary because the pollen count was so ridculously high this spring and early summer.

But mostly, I like that I can press a button and something is immediately clean. With all of the meals I cook and pots I clean, with all of the clothes I wash and butts I wipe, with all of the chaos and mess a family with two working parents endures... it's reassuring to know that this one thing can be taken care of with a simple flick of my index finger.

Like picking your nose. Quick, effective, sometimes messier than anticipated, but mostly painless.

The Normal Button

And that's not the only button in my wonderful, fully-loaded swagger wagon that I find amusing and cathartic at the same time. In the way back... in the trunk... there are a series of buttons for the positioning of the third-row seats. Press the second button, and they stow away for extra cargo. Press the third, they flip and face the rear for tailgating. But my favorite is that first button. The one that says "normal."

That's right. I can push a button, and things will be normal. At least, the things in the back of my car will be. That is, if I remember to take the stroller out before I push the button. What an awesome power to hold. And it's hidden right there in the back of my car. Normalcy, with the push of a button. How wonderful.

I never thought I'd be a minivan guy. Yet here I am. Not only driving one, but loving it.

So if you see me driving around town, washer fluid flowing, with a smile on my face... just know I'm fine. Everything is normal.

If only it were  that easy.

We manage to be a one-car family with two working parents. Click here to find out how we do it. 

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